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: January 12-18, 2015

Summary of this week:

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

Monday January 12, 2015

Amazon won a Golden Globe award for its "TV" series. We'll have to find another name for these things as "TV series" doesn't seem to work any longer.

GoPro to update the Hero4 in February.

Samsung will put an 8-core processor into its Galaxy A7 phone.

Following Skype, Google is about to show its own real-time foreign language speech translator.

A look at the best external monitors for your Apple computer.

Windows 7 reaches its mid-life point—still world's most popular OS.

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Tuesday January 13, 2015

Ohio State defeats Oregon in a Nike-sponsored, made-for-TV exhibition game.

PC sales weren't as bad in 2014. That isn't much, but it is good news.

ISIS hacks into US military accounts.

Tim Cook ensured a "I am Charlie" app was fast tracked onto the app store. Good for him.

In Britain, where they don't have a Bill of Rights, the government wants to ban encryption.

France has deployed 10,000 soldiers domestically—many to protect Jewish schools. This is unravelling quickly and badly.

The battle between PHP and JavaScript to run the Internet.

SpaceX has successfully resupplied the International Space Station.

Artificial Intelligence researchers are trying to create the three laws of AI or something like that.

Americans continue to move south and west.

Bruce Schneier on why we should delete old files or move them off the network.

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Wednesday January 14, 2015

I am struggling with poor Internet access this morning...

Goals: SMART replaced by CLEAR.

Apple and Google reach a settle with employees over the wage fixing legal case. Adobe and Intel are also in on the agreement.

This writer wrote 2,500 words a day to finish a book. Some consider that incredibly fast writing. Others yawn at it.

Marissa Mayer says Google 20% is really 120% time.

Facebook will have AMBER alerts in the news feed.

Falling gas prices mean Russia is edging towards hyper-inflation. Not good for the rest of us.

Firefox 35 is released.

Our Federal government wants to over rule state laws in 19 states regarding broadband access. The central government always knows best, right?

A $10 wall charger can intercept typing from Microsoft's wireless keyboards.

IBM shows its new z13 mainframe computer. We used to call these things supercomputers.

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Thursday January 15, 2015

It seems that much of the PC resurgence in 2014 was from Chromebooks.

Facebook at Work is released to a few business partners.

In the UK, people in their 60s are taking all the apprenticeship jobs intended for the young.

Ammon, Idaho—dark fibers and low cost of living is ripe for business.

Marriot decided against blocking personal WiFi networks on its premises. I guess this is one piece of evidence against the adage that all publicity, even bad publicity, is good publicity.

Radio Shack is going bankrupt. They are exploring options on how to do so.

Only in America; only on the Internet. Ship your enemy glitter cries, "stop using our product."

ooops, the oceans are rising quite as much as climate researchers claimed.

The Saudis are planning a 600-mile long security fence on their Iraqi border. Sounds like a good jobs program.

Google partners with Detroit auto parts makers to build prototype driverless cars.

Only 65 of 3000 counties in America have recovered from the recession. Recovery? Who is kidding?

Gotcha, activist tricks military personnel and journalist into using his WiFi network at a conference.

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Friday January 16, 2015

See the Priority bicycle—practically  maintenance free.

Hackers for hire to do "petty" hacking. I guess there is a difference between burglary and petty theft in the computer world.

Our Secretary of State is now apologizing to France for our absence in the show of unity against murder.

Google Glass moves from Google to Nest.

Apple will open five new stores in China in the next month.

Worldwide, the mobile industry created 11million jobs last year and $3.3trillion.

Intel had a good financial quarter.

$2billion of Intel revenue came from the Internet of Things.

Virginia Tech (a local favorite) will test drones for news agencies.

Richard Branson wants to put up 648 Internet satellites.

Images of the SpaceX vehicle crashes into the barge in attempted landing.

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Saturday January 17, 2015

Skydio: little RC flyers (drones) to go where you point them. You don't fly them with a joystick any longer. History changes right before our eyes.

MacUser Magazine stops publication after 30 years. History changes right before our eyes.

Survey shows Apple employees like their company far more than everyone else likes theirs. Big applause for Tim Cook as CEO.

Linus Torvalds is in the tech news concerning being nice, ugly, mean, and what diversity means in the tech world. Here is the story that put him in trouble. Here is an attempt to explain himself.

A review of Fedora 21.

Our Federal government will no longer allow states to seize property without warrant. Our Federal government will continue to do so. Am I missing something here?

Be My Eyes: excellent combination of technology and social media to help those whose eyes don't work well.

The GOP attempts to return legislative power to Congress via a draft net neutrality bill.

Google has found more MS Windows bugs and is releasing them to the public because Microsoft won't respond.

Facebook has released AI and other advanced software into open source for others to use.  See torch.ch.

Seth Godin's checklist for marketing materials.

51% of public school students are "poor" (as measured by some arbitrary measurement).

Again, as measured by some arbitrary measurement, 2014 was the hotest year in the history of the world. Someone most of us seemed to survive to see 2015.

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Sunday January 18, 2015

Making devices thinner often means less battery power. Battery technology is NOT advancing at any rate near that of the other components.

Our President agrees with UK Prime Minister: personal encryption is bad for government. I recall something in the Bill of Rights about privacy, but then I'm the kind of naive person who read that document and thought it meant what it said.

It seems that it is easy to convince an innocent adult that they have indeed committed a crime.

Using computers and computer vision to read the emotions on the faces in the crowd.

This freelance writer earns $100K/year, but works works works works.

Writing non-fiction means no money as everyone just looks at Wikipedia. And five minutes after your book hits the market, Wikipedians put the content on Wikipedia.

Jobs, some full time, that give you time to write.

Notes on taking care of your health. Writers and other freelancers must do this.

One writer understands his actual use of a portable computer and that maybe he will never buy a new one again.

One writer considers using a pen name.

Dreams, goals, and habits and writers.

For those who like or hate lists, 42 writing posts from 2014.

Ideas on bring more people to your blog posts.

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