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: 29 June-5 July, 2020

Summary of this week:

• Happy Birthday America
• MIT builds a disinfecting robot (Roomba with a UFC light)
• Microsoft cuts certification prices
• It is official: demonstrations don't spread virus, beach going spreads virus
• MIT pulls its computer vision dataset
• Some Walmarts to become drive-in movie theaters this summer

Monday 29 June 2020

The new social media app "Parler" is growing really, really, really fast. Folks like to listen to folks they like to listen to. Folks want to be friends with folks they want to be friends with. Such has some social commentators confused.

With the recent successes of SpaceX and the Chinese space program, the EU has to play catch up. Here comes the money.

MIT and Ava Robotics build what is basically a Roomba with a UVC light on it. The robot rolls around in a facility and disinfects about 90% of everything. Nice video.

Computer science in high school. Lots of cool little projects—nothing wrong with that—with little depth. Hey, its just high school.

Canada's Supreme Court rules that Uber drivers are employees. This effectively ends Uber in Canada as well as several other "gig economy" companies.

Tuesday 30 June 2020

Wednesday 1 July 2020

Microsoft announces price cuts for certification courses and exams for those whose jobs have been affected in the year of the virus. Nice of them. Wish they had cut the prices a few years ago.

The movie industry advances state-of-the-art in deep fakes. They have wanted this for years as an aid in making movies.

Playing games online instead of on the machine in your home has led to fast growth in data centers. Come visit northern Virginia. Within ten miles of my house the #1 industry is building data centers.

And we leave it up to the entertainment companies to tell us what we can and cannot say.

On the heels of the ad boycotting is the race to ban the US President from social media sites. Persons in the other party are okay. Hmmm. Anything happening here?

Samsung releases its first 8TeraByte solid-state drive.

The rich tech companies can fund their own massive high-performance computing centers. Everyone else wants the taxpayers to build such so everyone else can use the facilities (at no cost to themselves).

Google acqui-hires Forth: a smart glasses technology company.

Qualcomm releases a new processor for smart watches. It may simply be too late as Apple dominates the market.

"People with writer’s block don’t have a problem typing. They have a problem living with bad writing, imperfect writing, writing that might expose something that they fear."—Seth Godin

Who anointed Anthony Fauci as the smartest person in the world with the ability to tell everyone how to live? Ever consider that he might be wrong about many things?

Thursday 2 July 2020

In an 8-to-1 ruling, our Supreme Court says we can trademark common words like "booking."

MIT removes its database of images that many computer vision researchers and others used. It appears that many of the images were being labeled with words that are in disfavor.

We were supposed to be able to have public schools online instead of in person. Well, a few details got in the way, and we seem to have a big mess.

Research shows: 1 of every 142 passwords is "123456" Well, what can we say?

Microsoft changes its start menu and a few others things in Windows 10. Some see these a major events. I don't get the hoopla.

Friday 3 July 2020

Amazon delays their Prime Day another month to October.

Several plutocrats are upset about the power of a few journalists. Simple. Buy the companies that employ them and close shop.

Prices are rising on YouTubeTV and everyone else in that business.

Following the money: everyone rushes to stop advertising on Facebook. That, however, means little as in the year of the virus everyone is reducing their advertising everywhere. They will all come back.

Good use of all this technology we have: a glove that a person wears while speaking American Sign Language...it translates to your smartphone at 99% accuracy.

I think this is brilliance: some Walmarts will transform into drive-in movie theaters this summer.

The governors of Ethiopia turn off the Internet. That can be done if you create the system just right. Hooray for incompetence in American government. We aren't good at this censorship stuff.

Saturday 4 July 2020

People are discussing the fine points of new laws in Hong Kong. It is quite simple: the governors tell you what to do and you do it. No matter what "it" is.

The Internet passes into a new phase. No more "you are an adult, type words here."

Billion$ and Billion$ promised for rural broadband (companies that won't deliver to taxpayers).

It appears that some writers are struggle to find anything to write about during the year of the virus. What? A unique event, and there is nothing to write?

Sunday 5 July 2020

Someone seems to have some sense when considering the Wuhan Virus. Age is the biggest factor. Those over 75 have a 1 in 6 chance of dying. We knew this at the start yet closed schools, daycare centers, and collapsed the economy. Silly us.

Some ideas for "fixing" Facebook and Twitter. Hmmm, they seem to be quite well financially. The problem with Facebook is that "it" (a thing, not persons) does some things at some times that I don't like. Hence, it needs fixing. See how smart I am?

I love these things, "A new study found low to moderate drinking may improve cognitive function..." Subjective terms and "may" tagged onto a "study."

More studies and disagreements on hydroxychloroquine.