So what happened to all that boring stuff you could have purchased at the dawn of the new millennium?

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The question is, can it also learn to do the boring stuff well?

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Surprisingly, Sun's resurgence appears to be based not only on the boring stuff of lay-offs and cost-cutting, but also on a vigorous plan to grow in an industry that is supposedly stagnant.

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These are smart guys selling boring stuff.

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Mostly boring tax stuff.

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But the software touted at this conference by both Sage and its partners is the same boring, un-sexy stuff.

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Because businesses need to do boring and un-sexy stuff to stay in business: print invoices, create orders, cut checks, pay people, track time.

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Metamaterials are proving to be quite useful for toying with the electromagnetic spectrum, whether for technology previously thought to be the stuff of science fiction, or for boring real-world applications.

ENGADGET