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.

Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page
Email me at d.phillips@computer.org

This week: 17-23 July, 2017

Summary of this week:

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


Monday July 17, 2017

George A. Romero dies at 77. He recreated the world of the Zombie with Night of the Living Dead.

Our Justice Dept declares that our Labor Dept can't have the data it wants to see if Google is abiding by laws passed by our Congress. You can't make it up folks.

Trying to add some clarity to the obfuscation of the net neutrality discussion.

IBM Z: a computer built with encryption at the top of the list.

The world begins spinning on its axis again as Game of Thrones returns or something like that.

The world has turned upside down with folks like Netflix and Amazon whipping CBS, NBC, ABC at the Emmys.

What is it about the Venture Capital business that attracts cads and boor (does anyone use those words any longer?)?

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page


Tuesday July 18, 2017

Netflix's growth is surprising everyone. They may soon join the big five (Amazon, Apple, etc.).

The Millennials are driving the growth of Netflix. The sheer numbers in that age group over rule everything.

And speaking of economic power, simple rumors at Amazon cause other companies to lose value.

A look at some history and possible future of speech recognition.

Uber continues to slide downwards as yet another major city causes it to go away.

The failure of the user experience design in Windows 10.

A Federal appeals court upholds gag orders on national security letters.

Wearable sensors and computing just became much, much better.

A good laugh for us humans—security robot fails in a fountain and, well, do robots drown?

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page


Wednesday July 19, 2017

Google Glass Enterprise Edition. What augmented reality really does—project job information in front of workers.

No longer a rumor, Amazon is already delivering Meal Kits to customers. Only available for rich neighborhoods.

Amazon Spark: yet another way to spur us to spend money and buy stuff.

IBM, once America's everything company, has lost revenue 21 financial quarters in a row.

IBM opens data centers in the UK, Australia, and California. Cloud revenues are keeping IBM solvent.

Code.org succeeds in increasing numbers of CS students, and that will drive down salaries for the companies that sponsor it. I like what Code.org does, but let's not kid ourselves. They have a motive—more qualified workers means more competition for jobs and lower wages.

The Chinese government bans Winnie the Pooh. This is not fake news, you can't make it up.

Google updates it search results with "the feed" that supposedly tailores the news for each person.

Expiration dates on drugs are meaningless. Million$ wa$ted by ho$pital$ and others.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page


Thursday July 20, 2017

Apple starts the Apple Machine Learning Journal—a blog for machine learning.

Excellent paper: Cyber troops are government, military or political party teams committed to manipulating public opinion over social media.

Intel continues to move away from fitness and other wearable devices.

GLAS: Microsoft and Johnson Controls build a thermostat and plunge into the Internet of Things.

US District Court is requesting more and more cell phone data history to know where we have all been. Odd.

Tales of demographics: Bill Nye realizes that "climate deniers" will die off and the people remaining will agree with him.

Tales of demographics: America's birth rate hits a new low.

"Everyone owns a media company now. Even media companies. And with that ownership comes a choice, a choice about the people we serve, the words we use and the change we seek to make."—Seth Godin

Indian Railways now has cars with solar rooftops to power some of the items inside the cars.

Microsoft closes a factory in Oregon and moves a hundred jobs to China.

SpaceX backs away from its early promises of Mars exploration.

The rich become exceedingly richer: the Big 5 are now worth $3Trillion.

Google Expeditions: take your classroom on VR tours of important places.

On second thought...we will again allow laptops on flights from other countries.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page


Friday July 21, 2017

Someone understands the obvious: a person who does bad things usually does bad things.

The teenage Burundi robotics team has disappeared of their own accord. Unrest back home is probably the reason.

Elon Musk claims he has government approval to build a Hyperloop between New York City and Washington D.C. (29 minute trip time).

Amazon Web Services sees a bigger-than-expected slow-down in customers for the cloud.

Microsoft has a better-than-expected financial quarter riding on its cloud computing services.

Intel's Movidius releases its Neural Compute Stick—a $79 USB supercomputer.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks

Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Saturday July 22, 2017

The government of China declares an official industrial policy at AI. Such government declarations usually flop, e.g., Japan's Fifth Generation.

Good illustration of why self-driving cars integrate data from multiple types of sensors.

Microsoft is now making more money on Office365 subscriptions than on selling CDs or cards that link to downloads.

Sit in orbit and watch an orbital launcher come up from earth. Great stuff.

Examining the competition in cloud computing. Amazon owns the market, but there is the future...

NASA has mastered YouTube. Now if they could just put a person into space.

Slackware Linux, the oldest surviving distribution, is 24 years old.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page


Sunday July 23, 2017

I love this: an electronics circuit analysis and design textbook being produced online.

Only want one monitor on your desk? Dell has a 37.5" curved on for $1,499.

Verizon admits to "experimenting" with video (throttling) optimization.

ComicCon was this week in San Diego. Everyone had a trailer for their TV shows and movies.

An analysis of why $1,000-a-week coding bootcamps have failed.

The "non-disparagement" clause. If you are unemployed, of course you will sign one of these. Silence breeds all kinds of ill.

The UK government is about to regulate drones out of existence.

One writer's experience with all the advice writers receive.

Software to use and avoid when trying to write.

Patience and persistence: I wouldn't call them essential to writing a book, but they help.

"Being an artist and a salesman is the same job." I guess we have to deal with this.

Super productive and other things that you can become as a writer.

Write what you know, except when you want to write something else. Writing something is the key.

Two good questions to ask yourself as a freelance writer.

Good tips on picking apart a movie and learning to improve writing.

Good tips for journaling—one of the only practices that I recommend for everyone.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page