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: August 29-September 4, 2016

Summary of this week:

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

Monday August 29, 2016

Traveling. No Internet viewing.

A look at how big data centers in small towns provide almost no real jobs for the locals. Big data means big profits and few jobs.

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Tuesday August 30, 2016

Starting today, commercial drones can sort of fly in the US.

Waivers already—our FAA allows PrecisionHawk to fly its drones beyond visual line of sight.

No surprise as a European Commision rules that an American company (Apple) owes $billion$ in taxes.

Yet Apple expands in Ireland and adds another 1,000 jobs.

Actor Gene Wilder dies at 83.

Censorship is alive and well in China.

Robots are coming to restaurant kitchens. What economic recovery?

Stronger rumors about how Apple is updating its line of computers.

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Wednesday August 31, 2016

Move over Uber. Here comes Google with a ride-sharing service of its own. Perhaps it will be profitable.

Study shows (here we go) that iPads are as calming to kids as sedatives. I noticed this effect several years ago.

It seems that Virtual Reality headsets are distracting patients in pain and they forget about the pain.

Need 2TeraBytes of cloud storage? Apple has it for $20 a month.

Acer has a big, powerful, portable computer with a 21" curved display, mechanical keyboard, and power for gaming. Amazing computing in a package that you can carry around if you are strong enough.

And Acer shows the first portable computer that is thinner than 1cm.

A renewable energy group concludes that the US East coast can use solar power if all the taxpayers give money to a few taxpayers.

How our government is preventing us from helping our neighbors in flooded Louisiana. Where did we go wrong?

The trend continues as college students are going out of state to public universities and paying those big fees. Public universities have forgotten why they were formed—to provide a lower-cost place for residents to be educated. Now they favor out-of-state students who pay more and they neglect their own residents. Money runs the show. The organization devolved into doing the opposite of its oringal purpose.

Facebook replaced its news editors with an algorithm. The first few days have been ugly.

Live video on YouTube is rising remarkably fast.

Brexit welcomes Apple to Britain and promises low taxes. Jobs follow low taxes. That seems to astound some people, and that astonishment astonishes me.

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Thursday September 1, 2016

Nvidia partners with Baidu in self-driving car effort.

DropBox has a security lapse, and details of 60million accounts spill.

Asus reveals their third-generation, round computer watch.

Pay attention as Lenovo may have just reinvented the tablet and all of portable computing.

Lenovo's new laptop computer has an edge-to-edge display.

Every person, uh, er, sheep is a sensor on this island mapped by cameras attached to sheep.

HP tries to reinvent the desktop computer with different forms and functions tied to speakers and microphones.

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Friday September 2, 2016

Limited Internet viewing this morning.

There seems to be little correlation between rural broadband access and rural creatives.

Coursera tries to move into the on-the-job training with businesses.

Facebook hired SpaceX to launch its first satellite; it blew up on the launch pad. These things happen.

HP Enterprise is trying to sell its software division.

OOOPS! Samsung is recalling the Galaxy Note 7 worldwide. They are catching fire while charging the battery.

Apps for students. Many are to help students become organized. Either a student is organized or (most likely) not.

Microsoft announces that their older operating systems will not run if you buy Intel's newest processors.

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Saturday September 3, 2016

NASA mistakes mean the US taxpayer sends billion$ to Ru$$ia.

Closer photos of Jupiter reveal no surprises; we were wrong with our earlier guesses. Sensing from afar is difficult and prone to error. Climate scientists should heed the experience.

Our FBI published results of its Clinton email investigation; there were plenty of bumbles along the way including buying used computers.

And Hillary told the FBI that she didn't know "C" meant Confidential. Our next President. Bring back the Electoral College!

Wal Mart cuts 7,000 jobs and replaces people with machines. Economic recovery? Hope and change?

LG puts a Windows 10 tablet in a refrigerator door—27" screen. The kitchen computer?

Solving a problem that doesn't exist: Microsoft putting machine vision inside your refrigerator to tell you what you have.

The immigration issue gets far more media attention that it should as % of immigrants and Muslims is far below what people think.

OpenOffice is ready to disappear as the vast majority shifts to LibreOffice.

Google officially stops the Project Ara modular smartphone idea.

I guess there is some news in this item: antibacterial soap—it doesn't do anything it claims, it doesn't do anything bad, the FDA bans it.

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Sunday September 4, 2016

Probably the best question I've read in years, "Imagine a five-year-old watching Mum talking to Siri, and Dad talking to Alexa, on a daily basis — what must she think of such interactions?"

Google's Chrome browser is eight years old.

"If your work has never been criticized, it's unlikely you have any work."—Seth Godin

Programmers are running to cloud-based integrated development environments (IDEs). Once again, consumers run away from bad services, in this case the IT department, and towards better services, in this case cloud providers. This comes with risks, and I don't see many people acknowledging those risks.

A somewhat humorous look at the job of being a freelance, at-home writer.

A very detailed, very cute, very information infographic about how to avoid the use of the word "very."

Another writer answers the question, "Why do we write?"

Outlines, planning, and writing by the seat of your pants. I don't think anyone does it one way 100% and 100% of the time.

Some writers just can't seem to become writers. Here are some things that help start.

One writer's journey through learning how to write a novel. It took several novels.

A formula or procedure to test your book idea before writing the book. Of course, if you want to write a book and it is bursting out of you, W R I T E   I T !  Who cares if it sells.

Writers have their work rejected often. Here are some consoling tips.

Not everything we hear about location independent professionals is true. Some myths.

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