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 September 8-14, 2014

Summary of this week:

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday

Monday September 8, 2014

And we only have one more day to wait for the biggest big event from Apple ever in history or something like that.

A closer look at the Moto 360 smartwatch that really isn't a smartwatch.

Not for the home, but significant: an advancement in terahertz wave sensors means no more liquid helium cooling.

Strap a small Android phone to your wrist—is it a smartwatch or a wrist phone?

Google improves its detection of objects in images. This is amazing work in a difficult field.

The "tech" industry has poured $$$ into Congress, but no immigration bills have resulted. I guess money can't buy everything in Congress. Either that or it just takes more time than a 30-year-old billionaire thinks is necessary.

Starbucks to open more drive-thru only locations. Remember the Photo Mat?

Now that college has begun again, here are places to buy those over-priced textbooks a little cheaper.

This is sort of silly, but shows how technology has advanced. TiVo has a rackmount 24TeraBytes of storages for only $5,000.

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Tuesday September 9, 2014

More details about how Health Care dot Gov was hacked and how nobody should be surprised and how this will happen again and again. At least someone agrees with me on this one.

Tim Cook receives $57Million of Apple stock due to Apple's good market performance.

Amazon drops the price of its phone to 99 cents. Some things just don't work out. Original price: $199. Yikes.

Home Depot admits what everyone already knows: its payment systems were hacked.

Intel shows new processors for servers that run 18 cores.

StudyRoom: a system that helps college students teach one another. Of course, many schools don't like this idea as they still want students to "do their own work."

We have to watch closely to notice it, but there is a revolution in robotics in farming happening now.

How American police are taking money from innocent American citizens. This is horrible for America.

Microsoft promised $200 Chromebook competitors. Well, the first model costs $300.

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Wednesday September 10, 2014

Apple had a big event yesterday. They introduced the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus as well as the Apple Watch. The Watch won't be on the market until "early 2015." There are countless posts all about the Internet on this topic.

Here is the "I don't get it" view of the Apple Watch. This person may be right. A $350 watch. The face is too small to see all those interesting little things.

Apple did not update its computers, rats.

Apple quietly reduced the price of iCloud storage, but it is still an expensive alternative.

The iPod Classic is now gone from Apple's store.

The Russians move part of their space station training into annexed Crimea. The Russians are not stupid. The Russians are not acting irrationally. The Russians have a plan.

Interesting map of where people who follow the world's major religions live. Note the role of the United States, Nigeria, and China.

Note the Intel Reference Design for Android. Intel and Google working together to build a developer platform.

Today is Internet Slow Down day where big websites demonstrate what life might be like with FCC's version of net neutrality.

Get out of your chair and walk around. You are not wasting time. You are improving your productivity.

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Thursday September 11, 2014

I am using a new MacBook Air computer with 11" screen today. I had to give up on my MacBook Pro that is five years old as its battery will no longer hold a charge. Now, what to do with a perfectly good computer.

Lockheed Martin built an exoskeleton to help Navy personnel work on ships. It will also help people whose muscles don't work to function better.

Intel develops an Internet-connected wheelchair. Nice stunt so far, but one day the concept can be a great help to those who need a wheelchair.

Everyone reads the US News and World Report college rankings—including colleges. Now colleges are cheating on the rankings by making themselves look good regardless of what the changes do to quality of education.

GM is bring the OnStar service to Europe.

Comparing Intel's $50 Edison to the Raspberry Pi.

Apple blew it with their Watch presentation with only men on stage. The Apple Watch is for men. Forget the other 51% of the market.

A watch lover writes about the Apple Watch.

Apple actually did it. There is a new U2 album on my iPhone.

Forgot to mention this, Apple tried to live stream their big event, but it didn't work. The failure was predictable and predicted.

Apple's new cloud prices are now available.

Convolutional neural networks and a major advance in recognizing objects in images.

"Watchmen" author Alan Moore completes a 1million-word novel. Most long novels today are one tenth that size.

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Friday September 12, 2014

Starbucks, and others, is reconsidering its policy of no visible tatoos for employees.

The California Public Utilities Commission declares that ride sharing (Uber and Lyft) are illegal. That is progressive government for you (not).

About a thousand Uber drivers in NYC strike and threaten to go to Lyft.

The large iPhone 6 Plus has already sold out. How do you sell out when you are taking pre-orders?

We learn that our government threatened to fine Yahoo $250K/day if Yahoo didn't cooperate with us.

Something a little different: attach a small jetpack to your back so you can run faster.

Google tries lending Chromebooks to college students (no charge).

Two million people have downloaded that free U2 album. That is a lot of people.

Microsoft learns how to put a start menu in Windows 9.

Google’s Cloud Platform for Startups initiative: $100K free cloud resources for early stage startups.

Will wonders never cease? 512GigaBytes on an SD card.

This is one of the best XKCD cartoons ever: the brief respite from things on our wrists.

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Saturday September 13, 2014

It appears that Apple spent $100million to give away the U2 album. Recall how much cash Apple has. This is pennies for Apple.

And to boost all that cash for Apple, the iPhone 6 set record pre-order sales.

Even AT&T set sales records with these new iPhones.

A judge rules that how TVEyes monitors television is legal.

This software hits back at those Windows computer maintenance scammers. Bless those scammers. I find it hard to believe that they are still in "business" in that they have the time and money to continue their calls and hook enough people.

There is a lot of (bad) talk about the coming $1,200 Apple Watch in 18K gold. Multi-thousand dollar watches are common in jewelry stores and have been for decades. Watches are fashion items, and people with lots of money spend lots of money on fashion.

Much is being made about high enrollment in Harvard's Intro to Computer Science. That's just a survey course of the topic. Don't expect many programmers to come from it.

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Sunday September 14, 2014

My Osmo arrived yesterday. It is a hit with the grandchildren. They think, they learn, they use their hands to manipulate physical objects.

And now we have the possibility of a soft exoskeleton. This would be wonderful for people whose muscles no longer work.

This may come to something. A radio the size of an ant that draws its power from air.

I applaud Seth Godin as at least one other person sees the loss of the keyboard for typing as something bad.

Are you a writer? Do you need something to do? Do nothing. See what happens.

Simple ways to count the words you have written. Here is a free, online word counter. I always used the wc program I found in some old C programming book.

Watching movies, as well as watching everything else, can improve your writing.

One persons experiences as a full-time author-entrepreneur.

If you write, people will reject you. Ouch. Deal with it.

Story is conflict.

If you want to know how the less-than-1% earn, here are the top-earning authors of 2014.

Speaking of money, here are examples of when to work for free.

Begin at the end. Yes, if you want to communicate clearly and briefly.

Twenty writing residencies. Wow.

How to write a novel in five drafts. Good points here.

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