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: March 2-8, 2015

Summary of this week:

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

Monday March 2, 2015

The Mobile World Congress is this week in Barcelona, Spain. We expect lots of new stuff.

Interesting article on life-long learning in the age where knowledge doubles every 17 years.

SanDisc puts 200GigaBytes onto a microSD card. That is amazing.

Twitter blocks ISIS tweets; ISIS promises to kill Twitter's CEO. Welcome to the new world. Perhaps more people will understand what these ISIS types are really like.

Samsung shows its new Galaxy 6 phones.

Xiaomi has its own GoPro camera for only $64. A little state sponsorship goes a long way.

Lenovo shows two new sub-$200 tablets.

Silicon Valley may one day soon dominate the auto industry.

Forward to the past: Mozilla shows new flip and slider phones.

A SpaceX launch delivers two satellites to orbit. Multiple payloads is a significant technical achievement.

This is a surprise (not): FCC regulations will slow mobile innovation.

Google+ is splitting into Photos and Streams. I'm not sure what that means, but the plus brand may soon be gone.

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Tuesday March 3, 2015

Will the Apple Watch be like the Newton? Ten years too soon and lacking the technology to make it work?

Hillary Clinton continues trying to destroy her own presidential campaign before it starts. The US Secy of State didn't use an official email during her 4 years on the job. Security risk. Federal crime. She just thinks she is above all those rules that are for all those other ordinary people.

Google confirms that it will step into the wireless phone business.

Russians spend half their money on food this year. Low gas prices worldwide lead to instability there.

People sleep and walk out on Zuckerburg's Mobile World Congress keynote.

Yahoo turns 20, and Marissa Mayer continues her attempts to change its course.

Qualcomm continues to evolve the world's mobile processors.

Mozilla releases Firefox Developer Edition 38 which has 64-bit support.

The money from China's movie theaters surpasses America's for the first time. It's a numbers game.

Panasonic has a home security camera that uses the cellphone network instead of WiFi.

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Wednesday March 4, 2015

Maybe Apple learned something from its shuttle bus drivers as it hires its security guards as real employees.

Pause a moment before reading this: SanDisk now has a storage array of flash drives.

Intel describes their rather complicated new naming scheme for the Atom processors.

"Vigilant Video is compiling a vast database tracking Americans’ movements." Legal?

Pebble Time sets some sort of world record for Kickstarter funding. Apple? Who? Watch?

ooops, FREAK security hole in computers since the 1990s. I trust (not) that none of the computers involved in Health Care dot Gov had this problem.

Sony has sold 20million PlayStation 4 units.

A woman has operated a flight simulator using her thoughts. Yes, this is a research stunt, but it shows what is coming for those whose bodies don't function.

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Thursday March 5, 2015

The Runcible: a smart pocket watch. Much more practical than the smart watch.

A Federal judge approves a larger, but still small, settlement in the Silicon Valley wage-fixing case.

Meta rumors: Apple is delaying the production of yet-to-be-announced large iPad.

Ubisoft has a new video game that helps treat lazy eye.

A new culture term for me: the Loser Edit and how today's tech makes it easy to do to anyone. Once you goof, someone can easily find clues that should have foreshadowed your bad day.

Guess what? It is easy to hack our air traffic control system. But worry not, Health Care dot Gov is okay (not).

Hot job skill in 2015: certified Linux system administrator.

Google Glass is alive in the business world. Again, augmented reality glasses have work applications—always had them. The technology isn't ready for the walking around world.

Technical details on how insecure our former Secretary of State's email was (and still is).

Nvidia gives a glimpse at its next processor: 12GByte frame buffer and a billion transistors on a chip.

Apple Pay remains secure, but the systems around it have problems.

How Huawei skipped the hype and made a computer watch the people will actually buy and use.

HBO is trying to partner with Apple to make its HBO Now online service succeed.

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Friday March 6, 2015

Microsoft has released a beta of Office 2016 for Mac, and it is free for a while.

Forget self-driving cars, here come the self-driving buses.

Sling TV has 100,000 subscribers in its first month. This is a new marketplace with HBO and others trying it as well. We shall see what happens here.

Odd, The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will stop having elephants in 2018.

Harrison Ford lands his plane on a golf course after engine failure. He is okay.

The suicide rate among young women is rising. We can debate the affects of video video video.

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Saturday March 7, 2015

VMWare finds itself in court for possible violation of Linux open source license.

The future of correspondence and the possible demise of email. No, paper mail will not come back.

This robotic glove helps stroke victims regain the use of their hands. This is what we should be doing in technology.

More details on the silliness of Hillary Clinton's home email server.

Apple makes major changes to its iPad in Education program.

The quiet but significant success of Office 365 and how it is beating Google.

This story is all over the Internet, so it must be important. Our Dept of Justice has indicted hackers for the theft of a billion email addresses.

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Sunday March 8, 2015

A look at the lineup of Steam Machines for gaming.

A look back at past and ahead to future browser wars. The "simple" window to the world.

Stockholm and New York: considering broadband availability and adoption, technology and culture.

The future will have better robotics and fewer jobs. The robots won't look like robots; the unemployment will look the same.

London tries a bluetooth beacon system to help the blind move their the stations. This is what we should be doing with technology.

How Google keeps employees happy: "Nice furniture. Natural light. An abundance of whiteboards and post it notes."

JavaScript? Ruby? Forget the hype. Learn R and do your job. I am sick and tired of all the hype about "software engineering." Software engineers do what other x engineers do: they design things. Programs are written by programmers. There is a big difference.

Tips for finding ideas on things to write.

Some thoughts on writing about social issues in fiction and non-fiction.

How one person switched schedules to morning and became a writer.

Every writer seems to have thier own "theme," i.e., the couple of things that excite us.

One writer's process for tackling that long and long-overdue novel.

Taylor Swift is smarter and more creative than most acknowledge. She is also a prolific  writer .

Choices and priorities: "You can have anything you want; you just can’t have EVERYTHING you want."

A look at a luxury pencil from Palomino. I use these; they are great.

Thoughts on the difference between popularity and (financial) success.

How a freelance writer takes a (working) vacation.

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