"I'd only been sitting in my BMW for 30 seconds with the engine running, so when the door was opened by a man in camouflage, I knew what was happening and stayed fairly cool, " he said.

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More important than checking myself out in a shopfront window is checking out my search engine results.

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Just as a race car driver might discuss the fine points of his engine, I had the hero in my novel "The Soloist" dissect the piano's inner workings in relation to a given piece of music: pedal action, tuning, hammers and bridge.

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In my case, I've installed a search engine called Google Desktop that lets me quickly scour my hard drive for files, and a product by Xobni Corp. that does something similar for Outlook email, even though neither is approved by my IT department.

WSJ: Why You Can't Use Personal Technology at the Office

Many Volt owners will hardly ever use the gas engine, and it rarely kicked in during my four days with the car this month.

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Along with the spots there will be 11 celebrity endorsements by the likes of Enrique Iglesias and Shaggy, two documentaries about climate change and an eco-friendly episode of Pimp My Ride in which a '65 Chevy Impala gets an 800-horsepower diesel engine that runs on biodiesel.

FORBES: MTV's Green Crusade

So some people might be surprised at my latest venture: retrofitting the plug-in hybrid Fisker Karma with a powerful internal combustion engine.

FORBES: Why I'm 'Desecrating' Fisker's Beautiful Electric Sedan With A Brawny Gasoline Engine

When Facebook analyzes my profile and notices that I have participated in a dozen different religions over the past 30 years, their engine should make the assumption that I am interested in theology and various disciplines of spirituality.

FORBES: Fooling Facebook: Telling Lies To Protect Your Privacy

Soon after my 1991 arrival in Hong Kong, it became clear to me that China was, in fact, the growth engine that was driving the entire Asian region.

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