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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d.phillips@computer.org
This
week: 21-27 August, 2017
Summary of this week:
- We celebrate the total solar eclipse in America
- Hurricane Harvey smashes the Texas gulf coast
- Intel refreshes 7th generation processors
- Google shows Android O (Oreo)
- AccuWeather is spying on us
- Google and WalMart partner for voice shopping
- Fake News—Dept of Justice didn't want to chase Trump protesters
- Samsung unveils the next Galaxy smartphone
- Samsung heir found guilty of bribery in ROK court
Monday
- Tuesday
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Friday
- Saturday
- Sunday
Monday August 21, 2017
It is eclipse day. I drove through the total eclipse zone Saturday.
Sigh. I guess this is an event. Almost, but not quite, as big as Game
of Thrones.
The world's AI leaders want to ban killer robots.
This is sort of like wanting to ban plagues. Can we find someone in
favor of autonomous killing machines? (not) I guess this helps some
people sleep at night.
Researchers show how to bug a smartphone with a replacement screen.
Intel refreshes its 7th generation processors and calls them 8th generation instead of 7.1. Marketing.
Not-so-secret secrets to beating jet lag. Shift time zones gradually before travelling. no duh
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Tuesday August 22, 2017
The eclipse is gone. We return to the summer blahs.
Deep learning and pattern recognition, i.e., AI, just observes us. And we are sexist and other -ists.
Microsoft's speech understanding software now beats teams of the best humans. Error rate below 5%.
Google will introduce several new hardware items real soon now including a Pixel Chromebook.
Google shows the newest Android—O or Oreo.
The moon's shadow, a.k.a., solar eclipse, from the space station.
HP updates its Omen X gaming laptop. Ten pounds of high-speed fun.
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Wednesday August 23, 2017
I have a morning when I don't have to run out the door (never
confuse time off from work with a vacation), so I can catch up a bit on
Internet Viewing.
Microsoft reveals more information about its BrainWave AI system running on FPGAs.
Medium will start paying writers of popular articles a little cash.
ooops, AccuWeather is sharing our location data even when it tells us it isn't.
Google partners with WalMart so we can shop by voice.
LinkedIn users can now upload videos. Here comes the video resume or the "watch me talk" demo.
Western Digital releases a 20TeraByte home file storage system. It is remarkable small, but not cheap at $850.
Not for everyone, but some people are using batteries from old laptop computers for home energy storage.
The Justice Dept demand for info on Trump protestors was fake news.
Yet another example where the FOIA system just doesn't work as some citizens refuse to tell other citizens what we are doing.
The teenage flight from Facebook continues.
The solar eclipse clobbers the Super Bowl. I guess there is a message here somewhere.
Finally, someone puts a historical perspective on the current rash of destroying statues.
Sigh, will the Baltimore police ever learn?
Shuttle, maker of small PCs, crams just about any graphics card into one of their units.
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Thursday August 24, 2017
Samsung Galaxy had a big event including the unveiling of the new smartphone.
How Waymo (Google) builds and tests self-driving car technology.
HP, the home computer part, had a good financial quarter with growth in PC sales.
Strong rumors about the next Google Pixel camera coming real soon now with Snapdragon processor.
Microsoft promises (they really do) not to download Windows files to our computers without permission.
Google worked with the National Alliance on Mental Illness and has a depression self-test online. This could be an interesting exercise.
A judge rules in favor of "fair use" in a YouTube lawsuit. I think this is good for all of us.
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Friday August 25, 2017
This is a new one: industry officials complain that lack of regulators is slowing their work.
The heir to the Samsung fortune has been found guilty of bribery.
Apple is forced to block apps written in Iran.
Google joins in with censorship on YouTube. We can't let those who disagree with us too much speak.
Facebook claims to close a million accounts a day in its censorship efforts.
Apple will build a data center in Iowa on the backs of $200million in taxpayers' money. I trust that someone in Iowa's government did the return-on-investment calculations.
Skills gap in America? No. That is touted by those who run learning skills for profits and their politician friends.
Engineers just reduced the size of RF antennas by two orders of magnitude. This may lead to much better medical implants.
JavaScript
is quickly growing in the programming world. Now if the people who
write these posts would just learn to write English.
It seems the marketers at Tesla are making claims the engineers cannot meet. Typical.
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Saturday August 26, 2017
Hurricane Harvey hits the gulf coast of Texas. The real question is,
will it move on inland or hover over the low-lying coastal areas for a
few days?
The UK will test convoys of semi-automatic-driving trucks in maybe 2018.
Connecting people who are connected but don't realize it. How does Facebook know all this about us? They won't tell.
"Data is the new oil." Nonsense. It is the new Disneyland. Real stuff, like oil, food, water, shelter, can't go online.
Men, even men who are scientists, are people, too. We have biases.
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Sunday August 27, 2017
Google and Mozilla seperately make mountains of voice data open for anyone to use in developing speech understanding.
Seth Godin has an excellent post on apathy and how we cause it in others.
There are many places that might listen to your "Hey, I can write for you for a small charge $$$"
This is one of the best yet 10-things writer's post I have seen. I recommend reading it and taking it to heart.
I find this writer's post a little disturbing.
She is encouraging or lambasting writers to learn this and learn that
and learn the other thing that is necessary, but doesn't provide
content or pointers to content. I'm not sure if I know any of the
things she says I should know.
Story concepts and plots that can flow.
Three questions a writer or other person may want to consider.
TreeSheets—could be quite useful.
Nothing to write about? Are we kidding? There are too many topics.
How "I can't write" creeps in when we are idle. Write them away.
Tips for older workers—hey, that's me—to start freelance writing.
Some of the freedoms that come with journal writing.
How journaling can help a writer find a voice. Don't try too hard. Just write it. You come through.
Have a psychologist read your short story. This is a great exercise in my experience.
How to end your story. Not in this list is the "turn it upside down" ending.
Write about what you did during the solar eclipse. Everyone was
friendly, but then I was in Mississippi where everyone is friendly all
the time.
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