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: November 16-22, 2015

Summary of this week:

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


Monday November 16, 2015

More warning out of Google about using cheap USB-C cables. Faulty wiring can cause serious problems. Some things don't change regarding electrical systems.

Predicting technology five years into the future...why not? You can't be more wrong than the experts.

The cry for benefits for on-demand workers. Another dream, but I don't see reality following.

Another computer vision algorithm that magnifies small changes is applied to micro expressions.

Posting reviews on Google Local Guides earns extra storage space. I like the idea.

Terrorist attacks: hindsight is too late.

Vizio smart TVs monitor and report what you watch by default. You can change the setting.

Just stumbled on this: The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.—George Bernard Shaw

Computing history: the Intel 4004 is 44 years old. It started with a calculator.

Headline says it all: Anonymous Vows Revenge For ISIS Paris Attacks. Those guys know what they are doing.

More on the hackers battle with the murderers.

Has Apple gone too far towards fashion to hurt basic use of devices?

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Tuesday November 17, 2015

The Paris attacks bring more chatter about encryption and backdoors.

Emails reveal that Government lawyers were waiting for another attack so they could call for backdoors. What is the saying? Something like, you can't waste a good crisis.

Apple has 13% of the world smartphone market and 94% of the profits. That's pretty good if you are Apple.

After the Paris attacks, 22 US states don't want Syrian refugees.

Microsoft has developed a new encryption system tailored for the healthcare industry.

Intel announces a new supercomputer processor chip with 72 cores and all other sorts of great things.

We can now buy the $85 Google-Asus Chromebit HDMI, Chromebook stick computer thing. Is that enough nouns in a row? Anyways, use a televisor, some Bluetooth I/O devices, and use the www.

News about Google working on wearable computers other than Glass.

Looking at the future of Zuckerburg's empire at Facebook. Forget the cute social site; they are looking at real technologies.

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Wednesday November 18, 2015

Google tries again with a new version of Google+.

Amazon redefines the shopping calendar with a 8-day Black Friday.

Terrorists, and everyone else, use the Internet, so let's just turn the whole thing off.

Yet another study shows that drinking coffee is good for you.

Government to the rescue! Our government announces a new crackdown on those dastardly makers of dietary supplements.

Want some government money? Create a tech-training program.

Huge security hole found in website with home pregnancy test results. Of course Health Care dot Gov is all secure (not).

HP Enterprise joins the Intel Internet of Things team.

In only a day, Anonymous takes down thousands of ISIS Twitter accounts.

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Thursday November 19, 2015

We have entered the era of the $150 Windows (not Chromebook) laptop computer.

Can home services save or start the smart home market?

Oh, what a surprise (not), Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium has increased.

Anonymous claims that CloudFlare is helping keep ISIS sites online. CloudFlare's business is keeping sites online during DoS attacks.

A recent study...shows that people who talk to themselves are "geniuses." I cite this as I talk to myself all the time.

Microsoft has serveral Visual Studio announcements including making VS Code open source.

It seems that the ISIS terrorists in France did not use encryption on their communications. This contradicts all the statements from concerned "public servants" that governments must have backdoors to encryption to protect us.
There are a number of sources on this story. Here is another.

Some people in this high-tech, social-media world are just plain trashy and need to go to some type of charm school or boot camp.

Google's Compute Engine expands its offerings with Custom Machine Types.

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Friday November 20, 2015

Seth Godin on the fear of ideas and the foolish attempts to build fortresses to keep them out.

People are stealing the Apple Pencil from retail stores. It is just a pencil.

Big steal: Google just hired VMware cofounder Diane Greene, to head its cloud-computing business.

Flipboard bought Zite, so Zite is closing before 1 January.

HP shows what appears to be a clone of the Microsoft Surface.

Stories of the immigrants who came to America and made it big in tech.

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Saturday November 21, 2015

I guess things like this happen in New York City: man takes samurai sword into Apple store. Police called.

It is that time of year for sites to rate the best this and that for Christmas. Here is ratings of SSDs.

The best portable computers for this year's Christmas season.

Staples will cut iPad prices 25% on Black Friday.

ooops, the State of Georgia sent CDs to news organizations containing SSNs of 6million residents.

Federal funding of university research is falling. This may not be a bad thing.

As suspected, the NSA did continues its email meta-data collection of US citizens after it said it stopped. These things are terrible for America. Americans don't trust "the government" because a few government officials lie about what is happening. Lies begat mistrust, and once people stop trusting one another, nothing else matters.

Now more than half of US Internet users watch Netflix.

NASA has placed orders for commercial, manned flights to the ISS in 2017.

The Visual Microphone: sound vibrates objects. Good video can capture those vibrations and recreate the sound.

Amazon will build a wind farm in Ohio to power its AWS servers.

This story is all over the Internet, so it must be important: Mark Zuckerburg will take off two months when his wife gives birth.

Windows 1.01 is 30 years old.

Those Xfinity WiFi hotspots have big security holes and reveal much more than they should.

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Sunday November 22, 2015

One company's experience in hiring programmers recently graduated from boot camps.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts had all their customers data, i.e., credit card info, stolen, hacked.

Seth Godin on the basics of doing your homework before you show up for work.

Everyone on the Internet is replaying stories about the ISIS online security manual. It shows people how to hide their communications and such. There is nothing new here, just the basics.

A report on age discrimination in tech fields—over 50? Forget about getting a job. I've experienced it.

App streaming from Google on Android is a reality. Your phone runs apps in the cloud—no downloading.

"How does this benefit the iPhone?" The one question everyone at Apple asks daily.

Thoughts on the writing of fiction to change the world. It has happened frequently with great effect.

Improving writing skills is much like improving all skills: practice and coaching and all that boring stuff.

Thoughts on writing a good paragraph.

learned helplessness—“the giving up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn’t matter.” Yes, it happens to writers all the time.

An infographic on passive and active voice.

Indulgence in writing—sometimes you write to soothe yourself. Then later, you write for the readers.

Here come the robot writers. We shall see.

Some ideas on moving to full-time writing. Caution here! You won't earn much money, especially at the start, and the "start" could last a couple of years.

Some ideas on re-using old blog posts.

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