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.
Go
to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home
Page
Email me at
d.phillips@computer.org
This
week: December 15-21, 2014
Summary of this week:
- iRobot releases Create 2 robotics experiment platform
- Apple relases "The Song" Christmas tear-jerker ad
- NASA: a money burning buruearcracy
- Skype real-time voice language processing become a reality
- Sony Hack: show this movie and we'll murder your customers
- The Sony Hackers have the ultimate win
- Many artists and writers criticize Sony's retreat
- The US re-establishes diplomatic relations with Cuba
Monday
- Tuesday
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Friday
- Saturday
- Sunday
Monday December 15, 2014
Apple breaks our hearts again at Christmas with an ad—The Song. Excellent.
iRobot releases Create 2: a $200 programmable base for robotics experiments.
Uber turns up the political pressure in the US.
Sony is "asking" news media to stop repeating the Sony hack leaks.
Contrary to dire predictions by climate change promoters, we have had 3 years of very few tonadoes.
A couple of Raspberry Pis will go to the ISS next year.
Try this: the ODROID-C1 a $35, quad core, Linux computer.
Girls Who Code is expanding its program to bring women back to computer science. It is problematic to eliminate gender discrimination in computer science by discriminating by gender.
DARPA has built a laser-guided 50-caliber bullet.
What you buy depends on where you live in America. Excellent interactive graphics here.
A map of the world's offline population. India and China lead the world in those who cannot go online.
Email me at
d.phillips@computer.org
Go
to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home
Page
Tuesday December 16, 2014
NASA has become nothing but a money-burning Washington bureaucracy. Mourn.
We can now talk to our Google Nest thermostat.
Google is preparing a "Buy Now" button and will jump into online commerce.
Apple gives (some of) its employees as customized Apple Incase backpack as a year-end bonus.
Gartner expects Apple to have yet another record 4th quarter financially.
How is our economy for everyone else? 1/4 of Americans are going to church food pantries.
Skype Translator is open for use for a few people today.
Microsoft's Sway is now open for everyone.
2014 in review summarized in Google search terms.
The demand for solar panels rose 16% this year.
Spire: it monitors your breathing and tells you when you are distressed. This could be a wonderful gadget-app for some people who struggle with self awareness.
Google says that its servers and services are the most protected in the world.
About 40% of us altered our online behavior after the Edward Snowden leaks.
Email me at
d.phillips@computer.org
Go
to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home
Page
Wednesday December 17, 2014
Thoughts on centralized and distributed computing. Good read.
USB Armory: a secure Linux computer on a USB stick.
Moleskine has an iPhone 6 holder notebook.
Look for the mainstream media to use little drones to gather news in the near future. Also look for battles between Free Speech and the FCC and FAA.
Show this movie and we'll burn down your theatre. The Sony Hack turns ugly(er).
How to start a consulting business by Seth Godin. Pretty good, brief advice.
The price of oil and the unstable Ruble causes Apple to stop online sales in Russia.
Dr. Dobb's Journal ends publication at the end of December.
Why buy articles on how to program when everything you ever wanted to
know is free on the Internet? It paid a few bills for some of us for a
few years.
We may have accidentally discovered how to keep our skin from aging.
Facebook is now auto-enhancing photos for us. The results are, of course, much better.
Thoughts on college education, careers, and education technology.
Technology is killing white-collar jobs as well.
If you have a paid, cable TV login, you can watch NBC shows online at any time.
Email me at
d.phillips@computer.org
Go
to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home
Page
Thursday December 18, 2014
The communists are having a good week. Cuba wins the waiting game as
our President re-establishes dimplomatic relations. Sony bows to terror
threats from North Korea and pulls its silly movie. Human rights had a
bad week. And I thought the Senate had to approve things like this.
And now that hacker-terrorists have won, what happens next?
Another movie in production about North Korea has been cancelled.
Will new relations bring better Internet access to Cuba's subjects? Of course not. Its a Communist country.
Google drive now imports ODF files for word processing, spreasheets, etc.
Amazon announces a big update to the Fire phone. Everyone yawns. Maybe next year the Fire will succeed in the marketplace.
Now that its founder left, AnandTech was purchased.
In a no-duh its-about-time move, US intel admits that the North Korean government hacked Sony.
TeachPitch.com: gathering resources for teachers so they can do more in less time.
DARPA continues to make improvement on a mind-controlled prosthetic.
Blackberry moves forward to the past with a new push-button smartphone.
IBM improves computer vision to detect skin cancer much earlier.
Amazon Prime Now: one-hour delivery of your order if you live in New York City. No plans yet for Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana.
SpaceX will attempt to land the first stage rocket on a barge in the Atlantic.
Email me at
d.phillips@computer.org
Go
to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home
Page
Friday December 19, 2014
Email me
at
d.phillips@computer.org
Go
to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home
Page
Saturday December 20, 2014
George R.R. Martin blasts Sony for bowing to terrorist threats.
And more criticism of Sony pulling its movie. Hacking a network connected to the Internet is one thing, being able to blow up every cinema in America is something else.
With the Sony hack, maybe computer programming is like having nuclear weapons or something.
Google enables Android smartphone cameras to shoot in RAW—you can see the photo before processing.
The USBdriveby: plug this little computer into a USB port of another computer and zap, all your good data is stolen.
Connect your iPad to your Mac with a WIRE (not wireless) and you have a high-quality second display.
A BBC investigation claims that Apple's factory workers are mistreated.
Tim Cook strongly denounces the report as false.
The logical case that North Korea is not behind the Sony hack. I tend to believe this argument.
And the threats keep coming at Sony.
Software bots outnumber people on the Internet.
Email me at
d.phillips@computer.org
Go
to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home
Page
Sunday December 21, 2014
If you thought you knew everything you could do in Google, read this. How about a timer?
Bruce Schneier provides lessons on the Sony hack.
A look at the Athenaeum (private library) in Providence, Rhode Island. Sigh. I wish I were there now.
The $30 smartphone—the future of the mobile world and the key to adding a billion people to the Internet.
Reddit promises to give away $5million in some sort of private currency.
Next year, half the processors Intel produces will be custom designs.
A list of gifts for the freelance writer you know.
Changing your writing attitude can make a big difference.
This may sound like petty little advice that you give to a ten-year-old
kid, but it isn't. The most good that comes from writer's groups and
writing seminars and such is that someone reads something they wrote
and instead of people laughing they say something like, "I liked that.
Read some more of your writing." The thought hits the previously
scorned writer that s/he isn't a (fill in the blank with a terrible
word). There are actually people who enjoy the writer's words. The
writer's attitude changes, and with it the entire outlook on life. This
make sense as writing is all in the heart and the head. Change what is
inside the heart and the heard and the writing changes.
How to outline a short story. I guess if you are new to writing short stories this can help you move past the blank page.
Qoutes about becoming and staying a writer.
Criticizing Sony's retreat at hackers' demands. Do we let morons decide what stories we tell?
People who work from home, writers and others, often hear these comments. The unemployed also hear them.
Writers love and hate to write and write about writing.
The use of personality types to create characters for fiction.
A few tips on writing more, writing faster, and having more ideas.
Practicing minimalism as a lifestyle and how that can help a person find the time to write.
Email me at
d.phillips@computer.org
Go
to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home
Page