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: 22-28 May, 2017

Summary of this week:

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

Monday May 22, 2017

Facebook's leap into its own "TV shows" is delayed a month or so.

Google seems to be stuck in analysis paralysis as great ideas keep coming, but products don't.

A peek inside how Facebook decides what should and should not be on the site.

One more verse: AI is coming, is right around the corner, wow, just wait and see!

Our government sort of has a policy that we will share software with us. I'm not making this up.

Uber and "flexible" pricing. Of course no one (outside of Uber) knows how it works. Just pay.

Yet another name for the big players: The Stacks Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft.

The resurgence of Microsoft, especially in the area of AI.

Order ahead at Starbucks, save time, remove all human contact. Wait, uh, er, well...

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Tuesday May 23, 2017

The story behind the Facebook engineers who built their own open networking hardware.

Uber stiffs the city of Pittsburgh or is it that Pittsburgh forget to have a written contract?

Github introduces its Marketplace: buy development tools here.

Dubai Police put robots on the street. This is a first. Stunt? Probably. They like to be the tallest and first and such.

James Gosling, of Java fame, joins AWS.

HP announces new portable computers and takes aim at be better than Microsoft's Surface Pro.

Apple promotes the switch from Android to an iPhone.

Facebook is flooded with garbage content. They find and delete tens of thousands of posts each month. What must it be like to see that stuff daily and hit the "delete" key?

The coming collapse in truck driver jobs. There are about 3million truck drivers today. Autonomous trucks will replace them.

30million Americans work under non-compete clauses. We can't quit our jobs and go to work for certain others.

The growing Indian middle class and WWE professional wrestling. Yes, they are connected.

Apple and Nokia stop suing each other and instead become partners.

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Wednesday May 24, 2017

The terrorist news for the week is some "loser" (our President's apt term) set off a bomb in a concert mostly attended by teenage girls in Machester (UK). Sure, kill a couple dozen teenage girls. Loser.

Microsoft shows the new Surface Pro. More processing power, longer battery life, LTE built in. Patience by MS delivers a good product.

Google beats the world Go champion with software.

LeEco, a Chinese company operating in the US, will layoff bascially everyone in the US—500 jobs.

Microsoft releases Windows 10 China Government Edition. Censorship and rule over the serfs continues.

Despite what politicians tout, computer programming is not always "fun."

Waymo—Google's self-driving car division—could be worth $70Billion.

Google provides news features with Chrome OS that make IT admin easier.

The software VW used to cheat emissions tests was on public websites for years. Anyone (hint EPA) could see it.

Intel's Euclid development kit is here for $399. Everything you need to build a robot.

1Password creates a "travel mode" that hides and reveals your passwords at your choosing.

Apple pushes Swift programming education to the community college level. Sure, great a glut of programmers to drive down wages.

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Thursday May 25, 2017

Lenovo and its PC sales return to the profit column.

Microsoft has completely shifted to Git and the version control file system.

Acer shows new laptops for gaming and fashionable business attire.

Endogeneity is a fancy term for confusing cause and effect. For not being clear about causation and correlation.—Seth Godin

And we thought TSA theater at the airport was as bad as it could be.

Yes, cannabis can be used as a medicine. So let's stop the charades and have doctors prescribe it. No presription, then you can't go to the pharmacy and buy it. And you have to go to the pharmacy, not Joe's Smoke Shop.

Lots of injuries at Tesla factories. Not all is cool and hip and new and all that stuff at Tesla.

The Manchester bombing will lead to more oversight of the Internet. The UK government is already turning the machinery.

EU Ministers are pushing social media sites to find and stop hate speech in the wake of Manchester.

DARPA picks Boeing to build its Experimental Spaceplane to deliver satellites to orbit quickly and cheaply.

Forget colleges and all the online MOOCs, Airbnb is teaching its own data science classes to its employees. Even the big names in online training are failing companies. Airbnb has tailored its training to the tools it uses and the culture of the company. Yes, it costs more, but...it works.

Sony is evolving to the future as it updates it digital paper tablet. This is light years ahead of other tablets.

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Friday May 26, 2017

Things keep tilting Google's way in their legal battle with Uber.

The new Apple news has a new Editor from New York Magazine.

Raspberry Pi merges with CoderDojo. These are both education groups aiming to reach kids.

Kodak's camera with an Android phone attached is available in the US.

Radio Shack, another American fading company, is closing down for good.

Here comes yet one more Android phone. This one is from Andy Rubin and Essential.

Jony Ive has been appointed chancellor of the Royal College of Art.

Cord-cutting continues, cable can't continue (clever C stuff, huh?)

Security specialist? Too bad, you still work for IT services and you will spend your day on Ctrl-Alt-Del.

Data visualization tools, free.

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Saturday May 27, 2017

Strong rumors that Apple is building a Neural Engine chip to do AI tasks on smartphones.

All the world's leaders want the social media companies to help them. How about tax rates?

Google pleads "too much trouble" to provide Dept of Labor salary records in court case.

Google search adds a Personal tab to show your own information about a topic.

Chipotle reveals that credit card stealing malware has hit them.

Fitness trackers tell us how many calories we burned, except they are really bad at it.

How the big five tech companies make money. Google and Facebook are advertising companies.

Guess what? You have to save some money for a down payment before buying a house.

All our Internet-attached medical devices are full of security holes. Don't connect them to the Internet!

With all this piracy killing Hollywood, somehow Disney made more money than anyone—ever.

Nvidia releases an entry-level GPU card for laptops that performs a bit better than integrated GPU.

Lenovo Legion has a new 17" display gaming portable—you need a bigger lap for this.

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Sunday May 28, 2017

People have pacemakers. Pacemakers have practically no security.

Dell updates its 27", all-in-one gaming computer. Wonderful speakers and sound.

For what it is worth, here is a list of the 50 top computer science colleges in the world. No, you can't afford to attend most of them.

An argument for keeping high numbers of H-1B visas. It is not the numbers of persons coming here with great skills. It is that some companies pay them half salaries.

Learning to charge more for your writing assignments.

The technique of the open loop in writing fiction and especially non-fiction.

Making the time to write. How much do you want this?

Tips to be accepted at a writing residence.

The thrills and chills of going on a destination writing retreat. It may help.

Making time to write from the little odd times during the day.

Using Google maps in fiction writing. Wonderful. Street view takes you places and shows you what to describe and use.

A simple, almost mechanical, method to changing what we do today to what we want to do.

Book binding. Art and magic.

Somewhat harsh, but I love this. PAY THE WRITER!!!

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