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: August 1-7, 2016

Summary of this week:

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


Monday August 1, 2016

Google has sold 5million Chromecast units in the last two months. Not bad for a little gadget. The definition of success has changed.

MTV is 35 years old today. They used to play music.

Under 30s worldwide weep as JK Rowling says, "Harry Potter is done."

The genuises at Teslas may be noticing how difficult it is to build 100,000s cars.

RedMonk contradicts the IEEE and declares JavaScript to be the world's most used programming language.

Here comes the Internet of Things and the really intrusive security hacks.

"A recent study" shows that crowdsourcing (Kickstarter) creates more jobs than government policies.

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Tuesday August 2, 2016

A scholarly paper on computers, automation, and jobs. To keep a job, a person must shift occupations. Great idea, but lots of problems in practice.

Here is a no duh—police departments are trying to identify officers who should take the rest of the day off and not do something rash and harmful.

Must read: Schneier on election security. Suppose someone closes the Democrats/Repubicans network on election day. Why not? Of course people can do that. Suppose someone closes a state's computer network and erases all computer voting results? Why not? Of course people can do that.

Bioelectronics: use physics not chemistry to treat disease. Google jumps into the industry.

Standard practice: check your work email after hours. Sometimes standard practice is stupid.

Sales of tablet computers have declined seven quarters in a row. Prices will fall?

Philips introduces a complete digital healthcare system from sensor to analysis.

"have you even read the United States Constitution?" Excellent question to ask every political candidate this year.

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Wednesday August 3, 2016

Apple's new ad pushing the iPad Pro as a complete computer. The ad is a good demonstration.

It turns out that frequent password changes are bad for security.

Floss your teeth daily: seems there is no research to show this is a good thing. Some things don't need research studies to prove they are good. Some things are old wives' tales. Which is which?

The Chinese have actually built that elevated bus. I love it.

Here is a video. Washington D.C could use these.

Yet another photo of "can you find...?" This time a cat in a wood pile. Top log, center stack, yellow cat.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 hits the market with a USB-C connector.

Our FBI waited months before telling the DNC of the computer hack. Note, and many people seem to forget this all the time, the Democratic and Republican parties are private, non-profit organizations. Legally, they are just like a local soccer league, runner's club, or group of quilters. What responsibility does a government organization have to quickly talk with a private organization?

More thoughts on hacking our coming election. We shall ignore this at our peril. And then one day, we will talk about online health records.

A look at the Keras Python library to ease into deep learning and neural networks.

Always wanting to make more money, Facebook tests ads in the middle of our livestreams.

Depending on what you consider to be "cloud computing," Microsoft is in the lead.

Intel, no surprise, is trying to find a market other than processors for personal computers.

A look at Samsung's new Galaxy Note 7.

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Thursday August 4, 2016

Airbnb tries to move into community planning to ensure it won't fade away.

A look inside Facebook's huge systems prototyping building.

DropBox opens their collaborative editing tool Paper to beta testers.

The average annual US broadband speed (didn't know there was such a thing) rises to 55Mbps.

Nike pulls out of the golf equipment business, but will still make shoes and clothes. Young adults don't play golf.

Apple claims to have addressed the gender gap. Skew the numbers any way you wish.

"Revenue from tech mergers and acquisitions, or M&A, has hit its highest level since the height of the dot-com bubble. " It's better to be rich.

LibreOffice 5.2 is released.

Here is IBM's response to a request for information from the White House on Artificial Intelligence.

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Friday August 5, 2016

Researchers discover how to hack through HTTPS and find everything.

Apple finally has a bug bounty program, but it is by invitation only.

Pinterest expands its offerings and search for native video.

Here is the first of Amazon's own cargo-carrying jets.

We are buying more groceries and cooking for ourselves instead of going out to eat.

Facebook tries to avoid clickbait news story titles. Well, at least its a try.

Why hasn't Apple updated some of its computers in four years?

The "secrets" of data scientists. Just like most of real science. You ask, look, learn, and work really hard.

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Saturday August 6, 2016

Apple will build a $1billion facility in Vietnam. For some of us, this means the world has turned upside down.

The HiRise camera continues to send high-resolution images of the Martian surface. Perhaps one day, someone here on earth will go there. I'm not betting on NASA.

Disney moves more into the online business with 12 short films released online only.

Apple buys Turi, yet another machine learning company.

The Internet of Things will bring us all sorts of hacks and mayhem.

Interesting twist: using the images from computer games to train image recognition systems.

The best STEM high schools in the US. These are all special schools with special enrollments. They seem like a lot of fun, but I find them over rated. I didn't do too bad for attending a rural Louisiana school with a graduating class of 75 nice young persons.

Who knows the unknown economic multiplication from something: Pokemon Go causes spike in sales of portable battery backup.

I hope they know what they are doing: FDA approves new strain of bugs to fight Zika.

Bezos' Washington Post to use machines to write short stories about the Olympics. Unemployment.

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Sunday August 7, 2016

ooops, the economics of coding boot camps tilt them to the already rich crowd.

The web site is now 25 years old.

"Change almost always starts at the edges and moves toward the center."—Seth Godin

Intermittent fasting in Silicon Valley: longer, healthier lives? Perhaps one day we will know.

A look at the disaster recovery testing a Google.

People in our 50s adapt to new technology better than our children in their 30s. Experience actually means something. The experienced person has many more experiences with change.

The top earning writers for the past year. The rich stay rich as it is almost impossible to get onto the list.

It takes three to six weeks to create a new habit. Gosh, why is it so hard?

Some ideas to help you write that first book. It is the most difficult.

Tips on researching the magazine market and finding one for your writing.

Gifts for the writer you know. Please.

Tips for new writers and the rest of us.

We want to write more and better and faster and...we don't. We don't pay attention to what we are doing.

Here are some personality traits of some successful writers. I know some successful writers who have the opposite traits.

Some thoughts on improving your experience at a writer's conference.

Sometimes life makes it more difficult to write. Note the use of "more difficult" instead of "impossible.
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