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 September 22-28, 2014

Summary of this week:

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

Monday September 22, 2014

When Yahoo first met Alibaba.

Alibaba's stock price gained 38% the first day.

Sales of the iPhone 6 Plus are above expectations; more money for Apple.

China's government increases the restrictions on Google and others in China. Good old fashioned censorship at work.

A gate crasher actually made his way into the White House. Secret Service? The answer is to move the fences even further away from the building. Incompetence leads to further restriction of citizens.

Every year, Jeff Bezos hosts a writer's weekend party—quite exclusive and quite expensive. The admission ticket is silence. The event may not happen this year.

How our government schools are mining data from our children. Don't worry, it is all safe (not).

An excellent use of image processing and pattern recognition technology. A blind person takes an iPhoto of a sign, the software speaks the contents of the sign.

The scams of job interview tests are growing. Be very careful of these. A job interview is an interview, it is not a consulting session.

Fifty years of the Moog synthesizer.

How one company quit email and started using other tools to share knowledge.

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Tuesday September 23, 2014

Apple sold ten million iPhones in one weekend. That is a lot of anything in one weekend.

People are quickly  moving to iOS 8. Lucky them. I can't update because my devices don't have enough memory. What is the deal with that?

Yet more information on how full of security holes that Health Care dot Gov thing is.

Amazon employees in Germany walk out because of wage disputes.

And other, new, new-fangled business models are hitting regualtion walls in Europe. New sharing economy? Not there.

Adobe, of PhotoShop fame, buys Aviary—another photo editing software company.

How to transform a Starbucks bag into a wallet.

The rapidly increasing use of robotics on American farms.

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Wednesday September 24, 2014

Once again, writers about the "tech" industry confuse design and requirements.

Wink: remember that name as this little company may dominate the "smart home" marketplace.

Facebook wants to play in the area of having drones fly over remote areas to bring Internet access. One thing seems lacking in all these flying access points: what do to in bad weather. Hurricanes and all that tend to knock down little solar-powered drones.

Google plans to have its Loon balloons covering the southern hemisphere in 2015.

A teardown shows that the iPhone 6 has at least $200 in parts alone.

Sebastian Thrun leaves Google X to work full time at Udacity. Perhaps he can straighten out the mess that is Udacity.

Blackberry, remember them(?), comes out with a square smartphone.

Our President is encouraging China to play nice with regards to global warming. Hold your breath.

New ear plugs that block harmful sound, but don't look so ugly.

Excellent examples of how the camera on the iPhones has improved from one generation to the next.

Google will build a $772Billion data center in Eemshaven in the Netherlands.

$14/gigabyte with no contract: an LTE WiFi hotspot. Interesting.

India has a spacecraft orbiting Mars. The whole thing cost less than most Hollywood movies. NASA? Hello, NASA?

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Thursday September 25, 2014

When hit by a daunting situation, stop and breathe. Oxygen does wonders for the brain, body, and soul.

Perhpas it is a good thing that I wasn't able to install iOS 8. Apple already releasing fixes to iOS 8. ooops. And Apple is showing us how to go back to iOS 7.

Apple cashes in on the back-to-schoool computer sales. Macs get 26% market share.

The world is close to the brink of something or other as we all learn that the iPhone 6 plus can bend in your pocket.

Researchers have found a security hole in the bash shell that could affect all Linux and OS X machines. If you found such a problem in MS Windows, everyone would yawn and give you the what's-new look. It is news to find it in bash.

This is beautiful. Let's go all the way back to a keyboard that looks like an old typewriter. USB and bluetooth so you can use it with your little Android or iOS tablet. Great stuff.

Don't be surprised by rumors out of China as they are probably true. Teens in China are being forced to work in tech factories. That tablet or smartphone in our hands was probably made by a 13-year-old who went to work "or else."

Here are the winners of the Google Science Fair. Good on Google for doing this.

Google's efforts at hiring women are failing miserably.

Amazon is building up its Silicon Valley hardware unit to develop smart home devices. Let's wish for security built in from the start.

Miss a payment on your car, the lender can disable the ignition. Ah, perhaps an unintended consequence of smarter cars.

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Friday September 26, 2014

The Amtrak writers' residency program is about to start.

The director of our FBI doesn't like the new privacy policies of Apple and Google.

Apple releases iOS 8.0.2 (2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 echo).

Regarding all those bending iPhones: Apple has received nine complaints. Ten million units sold the first weekend, nine complaints. I would take that.

India's mission to Mars was so inexpensive because the Indians limited their goals. NASA? Hello, NASA.

Our Forest Service wants citizens to first get permits before taking photos on publicly funded publicly owned public lands.

Germany's DHL is about to start drone deliveries in Germany.

If you redefine words, you can do anything. Of course you become a liar, and if that is okay with you...

Apple claims that the bash security hole will not affect "most" OS X users.

Everyone on the Internet is carrying this story: Apple lets people inside the building where they do environmental testing on hardware.

That square Blackberry smartphone has already sold out (200,000 units).

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Saturday September 27, 2014

I like this management concept: the premortem. Predict why the current project might fail before it begins. This is commonly known as risk management, but the term premortem gives more life to it.

Everyone is pounding Apple's QA manager regarding iOS 8 problems. They are confusing quality assurance with quality control and systems engineering. Ignorance is bliss.

A look at cultural and legal differences: Samsung employs more people than Google, Apple, and Microsoft combined. The American companies probably have many more contract workers and part-time workers. The Korean company values the value to society of persons having full-time jobs.

Yahoo retires Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle or Yahoo.

Richard Branson is giving SOME employees unlimited time off for any reason. Note SOME employees, not ALL employees.

3M has a new, powerful app to help work with those paper Post-It notes. It requires iOS 8.

Airline passengers in Europe can leave their mobile devices on the entire flight. Let's see if planes fall from the sky. It is nice of the Europeans to do this demontration for our FAA and FCC.

Amazon will start delivering groceries in New York City.

The next (maybe, but probably not) Facebook killer is Ello.

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Sunday September 28, 2014

If you have moved to iOS 8, now you cannot go back to 7.

The STEM paradox: colleges are producing STEM graduates with the wrong skills.

News on all the drone incidents at our National Parks. It is unfortunate that they are becoming a nuiscance and just plain trashy.

Some of the benefits that physical exercise bring to the writer.

Consumer Reports, still independent and still trusted, shows that the iPhone 6 isn't all that bendable.

Microsoft sort of tells us what they are going to call Windows 9.

Each year, about 450 Americans are hit by lightning and live, but their lives are altered by brain "damage."

More about Ello. The latest, quite fashionable, probably to fail Facebook competitor.

Building your capacity to create more.

When writing, be interesting. Clevel, but probably  not helpful.

Excellent post with photos of writers and their workspaces.

A review of The Porches in Virginia. Go there and write. Here is the website for The Porches.

Thoughts on creating the habit of writing. Write some everyday. It may amaze you what you have after a week, month, or year.

Keep your day job while you freelance at night. A "new study" show that practice works better.

How to brand yourself as an author.

Wasting the ability and opportunity to write.

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