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: 17-23 December, 2018

Summary of this week:

• Google drops the secret China browser surveillance machine
• Google to spend $1Billion in NYC on jobs and facilities
• Google creates a "Home Alone" ad with today's gadgets
• The Chinese government continues to steal from everyone

Monday 17 December 2018

Tuesday 18 December 2018

A tech star, rock star dies of a drug overdose at 34. Please, let us no return to the late 1960s.

Secret word out of Google is that the secret project to build a surveillance search engine for the government of China to monitor its subjects has ended.

Once again, forget the big (Sc)Amazon project to spend money in cities. Google follows Apple and announces $1Billion to be spent in New York city on facilities and jobs.

When do we call free speech "free speech" and when do we call free speech "manipulation?"

I suppose I just don't understand how all this works. (1) Some persons are vilified because they do not allow citizens of other countries to enter the US. (2) Some persons are vilified because they do allow citizens of other countries to speak their mind on US social media. There must be an explanation to what seems to be a contradiction.

ooops, our Dept of Defense finds that our Dept of Defense is not defending its systems from attack.

If you had a pay raise this year, you are in the minority.

Regulators in our central government have regulated regulators in the California government over what regulations they can regulate. (I'm not making this up)

Former Microsoft employee charges Google with, uh, er, ... making Google products work well with Google products. And, by the way, Google charges me nothing for using Google products.

News Flash (not): The government of France is now taxing successful American tech companies.

Wednesday 19 December 2018

Building islands for commerce and the military and national expansion. Who says you can't move the ocean?

News Flash (not): celebrities cash in by selling ads. Some folks are shocked that Instagram stars are doing the same.

Apple sells to a luxury market. India is not a luxury market. Hence, the iPhone doesn't sell there. Apple has to decide if it will change its pricing to sell to the world's largest untapped market.

Amnesty International jumps into the free speech and censorship arena with a report on Twitter. It is free speech or it is not. Hateful speech is allowed in free speech. No one is forced to listen to it no matter how irritating and debilitating it is.

Microsoft announces Windows Sandbox. It is a small virtual PC inside Windows where we can test run applications.

In case you didn't realize it, applications can track our locations even when we disable "location tracking" features.

This must be important as it is all over the Internet: Ford (motor company) has built a dog house that blocks fireworks' noise for dogs.

Enjoy the rings around Saturn while you can as they will be gone in 100million years.

Thursday 20 December 2018

Clever Google ad for the holidays shows how the "Home Alone" movie would be today with Google's home gadgets.

Instagram is boosting, of all things, the small, independent bookstore.

Malta, and their hot salt energy storage project, spin off from Alphabet's X projects.

Some folks at Stanford have developed an AI system to searches through satellite imagery and has found all the solar energy panels in the US. I suppose this is of some use to some one.

This is why we can't have nice things. Morons fly drones near London's Gatwick airport resulting in all flights in and out being cancelled.

Another look at the fake faces that Nvidia's hardware and software generated. This article also shows the "progress" made in the last four years.

Showing a similar rate of growth in capability is Google Lens.

The Attorney General of the District of Columbia, not having much to do since there is little crime in DC (not), sues Facebook for something or other.

Microsoft shows a pre-release build of Windows 10. It looks different in many ways. Now if they would just allow installation on the D: instead of forcing it on the C:.

News Flash (not): companies are sharing user information with Facebook who is sharing user information with companies who are ... trying to make money. Someone once said something like, "There is no free lunch." Updated, I guess this is, "There is no free use of the Internet."

Jack Ma has a point about US spending on wars instead of economic growth. There is more than one way to eliminate terrorism. US elected representatives chose one way. Perhaps they chose poorly.

Here comes the new year with a large amount of works open to the public domain after being dormant under copyright protection.

The Boring Company shows a car speeding through its first prototype tunnel. Yes, it is a relatively tiny tunnel and people may not like the feeling that comes with that.

Friday 21 December 2018

Our FBI has seized the domains of DDoS sites.

Magic from LG: place the projector 7" from the wall and a 120" picture appears.

Our Dept of Justice has charged to Chinese government employees with cyber crimes. No one will be arrested or tried or anything. We just spent lots of taxpayers' money for a press conference. I don't understand why we do these wasteful things with our own money.

More news of the Chinese government stealing property from Western companies. Why do they steal? That's where the money is.

Apple's Blackmagic external GPU is now available for purchase.

Facebook is developing its own crypto-currency. The concept of money exchange isn't that complicated. The major problems with BitCoin etc. is that they stopped becoming a medium of exchange and turned into speculations.

The central government of India has now declared that it can go through everyone's computer everything. On days like this, the American media should run tutorials on how our Bill of Rights was created to limit the power of our central government.

There is some hope for us future dementia sufferers as an ultrasound technique moves into human trials.

Saturday 22 December 2018

It is the Saturday before Christmas. Do you know where your government is? Hint: parts of it are shutdown. Read the details. From now on, these "shutdowns" are largely symbolic as the politicians have already funded what people want. Perhaps one day, someone will notice that about half of the Federal government wouldn't be missed if it simply...

Slack apologizes for closing accounts as it tried to meet new government regulations.

ooops, the government schools in San Diego have leaked everyone's personal information.

In case you missed any of them by accident or with intent, here is a list of Facebook's boo-boos from 2018.

Elon Musk buys laptop computers for all the middle schools students in Flint, Michigan. See earlier story about San Diego schools. I fear that the Flint schools will find a way to make a mess of this.

Facebook donates $1Million to Wikipedia.

Sunday 23 December 2018

Selling stuff through Amazom.com, and the fear that someone will make a mistake and close your business.

The Pentagon is considering who to award a $10Billion winner-take-all contract. What could possibly go wrong? (everything)

Take pause and consider how Tesla entered a stone-walled market and became a car maker and seller.

A look at the new Atlassian office in San Francisco. Yes, a pleasant, productive, and profitable workplace is possible.

The state of Kansas is sitting on $10Million of unused computer equipment that is quickly devaluing into scrap metal. What could possibly go wrong with that $10Billion Pentagon contract? (everything)

Preparing to write. To some writers, that is a contradiction in terms. For me, planning what I will write works well.

This is an excellent post on writing. Actual working tips that I have used and seen many other writers use.

A few nice personal benefits of being a writer.

Traveling? Yes. Writing while traveling? Yes. I use a laptop (MacBook Air that is five years old).

This is a good article on finding "literary magazines" that print short stories in various formats.

Must see video...amazing remastered video of 1896 Paris. Outstanding noise removal and speed correction.