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 August 4-10, 2014

Summary of this week:

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

Monday August 4, 2014

The aerostat—a tethered blimp—is the most cost effective form of state surveillance of subjects.

Is the tablet computer dead already?

Mohiomap turns much of your information into mind maps. This could be excellent, let's see.

In a major change by the NFL, NFL teams can have Microsoft tablets on the sidelines and can review video of plays. To date, the NFL has outlawed most technology on the sidelines. I am surprised to see tablets allowed. The choice of Microsoft tablets is a money deal where Microsoft paid the NFL a few hundred million dollars to have their systems on the sideline and on TV all the time.

There have been recent advances in spray-on solar power cells. Still, this is a long way from practical.

The Chrome browser now has 20% of the market. I am surprised to see that it long ago passed Firefox.

How to be nice to a flight attendant. Give them your pen.

The state-of-the-practice in Ultrabook portable computers.

Even with unprecedented layoffs, most Microsoft employees like their new CEO.

Ranking the best smartphones.

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Tuesday August 5, 2014

Instant gratification delivery services and the persons who make the deliveries.

A little more information about the coming luxury style watch from HP.

ooops, LinkedIn cheated employees on pay and overtime and is paying it back now.

It appears that some businesses believe they can improve their business by bullying customers on the Internet. Some people learn slowly.

Why wear a sensor when you can put one in your car seat, your sofa, your kitchen counter, etc.

Tracy Chou is the engineer who pushed tech companies to show how few women engineers and scientists they employ. Good for her.

How to hack and unlock a car door—for a car you do not own.

MIT can capture audio by looking at the vibrations of an object in a video. An old technique to listen to conversations is to use a laser to detect the vibrations on an object in a room. This new technique allows capturing audio from a video of a conversation that occurred long ago.

Here is a good cause for technologists to join: hack North Korea.

SpaceX is moving in to Brownsville, Texas—a very poor area.

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Wednesday August 6, 2014

The state of the practice in processors for computers. We used to call these the Central Processing Unit or CPU, but then they all became microprocessors.

As if things were going well enough at Apple, the app store had a record-breaking month.

Sprint drops the idea of buying T-Mobile.

Samsung and Apple agree to stop suing each other outside the US.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation now has a Stupid Patent of the Month award. The first winner is indeed stupid, and I have to wonder about the people working at the USPTO.

Our terrorist watch list has a million names on it.

Russian hackers steal over a billion passwords. Of course Health Care dot Gov is secure.

I strongly doubt this article about Microsoft and software development. The daily build and smoke test came from Microsoft.

It seems there are Edward Snowden copycats in the intelligence community.

Seeing through walls with WiFi signals. This is a simple application of radio detection and ranging.

Microsoft will soon be selling the Surface Pro in more countries, but no one is buying them. If you want to be unique and stand out in the coffee and wifi crowd, buy a Surface Pro 3.

The government of China bans Apple products for official use.

A recent study shows that an aspirin a day cuts the risk of cancer.

Marques Brownlee—20 years old, best tech reviewer in the world, and 1.5million YouTube subscribers.

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Thursday August 7, 2014

It appears that Twitter will move into shopping services.

uBeam and a method of wireless charging that uses sound waves.

Google teams with Barnes and Noble to sell books and deliver them to you the same day.

NASA's Curiosity rover has been on Mars two years. Sometimes NASA has a success. I wonder why the other 90% of the time they just piddle about.

There are two million people still paying AOL for access to the Internet.

This isn't a surprise, but it is a view of the future: YouTube stars are popular with teenagers, not established media celebrities.

Netflix continues to grow. Netflix now has more subscriber revenue than HBO.

The European right to be forgotten is now affecting Wikipedia. Thw whole thing has become one great big censorship scam.

Recent trends are showing the death of the startup company. I tend to doubt the alarm.

Your doctor will not be interested in the "health" data you collect on your wristband. Those are cute hobby toys. Doctors are interested only in data collected from systems they precribe.

Tourists are flying drones in Yellowstone National Park. Yes, accidents happen, our parks are a mess.

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Friday August 8, 2014

The Internet and WiFi system is causing headaches today at the coffee shop.

The Valley Strikes Back or something like that; Silicon Valley pushes back against its stereotype.

NFL Now—a new app that brings plenty of free NFL video.

Pushing the boundaries of ignorance back or is it forward. Global censorship continues to grow against Google.

One more time: the Nest thermostat, and most other Internet of things things, can be hacked to spy on you.

A new baby monitor that attaches to the ankle. Per above, I hope they have security built in.

Windows 9 attempts to be different-er than Windows 8, a.k.a., Vista 2.0.

A review of the state of the practice in tablet computers.

The call to eliminate the speech bubble that is used all the time everywhere for everything.

This buy worked at Microsoft, Google, and Facebook and tells about all three.

Now the Chinese government says they have not banned Apple products.

Our military is exploring 3D printed food. Why not?

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Saturday August 9, 2014

Alienware introduces a thinner gaming laptop computer.

A Federal judge rejects the wage fixing settlement in Silicon Valley—not enough money.

Windows 8 is dead. No more major upgrades. Wait for Windows 9. Windows 8 was a Vista 2.0. I am surprised that Microsoft survived this disaster. Their resiliency is remarkable as are their financial reserves.

But Microsoft is gaining in the cloud market.

John McAfee warns of smartphone app surveillance.

CBS, those TV guys, are making shows that will only be seen on the Internet. I expect the other "TV networks" to do the same. It is a great time to be a low-paid actor, writer, et al.

900 authors buy a full-page Sunday New York Times ad to protest Amazon.

Finally, a paper business card that has a USB memory stick in it.

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Sunday August 10, 2014

A closer look at the Timbuk2 Laptop Messenger bag.

In one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever, we will get the gadget that fills and ties 100 water balloons in a minute. I hope that the success of the funding campaign will not lead to failure of the manufacturing.

If Steve Jobs were still alive, he would be vilified by the wage-fixing case.

Myths passed about among those of use using gadgets.

Looking into the world of everything-as-a-service.

How one woman tried to navigate through the brogrammers and such in Silicon Valley.

Walk to increase creativity.

Some tips to make proofreading yoru own writing a little easier.

Why one writer went to independent publishing.

Know your characters, setting, and plot before you start, or find them soon thereafter.

Writing as a lifestyle. Yes, it takes over large parts of the lives of some of us.

Use the misery of a day job to help you become a freelancer. There are some good ideas here. One of the biggest is that to be a freelancer you have to control your spending and your lifestyle. This cannot be overemphasized.

Thoughts concerning and challenges of location independent work. You have to work more hours than everyone else thinks you do.

How one freelance writer moved from failure to success.

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