Items I happen to view each day. Science, Technology, Management, Culture, and Writing

    This is my day book for this week. It is a log of things I see on the Internet.

This week: 30 July - 5 August, 2018

Summary of this week:

• Seattle regulators don't like bicycles
• Nintendo has a good financial quarter
• Apple has yet another record-breaking financial quarter
• Apple hits $1Trillion in value
• Facebook uncovers political agendas leading to elections
• Amazon is running sweat shops and clobbering "employees"
• Patrick Stewart returns to Star Trek on TV

Monday 30 July 2018

Facebook continues to stumble and bumble in their censorship efforts. They are banning ads from art museums.

At least someone agrees with me about how poorly the media discusses artificial intelligence.

Some computing history: an original Mac is on display at Microsoft's headquarters. Many of today's Office products premiered on the Mac. I used the original PowerPoint on a Mac.

What would life be without reports of the TSA and folly? The Quiet Skies program is revealed.

Short time viewing this morning

Tuesday 31 July 2018

T-Mobile and Nokia sign a $3.5Billion deal for 5G hardware. This is the first, big deal for that technology.

Regulators in Seattle act as if they don't want bike sharing in their city. At one time this was hailed as a good thing—replace cars with bikes in the cities. I guess we outgrew that one.

American politicians are inspired by Europe's GDPR. I guess Facebook et al are today's Standard Oil. Bust 'em in the lip and get votes from the little guy.

Fake news? Now we worry about fake reviews of products on Amazon. NPR claims half are fake. Amazon disputes the exact figure, but not the practice.

The prevailing thought is that all computer programmers make the big bucks. Hence, most computer programmers feel they are underpaid.

At Defcon, of course attendees hacked into computer voting machines. Those things are computers, and folks at these conventions can hack computers. It isn't that tough.

Egypt tries to leap from oil to solar power with the world's largest solar power plant.

Here comes Microsoft Managed Desktop. Liberating or imprisoning? Depends on why we still own computers.

NASA continues to bumble and stumble. Now they can't make a suit to wear in space. They had to reinvent something that already worked and forgot how to make it work.

Wednesday 1 August 2018

News Flash (not): World's smartest investigators discover that some people use Facebook to influence politics. No! Say it ain't so! (really folks, this is news)

Apple has another record-breaking financial quarter. They continue to haul in $1Billion a week in profits.

Apple reported big gains in services such as App Store, Apple Care, Apple Pay, iTunes and cloud services.

The sales of computers, however, continue to fall at Apple and everywhere else.

Google embarks on an effort to show more data when we search on news stories.

All those big-hearted, socially conscious folks at Google have built a censorship search engine for the government of China. Threats to quit the company for working with the Communist government? (see threats to quit for working with the American government) None.

A look inside the Tesla car factory where money burns fast and people are trying to hold on and get a Sunday off now and then.

It appears that universal basic income projects in several countries are failing and being cancelled.

HP starts a $10,000 bug hunting program for its network printers. Hack into a network through the printer, show HP how, and get the cash.

Thursday 2 August 2018

So much for the smart city in Toronto. Privacy? Security? Some of us don't care to have our footsteps logged and followed.

Amazon moves on from Oracle to its own software.

We spend more time watching video than ever before. Live "TV" (what is TV anyways?), time-shifted programs, and everything else.

The big tech firms "failed" us in the last election. They are stumbling and falling. Not really, as the latest financial reports show. And all this failing us in the election depends on who we thought would be elected and how we couldn't possibly be wrong because we are so smart and someone somehow cheated because we couldn't possible be wrong.

More news on NASA and the money pit that is the James Webb Space Telescope. Yes, it is difficult and expensive. Did we ever need this?

Tesla puts video games on the display of its cars. What could possible go wrong?

Need a part-time job that pays well? Be a Fortnite coach at $35 an hour.

After all this time, Windows 7 is still used by more people than Windows 10.

Let's sing the praises of LeBron James as he opens a school—not a sports academy, but a real school that seems to want to try harder.

Origin PC releases a powerhouse laptop with a 17" super-duper screen.

Ethics and the building of software systems. I lament that little has changed since the mid-1970s when I entered the field.

Friday 3 August 2018

Apple becomes the first company in world history to be valued at $1Trillion (with a T). Of course these are all arbitrary figures, but it impresses some.

The home "smart speaker" market: Apple is growing, but has only 6%. Amazon owns the market with Google a major player.

Silicon Valley is rich; Silicon Valley is powerful, and Silicon Valley is being taken to school by the less-tech saavy but far-more-politically saavy folks around the world.

Comcast and Amazon make a deal so that the Prime logo will pop up on my televisor when I turn it on. And my granddaughter will notice it and ask about it immediately. She notices those things.

Another real use for augmented reality (Google Glass is one example): indicate to autistic kids what emotions the other person is feeling.

Got $1.2Million. Want a bullet-proof SUV limo? Mercedes has just the vehicle for you.

The IEEE's rankings of the world's most popular programming languages. Python remains on top with C++,C, and Java just behind.

Tesla announces that they will drop Nvidia processors from their cars and build their own processors.

QAnon and conspiracy theories. Such theories have been with us since we were us. What is evil about this one is, yet again, it is linked to the guy who could not possibly be elected unless someone cheated somehow because that guy being elected shows that I am not as smart as I think I am.

Saturday 4 August 2018

NASA announces the crews for the first pseudo-commercial manned spaceflights. Yes, it is possible that we may put persons into space before the end of this decade.

Facebook's censorship swallows innocent bystanders. I guess its a good thing that we aren't good at censorship. It shows a lack of practice.

The Democratic National Committee—now the world's most cautious cyber security organization—tells its members to never buy Chinese devices.

Rich people are trying to become richer by investing in Silicon Valley. The only news is that this is "old money" chasing "new money."

Facebook progresses on its development of a dating app. It guess you can call a new dating app progress.

Why the stationary desktop computer is better than the portable computer. Yes, it still is.

The end of the "professional" setting and dress "at work."

It appears that the meal-kit industry—I didn't know we had such an "industry"—is already passing away.

Starbucks partners with Microsoft and will accept Bitcoin as payment.

Toshiba releases a 14TeraByte disk drive for the desktop.

"Does Your Company Need a Chief Storyteller?" 98.6% of the time, I find the answer is, "YES."

Sunday 5 August 2018

The nation states strike back against the post-nation plutocrats. India is the next country to tell cloud computers to store data inside the country. The advantage the nation states have is established law enforcement and court systems. We shall see who wins.

The world catches up with fiction: an drone assassination attempt in Venezuela.

An inside, and very ugly, look at how Amazon sends us all the stuff we buy and have delivered. The 1800s sweat shop has been brought back.

If you are involved in computer programming in any way, read this essay about what we have done to ourselves. And it is written by a person with a good perspective (even older than me).

The case against the Computer Science degree in college.

Western civilization is safe: Patrick Stewart is returning to Star Trek on TV.

Writing as therapy. Yes, pour it all on on paper. Flush it out of your mind. There. Done.

"When you can’t describe something, don’t.  Describe the experience instead." Pretty good advice.

A like this idea about starting a novel or short story without an outline, but with a pretty good idea of where you are going.

Different ways the editing can stall and how to work through and around them.

Yet another way to consider your fictional story: Goal, Question, Premise. The perspective of the protagonist, reader, and author.

Some good tips about writing content for paying clients, non-fiction materials.