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: 24-30 August, 2026

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• Dolly Parton dies at 80. She did much good for her community.
• Apple shows the M6 processor
• Perplexity and Nvidia show a much-improved local AI system
• xxx
• xxx
• xxx

Monday 24 August 2026

An unusual day with much less Internet viewing, but a few things.

Nvidia raises the prices to access its AI systems.

Meanwhile in China, the robot Olympics sees running robots break human records in several track and field events. This is a stunt. Put explosives on one of these things, let it loose. Forget open warfare as this is the perfect assassination machine.

Amazon's robotaxis are now on the streets. Again, private ownership for those who cannot drive themselves. Amazon et al can gain much in the public eye by donating these vehicles to those who need them. Don't call it an AI datacenter. Call it the compute center than runs transportation for the needy. Boom.

AI greatly reduces the expense of optimizing software for speed.

Finding problems that are worthwhile to solve.

How one consultant and writer uses AI in 2026. I find the use to be pretty sophisticated. This person is also writing more by hand instead of AI. I am doing the same with writing.

A different way of thinking about the new idea. Quoting: If you try to only write about ideas that are truly brand-new, you will restrict yourself to writing about ideas that weren't important enough to be considered before: in other words, trivia and ephemera.

I like this from Mr. Godin. Assume misunderstanding. Give the benefit of the doubt. I learned years ago that, "To write is to be misunderstood."

Some history of the mystery store and novel.

Some thoughts on the "hero" in fiction.

More good advice from Seth Godin. Quote: The system would like us to be insatiable on its behalf, but that's not an invitation we're required to accept.

Tuesday 25 August 2026

Now this is a waste of time: preparing 20-year-olds to be Chief AI Officers when they are 40 something. By then, no one will remember how to spell AI.

And just as big media has turned Americans against datacenters, the economists proclaim how much better America is than Europe. The datacenters are like the factories of the 1940s that won WWII. The datacenters will prevent WWIII.

Our current President speaks in favor of datacenters. Folks, these are the engines that are driving industry today. Don't want industry? Don't want jobs? Don't want someone to pay taxes for you? Okay.

Real news that isn't news. Since the 1970s, tech companies have put their foot into America's schools to develop a market for their products.

The supposed value of BitCoin is back up.

Strong rumors that Apple is about to upgrade the Mac mini with better processors. Remember that Claude bot thing that everyone ran on a Mac mini? I think it is now called OpenClaw or something. I just looked at the Apple store. I would have to wait four weeks if I ordered a Mac mini today.

Speaking of ... Meta will have its own version of OpenClaw.

I read stories like this and I don't know if I should cringe in fear or roll on the floor laughing. A group of lawyers are going to investigate the detailed workings of software systems.

This story is silly as it states the idea that the US military does not already have access to Ukrainian battle data.

There is so much jargon in this headline that I am not sure what to make of it. Anyways, Nvidia has a rack of equipment they would love to sell that performs quite well. This is super-duper-computer type of stuff.

Meanwhile in Taiwan, we see arrests of those who are smuggling Nvidia processors to China.

More news on smuggled Nvidia processors. The Russians are getting enough of them to put in one-use weapons aimed at Ukraine.

Strong rumors that Apple will have an M6 processor in the good old iMac by Christmas.

A good argument against "easier is better" in applying for jobs.

Wednesday 26 August 2026

Dolly Parton dies at 80. She did much good for her community.

Bill Gates writes an essay on AI. It seems if you are a celebrity tech person you have to write 5,000 words or more on AI.

And Mr. Gates, in hindsight that is questionable, says his time with Jeffrey Epstein was a mistake. Let's not understate that. He was just trying to raise money for good causes.

Big finance struggles with datacenter construction.

Meanwhile in America, a quarter of us use AI for what ails us. Five years ago, this question didn't exist.

Meanwhile in China, the population is shrinking. The idea of China running short of people was silly for almost all my life. The party turns to robot makers to solve the labor shortage. Chinese factories fund the Communist Party. The Party must keep the factories producing or the Heavenly Mandate will change.

Meanwhile in India, they are ordering the parts to build more datacenters. The datacenter is the factory of this century. Those factories power industry that are important to national economies. Of course factories take land, power, water, etc. They always have.

AWS plans to turn off Mechanical Turk. It provided a few jobs and money to some.

Quoting the headline: UK filing: in FY 2025, OnlyFans paid out $6.3B to creators, net revenue rose 10% YoY to $1.55B, and creator accounts hit 5M; 5,076 creators made $1M+ since 2016. These things are stunts to the great majority of people. Still, for some, it is a job that pays to support families, and I think that is a good thing.

Nvidia shows the Jetson Orin Nano 2 (they have to work on the names of these things). This will be available early next year. No prices yet, but predicted to be around $300. This are little super computers that people can use to build things. Great stuff.

Perplexity and Nvidia bring a system they call "Portable Computer." This is a big step to a single piece of software that runs all the current AI systems on a local computer. No Internet connection, no meter running, no fees. A Linux machine to run this costs $4,000 and up. This is basic business economics. If the machine enables the person to produce, buy it.

OpenAI claims big compute power and less electric power for its own processor over Nvidia processors.

Apple shows the M6 processor.

Apple updates the Mac Studio with better processors. Rumor was that Apple would drop that computer from its lineup.

Thursday 27 August 2026

Friday 28 August 2026

Saturday 29 August 2026

Sunday 30 August 2026