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: 2-8 September, 2019

Summary of this week:

• Android 10 rolls out
• Apple Watch finally gets sleep monitoring
• Hong Kong protestors with mesh network to communicate
• New Intel and Nvidia processors power thin gaming laptops
• Microsoft and Qualcomm release a $250 computer vision developer kit
• Facebook Dating opens today in the US
• The MIT-Jeffrey Epstein story won't go away (follow the money)

Monday 2 September 2019

Meanwhile in China...the hottest thing is an app called ZAO which puts your face into a deep fake video from popular moves, television, etc. What could possible go wrong?

State-of-the-practice in gaming laptops. Dell dominates the list. For hardware in business and government, this is a Dell world, i.e., no one gets fired for buying Dell.

Some history and capabilities of the U-2 aircraft which is still flying and eyeing after 60+ years. I once met a few persons who built the first one.

Those cute little scooters have become a plague in many cities. We tend to abuse little, replaceable items, and the scooter falls into that set.

A list of this year's top programming languages for data science. The usual suspects are here, but why do people continue to call SQL a programming language?

Tuesday 3 September 2019

With a Monday holiday, today is another Monday with little news.

Hurricane Dorian still sits on the Bahamas. Predictions remain to steer it north and east, away from the US East Coast.

Neighborhood watch apps, cameras, and the lot. Much good could come of this, but there is great potential for deception and abuse.

It appears that the founders of Backpage.com were actually helping law enforcement officials for years instead of what has been reported lately.

Android 10 is rolling out this week.

Finally coming to the Apple Watch, sleep tracking.

Windows 10 passes the 50% market share mark. Windows 7 still has 30% of the market.

Wednesday 4 September 2019

Hackers break into the forums area of XKCD comics.

Hong Kong protestors successfully evade government Internet blackouts via peer-to-peer mesh networks. Amazing technology in everyone's pocket.

With the latest processors from Intel and Nvidia, Razer upgrades its thin laptop computer to play video games. The latest processors mean that the thin machines can play like the thick, heavy machines of three years ago.

How to control your subjects: close the Internet. Control communications and travel. Same old methods, just newer technology.

Microsoft and Qualcomm release their Vision AI Developer Kit for $249. Release the masses of researchers and students who can now afford a powerful toolkit for computer vision products.

Got $14,000 and lots of space in your living room? Acer has a "gaming chair" for you.

Got $42,000 and a whole lotta' space in your living room? LG releases their 88-inch televisor.

The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) has the final spec for USB version 4, so expect new hardware in about 12 months.

The sky is already falling on the 2020 elections. The Russians are coming through new avenues, a.k.a., social media.

California legislators move to eliminate a few million part-time jobs.

Google is about to be slammed by a widespread anti-trust investigation in the US.

Thursday 5 September 2019

Fascinating when you put these two stories next to one another.

One: Facebook and the other big tech companies meet with our governments intel agencies about election security.

Two: Facebook has a security leak and releases 419million customer records. So...someone is an expert here?

More about the big meeting of tech and govt security here. Pledges to stop disinformation campaigns etc. Free speech?

Singapore attempts to create a place for itself in AI research in the middle of the US-China trade skirmish.

A Federal judge rules that the government's Terrorist Watchlist violates the civil rights of US citizens.

The ultimate revenge of the old against the new: the threat of sending Mark Zuckerburg to prison for the sins of social media and the like.

Strong rumors that Apple will sell a less-expensive iPhone in 2020. It will only cost around $500.

ASUS shows new laptops that are really thing and really light.

Friday 6 September 2019

Facebook is making as many deepfake videos as it can to feed to researchers. The goal is to develop better tools at detecting the fakes.

Chinese government hackers break into telecommunications providers in central Asia. The goal is watching its Uyghur subjects.

Survey says: a majority of us accept law enforcement's use of facial recognition technology and cameras and in "public" places. Will LE officials accept the public video recording them doing public duties in public places?

Facebook Dating rolls out in America today. Western civilization is safe, or is it the other way around?

Sony releases a 40th anniversary Walkman look alike. It does look like the original, but doesn't play cassette tapes.

Microsoft (re)releases PowerToys for Windows 10.

"The best way to be in the room where it happens is to be the person who called the meeting. Things rarely happen on their own. Everyone is waiting for you to organize the next thing."—Seth Godin

Someone in California discovers how nuclear power is a good thing. It works.

Autonomous machines aren't quite autonomous. Human supervisor of robots is a growing occupation. Let's not fall asleep at the wheel.

Apple Music come to the old-fashioned world wide web.

Saturday 7 September 2019

Google admits that our Justice Dept is conducting an investigation into anti-trust violations. The American way—cause highly successful companies to spend gazillion$$$ on lawyers instead of products.

It appears that a small group of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn play a quiet yet dominant role in Amazon as third-party sellers.

The Internet Society tries to teach ISPs about the Border Gateway Protocol and security.

Everyone seems to agree that vaping is making people sick. No one seems to know how or why.

"...your innovation, while different, still has to qualify for consideration."—Seth Godin

There is a growing industry in Israel: offensive cyber operations and capabilities.

More information is dribbling out regarding the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and MIT's Media Lab.

Are our phones listening to us and triggering ads? Someone tries to disprove this, but runs a faulty experiment.

We are entering the age of remote-control, long-distance surgery. There are many applications for this. Keep the surgeons in a safe, controlled place, put the machines elsewhere.

Solar panels create shade. Some crops thrive in the shade. It seems that it wouldn't have taken so long to realize the obvious.

Huawei shows its 5G system on a chip.

Very strong rumors are out and about regarding Google's coming Pixel 4 camera, uh, er, I mean phone.

Sunday 8 September 2019

New Chromebooks shown by Acer.

More fallout and resignations at MIT where the Media Lab accepted research funds from Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein is the worst person the world this week, hence all the fuss. Universities need money to pay salaries and light bills. Funded research is how it works. Don't like it? Change the system. You pay the bills.

Lack and thought and faulty analogies...of course they are everywhere and of course they hurt what good persons are try to do.

We now have an alliance of fake news fighters. Wow. We're safe. Perhaps comics and comedy writers will now put a disclaimer next to their work. Something like, "I'm telling jokes. Don't take me seriously."

How Hollywood made movie titles and such before the days of the inexpensive computer.

Do you spend money on your employees or your customers? No one has the answer yet. Mistreated employees do lousy work. There is a limit to how much to spend on employees as several business bust cycles show.

The Common Business-Oriented Language is now 60 years old. Several billion lines of COBOL are still running in banks and such, i.e., where the money is.

Google's instructions on code reviews.

Essentials for writers and writing. A horizontal surface. A writing surface (paper or computer). A pencil also helps. Knowledge from some source is pretty good, too.

Most parenting writing jobs don't pay. Here are a few that pay something.

Transcribing audio: a part-time job you can do at home and pick up extra money. This appears to be a much better-paying job than Uber-ing. My mother did typing at home for years. It works.

And yet another good piece on journal writing. This one focuses on the bullet journal or homemade organizer.

Writing short fiction and shorter fiction and even shorter fiction.

Decide to write and self-publish that book. Decide and do it.

Some advice: work harder, write more, submit everything at least in one place.

Thoughts on finding the story or the arc in your memoir.

Yet another good piece on the benefits of journal writing. This is one practice that I recommend for everyone.