Dwayne Phillips ' Day Book

Items I happen to view each day. Science, Techonology, Management, Culture, and of course Writing

This is my day book for this week. I have modeled this after science fiction and computer writer Jerry Pournelle's view, or as he calls it, his Day Book. I encourage you to see Jerry Pournelle's site and subscribe to his services.

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This week: December January 13-19, 2014

Summary of this week:


Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday

Monday January 13, 2013

It is Monday and that is a typically slow news day.

This story is all over the Internet, so it must be important. An Uber car is attacked in Paris. I guess France shares a characteristic with San Francisco: if you don't like something, attack, hurt people, destroy property.

Now that Christmas has passed and Apple can't show their great Misunderstood ad, we have a new iPad Air ad about poetry.

Disturbing but not surprising: teens who watch shows about teen mothers think the life is great and everything works out just fine.

It seems that Target and Neiman Marcus were not the only retailers hacked recently. And some people still believe that Health Care dot Gov is and will be secure.

Time Warner continues to lose cable TV subscribers as the world continues to change.

HBO is making a comedy show about Silicon Valley, and lots of people in Silicon Valley won't like it.

Gender and race gaps in the tech fields starts in high school. Are any adults causing this or are the kids choosing this?

Yet another set of tips to overcome jet lag. Live on the destination time days before going. This doesn't help if you shift x hours and back in y days when x >> y, which is what many people have to do.

A look at the decline of the PC and how Microsoft sped instead of slowed the decline.

Star Wars fans can see lots of behind the scene photos now.

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Tuesday January 14, 2013

Facebook buys a company that will help them build a conversations group (not sure what that is).

A Japanese supercomputer crunched for 40 minutes to simulate one second of human brain activity. Is the fifth generation finally on the horizon? You have to be old to understand that question.

Western Digital explains their personal cloud products.

Google buys Nest for $3.2billion.

And now that a famous company is involved, people will start talking seriously about the Internet of things and privacy.

A programmer is collecting source code shown in movies and posting it with explanations. It seems that Hollywood routinely does stupid things in movies, and showing source code to wow an audience is one of those stupid things. Here is the tumblr blog containing all the examples.

Thoughts on the movie "Her" and user interfaces.

Google has jumped significantly in the number of patents it receives each year.

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Wednesday January 15, 2014

This could be the biggest news story of the decade: a Federal Court throws out the FCC's anti-blocking rules. Now ISPs can throttle web sites that don't pay extra. We shall see what happens next, but free speech on the Internet could disappear and all that or the FCC might learn how to write its rules.

Google releases Chrome version 32.

Google now enables searching for images that you can reuse for commercial use.

Someone has built their own Mac Pro clone in a real trash can. Someone has lots of time on their hands.

HP moves back into smartphones with 6" and 7" models. These are big phones.

A reminder: the less technology your product has, the more likely it is to last a long, long time.

Some tutorials on using git.

This guy will write for food and a bed. I wrote a short story about such several years ago.

Twitter is trying to have one home page and, since the mobile platform has the most limitations, it will look like the mobile platform.

Discovery launches Curiosity dot com - a learning center on the Internet.

Must see video: how little drones and wearable cameras are changing film making.

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Thursday January 16, 2014

A study of KickStarter projects reveals the magic phrases that bring money.

More explanation of the net neutrality court ruling.

The rise of robots and unemployment in one graph.

code.org and the Hour of Code are now pushing for more H-1B visas. Aha! as they say.

At long last, in 2014 Apple will catch up with Microsoft in the number of devices sold.

This could change everything on  a planet that is 2/3s water: essentially man-made gills that pull oxygen from the water.

oooops, Starbucks has been storing passwords for its payment system in clear text.

Startup founders in Silicon Valley are not paying themselves much. If, however, the company makes it, they will become millionaires.

A look at the little-known file system and how new advances can save the world.

Microsoft still hasn't named a new CEO. The Cleveland Browns still haven't named a new coach. When did you imagine those two organizations would be next to one another?

Trying to bring the price of telepresence down so it can be used in the home. This would be a tremendous aid for allowing the elderly to live in their own homes.

America's Best Main Streets. Of course this list is subjective.

The coffee-table tablet or couch tablet is here: Sharp releases a 15" tablet.

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Friday January 17, 2014

Everyone is waiting for our President's announcements on the future of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Real, valuable wearable computing from Google: contact lenses that sense glucose levels in eye fluids for diabetics and everyone else, too.

Smartphone sales worldwide will drop this year for the first time - saturation.

San Jose's airport will have a new private terminal largely funded and used by Google.

Security experts point to flaws in Health Care dot Gov that were highlighted two months ago and still exist. This is not surprising. It is disappointing, but not surprising.

And the Internet of Things has its security problems as well.

IBM will spend over $1billion this year on new cloud computing centers.

Thoughts on how to have remote workers working.

Amazon employees in Delaware decline to form a union.

Meet the engineer who designed the Nest thermostat and made the $3.2billion purchase possible.

Jobs for electrical engineers continue to drop.

It appears that most of the software needed to implement Obamacare isn't finished yet, and major pieces don't have an estimated date of completion. Your tax dollars at waste.

95% of ATMs still use Windows XP, and, well, you know, Microsoft is soon dropping all support for good old XP.

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Saturday January 18, 2014

Our President gave a speech about reforming the Intelligence Community. Let us see what happens next.

Hershey partners with 3D Systems to bring all sorts of special 3D printed chocolates. Food printing will be one of the early dominant players in the 3D printing world. As always, show me the printer that will print in only two dimensions; that is the printer I want.

Using the Chrome browser makes cross-platform development much easier.

Given recent violence by concerned citizen of San Franciso, Google has put security guards on its shuttle busses.

Congressmen ask Bruce Schneier to explain what NSA is doing becuase NSA won't.

Intel will lay off 5% of its global workforce in 2014.

Coming this Spring, Android tablets with Intel 64-bit processors.

Electric bicycles are becoming better, but still very costly.

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Sunday January 19, 2014

How to fake all the outdoor scenes in a movie. Excellent video shows how it is done. I hate this, but this is the way producers save money via software.

How Congressmen hide $millions in big budget bills. In this case, Kentucky and broadband, but there are, no doubt, dozens of other examples to be cited.

WordPress continues to rule the world of blogs and content management.

Two items here: (1) our economy is still lousy and (2) walk-in stores are dying.

On how the latest iPad ad shows the tablet to be today's general purpose computer. The vision became reality.

Many rich and famous tech guy are also huge jerks. Oh well.

In hindsight, we reacted poorly to 9 11. America is much worse today because of our reaction.

The State of Maryland is moving from Microsoft wares to Google Apps for Government.

How to write a one-page synopsis.

The question of perspective - inside or outside - for writers.

When you find the time to write, don't waste it.

On the use of Pinterest to sell what you write.

Experiences with forming a writer's group.

Thoughts on reading books about writing. I love to do that, but then you have to put away the book and actually write.

Hemingway on practicing to be an observer.

Take advantage of extreme weather (extreme discomfort) to learn how it feels and use it in writing.

How writers can make some money on the craft site Etsy.

This is an excellent post listing a hundred good writers' web sites.

Some thoughts on planning and creativity. Again, try it. If it works, use it.

Myths about writing. Sometimes it is helpful to read about what isn't true to find some truths.

Thoughts on self-publishing and how it may bring more money. Of course, if no one buys your work, you don't make any money.

The Progress Principle and how it may apply to writers.


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