code: public static byte[] toBytes(CharSequence seq) {
      try {
        return seq.toString().getBytes("UTF-8");
      }
      catch (UnsupportedEncodingException ex) {
        throw new RuntimeException(ex); // shouldn't happen since UTF-8 is supported by all JVMs per spec
      }
    }
docs: Converts the specified character sequence to bytes using UTF-8.
  @param seq the character sequence to convert
  @return the UTF-8 encoded result