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: 13-19 January, 2020

Summary of this week:

• Apple's stock value rose 86% on the back of the AirPods
• Russians tied to Ukrainians tied to US politicians (and their kids)
• Bose closes all its stores
• Microsoft releases new Edge Chromium browser
• 2019 is our 2nd-hottest year (cooling trend implied)
• "OK Boomer" qualifies are age discrimination

Monday 13 January 2020

One summary of last week's CES. Bendable screens appear to be  real. Some of the hyperbole around AI is fading.

Amazon is donating some money to relief from bush fires in Australia. What is noteworthy is how small the amount is.

Employers in high tech want persons who know SQL. What? SQL? How did we sink this low?

In a surprise finding, it appears the Microsoft is ahead of Amazon in cloud computing when considering the larger companies. Amazon still dominates the overall market.

It appears it is never to late to buy Apple stock as the value rose 86% in 2019. Those silly little AirPods brought the surge.

A programmer observes what has changed in the last 20 years. Noteworthy (to me): - Since we have much faster CPUs now, numerical calculations are done in Python which is much slower than Fortran. So numerical calculations basically take the same amount of time as they did 20 years ago (we are lazy). - Being a software development team now involves all team members performing a mysterious ritual of standing up together for 15 minutes in the morning and drawing occult symbols with post-its.

Intel shows its working prototype of a portable computer with a bendable display.

Tuesday 14 January 2020

A leaked photo of the next Samsung phone shows four lenses on its camera. I guess that is one more than Apple's latest. What is the limit?

University researchers show how our major cellphone carriers are open to hacking via SIM cards.

Apple—that old computer company—won its first entertainment award.

Russian hackers are tied to the Ukrainian energy company that has ties to many high-level US politicians. This may all become interesting one day.

Once again, law enforcement asks industry for help. Once again, industry claims privacy protection.

A call for programmers who write efficient software. Of course go to an employer and tell them that you grew up in the 1970s and know from experience how to do so. Good luck with that one.

Lawrence Lessig sues the New York Times for defamation. Liberals suing liberals. Where will we go next?

Good intentions gone off track. The California law meant to help "workers" (do I qualify as a worker?) is hurting thousands.

Wednesday 15 January 2020

Equifax agrees to pay $380.5Million to customers because it didn't secure their information.

Jeff Bezos visits India. The reception wasn't welcoming.

Our Army is working on facial recognition technology that works in the dark and at long range. It is based on thermal sensors.

Amazon is using AI to try to understand the human behavior known as serendipity. I think AI will fail on this one.

The nation of Yemen has no digital service. Someone cut an undersea cable. This shows the dependence on a vulnerable service, and we all have that dependence.

Someone (Google in this case) finally uses a neural network to predict the weather. The technique runs faster and more accurately than the traditional weather models.

In the realm of "it's not a bug, it's a feature," Tesla sells t-shirts poking fun at its cracked window.

In the ages-old attempt to program a computer without pesky programmers, Google buys AppSheet which promises no-programming (no-programmer) programming.

The big tech companies come to Google's aid in a coming Supreme Court case involving copyright.

Products for the elderly and for those who care for the elderly started appearing at CES.

Those Fortnite folks have an online game store and claim 100million customers.

Thursday 16 January 2020

Cloudflare announces it will give anyone running for office free security tools. Let's see, there must be some office I can ...

Apple buys an edge AI company. Expect this to come to an iPhone real soon now.

Mozilla lays off 70 persons. Their revenue-generating products aren't generating revenue.

Silicon Valley, big, small, China, world politics, and all that rolled into one.

"OK Boomer" enters the US Supreme Court—whose members are all too old to be hired by many tech firms—in an age-discrimination case.

Bose is closing all its retail stores. Online sales only from now on.

Microsoft's new Edge Chromium browser is available for download today.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, having mastered economics and health care, is now an expert in facial recognition and other machine learning technologies.

Gary Starkweather dies at 81. He invented the laser printer in 1964 while working at Xerox. We all use laser printers daily—at least those of us who work in offices.

We have found space dust that is older than anything on earth. And some persons wonder why some persons wonder about science and scientists and government grants.

Civilization is saved: we will have a Game of Thrones spinoff TV series in a year or two.

Apple sold 60million AirPods last year. At $200 each with 100% markup...that comes to ... a whole-lotta-money.

Friday 17 January 2020

Google is providing some no-cost, online programming courses. Again, nothing sinister here, but a larger pool of programmers means Google can hire at lower salaries. Simple economics.

Microsoft makes all sorts of non-binding pledges regarding climate change and carbon output.

Peacock: a streaming service from NBC, is coming real soon now with three price levels.

Driving for DoorDash: someone does the math and, to no surprise, the drivers make almost nothing. It's a hobby to have something to do and meet people.

Our Speaker of the House of Representatives, evidently lacking anything useful to do, calls Facebook "shameful and irresponsible." Perhaps we can make such illegal and prosecute someone.

Alphabet (Google) reaches $1Trillion in value for the first time.

We step closer to having augmented reality in a contact lens. The early applications aim to help persons with poor vision. I like that idea.

Politicians running for office (Joe Biden in this case) want to hold someone liable for the statements of someone else online.

Saturday 18 January 2020

Online activity and social credit scores. What could possibly go wrong?

Intel underestimated the demand for processors. AMD will benefit as they have some to spare.

Apple has grown six-fold this decade. Why didn't I buy it way back when?

Joe Biden, the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Facebook. Mix it all up and we have something all mixed up.

Elon Musk has a plan to send a million persons to Mars. He is not the first to have such. Again, why the infatuation with Mars instead of places that are much more hospitable to human persons?

UC Berkeley owes grad students $5million. An arbitrator rules such per a suit brought by the United Auto Workers on behalf of teaching assistants.

An extensive research project shows that the temperature of a healthy person has fallen from 98.6 to 97.5 over the last 150 years. I guess this means something. For one thing those old thermometers with the line at 98.6 are ... well maybe no good.

Sunday 19 January 2020

In advance of the release of an AMD graphics card, Nvidia cuts the price of one of theirs.

How just plain folks on the Internet helped MLB find all the incriminating footage on the Astros' cheating scandal. What comes next?

Local law enforcement across the US is buying facial recognition software and access to massive face databases. Good may come of this. Bad may also come of this.

US cities with lower cost of living and a few tech jobs available. Rocket City, a.k.a., Huntsville, AL is a prime spot. Newark NJ? Really? Ever visited there?

Strong rumors that we will see less-expensive smartphones this year. $650 doesn't qualify. We should have choices for $200 or $100.

A look at the not-so-secure world of Internet of Things devices.

Here is one summary of all the advice writers hear. It is pretty good.

Yes, writing is worth pursuing. Don't, however, quit your day job!

Writing conferences. Most of these on the list are for specific areas.

Weakness, strength, and finding stories in all our lives.