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: 22-28 January, 2024

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• The Israel-Gaza conflict continues
• The Mac is 40 years old this week
• Mr. Trump wins the New Hampshire primary
• Executives at the Hallmark Channel react with glee
• The SHOT Show is in Las Vegas this week
• Nvidia releases several technologies that upscale video and video games
• Layoffs continue all over the tech industry

Monday 22 January 2024

Yet another "attack" on a large language model. Yet another failure due to lack of systems engineering. Basic stuff.

In the field of architecture, generative AI is moving in quickly. The architects have adopted the new tools to everyone's benefit.

Meanwhile in Japan, where a dwindling population means they don't have enough people to work in warehouses, the Chinese move in with robots. Japan is losing the economic war with China.

Meanwhile in Britain, someone hacked the British Library and it is taking a long time to bring it back online.

It appears that CEOs have stopped the push to bring people back into the office building. There are more pressing matters at hand.

The Sinclair computer beat the Mac to the marketplace by two weeks. It also was a significant machine in the history of computing.

We can make our own solar panels. No, it isn't better or cheaper or anything. It's just a weekend project to do something.

New study shows that Bigfoot sightings and black bear migration match. Are American black bears roaming the Himalayas?

This post is about the SMART method of setting goals for writers.

One opinion on a needed writing skill, Learning to objectively assess other people's stories, and pinpoint what makes them effective or not, will do more for your own writing craft

If marketing and money are your goals in writing, this is important information. Focus relentlessly.

"butt in chair, hands on keyboard" except, of course, when you do something different that helps writing as well.

I like this collection of copywriting examples that raise the number of readers and leads to more income.

General tips on copywriting.

The importance of writing something that is useful, i.e., it helps a reader do something they need to do.

Tuesday 23 January 2024

Go to Math Academy and learn enough math to keep up with your teenagers' homework.

NASA, unable to go to space, is working on a supersonic experimental plane that quietly flies faster than the speed of sound. This is an experiment, not a plane that does anything practical.

Bellingcat describes how it identifies drones from photos of the sky.

It appears that to obtain the real power of Microsoft's CoPilot in the office suite you have to pay $20 a month.

Arizona State University jumps into a big partnership with OpenAI. Can the software improve the university's management?

A Stanford study shows that open-source language models are as safe as the alternatives.

A study from MIT predicts that AI won't take many human jobs related to vision.

Apple releases iOS 17.3.

Sound the alarms: we enter the "post-truth" era when we can't believe everything politicians say. Uh, hasn't that been the case for ... never mind.

Nvidia has a beta release of RTX Remix. You can greatly improve the appearance of older video games. (1) Will it work on Missile Defense? (2) Is this copyright infringement?

The hottest video game on the planet is Palworld. It appears to be a stolen copy of Pokemon with explosions added.

Always, or is it never(?), on the cutting edge, our government shows off new electric vehicles and chargers for the US Postal Service.

Real news that isn't news: older folks (like me) still live in three-bedroom homes we bought years ago with (ready for the news?) prices were lower than they are today. We are supposed to give our homes to our kids and grandkids, otherwise life isn't fair. Never mind that this was true when we old folks were much younger and in the same situation. Do these newspapers have editors?

I like this trend as more companies are investing in and building systems that allow average cell phones to use satellites. Great for disaster relief.

Wednesday 24 January 2024

Mr. Trump wins the New Hampshire primary by a wide margin. Once again, it is Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden on the ballot with the vast majority of America not having any say in the matter. The executives at the Hallmark Channel react with glee.

Google cuts its staff at its X Labs. Managers want researchers to find external funds and pay their own salaries.

One practitioner puts his experiences in building language models into an open book on GitHub.

And here is another GitHub repository dedicated to the behavioral interview.

Meanwhile at Apple, the self-driving car ambitions hit reality. Schedule delays accompany lowering performance requirements.

This seems backwards: central data centers are supposed to be more efficient than everybody having their own data center. Well, sorry, not the case.

eBay cuts 9% of its workforce.

Meanwhile in Russia, the Russian-language Wikipedia is banned and RuWiki takes over as approved by the governors.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, the LA Times lays off 20% of its newsroom. They cannot break even let alone make any profits.

Meanwhile in Vietnam, Chinese manufacturing and tech is moving in and we now have a "tech Chinatown" where "it is almost as if I never left China."

And finally in Washington D.C., the central government is worried about data and foreign exploitation so a meaningless Executive Order in being written by lobbyists.

Real news that isn't news: in Europe, regulators extract $35Million from a successful American company.

When did Wired Magazine become part of the mainstream media harping on the dangers of free speech online?

Thursday 25 January 2024

Here is a lengthy overview of the video game industry in 2024. It is booming, but with fewer employees.

This piece describes a few small companies building robots that may actually work.

I'll quote this: After decades of frustration and failed attempts, scientists might finally be on the cusp of developing therapies to restore immune tolerance in conditions such as diabetes, lupus and multiple sclerosis.

Predictable and predicted: first there were streaming services. Fun. Next streaming services raised prices. No fun. Now there are hackers that break into the services and pirate the contents. Really not fun.

Our National Science Foundation launches the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR). Researchers can apply for access to AI research and development tools including computing power, models and datasets. OpenAI, Meta, Nvidia, and Microsoft are participating.

Meanwhile in China, Apple has a first as the leading seller of smartphones in tha market.

Nvidia starts RTX Video HDR. It uses AI to convert SDR color space video to HDR. This works only for RTX GPU owners.

Meanwhile in Washington D.C. and Beijing, governors vow to cooperate on AI safety.

Self-checkout at stores isn't working. Shoppers don't like it and the loss of a human face reduces store and brand loyalty.

Another "year of efficiency" is here in the tech industry. That means YOU'RE FIRED!

Meanwhile in New York City, the governors declare social media to be an "environmental toxin." What is that I ask readers of FaceBook (now an environmental toxin).

A detailed scientific of Gummy Vitamins reveals that we shouldn't do detailed analysis of Gummy Vitamins.

Software that translates one language to another, e.g., English to German, means that everything is being translated to everything and a large part of the web content is a repeat in another language.

Meanwhile at the Harvard Medical School, many research papers into cancer were using fake data. It seems that more folks than the President of the place were and are unethical liars.

Friday 26 January 2024

This research paper out of Amazon discusses the amount of web sites in less-used languages are machine translated from other languages. This results in lower-quality language. So what? So, all these large language models read all this junk language and make generative AI that generates junk language.

Considering the prompting of ChatGPT et al as writing tiny computer programs leads to some things that may come to something, but probably not.

I'll quote this, "Children with hereditary deafness regained their hearing thanks to a type of gene therapy." This could be a miracle, but controversy comes with it.

The following statement seems to be earth shattering to some adults in the tech world. I wonder why as it is obvious. "Every tech that is improving exponentially in the 21st century is explained by improvements in semiconductor fabrication."

I'll just quote, "Three former Google DeepMind researchers recently left the company to form their own AI startup called Uncharted Labs."

Microsoft is pushing hard into AI with its CoPilot everywhere. This costs money, bit money. They have to find a better way.

This is some sort of double-reversed passive-aggressive strategy by the mainstream media: they are blocking OpenAI et al from using their content. "Right wing" sites are allowing it. LLMs in the future will lean right. Mainstream media can then pooh pooh them since only the mainstream media is "righteous and true" or something like that. Perhaps I think about such too much.

Layoffs at Salesforce.

Layoffs at Forbes.

Layoffs at Paramount.

Layoffs at Microsoft.

Intel has a good financial quarter.

Meanwhile in Europe, Apple agrees to operate the way European regulators tell it to. More money for Europe and less for a successful American company.

Some of these copyright infringement cases are trivial. Who thought they could just copy someone else and not be in court of law?

And to show that American regulators won't be outdone by European regulators, our Federal Trade Commission is investigating how American companies invest in American companies.

OpenAI drops its prices or using its language models.

IBM's stock price hits a ten-year high showing that IBM is still with us and is still competitive.

A look at a commercial tool that gathers information on billions of smartphone users worldwide. The company then sells the data to government agencies. Some of those agencies would otherwise need a legal warrant to gather such information, but since they are buying it, well, uh, what's the harm or something.

Saturday 27 January 2024

I'll just quote the title of this long piece, "The case for ensuring that powerful AIs are controlled"

The economics of the printer. The printer itself is a loss leader. We buy them below cost. The money is supposed to come in buying the ink or toner. Consumers want it all below cost, i.e., really inexpensive. Sorry, no free lunch. Don't like this? Build your own printers.

Layoffs at Flexport. See all the layoffs in yesterday's notes. This is a trend, not a good one.

Here is a report on the industry-wide layoffs.

A look at our Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. If ever a group was ill-equipped to deal with AI and claims of copyright infringement, this is it. Gasp.

Popular opinion is now replaced by "citizen-led propaganda." More "woe is us" from the Washington Post and other old media outlets.

The Super Bowl is coming. Don't care for football? It is also the time of year that Walmart cuts the prices on TVs. That may get your intere$t $$$.

Apple complies with Europe's Digital Markets Act. Everyone is upset about it.

Reverse engineering of Apple's iOS 17.4 shows the ChatGPT large language model in use to boost Siri.

Online shopping booms. Goods are shipped by rail. Boxes fall out of freight cars. Folks grab the goods and sell them back to Amazon and Walmart.

Someone made a deepfake of President Biden's voice for a robocall. Instead of going to jail, the faker was banned by a tool maker. Seems like a light punishment, eh?

I'll just quote this, "Bank of America is cracking down on employees who aren't following its return-to-office mandate."

Sunday 28 January 2024

Comments on the Rabbit R1. Genius or stupid? There is a fine line. They market will probably decide. There is no accounting for the desires of the market in a rich place like America.

It is that time of year where everyone states, "This is what will happen in 2024." Here is one pretty good list.

Predictions from me? I gave up on predicting the future. We have an election this year in America. The Hallmark Channel will be the biggest beneficiary as people will quickly become sick of the two elderly gentlemen on the ballot. How did we put ourselves in this position? We are an odd lot.

How one programmer setup his Mac laptop for 2024. This lists some good "productivity" apps. (What other kind are there?)

Google updates its Bard Gemini model. Early human testers like it.

Confirmation of other sources: longer train of thought means that LLMs perform better. Put more effort and better information in, you get better results out. No news here.

Not having much to do with affairs of state, senior personnel at the White House are working on the deepfakes of Taylor Swift.

Congress and the President passed the CHIPS Act with much fanfare. The money, however, is still stuck in a spreadsheet in Washington. This is an election year. 2 + 2 = something.

Coming real soon now, software will write just about everything we see on the Internet. Given everything we see on the Internet, this may be a big step up.

Regulators gotta' regulate anyway they can: senior official at the White House announce they will use the Defense Production Act as justification. Anyone building an AI model has to register with the White House. Are you kidding?

This story must be important as it is all over the Internet. X will open an office in Austin to moderate child sexual abuse material.