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: 18-24 April, 2022
Angst over software that detects emotions in students. I wrote this short story about the subject several years ago.
And angst over what books are on the shelves of libraries that are funded by the public. The situation is quite simple. Public libraries are funded by the public through taxes. Every member of the public has a say about what books are bought and loaned. Those folks who show up at public meetings exercise a bigger say. If you don't like what the public libraries do, use your own money, buy a building, stock it with books you buy, and loan those books to others. There are plenty of folks with plenty of money who can do these things.
Crawling around inside the new VW electric van.
There is much room for speculation in this story about how college applications rose after standardized test scores were not required. The part that interests me is that students with low scores (that were not submitted) did fine in their classes. Perhaps these big name schools really don't do much or require much in their classes. The name of the place is sufficient for a career. There are other areas of speculation.
Some consider us to be post pandemic now. PC sales are down, but Apple computer sales are up.
This has practical ideas on how to write the first chapter of a novel.
Thoughts on reading and the rhythm of the writing.
Thoughts on conducting an interview for a future piece of writing.
Here are nine regional magazines that pay for articles.
....In New York City, those Apple retail employees wanting a union want $30/hour wages. Maybe that is justified. Questions: how much will Apple have to raise prices in that one store to make up for the wages? Are NYC customers willing to pay that surcharge
Microsoft raises the pay in its bug-bounty program.
A look at commercial spyware which largely comes from companies in Israel.
New companies are laying off employees. They want to cut expenses and look better on paper.
Spam is on the rise in America. This is especially true in the area of text messages.
.....IBM has a good financial quarter.
Crypto currency companies are not doing well financially.
Pandemic prosperity continues for the companies providing cloud computing services.
The Russians are bring thousands of mercenaries from the Middle East. That is very bad news for the Ukrainians as these soldiers from a different culture have no attachment to the lives of Ukrainians as do many Russian soldiers. Folks from a different culture are often less than human in the eyes of mercenaries.
Pandemic prosperity extends to part of government as the CDC grows and grows and grows.
Trying to help NASA plan its next decade. How about learning how to fuel a rocket for starters?
.....Tesla had a better-than-expected financial quarter.
Now on Zoom, we can do a "thumbs up" sign and it recognizes that. Nice stunt, now do full translation of American Sign Language, please.
What could possibly go wrong? Plenty. A military parachute drop show at a baseball game in Washington D.C. Well, the FAA didn't tell the Capitol Police who thought it was another one of those assaults on them and ... well, it didn't end well.
Electric BMW: toys for rich people.
The shortage of electronic parts is causing some to scavenge them from washing machines and other home appliances. One question from all this, "Is is necessary to have those computers in those washing machines?"
There are various news reports that Russia is planning a big propoganda push to claim victory in Ukraine for their May 9 annual victory day.
.....Just some of my thoughts on international affairs. No inside information. Just what you read in the papers and speculate. The Russian invasion of Ukraine will result in victory parades in parts of Russia. The land gained will bring some prosperity to parts of Russia. The long-term losses, however, will dwarf these gains. The Western sanctions will stay in place. I foresee a steady exodus of educated persons from Russia. This will be quite evident for those with Computer Science and Computer Engineering degrees. That will greatly slow the recovery of the Russian economy. One way out of this 20-year recession for the Russians is the removal of Mr. Putin and banishing anything that bears any resemblance to Mr. Putin and his system. Basically, the Russian people need to beg for forgiveness. That itself is not a good thing for anyone, but appears to be the only way to lessen their coming economic pain. Look for bad times for Russian until 2050.
Hiring cheap labor in places that are suffering is how we label data for machine learning. A fundamental problem in machine learning is we need a million people to look at pictures and tell us what is in them. So why use a computer to do this automatically when we already have a million people to look at pictures and tell us what is in them.
CNN+ was a flop. It is being pulled off the market.
I don't understand expectations, realizations, and stock prices. Snap has 18% more users than last year. Stock prices fell as something or other was below expectations. Seem that the experters would be fired for being wrong.
Our former President (Mr. Obama) decries things that social media companies started doing when he was President. His hindsight is 20/20, except when it isn't.
Western civilization is safe as Godzilla and King Kong are now in Call of Duty. Surely the computer scientists et al could be working on something more valuable to society???
Here is a good question, "Could Facebook be the next Yahoo?"
.....In Ukraine, mysterious failures of little drones from China are causing Ukrainians to buy replacements from the US. Odd how the Chinese dones are failing. This lends credit to the idea that Chinese products remain connected to their makers in China and the Communist Party of China.
Whoooosh! The stock prices of Netflix and Meta plunge in the last three months.
Closer to home, Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors has a new logo.
The rate of death from COVID is amazingly low in China. "China typically classifies Covid-related deaths more narrowly than many other countries..." And we can add to that with, "America typically classifies Covid-related deaths more widely than other countries..." When counting, it helps to understand what we are counting before we start counting. It is surprising to me that many adults don't understand this.
A small American company knows much about individuals. Anomoly6 or A6.
.....This is a good article on the concept of "Zero Trust" in computer security.
Ah...someone has a firm grasp on the obvious. Mr. Musk is buying Twitter so he can continue to use Twitter to his delight. It seems that more really rich folks would do this sort of thing. Stop talking and start buying.
The first space tourists to the space station were able to stay a week longer than expected. I guess from now on NASA means Never Adhere to a Schedule Again.
OpenBSD 7.1 is released. It has support for Apple Silicon.
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