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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d.phillips@computer.org
This
week: December 28, 2015-January 3, 2016
Summary of this week:
- Amazon adds 3million Prime members during Christmas week
- The week between Christmas and New Year's is as slow as ever
- Microsoft to inform Hotmail users of government hacking
- FAA declares huge no-fly zone around Washington, D.C.
Monday
- Tuesday
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Friday
- Saturday
- Sunday
Monday December 28, 2015
A travel day with no Internet viewing.
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Tuesday December 29, 2015
Amazon gained 3million new Prime members during the week before Christmas.
The
government of China now requires tech companies to give them their
encryption keys. Well, that bypasses the backdoor controversy.
Our
DHS and TSA are clubbing states into submission to turn driver's
licenses into national ID cards with a (hackable) national database. Our tax dollars at work protecting us everyday (not).
Re: hackable government databases—191million voters' information found in online unsecure database.
Our FAA's drone regulations are late and now contradict many local laws. So, if you have a drone, you are already guilty of something.
Our Dept of Education says that any English teacher can teach AP Computer Science in high school. If they say it, it must be true (not).
If you operate a business, you will hire some of the 50million freelancers in America. Let's
temper this a bit as most freelancers are under emoployed and
scrambling to make any kind of a living without living in someone's
basement for free.
Another day, another Flash vulnerability and patch.
A year after announcing it, New York City is now installing GigaBit WiFi in old telephone booths.
A PDF book about the DynaBook and the history of the personal computing device.
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Wednesday December 30, 2015
Those robotic mules have failed in military tests because they are too loud.
Of course they are too loud. They use a gasoline engine for power.
Everyone knows that. The success of the program has been to demonstrate
the balancing and walking. The parallel challenge is a usable power
source.
Disney Research has a "robot" that drives up walls.
A criticism of Wikipedia's coverage of science. So go in and edit it and fix it. That is the whole point that some people seem to miss.
Our NSA spied on our Congress. What's new?
Interesting gadget, a sundial with a digital display.
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Thursday December 31, 2015
Another Middle Eastern country shuts down Facebook's free basic Internet services. Censorship is alive and well.
Congress persons, who liked NSA surveillance, don't like it when they are the surveilled. Hypocrisy is alive and well. It is okay to violate the rights of others, but not me (not).
Ian Murdock, founder of Debian, has died.
Microsoft will now inform Hotmail users when a government has hacked into their email.
Slack runs an interesting TV commercial.
Must see video from Qualcomm shows the "future" of drones using the Snapdragon Flight processors.
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Friday January 1, 2016
Still waiting for the world to start rotating on its axis again.
Something is wrong in the Facebook software as a 46-year bug appears.
Highly visual and esoteric apps from 2015.
In a couple of years, we will be mining the floor of the ocean for gold and other goodies.
Our
FAA declared a no-drone zone extending 30 miles from Reagan National
Airport. That grounds a whole lott'a upper middle class white drone
owners.
Did you know we have a worldwide shortage of data scientists?
And another call for more women in STEM. Just do it.
The Tor Project starts its own bug bounty program.
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Saturday January 2, 2016
A look at the state-of-the-art in medical technology. But don't forget that the Internet is unsecure and should not be used.
Is typing dead? Not yet. Siri is nice, but not when you want privacy.
The British Library digitizes 50,000 of King George III's maps.
Forget self-driving cars; self-driving buses will bring the real benefit.
Windows 10 is now running on 164milltion PCs. That is a large number, but still disappointing to some.
Our DHS proposes 181 pages of new rules to help immigrants stay in the US (and take American jobs from Americans).
Here is yet another article in the (semi-)popular press that expresses great ignorance about Artificial Intelligence.
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Sunday Janurary 3, 2016
Coming this year in cars—algorithm-based everything. Patching the clunker with hundreds of microprocessors.
Will health care ever come out of the dark ages? Medical tech is improving treatment, but everything else, including payments and records, is still in the 1960s.
Got a little spare time? Watch these TED talks instead of binging on online TV shows.
It seems that all these "flexible" work hours are bad for your health.
And this post shows us something true about The on-demand economy is another name for being unemployed long periods of time.
"we have become both reading junkies and also professional text skimmers."
This is a great post on " The sad graph of software death"
“Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.”—Chuck Close
Trying to start the new year as a writer. Myself, I try to start each new day as a writer, but that is just another time convention that has little meaning.
If you are busy now and want to write, you will give up something for writing. Sorry, just 24 hours in a day. There is hope as what you will probably give up is some TV or naps or something you won't miss.
What is the right time to start writing? When
you can't stand it to not write. At least that is one answer with some
validity. Start writing now. Just write a few words, not even a
sentence. Just write a title or a working title. "Can't keep from
writing." There, a good title. Now...
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