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: July 27-August 2, 2015

Summary of this week:

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

Monday July 27, 2015

Our government has fined Fiat Chrysler Auto $105million for failing to adequately recall faulty autos.

HORNET is a new anonymity network for the Internet.

Apple only sells 47.5million phones in three months and the world gasps in horror.

The politics of editing user-generated content.

Uber et al and the attempts of governments to cash in on their success.

The first easily programmable smartwatch is made for teenage girls: Jewelbots.

Samsung's new monitor can also wirelessly charge your phone.

A Google research paper on large-scale cluster management with Borg.

The Stage of Georgia sues a man for publishing state laws. Let's step through this for the feeble minded like myself. State laws are written by publicly elected, public officials funded by the public who work in the public and apply to the public and then published on public websites. So why can't someone re-publish them?

Apple continues to move developers to its own programming language Swift.

The best portable Bluetooth speaker available? The UE Roll.

Google Glass is alive and growing in business.

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Tuesday July 28, 2015

Famous and not-so-famous AI researchers sign a ban on killer robots or killer AI. Good luck with that. Someone will sell killer robots. Someone will buy them and that may be a government with an army or some rich person with a personal army.

The OnePlus Two is here: premium Android phone at half the price of others in its class.

Google is serious about its cloud computing services. It cut salaries and went to heavy commision for sales.

Not everything Google tries works well. Google+ becomes a shell of what it was hoped to be.

Facebook expands the reach of its Internet.org to poorer areas of the world.

VoiceOver—the most amazing feature of an iPhone that most of us (me, too) don't know exists.

Natural Language Generation: which paragraphs were written by a machine? We went through this several decades ago with, "which pictures were drawn by a machine." Jobs? What are jobs?

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Wednesday July 29, 2015

Today is Windows 10 day worldwide. Get it now. I will wait at least a week to let the dust settle.

A how-to video on updating to Windows 10.

Intel and Micron have developed a new memory technology that is 1,000 faster and will be in products next year.

Qualcomm announces WiPower: a leap in wireless charging technology.

Ars Technica takes a closer look at Windows 10.

Engadget takes their closer look at Windows 10.

The top 10 programming languages used at Hackathon. The scripting languages lead the way. Swift—only a year old—makes a surprising appearance on the list.

The continuing silliness of bringing in tech "experts" at the White House and how this will (not) change everything.

A group asks Coke to spends its $3billion ad budget on the rainforest instead. Of course a lot of people would lose their jobs and go bankrupt, but hey, we're talking about trees, right? (not)

Delta Airlines starts of a program of moving very-high-mileage customers to private jets.

Britain's economy has reached its 2008 level again. A lost decade.

Coding camps had 7,000 graduates last year and 16,000 this year. hmmm.

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Thursday July 30, 2015

The BBC cancelled Top Gear. Amazon hired the show. That was the #1-rated TV show in the world.

Oh, how tough it is to run for President. All people want to do is take a selfie with you.

Sri Lanka will be the first test site for Google's Loon project.

If you use Google Compute Engine cloud service, you can create your own encryption key. Governments cringe.

Police now use intimidate first and ask questions later. This is a bad thing for America. Citizens distrust their government more each day. Government employees separate themselves from their neighbors more each day. This is a bad thing for America.

One reviewer had a great experience upgrading to Windows 10.

Finally, someone reports on the fiasco of the great government rural broadband project that wasted $billion$. This is why I doubt the ability of the ConnectNow project to bring broadband to urban poor.

Not satisfied with hacking OPM, the Chinese have now hacked United Airlines.

Google Translate expands its ability to translate text. I tried this at the coffee shop I'm in right now and it works. Amazing stuff.

An early look at the new Microsoft Edge browser.

For a while in Canada, the KFC chicken bucket also has a bluetooth printer in it.

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Friday July 31, 2015

Nokia unveils the OZO camera built for 360-degree capture for virtual reality. I guess someone has to go to the real location with the real camera first, then everyone else can go their virtually.

LinkedIn had a good financial quarter with a lot of growth in members.

Facebook moves forward on its solar-power airplane that will bly for 90 days and deliver broadband access.

The next version of Google Glass is now in the hands of developers.

14million people upgrade to Windows 10 in the first 24 hours.

Adderall takes over the video gaming game. It has taken over colleges as well.

The story of the 29-year-old who hacked OnStar with $40 of hardware. Details to come at next week's DefCon.

CVS Health gives all its data to new partner IBM for mining. Deals like this will become common and replace deals that gave landrights to railroads and oil exploration and the like in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Now the complaints start on Windows 10. Mozilla's chief dislikes the way Windows 10 install handles browser settings.

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Saturday August 1, 2015

Our government reports of the scope of the hacking by the government of China. The Chinese try to hack everyone is the US.

IBM will buy about 200,000 MacBooks for its employees.

People cannot walk and stare at their smartphone. No, not even you. You can't either.

Scientists believe there is an ocean under the Chinese desert, but the water is useless.

Microsoft has quietly shifted to the Google model: give away software and collect and sell my data.

The big lie of Silicon Valley and the startup company: everything will be fine.

This is how to change the default browser in Windows 10. Everyone seems to want to know how to do this. Microsoft hid this utility quite well, and lots of folks are upset about it.

oooops, Californians kills their lawns to save water, but they accidentally killed their trees, too. This stuff is more complex than many people let on.

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Sunday August 2, 2015

Pay and other benefits are rising for those guys who drive the shuttle buses for the tech companies.

Three months with the Apple Watch—on person's experience.

Nice graphic about who has the share of the technology market over the decades. I grew up in the IBM world; lived through the Microsoft world, and now live in the Appoogle world or something like that.

A look back from Windows 1.0 through 10.0.

The Density sensor: it lets you know how many people are in your favorite places, i.e., are they crowded.

A white hat hacker shows how to locate, unlock, and start GM vehicles. Let's see, since our government owns GM, who will our government blame for this security hole?

Facial recognition is spreading, and this worries lawmakers who always worry about things they haven't regulated and taxed yet.

A bunch of reasons why women leave technology fields.

A look inside the UberVIP program. Only 100 rides qualifies you for this.

Write 500 words a day (one page) and you will write a long novel each year. Half an hour a day of pounding the keyboard. Time to start again.

And don't forget that good fiction changes the world. Just half an hour a day.

What does it take to "be a writer?"

What to bring when you are going to work at a coffee shop. The brain is an important item to bring.

Yes, blogging and other types of writing can improve your writing. Writing improves your writing. Writing makes you a writer. Get the picture?

Being a professional writer can be tough, so put on your big-boy pants and get over it.

A look at the under-used em dash. Learn about these things, writers.

Writers do not need to be moody, depressed, and drunk.

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