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: November 23-29, 2015

Summary of this week:

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


Monday November 123, 2015

2million people in the Crimea are without power as someone destroyed power lines.

Brussels is living on some type of high alert. How long can they do that?

Did you know that FanDuel is a Scottish company?

Age discrimination in the tech industry shown in one graph.

Face recognition software in the grocery store and the shoppers' privacy.

Crayola debuts a new line of adult "coloring books" for stress relief and relaxation.

The General Image Manipulation Program GIMP is 20 years old. Five years before GIMP, I published a similar software set in The C Users Journal.

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Tuesday November 24, 2015

A company uses Microsoft Kinect for at home physical therapy.

The Clock Boy family is suing Irving, Texas for $15million. The entire city isn't worth that much money. Good luck as this is merely a publicity seeking stunt.

Our State Department issues a world-wide travel warning. I suppose this means I shouldn't leave my house to go to the grocery store.

Dell has shipped portable computers with big security holes installed.

Pfizer pulls a reverse-inversion to "move" to Ireland and lower its tax rate. Money wouldn't leave the US if the US were to lower its corporate tax rates. I must not understand all there is to understand here as it all seems pretty simple.

Bills are introduced in the US Senate to reform the H-1B visa program with more restrictions and higher pay.

WordPress overhauls its interface and moves from PHP to JavaScript.

The fundamental flaw in fitness trackers: your doctor cannot accept and use it.

Adele sells 2.3million copies of her new album in a weekend. So much for the death of the album.

Cyber Monday moves to Sunday night. Soon July 5th will be the biggest shopping day of the year.

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Wednesday November 25, 2015

The iPad may be dying, but Apple will sell more of the new iPad Pro in 3 months than Microsoft will ever sell Surface Pros.

Apple buys motion-capture technology company FaceShift.

Jessica Jones on Netflix: here come the highly regarded series on Internet-only entertainment.

Apple to make Swift programming language open source before New Years.

A look at coding bootcamps and the latest STEM crisis where we don't have enough programmers willing to work for low wages.

No surprise as 2015 is the latest warmest year on record (I doubt it). We must be doing something right as we set a new record every year. How long can we keep it up?

Xtra-PC: a computer on a little USB stick. Since it is all SSD, your old PC will run faster $20.

HP Enterprise partners with Microsoft to market its Azure cloud offerings.

"national origin discrimination" is what US workers are claiming when they are replaced with H-1B visa holders. It appears that companies are abusing the system. Shame.

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Thursday November 26, 2015

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S.

Thank you brings us closer together.—Seth Godin

Google seeks FCC approval as it appears they want to test Project Loon in the US.

A study shows that engineers are nine times more likely to become terrorists than everyone else.

The new Raspberry Pi Zero—$5, just $5. These guys deserve a Nobel Prize.

The odd lobbying relationship between Google and university researchers. George Mason University, to which I have an association, is mentioned prominently.

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Friday November 27, 2015

How to buy Apple products this weekend: stay home and don't buy direct from Apple.

More news on the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero.

A history of the Universal Serial Bus.

More shopping tips. Everyone says stay away from the stores and shop online. The result will all your neighbors losing their jobs at the local store and jobs at some warehouse 500 miles away. So, do you want unemployment to be local?

A look at machine intelligence in practice.

Negative interest rates: the government charges you a fine if you have money saved. I guess I just don't understnad how this works.

It must be nice to work for Facebook: 4 months paternity leave.

Check the post for tech details, but embedded devices from 50 companies are all using the same security keys and they are all open to easy hacking.

Sony has sold more than 30million Playstation 4 consoles.

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Saturday November 28, 2015

Google's role in the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero. Eric Schmidt told them not to build more powerful and more expensive computers but to keep the price the same and let technology increase the power. Then, build something that had the same power as model #1 at a lower price. I guess when someone famous tells people what I, and many others, have said for years, someone listens.

The $5 Raspberry Pi Zero sold out in less than 24 hours.

People with Apple mobile devices shop online much more than everyone else.

VTech—of Hong Kong, not Blacksburg—was hacked with 4million customers' data stolen.

How to search the world and hire programmers overseas instead of here in America. Destroy your local tax base for fun and profit. I don't understand this "there aren't any programmers here looking for jobs" line. There are plenty of unemployed, skilled, US programmers.

The hottest productivity tool in Silicon Valley: tiny doses of LSD.

The current trend in AI research, there have been many, is machine learning.

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Sunday November 29, 2015

Will the Third Amendment, quartering of soldiers, be used against the surveillance state?

In an effort to make it even thinner, the next iPhone won't have a headphone jack. It's just too big.

"remind yourself what you're about to be"—Seth Godin.

The Cards Against Humanity gag for black Friday. Over 11,000 people paid them $5 for nothing.

How the Royal Bank of Scotland is using Facebook at Work.

Cutting a story in half—the most difficult thing to do is delete words.

The concept of "leveling up" or building up to a level that you desire in your writing.

Destined to be a writer? I asked for and received books for Christmas.

Productivity tools for writers. Not the usual, some good tools here.

Mac keyboard shortcuts. Very productive.

Thoughts on writing a lot more words everyday. It is not a bad thing to be more productive.

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