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: July 6-12, 2015

Summary of this week:

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

Monday July 6, 2015

The Greeks continue their quest to destroy the European and possibly the world economy.

A practical exoskeleton for construction workers. I hope this leads to such for the disabled.

And more good news from medical technology: stretchable nanowire mesh that heats muscles.

A Netherlands: a surprising yet vibrant tech startup community.

LG advances he state-of-the-practice in thin touch screens.

This British Library project is digitzing 750million pages of newspapers going back three centuries. I love it.

An explanation of why some airlines have inexpensive, fast WiFi service while others, well, you know.

As with almost everything, our Federal government is behind the curve regarding the Internet of Things.

Forget the headlines, a reporter visits Iran and its young tech entrepreneurs.

A look at several apps to help scan documents with your iPhone. I do this often.

July 15th is Amazon's 20th birthday, and the deals will be coming all day.

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Tuesday July 7, 2015

Apple has been working with "giant" iPads for several years. Just because you can build something doesn't mean that people will buy it. And, after all, this is a business. Products that don't sell aren't products.

There may be a deal to bring Edward Snowden home in trade for cooperation. Cooperation? Everyone knows what Snowden did. How is he going to cooperate?

America teenagers are turning away from traditional television and looking at other screens.

More proof that the Obama crowd is just the same as all the other crowds that preceded them. Former Obama staffers are getting overly high-paying jobs in Silicon Valley. The revolving door revolves well for those with friends in high places.

This story must be important as it has been on the Internet for two days now. Hacking Team has been hacked.

All the contestants failed the DARPA Robotics Challenge. That is normal. They will all try again.

Google's Material Design scheme for websites now has a toolkit: Material Design Lite (MDL).

Samsung profits continue to fall.

Samsung bring 2TeraByte solid state discs to home computing.

The BBC shows its Micro Bit single-board computer. These will be given to every 11- and 12-year-old student in Britain.

Neat video: time-lapse photos show the Mars Curiosity rover travel 26 miles.

The women's World Cup soccer final had more viewers than the NBA finals.

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Wednesday July 8, 2015

Apple Watch sales reportedly plummet after the first week on the market.

Facebook has opened a new data center near Fort Worth, Texas. The center will be powered 100% by wind.

Apple Music, Twitter, and actually live right now real time content. It is called AM talk radio!

The story of how the BBC created its MicroBit.

Now we have a wave generator turning sea motion into electricity. Perhaps one day these things will be practical.

Solar energy, at least its high-paid lobbyists, is doing better in the US. More government money being given.

Hillary Clinton urges more cybersecurity legislation in Congress. This is not a comedy story. Miss "my little home brewed unofficial email server that was hacked by everyone in the world and that doesn't matter" is telling others to get their information systems secure. You can't make it up.

An analysis of driverless, "green" taxis. Yes, they will work quite well.

Is "the right to be forgotten" coming to the US. It is the world's biggest censorship program.

People are increasingly watching Hulu the old-fashioned way: on a televisor from the couch.

The world's top cryptographers plead for government to stay out. Good luck with that one.

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Thursday July 9, 2015

The New York Stock Exchange closed yesterday due to technical difficulties. Cyber stocks rose; fear rules.

The Chinese stock market has fallen about $3.5trillion recently. You have to write "about" when discussing such big numbers.

Yahoo enters the fantasy sports business.

Microsoft exits the mobile phone business and laysoff 7,800 persons.

Apple plans to sell some 90million mobile phones next year. The definition of success has changed. And why is it that Microsoft can't just give phones to people.

Intel's software head falls after the acquisition of McAfee.

Microsoft donates a lot of money to the OpenBSD Foundation.

The shortest product video review in history: after two month, toss the Apple Watch into the dustbin.

Many of Facebook's hot videos are stolen from YouTube.

Logitech creates the Logi sub-brand to sell cool, hip products to cool, hip persons.

More information on the coming Google Glass Enterprise Edition.

IBM has made working ICs at the 7nm level. That is a revolution, not evolution.

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Friday July 10, 2015

Our FBI Director wants computer scientists to try harder to find a way to do what he wants with encryption back doors.

Uber claims to be a lead generation app. I don't know what that is.

Sales of the traditional personal computer are collapsing.

American IT workers are paid more than their UK counterparts. No one seems to be factoring cost-of-living into this.

The OPM hack gets worse—over 20million Americans now affected. Our Director of OPM still has her job. This is a classic case where is is not nefarious, just incompetent.

Microsoft Office 2016 for the Mac is available today. Just another reason to pay for Office 365.

The world's worst acronym: "FANTASTIC-5G" (Flexible Air iNTerfAce for Scalable service delivery wiThin wIreless Communication networks of the 5th Generation).

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Saturday July 11, 2015

Look at this chart: PC falls collapse while Apple Mac computer sales rise $16%.

"Data Rupture" not a data leak, best name yet for the OPM hack.

Trying to sneak out on a Friday afternoon, our OPM Director resigns.

The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands was disconnect from the Internet due to failure of one undersea cable.

Yet another Comcast customer service horror story. These aren't news any more.

Tips for being more productive: these are radical like no news, no current events, none of that.

Reddit CEO: Ellen Pao out; Steve Huffman in.

Each day now we receive better photos of Pluto.

Make a map poster of anywhere in the world.

We walk towards Internet voting for real elections. Please, someone who knows what they are doing step in before it is too late.

Thoughts on the hash table. I missed that one in school.

readwrite web moves to readwrite world.

Wix launches WixEducation—a free online web design training site.

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Sunday July 12, 2015

I love this article. It shows successful people coming from each of our fifty states. Such is the success of America—the cultural diversity of the states.

Swiss researchers keep a solar-powered UAV aloft for 28 hours.

Guess what? Our Federal government can neither hire nor retain enough technically competent people. I lived it. The major problem is that the bureaucracy promotes the wrong people. The technically competent give up and leave.

A detailed review of Leatherman's watch bracelet tool kit.

The Solar Impulse flight to Hawaii destroyed its batteries. With all these renewables, it is the batteries, and they aren't improving.

Thoughts on teaching—not education—and technology. The practice of the teacher has not been improved, yet.

A classic letter of hope from E.B. White.

Basic concepts on success and failure as a writer. The fundamental failure: not writing. If you don't write, you are not a writer.

These are the 30 most influential people on the Internet (???). Most are pop culture celebrities that will fade quickly.

Writers watch people, and people are watching the writers, too.

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