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: September 28-October 4, 2015

Summary of this week:

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

Monday September 28, 2015

Google is 17 years old today.

Looking forward to the Google event tomorrow with rumors of more home devices.

A cultural historian comments on the cult and culture of Apple.

We already have rumors about the next iPhone with a waterproof plastic case.

The Blackphone 2—a more secure smartphone at a more expensive price.

Google will put WiFi in 400 train stations in India. Would they please do the same in Reston, Virginia?

Microsoft releases a Windows IoT Core Starter Kit for Raspberry Pi.

A look at the state-of-the-practice in USB thumb drives. It is great.

The stars of coding competitions—they skipped school they didn't need, i.e., the tested out of school.

Programming is done by people with values, but no one is teaching or watching those values. Perhaps it is time to dust off theose old copies of Weinberg's "The Psychology of Computer Programming."

The American political way: charge sucessful American companies with anti-trust violations.

The return to India for the tech world and markets.

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Tuesday September 29, 2015

Google has a big event today.

Rumors are that Google will show a new Pixel laptop running Android (death of ChromeOS?).

Apple sets another record by selling 13million iPhones over the weekend. The definition of success has changed.

NASA says there is water on Mars. Of course they don't have any actual samples because of course you would need an actual space program to go there and collect samples.

Programmer pay from around the world. They don't factor cost of living though.

Microsoft tries to market its privacy policies, but people still don't understand them.

LibreOffice is five years old.

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Wednesday September 30, 2015

Google's big event: new phones, new tablet, new Chromecast, updated Android. The tablet and keyboard are expensive and much like the Microsoft Surface.

The new Nexus phones use the latest Qualcomm chips for most-advanced LTE.

1.4billion people use Android devices. The definition of success has changed.

Tim Cook, "Companies need to do what governments don't." Back to the day of Mellon and Eastman.

And now we have the U.S. Web Design Standards.

Apple under Tim Cook, work with other companies. Good idea.

Apple pofits from selling to business now $25billion a year.

Just started in a few markets: Amazon Flex pays us to deliver packages.

According to this analysis, Apple is making upwards of $500 profit on each iPhone 6s.

Germany, under pressure from other EU members, tightens restrictions on refugees.

Evernote is having rough times—lays off 13% of its employees.

Lots of excitement about the new Tesla model X, but it's just another ar for super-rich people.

And now for some significant tech news: two ALS patients are typing 6 words per minute with their brains only.

More education folly: "new" project-based learning is biased against the thinkers. It seems that professional educators would have already known this and not had to repeat the experiment.

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Thursday October 1, 2015

HP updates its EliteBook business line of portable computers.

Apple releases OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

The return of the X Files to television is imminent.

America gets a break as the Librarian of Congress retires about 20 years too late.

LG introduces a new smartphone and a new watch.

XKCD is now ten years old.

Google and Microsoft drop all their patent lawsuits against one another.

Intel and Samsung advance the state-of-the-art in SSD, again.

The IBM-Box partnership is now coming to fruition.

Facebook enhance the profile photo and you can make a profile video.

The bad lesson corporations may learn from the Volkswagon scandal. We could get away with this, too.

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Friday October 2, 2015

I'm not sure I understand this one, "A German scientist is revoking the license to his bioinformatics software for researchers working in eight European countries because those countries allow too many immigrants to cross their borders." Sounds like a smart software developer just doesn't like some people for their politics, so... or something like that.

These photos are supposed to be proof of water on Mars. I can't see it.

Our President doesn't seem to understand the Bill of Rights or the separation of powers.

ooops, Samsung TVs consume power one way during testing and another way during use. Shade of Volkswagon. I guess we will see more such cases.

Experian hacked—information on 15million persons exposed.

Amazon will not sell Apple and Google TV streaming systems on its site.

IBM researchers may have broken through with carbon nanotube transistors.

One person's experience as a unix sys admin for 30 years. Yes, some of us have 30+ years experience in all this.

Intriguing sidenote from Hillary Clinton emails: our Dept of State planted questions into the 60 Minutes interview with Julian Assange. So who is dirtier? Our Dept of State or CBS or ... This is disgusting and bad for America.

One spaceship office complex is not enough for Apple as they lease another. Does Apple have that many employees in California?

Everyone is commenting on Peeple a forthcoming app that lets everyone "rate" everyone else. Let the games begin.

All US stores are supposed to accept chip-enabled credit cards now, but the ones I visited didn't. Is this a national scandal or just silly?

The scourge of the self-portrait in America. This is why we invented all this technology?

Microsoft apps are coming pre-installed on Android devices from a growing number of OEMs.

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Saturday October 3, 2015

AT&T is accusing our FCC of favoritism in not granting it some access that others have received. AT&T is probably right on this one.

It is official: Alphabet exists and Google is a subsidiary of it.

Will the selfie replace the password? And then when people hack systems they have your selfie.

50 most powerful companies in the U.S.

We are about to reach the point where streamed video passes what we have always watched.

Layed off US IT workers are going to court after having been replaced by H-1B visa holders.

US military airstrikes kill doctors and patients at a Doctors Without Borders facility in Afghanistan.

Don't be surprised about anything our Dept of Homeland Security does to you when you enter the US. This is a travesty and awful for America.

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Sunday October 4, 2015

NASA puts cool photos on Flickr. At this rate, we may be able to put a person in space by the end of the decade. What happened to NASA? Once the tech jewel of America, it is now a YouTube/Flickr factory.

Historic places to see in Silicon Valley. Missing from the list are Togo's, Colonel Lee's Mongolian Barbeque and the Blue Cube.

Microsoft Office 2016 and OS X El Capitan are colliding and crashing computers. Everyone knows this, but no fix is available yet.

This is an excellent post on fitting writing into life and life into writing.

For some reason, Americans are drinking 25% less full-calorie soft drinks than a generation ago.

Google files for a patent that indicates it wants hologram displays for the future Glass.

Alphabet drops the "do no evil" in favor of "do the right thing." I guess this is important to some persons as it is all over the Internet.

The price of utility-scale solar power is dropping. There are still many financial problems with it.

Interesting post on data mining and the traps and travails of the practice.

Pronoun: a new book publisher for independent writers.

A look at online writing courses. Varying prices and requirements. There are worse things to do with your time.

How to build an audience by writing in a micro-niche.

Where to go to write when the walls creep in at home.

Thoughts on many things about writers and writing including discipline.

"Writer's block is a myth, a recent invention, a cultural malady...Show up, sit down and type. (Or paint)."—Seth Godin

"If you write it down, you can accept the feedback without judgment."—Seth Godin. Good advice for working with criticism and critics.

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