Via Robin´s Blog :
A huge database of ideas to generate your own ideas , e.g. for producing new blog entries.
Some of the suggestions seem a bit complicated to me …
idea, ideas, ideas+generate, writer´s+bloc
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Do you know Leisure Suit Larry and the Land of the Lounge Lizards - it is a game for MS-DOS computers I used to play in about 1986 (on an Olivetti PC XT that belonged to the father of my then girl-friend). It was my first contact with Ken and Roberta William´ s Sierra-Online Games - and of course Al Lowe´s works (I had been playing some Infocom and Magnetic scrolls adventures on my Commodore CBM C 64 home computer by then) and I loved the whole “Quest” series - Space Quest (Roger Wilco is my favorite hero of all times”), Police Quest , King´s Quest and of course the early Larry Laffer games.
To make a long story short, these days I had most of my computer spare parts lying around here put together with a modern graphic adapter, a sound card and a TV card and now there is a “new” machine here taking the place and name of “Daneel” (the job of Daneel , named after the Isaac Asimov robot protagonist , has been vacant (and no longer as improtant as when Daneel was my ONLY PC) for almost two years now with only two Linux PCs, Josua and Sammy doing the job).
I could have run my old MS-DOS games in my Linux environments, as well, there are enough emulators around, but I never liked wasting computer power on emulations, and setting these up correctly can - as Simon reports be tricky after all.
The main motivation was to have a Windows98 SE computer again, providing me with a pure MS-DOS environment at the same time and yesterday I started to reinstall all my beautiful, wonderful, memories-laden MS-DOS adventure games. It is fine to have them back!
BTW many wonderful old MS-DOS games are regarded and available as “abandonware” these days - although I am not sure whether this is totally legal (I am glad I kept my old game diskettes and packages over such long a period of time inspite all the Feng Shui admonitions of those around me 
.
Leisure+Suite+Larry, Larry, Quest, Sierra-On-Line, Sierra+Entertainment, MSDOS, Windows98, daneel, games, adventures, nostalgia, Olivetti+PC, Olivetti+XT, Williams, Al+Lowe
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I went to our local Tchibo shop this morning to get half a pound of fresh coffee beans to last me through next week and spent a little bit of time to see what “non-food items” or “consumer goods” Tchibo is offering at the moment (usually their non-food items are interesting and of quite acceptable quality at an agreeable price).
What I found was … PINO!
Pino is a little, cute, kewl a-little-more-than-a-toy robot as reported about in Japanese Robots blog: ” a cute Pinocchio for the 21st century.” Technically it seems similar to Sony´s Aibos (Artificial Intelligence Robots ) (without the camera); “its real revolutionary feature, though, is the fact that it is the first open-source robot, a kind of robotic version of the Linux operating system. made from off-the-shelf parts. More importantly, the specifications of the robot in terms of both hardware and software are freely available for anyone to modify and improve. ” The Pino project intends “to accelerate the research and development of humanoid robots by providing the technical information of PINO open to the public. Everyone can use PINO as a base of the research and development, in other words, to foster PINO to be more sophisticated humanoid robot.”
Tchibo is not the only place to get your personal Pino - while in 2001 the same (?) robot seems to have carried $ 65,000 price tag you can get yours now online for approx. €36.70 or US$44.40.
The most interesting thing about it seems that it can be educated by “personal” interaction: “Depending on the amount of tender loving care/mild disinterest/plastic-shattering violence you subject him to, Pino develops one of three personalities: shy, naughty, or friendly, which affects the way he responds to commands. Pino has a head sensor, two hand sensors, a sound sensor, infra red visor and a nose-mounted light sensor.”
Educating your Pino does not put too heavy a strain on you, though: “…Buy two Pinos; they interact brilliantly and, like kittens, are better fun in pairs.” - and removing (or replacing) the batteries resets Pinos personality (which I find rather shocking!).
Although the robots interact with each other it seems to be a good idea to plan how many of them you can care for in advance, after all - some people, like Luana already have problems fairly distributing leisure time among her robot companions and dealing with petty jealousies.
Being a huge fan of Isaac Asimov´s Robots (and Foundation) series of short stories and novels - and being the poor lonely little sucker I am - I almost spent the money to take a Pino home with me. What finally kept me is that I demand more of my personal robot than Pino has yet to offer:
pino, robot, Tchibo, AIBO, ZMP, nuvo, Sony
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… when herds of rattan deer are trying to find a buyer
or when the bronze sow at the one end of the street where my practice is is suddenly draped with a woollen scarf.
The latter symptom might be otherwise explained, as well, of course (as e.g. by people getting severely drunk on hearing all the news about the German political situation … ).
photos+of+the+day, photo+of+the+day
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Mugs on the table
Hot Java steaming from them.
Heart and Mind refreshed.
In the Haiku Handbook by William J. Higginson, which I received today I found this:
“We know that we cannot share our feelings with others unless we share the causes of such feelings with them…Most haiku present dramatic moments the authors found in common, everyday occurences - small dramas that play in our minds…Being small, haiku lend themselves especially to sharing small, intimate things.”
No, I am not fancying me as an artist - it is just that at the moment I have developed a liking for this very short and small art form. So I try it out a little bit. OK?
coffee, java, haiku
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Not all jobs satisfy in the same way, do they?
Well, I am too-tooing to babies and toddlers all day long …
sandwich+man, job+satisfaction, funny+photo
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If I could choose, I guess a dragon would be fine and suitable.
I have always liked tales about them and the idea of spending my days lying on a great hoard of gold and jewels and dreaming of my days of glory does somehow appeal to me
The photo shows an Asian kite displayed in the Deutsches Museum, Munich.
dragon
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Last Friday I had a day off and used it for a vistit to the Deutsches Museum (German Museum) in Munich, which is about all kinds of human technology and engineering from musical instruments to aeronautics and everything else in between.
Opened in 1925 - with the foundation stone having been laid by Kaiser Wilhelm II. in 1906 - this museum is huge - no chance to see all the exhibits in a day (I guess a week would be a good beginning). If you ever come to Munich and are not totally adverse to technical matters go and have a look - they did a good job of explaining physical backgrounds of complicated matters and many of the exhibits are really great and impressing.
I especially liked the museum´ s version of the Foucault Pendulum giving a chance to witness Earth rotation for yourself.
I spent most of my time in the aeronautics section.
“Here`s looking at you, Kid”
There is a fine special exhibition on Albert Einstein at the moment. Interesting and informative, although I still could not explain to anybody what relativity theory really is all about. Something with space and time and mass and energy…
If you want to see some more photos from the museum visit please follow
the Flickr link .
Bad thing about the day: my back ached almost unbearably and has been doing so for more than two weeks now. The thing sucks …
Deutsches+Museum, Munich, German+Museum, Foucoult, pendulum
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Red rays of sunshine
Warm our faces, minds and hearts.
Winter will soon come.
Here is a link to more autumn photos via Rashbre Central .
autumn, fall, farewell, melancholy, haiku
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Well, I told you this would happen :
I started my pumpkin trying out season tonight.
The first to go (because I lost one of those to putrefaction last week) was my White Squash or White Custard Crown pumpkin. 
. 
Here is what I did (found it somewhere in the web, but unfortunately cannot relocate the place):
I peeled and cubed the pumpkin (it had quite a thick and hard skin !) and boiled it with some walnut oil and some water until it was soft enough to smash it, then set it aside.
Peeled, cubed and boiled a red and a big green onion, and set them aside.
Browned 200 g of ground meat (pork and beef mixed).
I mixed all the ingredients together with some salt, some pepper, and some nutmeg and two big spoons of creme fraiche.
I put the mix into a big pot (lacking a nice suitable casserole dish which went with my former girl friend because it was hers), topped the whole thing with bread crumbs (white bread) and baked the whole thing in my oven at about 350° F (180° C) until the bread crumbs began “to be toasted” and turned brown.
This it what it looked like:
How it tasted and how I liked it?
Well, that´s the sad thing about it: the whole process of cooking took me the better part of my short evening (came home at about 7 p.m.) and at 9 p.m. I did not really feel like eating a giant pumpkin casserole all on my own. So there it is now, cooling in my kitchen (did I ever tell you that I am one hell of a lonely lonely guy?). I am going to visit my parents tomorrow in the evening and they will have to share and test and taste the thing. I am going to report, ok?
(I think some white wine might go well with it…).
As for my beautiful White Squash pumpkin I feel a bit sad that it is gone. Strange thing - I never felt much personal affection to food (apart from desiring to devour it in the best possible state), but if possible I think I would preserve my pumpkins - they are so nice really. But - for better or worse - nothing can last forever. So more entries on processed pumpkins are sure to follow…
pumpkin, sqash, gourd, Kürbis, recipe, cooking, autumn, fall, white+squash, casserole,
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