Summary of this week:

Regin: a newly publized malware
Tight regulations for commerical drone use
Several big sites have been hacked (again)
Sousveillance and the rise of little brother
Thanksgiving Day in America is this week
Euopean Parliament votes to break up Google

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

Monday November 24, 2014

Feedly is not working this morning, so I am searching the old-fashioned way.

The European Union may try to break apart Google. Let's try to predict this one. European politicians are considering hurting an American company in Europe. Sounds like a sure thing to me.

Google abandons attempts to sell Glass from retail stores.

Hackers divulge thousands of video game player passwords. I glad this will never happen with Health Care dot Gov (not).

Apple may sell 72million iPhones this quarter. That is a large number. The definition of success has changed.

Royal Caribbean's new ship Quantum of the Seas is getting a lot of attention from tech sites. It appears to be better than Disneyland to adult tech types.

Symantec tells the world about Regin: malware that has been running around the world a couple of years and probably was created by a government spy agency.

The new high in pampering desired employees in Silicon Valley. Enjoy it while you can.

Malware has been found in Chinese-made eCigarette chargers. Beware of anything from China that you connect to your computer.

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Tuesday November 25, 2014

I'm still having trouble with Feedly. I am wondering if the problem is with the Community Canteen's routers and firewalls and all that.

In America we approach that day after Thanksgiving that was given that awful title of Black Friday. Apple announces its shopping-day deals.

The ultimate gift guide from Ars Technica.

After you buy an appliance from Amazon, they will send you names of recommended installers.

In its never-ending effort to kill jobs, our government announces strict commercial drone restrictions.

It seems that everybody or nobody wants to make a movie about Steve Jobs. I wonder if they will have a scene in the movie where Jobs consorts with others on illegal wage fixing.

Sony Pictures has been hacked. I am glad that the government web site that has everyone's health insurace information, what was it called?, will never be hacked.

Craigslist was hijacked for a few hours leading people to a prank site instead. Again, won't ever happen with Health Care dot Gov (not).

Yet another report that says solar and wind power are on the cusp of competing with fossil fuels. Let me know when WalMart is having a Black Friday sale on backyard windmills and car-top solar panels.

Google GigaBit Internet in Austin is $70 per month. I wish I had it.

Meet Alexey Pajitnov: the man who created Tetris.

I guess this falls under #whydidittakesolongtodothis why did it take so long to do this? Delivery companies are using smaller trucks for tight city streets. Again, this is so obvious that I wonder about the compentence of UPS FedEx and the rest.

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Wednesday November 26, 2014

HP's financial quarter wasn't as good as expected.

There is no shortage of tech workers. There is now, and always has been, a shortage of highly qualified people willing to work at low wages. Given today's technology, it is easy to find qualified people in places where $1/day is a good salary and transport those people to here where they displace American engineers.

Former Google experts proclaim that renewable energy won't ever work as well as we wish it would.

The Solid State Disc may have finally caught its spinning cousin. The SDD may replace the HDD for good.

Tumblr and Pinterest are the hottest social media platforms.

Dropbox and Microsoft: their partnership goes live today so we can edit MS documents in Dropbox from Android and iOS. The world is getting more mobile, but call me when a Pulitzer novel is written on an iPhone.

Sousveillance or the rise of little brother as we all video and record everything around us all the time.

The value of Apple stock continues to climb to unprecendented levels. Soon Apple will be worth more than the rest of the world combined or some such thing and we might as well annoint Tim Cook at the next Executive Order Declarer in Chief or some such title.

The sales of iPads are falling, but nearly as fast as the general collapse in the tablet market. The smartphone have won.

Sony's computers are still being held hostage by hackers.

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Thursday November 27, 2014

Today is Thanksgiving Day in America.

The most important story of Thanksgiving Day: the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be on iTunes tomorrow.

It seems that some people have been flying their drones near airports. It takes a special class of dimwit to do such.

GoPro is working on its own line of drones for next year. Good stuff, but don't fly them near airports.

A look at the state-of-the-practice in Chromebooks. Given that Google is now giving 1TeraByte of drive storage ($250 value), the $250 Chromebooks are sort of free.

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are stealing the reading market from the iPad.

I like George Will's Thanksgiving Day editorial about, well about all the silliness in government. It is a shame that well intentioned people can act so.

Let's be careful with this one. Inject human chromosones into cows and the cows make human anti-bodies.

A little-known fact: American hunters donate 11million meals annualy to the needy.

H1B visas and the abysmal state of American education. The government arm that educates the public is a failure. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions.

We can now buy Windows 8 tablets for under $100.

Facebook hires Vladimir Vapnik, the father of statistical learning.

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Friday November 28, 2014

This is the day after Thanksgiving, which in many ways is an unofficial shopping holiday in the U.S.

The hacking of Sony continues to drag on with files being released to the public.

T he Syrian Electronic Army is hacking famous media sites worldwide.

The European Parliament votes to breakup Google—this is only symbolic with no enforcement possible.

This post brought back many horrible memories of graduate school. There was never enough time for anything. It was awful.

A new business model: “startup studios” or “startup factories.”

A look inside the W3C and how HTML5 came to be.

Sony seems to understand what a wrist watch is. Sony shocks the world with an e-paper watch.

I like to see photos of workspaces. Ars Technica shows many of theirs.

Giant solar power plants are coming online. These are interesting experiments to monitor.

This is a hidden jewel: editing photos with OS X's Preview.
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Saturday November 29, 2014

Oh well, BestBuy.com crashes on Black Friday.

The Internet of Things and NoSQL. The world will become a mess, so be ready for mess.

Explaining the trailer for Star Wars VII.

Inside a giant Amazon fulfillment center, a.k.a., a big warehouse with low-paid people.

Black Friday is quickly becoming buy-online Friday.

And all that stuff may be eclipsed by online shopping on Thanksgiving day.

Does the Firefox browser have a future?

A powerful, brief essay about Ferguson, MO. It's not about skin, it's about sin.

Under the heading of we-should-have-been-doing-this-for-years, a smartphone charger that uses only a 9-volt battery.

The best compact cameras.

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Sunday November 30, 2014

Alistair Cockburn has a good essay about thinking and programming.

A look at some of the challenges to bringing the other 4.3billion persons into the Internet.

We already have Lego reenactments of the Star Wars trailer. Some people must never sleep.

And we have a Star Wars trailer as if George Lucas made it.

A look at how Google dominates the European markets.

Writers must schedule time for naps and other "do nothing" activities.

The value of having someone who can give you advice.

You are a writer. Tell people that you are a writer.

Thoughts on writing precise, concrete, and specific.

Already we have the New Year's resolutions on becoming a better writer in 2015.

For writers who are married, have some sympathy for your spouse.

For those writers who like their product too much...

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