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: December 12-18, 2016

Summary of this week:

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

Monday December 12, 2016

The kids are talking to the camera and the Internet—even when it isn't there.

A history of Bluetooth from its inventor.

The Plutocrats bands together to make clean energy. Good goal. Leave the climate change out of the equation.

“Every adult will have an interconnected supercomputer in their pocket” Well said.

An Amazon employee jumped off the company's main building. Employees are furious with executives.

Linux kernel 4.9 is released.

Fast food jobs are disappearing; robots are taking them.

$4billion for computer science education? Never happened. Leadership? Same answer.

Skype real-time translation now extends to mobile phones and landlines.

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Tuesday December 13, 2016

Apple Inc. went public 36 years ago yesterday. Rats. I didn't get in on it.

AMD announces its own line of GPUs for deep learning coming in 2017.

Microsoft claims record numbers of Mac users switching to Surface computers this year.

Donald Trump, and a lot of other smart persons, don't accept that climate change theory is fact.

Ars Technica tries to examine the scant facts about Russian hacking and the recent election.

It appears that more than a few Uber employees see who is riding where and they are sharing that information.

Trumplethinskin: nice nickname. It is healthy for our country to return to an era when we can make fun of the President.

The hotel function-specific robot. There go some more jobs.

The surveillance capitol of America is surprisingly Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Out sourced Disney employees file suit.

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Wednesday December 14, 2016

This story is all over the Internet today, so it must be important. Several hundred techies pledge not to build a Muslim registry. It will be built by techies worldwide who desperately want such a registry. And don't imagine that Muslim techies are building registries of Christians in Pakistan and other places where Christians are not wanted. This is life. Techies are people, too.

The IEEE publishes a guide to ethical use of AI by technologists.

Slack adds video teleconferencing.

Our DoT regulators want all car makers to build in vehicle-to-vehicle communication. There is a difference between government wanting to require this and auto makers wanting to offer this. When the government requires it, the government has a backdoor into the whereabouts of all "citizen" (quickly become subjects).

How the Russians hacked the DNC, and the DNC tried to wish it away. Adults please.

If you don't want it revealed, don't put it in email. There is a reason the mafia uses pay phones. Learn.

ooops, Apple's latest Watch software is turning their watches into bricks.

Amazon expands its Prime Video worldwide—except China.

Google announces Android Things—its Intenet of Things developer platform.

Microsoft opens its Cortana assistant to other companies, and Harmon Kardon is the first to use it.

Uber's driver-occupied driver-less cars come to the streets of San Francisco.

It appears that Google is stepping to the side of the self-driving car business.

Fake tech. A demonstration is not a test. Some folks already know that, but it seem that many do not.

Google hops into a partnership with the government of Cuba.

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Thursday December 15, 2016

A review of indoor antennas. Cut the cable TV out and watch over the airwaves.

IBM announces 25,000 new jobs over four years and a $1billion training center.

Amazon does a few drone deliveries in the UK. Just a stunt so far, but...

Evernote will have some employees reading our notes—just to help development, sort of.

Twitter was not invited to the Trump tech CEO summit.  A private meeting among private citizens.

Here is one of many articles about the meeting. Since Trump won the election, lots of these folks are, well, they are swallowing their harsh criticism and trying to find a way to work with Trump. Backing a loser in an election hurts. These folks, however, are practical.

Another no-longer-secret secret report reports that Putin was personally involved in releasing DNC stupid emails.

California regulators (unelected) create new energy-efficiency regulations on computers. Lots of desktops to be replaced.

Speaking of California regulators...California DMV calls Uber self-driving tests in San Francisco illegal. Lawyers on the way.

Yahoo reveals a 2013 hack that stole 1billion users' information. That is a large number of users.

The story behind Udacity, failed MOOCs, failed colleges, industry nanodegrees, and other learning foibles.

A look at the Nvidia DGX-1 $129K supercomputer in a briefcase.

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Friday December 16, 2016

Super Mario Run takes the wold by storm and breaks all the video game records.

A review of the Nook $50 Android tablet. It looks good.

The major Linux releases are vulnerable to simple hacks.

The reviews of "Rogue One" are rolling in and are favorable.

Folly at our Department of Energy where they think they are not members of the Executive branch of government.

The US Election Assistance Commission (not sure we had one of those) was hacked with email accounts being sold online.

Facebook fights fake news by letting the people who created fake news declare fake news to be fake—I think.

Not everyone is happy with Facebook's attempts to stop fake news as "fake" is often in the eye of the beholder.

The Obamacare system breaks again, so move the deadline.

Evernote hears the screams of users and decides NOT to change its privacy policy.

Docker makes its Container D open source.

Tom Wheeler to resign as FCC Chairman. Obama-era decrees to soon be un-decreed. This is what happens when you rule by decree instead of working with Congress to pass laws. The next fella' can easily reverse the decrees.

Our outgoing President blames the Russians for the incoming President. No blame for poor security at the DNC and the Clinton house.

Nostalgia sells: Nintendo has sold 200,000 NES Classic Edition units.

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Saturday December 17, 2016

Employers claim they can't find qualified persons for factory jobs.

Super Mario Run breaks sales records, but is receiving poor reviews. Almost 3million download first day.

The big US tech companies pledge not to build a Muslim registry in America. These guys, however, build all-person registries for the Chinese government.

Switching from Amazon Prime to Jet.com—big benefits.

Our FBI chimes in that the Russians help elect Donald Trump. They must have been running around rural areas of Wisconson, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. They were everywhere, you know? ;-)

Time-lapse construction video of Pentagon West, a.k.a., Apple's Spaceship complex nestled in Santa Clara Valley suburbs.

Very clever: how to wrap packages without using any tape.

Bruce Schneier on priorities for four years of the Trump Administration. At least he is thinking.

Google joins the Cloud Foundry Foundation.

The German government is about to fine Facebook for hate speech.

Ars Technica examines Fedora 25 with Wayland.

Trump advisor states the obvious: "science(tists) gets a lot of things wrong." Sorry folks. It is obvious but obviously not often said.

Washington Post to the rescue with Twitter add on that checks all Trump tweets. I didn't realize this was a noteworthy national problem worth the expense.

Civilization is saved! McDonald's will do home delivery in 2017.

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Sunday December 18, 2016

Elon Musk now says he is to dig tunnels for new roads to relieve congestion. Been done before.

Remote offices, telecommuting, and all that. Companies want it to save $$$ on office space.

Microsoft has changed its direction due largely to acqui-hires that brought new managers into the failing company.

Government to the rescue with a ban on smoking in public housing. Make everyone a criminal open to arrest at any moment and increase dependence on government. Sounds like a bad idea to me, but what do I know?

"What touches me most is when a student teaches me something I did not know."—Gerald M. Weinberg Well said as usual.

Herds of lawyers are forming as state of California ups its feud with Uber on self-driving cars.

This seems too simple to mention, but it is quite good: a timeline helps plot a novel. When did that happen?

This post is quite good: questions to ask yourself before attempting memoirs. Good memory joggers.

Ways to be brief and clear. A good thing to do.

"HOW you do something isn’t what matters. It’s DOING SOMETHING that matters." Good ideas on tricking yourself into writing success.

Tips for writing travel stories and memoirs.

The power of setting a goal. This doesn't work for everyone all the time. I suggest trying it.

Good techniques for writing short stories.

The types of articles you find in magazines. Hint: propose these to editors.

Freelance writing: why are you in it?

The need for freelance writers to have co-workers. This is not an oxymoron.

WordPress themes for a writer's website.

One freelance writer provides a list of helpful resources for others.

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