Dwayne Phillips ' Day Book
Items
I happen to view each day. Science, Techonology, Management, Culture,
and of course Writing
This is my day book for this week. I have modeled this after science
fiction and computer writer Jerry Pournelle's view, or as he calls it,
his Day Book.
I encourage you to see Jerry
Pournelle's site
and subscribe
to his services.
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This
week: December 30 2013-January 5, 2014
Summary of this week:
- The NFL season ends, and now the coaches are being fired
- US population growth rate at its lowest in 70 years
- 4.6million SnapChat accounts are hacked
- The NSA spies on members of Congress, too
- Phil Everly dies at 74
Monday
- Tuesday
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Friday
- Saturday
- Sunday
Monday December 30, 2013
I am ill today, so my viewing and notes are limited.
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Tuesday December 31, 2013
I am still ill, but well enough to view a few sites and type a few words.
Two signs that the economy is still bad:
HP plans to lay off 34,000 people this year.
And U.S. population growth is at its lowest rate in 70 years.
One person's experience with wearing Google Glass for a year.
Pinterest barely passes Facebook in social media use.
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Wednesday January 1, 2014
AnandTech has an excellent review of the new Mac Pro. Best photos yet of the machine next to other machines.
Google and Audi will have an Android-based car system.
For 2014, Intel is pushing harder to have a part of the Android market.
4.6million SnapChat accounts are hacked. And some people believe that Health Care dot Gov will be secure.
A Federal judge says its okay for Federal agents to search devices at the border without any warrants.
Book banning in American schools was up in 2013. Always pushing back the frontiers of ignorance or something like that.
The TSA, and their stupidity, is still with us. See what they tried to confiscate this time.
The Wall Street Journal starts its WSJD digital technology pages.
New Year, new sales taxes on Amazon purchases in three states. What would we do without government helping us so much?
It seems that the Apple Mac Pro is a good buy if you try to buy all the parts separately.
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Thursday January 2, 2014
A travel day with no Internet viewing.
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Friday January 3, 2014
I remain ill, but at least I have returned to a frigid home in Northern Virginia.
Windows 8.x now holds 10% of the market. What surprises me in this post is that Internet Explorer still holds 50% of the browser market.
New tablets for kids coming. The problem is that they cost just as much as an iPad or all the other "adult tablets."
Reading a novel is a good exercise for your brain. Don't neglect exercise for the rest of you.
The Chromebooks are coming! The Chromebooks are coming. Finally, the Internet PC is here or, as Tony Kornheiser puts it, "your Google machine."
Acer has a 27" all-in-one Android computer. Windows? Microsoft?
So far it is just a little lab stunt, but watch how ultra sound can lift and move objects in space.
This won't have a big market, but is very big for those who write in LaTex: writeLaTex.com.
Isaac Asimov's 50-year-old predictions for today's world. He was correct much of the time.
Given usage trends, it appears that Android phone users don't use much of the Android phone.
The rumors continue about a big iPad this year, or maybe it is a new concept for the laptop computer.
Hollywood has another record year at the box office. Piracy is destroying what now?
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Saturday January 4, 2014
New for 2014: the Selfie Olympics. Note for Adults: do not worry, this too shall pass.
It seems that using Facebook reduces a person's satisfaction with life.
Google Glass may be ahead of its technology time. The thing is obvious and people around you don't like it.
People are suing Facebook for using their private chats.
Note to everyone: if you send messages through the Facebook system,
Facebook has a copy and will use it. If you send mail through Google,
Google has a copy and will use it. If you use WiFi at Chick-Fil-A,
well, by now you have the idea.
Our Federal government may change hiring rules for technologists.
Let us all breathe slowly here and take great care with what we wish.
In my experience, hiring is only one part of the problem. Just as big a
problem is how newly hired, talented people are (mis)managed. The
managers are already in place and are masters of the system.
Intel is pushing the idea of dual-OS computers where Android runs inside of Windows (no rebooting).
Confirmed: a user does swap the CPU on the new Mac Pro and it still works.
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Sunday January 5, 2014
Phil Everly dies at 74.
Let's try the logic: NSA spies on all Americans, members of Congress are Americans, hence, NSA spies on Congress, too. I suppose since most Congressmen are lawyers, not engineers, the logic escaped them.
I can see that tech companies are running the same scam in Europe as they are in America: we have jobs, but no one here (where wages are high) is qualified. So, we need to import (low wage) engineers from Asia.
I don't like this at all: the first Public Library in the US without any paper books.
A look at Intel's future CPUs - 72 cores, 3 TeraFLOPS and all that.
The
owner of our Washington Post - Jeff Bezos - was airlifted from the
Galapagos Islands on New Year's day for emergency kidney stone surgery.
Good advice: forget New Year's resolutions and focus on resolve.
This piece is a good personal history of the Santa Clara Vally, a.k.a., Silicon Valley.
Something must be wrong here: digital music sales drop while LP vynil music sales jump up.
This is the type of thing we should be doing with technology: this spoon handle counteracts physical tremors and allows people to feed themselves.
Best video I've yet seen on the Mac Pro computer. That thing is small.
On the use of social media to help sell what you write.
Some writers do weird stuff while writing. Here are examples.
This won't have a big market, but is very big for those who write in LaTex: writeLaTex.com
Tips on building a 500-word-a-day writing habit.
It seems that just about every writer's blog has a set of resolutions. Here is one.
More writing tools for the iPad teams StorySkeleton with Scrivener.
For those writers who have "writer's block," here are some tips to move through it.
Decide what you want from your writing. Write that. Work towards that. Revise accordingly.
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