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: April 11-17, 2016

Summary of this week:

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

Monday April 11, 2016

Is this future of data storage DNA? I remember when everyone knew that the future was magnetic bubbles.

Kobe Bryant makes a commercial for Apple about Kobe Bryant.

The Volocopter, an 18-rotor copter, takes its first manned flight.

The Facebook F8 Conference is this week. Everyone expects big chatbot announcements.

Technology advances? (not) Facebook starts show weather forecasts.

Cybersecurity is not being taught in US Computer Science programs. Of course not. We don't teach people how to do things poorly.

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Tuesday April 12, 2016

The PC market continues to fall while Apple continues to gain market share.

The 4K, smart televisor approaches the masses—RCA to have a 50", $500 model real soon now.

Inventing ways to infringe on civil rights: how about being forced to let police analyze your phone when they pull you over in your car?

After a year of use, it seems the Apple Watch is an expensive FitBit.

One person visits China and reports on what it is like without Google, Twitter, and Facebook. There is a big difference between being a citizen and a subject.

Survey says: Netflix now has better original programming than HBO. The world has turned upside down.

Google launches Voice Access: control an Android phone with your voice.

Hacktivists do what they do to the government of Syria and spilling 43GigaBytes of data.

The government of China has killed its own water supply—80% of wells unfit for human consumption.

A Japanese Google division shows its two-legged home robot.

I want one of these: "The Lytro Cinema camera gathers a truly staggering amount of information on the world around it. The 755 RAW megapixel 40K resolution, 300 FPS camera takes in as much as 400 gigabytes per second of data."

Facebook integrates its Messenger with DropBox file storage.

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Wednesday April 13, 2016

"In the case of low-skill labor the rise of China has hurt some US low-skill workers..." No kidding? This is the crux of the matter. The word "some" sometimes means 10% of the US population. Sometimes it means 10% of college graduates in the last ten years.

Google puts all its Computer Science education resources in one easier-to-find place.

Good notes on Google's book on Site Reliability Engineering.

Zuckerburg bashes Trump on immigration. Zuckerburg wants more people available to hire so he can pay lower wages. He built Facebook on lower-wage technical labor and continues that practice to maintain his wealth.

Facebook launches voice and chatbot shopping inside its Messenger. Facebook tries to become the new America-OnLine. They want you to  live in Facebook.

Facebook extends this idea to an API so any business can build shopping and such into Messenger.

The latest story is the FBI hired freelance hackers to crack the iPhone.

The American teenager declares SnapChat to be T H E app.

The developers of Firefox will probably move its core technology to that of Chrome.

The Livestream Mevo camera: real-time to Facebook video live PLUS a lot more. For those of us who have worked in computing and imagery for decades, this is something we imagined for years, but never had.

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Thursday April 14, 2016

We aren't there yet, but this is a big step. A brain implant helps a paralyzed man use his hand.

Our President creates a new, and useless, Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity.

Given all this attention to cybersecurity, you would think we were improving, but life has a way of crushing theories and good intentions. The number of security hacks is growing and growing and...

AMC Entertainment to allow cellphone use in movie theaters. Let the games begin.

Theranos and its CEO have been hailed as wonderful, but the thing just doesn't work right.

So far at least, Facebook's chatbots don't work well.

Great site: practice neural networks and deep learning in the browser.

Facebook hires a Google exec who ran advanced projects.

GoPro hires an Apple designer, and the news causes an upturn in stock price.

Diet researchers continue to tradition that they have no idea what they are doing or saying.

40,000 Verizon workers go on strike. 100% of Verizon customers calling the support line don't notice.

The official consensus on manmade climate change is that you should stop thinking and close your mouth and mind.

Google updates its open-sourced TensorFlow software to run on distributed computers.

Amazon releases its 8th-generation Kindle—the Oasis.

Oracle to donate $200million to our President's Computer Science For All program. Let's hope it isn't wasted.

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Friday April 15, 2016

Microsoft sues our government so it can tell us when we are spying on ourselves. Currently, we won't let a company tell us when we are doing so.

Our FBI sets a new record for most $$$ spent to get nothing—that San Bernardino iPhone contained zilch.

Apple pulled $40million in gold from "recycled" products last year.

Uber now claims to be profitable in the US.

Here is a body-scanning mirror that gives us a true picture of our bodies. Being overweight is not the only problem it helps correct.

American governments, at all levels, rank last among industries at cyber security. Guess who has the most $$$?

But that doesn't good intentions: our DHS is advising us on what software to run on our computers.

Microsoft starts its back-to-school sales campaign—a few months too early?

It appears that Apple will rename OS X as MacOS.

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Saturday April 16, 2016

Google Drive update allows syncing only selected folders to your PC or Mac.

Intel advances its Atom-based processors for personal computers.

Facebook claims that it will not alter what users see to alter their votes this November. We shall see.

Recent events show how the deep learning approach to AI may lead to racism and other ill-conceived results.

We just discovered a giant galaxy that was right in front of us all along. Science is difficult, and often wrong.

Cayenne (not pepper) + Raspberry Pi = easier home Internet of Things projects.

The hotest app in college: Down to Lunch lets you "spontaneously schedule" gatherings. Isn't that an oxymoron? Anyways, recall that the Facebook thing started on college campuses and, well...

Columbia researchers create a transceiver that shares the same antenna for real, full duplex operations.

It appears that Intel has big layoffs coming. Some economic recovery.

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Sunday April 17, 2016

Google is installing free WiFi in train stations in India. They have a few thousand to go.

In steps government to help us. San Francisco will register all Uber drivers—$91 a year=$3.3million.

So far, the amazing Facebook chatbots aren't too good.

Should you give away free advice? I've had bad experiences doing this. This post is all positive about it.

Risks in writing. What could possibly go wrong? Not as much as we fear.

Some writing advice for practice given by Ben Franklin.

Some arguments for and against giving away your writing. Does free now generate sales later?

Thoughts on going from hobby to paying writer. Most of the ideas have to do with changing myself.

Good, practical advice on growing a blog audience.

This is a good post on what it means to go into full-time freelance writing. "There are no aspiring writers. There are writers, and people who are just kidding themselves."

Several methods for outlining or mapping a novel.

Here is a new place to publish serials—part 1 or whatever of whatever. I have written several serials in both non-fiction and fiction.

I love this post. These are simple, old-fashioned, offline marketing ideas for writers. People used to do these all the time before this Internet thingy.

Nice post for writers about the advantages of not being famous and having huge expectations thrust upon you.

I recmomend writers read this post about acting FROM what you want instead of TO what you want. Good twist on words with an actual meaning behind it.

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