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: May 16-22, 2016

Summary of this week:

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

Monday May 16, 2016

Google's Chrome browser to disable Flash use by the end of this year.

When the GPS and the terrain differ, please, please, believe the terrain.

The Angry Birds Movie is already making tons of money with its international release.

Amazon is about to sell its own brand of groceries and such.

Toyota is building a wearable system that can guide blind persons through spaces.

Ethical hackers donate 1million United Airlines mile to charity. They won it finding a bug in UAL software.

The Linux 4.6 kernal has been released.

Researchers are able to make wood transparent. Wood is a better insulator than glass and less toxic than plastic.

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Tuesday May 17, 2016

Otto: a self-driving, long-haul trucking startup from former Google and Tesla engineers.

High-tech office work in China: beds in the offices included.

Interesting paper on how we use the word "open" to describe goodness or something like that.

And this thing even floats! The world's largest cruise ship sets sail.

Nigeria is no longer Africa's biggest oil producer as attacks from terrorists slow production.

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are being sued in France for not censoring users enough.

It appears that sales of the Apple Watch collapsed after the holiday shopping season.

Firefox is now, finally, more popular than Internet Explorer. The crowd is not always wise.

Twitter will soon stop county the letters in links when calculating the 140-character limit. That is good for me.

Amazon releases its deep learning library DSSTNE as open source on GitHub.

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Wednesday May 18, 2016

AnandTech takes a look inside the new Nvidia GPU.

It appears that Google will introduce a product similar to the Amazon Echo this week.

A trip to Mars? It appears that NASA is clueless.

Hospitals and other government agencies are putting sensitive information on Google Drive. Duh!

The government of Vietnam censored Facebook last weekend.  The usual reasons that a dictatorship blocks news from its subjects.

Looking ahead to this week's Google I/O conference.

I guess everyone on the Internet is looking at the photo of a brick wall trying to see the cigar.

Bezos promises more brick-and-mortar stores from Amazon.

The new generation of employees can't pass the old drug tests. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

Coding school 42: yet another try at reinventing computer science education. Maybe this one will work.

If you have $50+million, you can buy one of these private jets and save commuting time.

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Thursday May 19, 2016

Google I/O started yesterday.

Google shows Google Home: talk to it, it plays music and does other things.

Google shows all its really big numbers at Google I/O.

Google shows its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU): custom chip for TensorFlow and machine learning.

No longer a rumor: Android apps and the Play Store are coming to Chrome.

LinkedIn hacked with 117million passwords and such compromised.

More problems for Theranos as they void two years of blood test results. This is why doctors don't care what data is on your FitBit.

Apple opens several development centers in India.

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Friday May 20, 2016

Green light seems to ease the pain of migraines, so people are working on special filtering glasses.

The microwave oven 2.0—much smaller and more effective. Forget popcorn. The ability to heat items quickly and portably has major applications in emergency relief and health care.

See it here, the pretty ugly Uber self-driving car.

Google Chromebooks, all makers combined, now outselling Apple computers. Where are all the Chromebooks? I never see one in the coffee shops or libraries.

Lots of good advice here on equipment for your home office. Take care—the goal of a home office is to accomplish work, not spend money on stuff.

Apple opens a giant new store in San Francisco for the 1%. Lots of expensive space and glass.

Google releases a little information about its "Area 120."

The EU will require Netflix et al to have a quota of European film content.

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Saturday May 21, 2016

Calls for more open-ness and sharing in scientific research. But who will pay for it? Some persons want all researchers to share all their data, but that data cost money and is valuable. Sure, you have data, give me your data so I can use it for my fun and profit. What could possible go wrong?

TSA fails at cybersecurity, too. And why do we fund this agency?

According to job listings, these are the ten hottest tech skills.

The world's largest solar plant set itself on fire in California.

The use of dynamic or moving patterns in camouflage.

Imzy: a new form of Reddit created by former Reddit staff.

Hillary Clinton Tweets a Venn Diagram, and persons who understand math decimated her.

The government of China finds a new way to lie to its subjects with 488million phony social media comments per year.

Five companies hold 30% of America's cash with most of it overseas due to ill-conceived tax laws.

Dell's new 43" monitor may redefine what we do with big monitors. Show four inputs at the same time.

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Sunday May 22, 2016

Has Nvidia built a $599 mini-supercomputer?

A little step back in technology with photos inside a new Moog Minimoog. Great stuff.

Is this the future, or just another toy? A cargo bicycle with electric motor.

Google introduces Science Journal to introduce kids to measurements and notetaking and science. Perhaps they can help climatologists understand fundamental scientific measurements.

A government commision, which has never produced anything, is telling the highly productive tech industry how to utilize talent.

Amazon buys a hotel and makes it a homeless shelter. It will only be open at year, but good on Amazon.

To be a professional writer, you have to do the work of writing, editing, sweating, and so on.

Cut the confusing parts and write better, now.

A dozen or so tidbits to keep you writing.

Tips work working your way past writing perfectly.

This is an unusual list, but tips for better writing. Look and consider.

Tips for making Facebook Live videos.

Lesser-known but excellent search tools for finding information.

Tips on balancing travel with writing about travel.

A list of myths about writing and writers. Folks, writers come from everywhere, they do everything, they have all sorts of baggage and circumstance. Just about anybody doing just about anything can write.

As a writer, sometimes it is best to put a piece away for a while and come back later.

A somewhat humorous and somewhat all-too-true look at how to tell you are a writer.

Thoughts on writing a memoir by one author who has a first draft.

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