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: March 21-27, 2016

Summary of this week:

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

Monday March 21, 2016

Several on-demand app companies have failed recently. A trend?

Facebook is pulling its app from the BlackBerry.

The movement to build robots that look like us. Wasted effort.

We are in the early days of the cloud computing battles. Perhaps there will only be five computer (clouds) in the world.

Thoughts on Dell's push to sell its computers loaded with Linux vice MS Windows—$100 off.

It appears that, in general, standing desks don't have any health benefits. There are individuals, however, who benefit.

Twitter is now 10 years old.

Researchers find holes in Apple's encryption in older versions of iOS.

"now that the power of computing has caught up with the algorithms" the secret of Deep Learning in one phrase.

A note on UbuntuBSD—the best of several worlds.

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Tuesday March 22, 2016

Intel co-founder Andy Grove dies at 79.

Apple held a big event yesterday—the iPhone SE, 9.7-inch iPad Pro, and new Apple Watch updates.

Here is another summary of the event.

At the last moment, our FBI gets a postponement of a court hearing in its case against Apple.

Apple continues to use the iPhone to push into Health Care.

The jury awards Hulk Hogan an extra $25million (on top of $115million).

Top millionaires in New York state ask the governor to raise their taxes.

A million UK kids to receive free BBC Micro Bit computers to use and keep.

GoDaddy jumps into the cloud services marketplace.

Hillary Clinton, email, Google, Syria: a weird world and another example of why it was a crime for the Secretary of State to use a home email server 100% of the time.

Our key fobs that open our car doors are easily hacked. Car theives rejoice.

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Wednesday March 23, 2016

Terrorists kill dozens in two separate attacks in Brussels. And our President attends a baseball game in Cuba. Decide for yourself.

Google is developing an iOS keyboard that is optimized for Google search.

Apple, old PCs, rich people, and elitism. Not everyone can afford an Apple product a year.

Intel slows its introduction of new processors.

IBM's Watson technology compares the Harry Potter books to the movies.

Google open a retail store in Cuba. Good luck with dealing with that government.

Google, now #3 in cloud computing, makes a big push to move up.

SCADA: hackers mess with a water treatment facility. Yes, it can happen anywhere at any time.

Airbnb has created a microhotel industry for cheaper housing.

Strong rumors of Apple producing several new ultra-thin portable computers.

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Thursday March 24, 2016

Thoughts on self-interest and how that has shifted to mutual-interest.

And now we have something called motion design.

Apple is wary of surveillance technology being inserted into the servers it is buy for data centers.

A new Google Glass prototype showed up in a pawn shop; Google was there quickly.

Nividia spins a version of its Quadro M6000 graphics card with 24GB of GDDR5 memory, which gives 5X performance jump for big data users.

RedHat becomes the first $2billion a year in revenue open source software company. Credit it share of the cloud computing market.

Google announces a Cloud Machine Learning platform.

Google releases its speech recognition API to third-party developers.

Facebook will soon have a tool to alert us if someone is impersonating us.

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Friday March 25, 2016

Microsoft turns on an AI project, but Twitter users show their immaturity and ruin it.

AnandTech looks at the state of the practice in CPUs for building your own computer.

Sony creates a company to port PlayStation games to the iPhone—ForwardWorks.

Google may be working on an Amazon Echo-like product. The home computing appliance is almost here.

Apple will build its own servers to avoid surveillance capabilities being added by others.

New tech thinks it has invented something—rent a hotel room by the hour. This is very old stuff.

UK researchers are making advances in computer lip reading.

Amazon shows us how to build our own Echo with a Raspberry Pi.

The French government fines Google for lax adherence to the right to be forgotten. The French government seems to have more pressing security problems than this, but whatever.

Companies are already planning how to work around newer H-1B visa restrictions to hire foreign workers over qualified Americans.

$99 + your smartphone = 3D printer.

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Saturday March 26, 2016

A look at the James Webb telescope in build.

Switcher Studio: get a bunch of iPads together and broadcast the Super Bowl by yourself. Who needs bit old television cameras?

Microsoft is now shipping the 84" touch screen Surface Hub.

Apple turns 40 years old on 1 April. See the history video.

MIT researchers use an MS Kinect to make a breakthrough in inadvertant reflection noise.

Godin has some good thoughts on helping others versus trading favors.

Another story of a person who lived in a van and saved a lot of money. You must have a place to shower like an office building.

One early reviewer likes the new, smaller Apple iPad Pro.

A tour of a Google data center including the great big powerful hard disk drive shredder.

Angolans have access only to parts of the Internet; so, they find ways to work the restrictions.

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Sunday March 27, 2016

Encryption? It is math, and everyone has access to that.

The promise and/or fantasy of the smart refrigerator. How about solving real technology problems with the refrigerator like smaller insulation, smaller machinery, and less power consumption.

We have yet another video of public servants assaulting a member of the public and then falsely charging that citizen with a crime. It is a terrible thing when citizens, who are employed by other citizens, break the trust we all seek.

Cool Mac keyboard shortcuts.

A look at the size and reach of Amazon.

A great story—a 50+ guy goes to work for a tech startup. No joke, just (funny) fact.

Excellent post: learning how to program computers won't save your job.

Silly programming errors that kick people out of systems based on their names.

Happiness and quality in writing comes when you are compelled to write.

Yet another opinion on what makes a good novel.

Talent, passion, I have nothing else to do, and writing.

A thorough guide to creating an author's website.

One writer's experience at leaving the house and going to a co-working space.

Doubts and recovery of a writer.

Tips of better pitches for essay writing.

Posts on marketing: I hate it, but it must be done as no one will come knocking on my door.

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