LIFE

A face only a mother can love

Sven Krumrey

Perfect beauty

Do you consider yourself vain? I don't. We're supposed to age gracefully, live in harmony with ourselves and not be vain as that would be foolish we're taught from early on. But looking at profile pictures in social networks I can't help but wonder how all of these people can look so pretty darn perfect. How can my neighbor that rather resembles Martin Luther suddenly ooze the glamor of Sharon Stone? What happened to the impressing double chin of my former work mate? And where did the wrinkles of my former training supervisor go? Looking at my own pictures I get the distinct feeling that something has changed.

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LIFE

No good deed goes unpunished

Sven Krumrey

She needs help so desperately she draw a sign

I recently saw a woman get interviewed on TV about her son-in-law. What kind of a person he was, if they were getting along and whether she approved of her daughter's choice. After an agonizingly long pause she remarked:"Well, he knows his way around computers. That can come in handy." That's the good thing about knowing your way around computers. At least you can make yourself useful every once in a while, forget about character. Computer specialists are the unsung heroes even if all they do is reboot a machine, terminate a process or perform a Flash update. Savor these moments because there's a (incredibly annoying) downside to all of this!

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TECH

Print with champagne and save money

Sven Krumrey

The less expensive alternative: fountains of champagne

Some business models never cease to amaze me. In Japan, it's possible to book vacation trips for your stuffed animals, vacation photos included. And "Hangover Helpers" in the US will help you get back into shape and clean up your place after a night of partying. And you can rent a tank as taxi in St. Petersburg for maximum side-impact protection. Here's an even crazier idea, why not make cars incredibly cheap and charge premium prices for gasoline? Agreed, that's preposterous, or is it?

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TECH

S.M.A.R.T. - Outsmarted by hard disks

Sven Krumrey

Danger ahead!

I break out a sweat whenever one of those warning lights comes on in my car. How about you? Even if it was only signaling a loose ashtray it'd still drive me mad. But these lights are supposed to warn us of imminent danger. And it worked, I knew with absolute certainty that my ancient BMW was done. But that's another story, this one's about computers.

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TECH

2 minute tech: Cookies

Sven Krumrey

Still the best cookies

You too have cookies! Don't panic. Learn more about the role cookies play on your machine here.

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