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.

Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page
Email me at d.phillips@computer.org

This week: November 14-20, 2016

Summary of this week:

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

Monday November 14, 2016

Zuckerberg continues to claim "gosh, we didn't realize anyone reads what's on Facebook."

Samsung is buying buy auto and audio product maker Harman to get into the smarter car market.

Visual Studio will soon be running on Macs.

Now that the Russians supposedly hacked the US election, the Russians turn to hacking think tanks and NGOs.

Silicon Valley continues to gurgle after the "presidential" election. H1-B visas?

The pendulum swings away from globalization and back to local communities. Some see this as horrible.

A close look at Lenovo's high-end Yoga. Excellent and and high price.

The world is upside down. Campaign spending is down, PC prices are up.

Seth Godin on gloating, silence, and empathy. There is a fine art to being a gracious winner. History shows that gloating after victory brings bad results.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Tuesday November 15, 2016

Cray's newest supercomputer hits a petaflop in a single cabinet set a record for most performance per floorspace.

Apple Pay now allows non-profit organizations to accept donations.

Pleas flow in for Facebook to fix the fake news "problem."

Some Facebook employees believe their fake news did influence the election and are using guerilla tactics to fix the problem.

During a hackathon, students build a fix to Facebook's fake news problem. Simple database searches, etc.

Google and Facebook ban their advertising from fake news sites to remove money from such.

The battery life for the updated MacBook Pros is not as good as advertised.

Our lameduck President blames Congress for his failure to keep his eight-year-old promise to close the Gitmo prison.

Apple rumor: smart glasses coming in 2018.

In-depth testing and extensive reporting of the updated MacBook Pros from Ars Technica.

The Internet is global; freedom of speech—not so much.

Excellent post from Seth Godin on creating a foundation for people in an endeavor.

We are safe! Our government has new rules requiring quiet vehicle to be loud so we hear them coming. I think we just solved a great problem that doesn't exist.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Wednesday November 16, 2016

One of the good things about the Trump election is that Americans discovered how much we care about who is President.

Apple has made a $300 coffee-table book of photos of Apple products. We can buy an advertisement and place it in our homes. Wow?

Google will build a new London office building for 3,000 new jobs.

GE buys Wise.io to add machine learning abilities.

Google upgrades the technology in its Translate app to provide more natural translations.

Nvidia partners with the National Cancer Institute to add AI frameworks to speed research.

HP takes a leap in performance in the mini PC form factor.

The Trump campaign reveals how is really used Facebook—fund raising.

Google's Pichai claims that the Trump election is one of Google's biggest challenges.

Google launches PhotoScan with features that allow us to take photos of old photos much easier.

A lot of Android phones are sending our text messages to China via a back door.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Thursday November 17, 2016

Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation. The world manages to keep spinning on its axis.

Older persons score lower on lab-based mental tests. It seems the lab-based tests have little resemblance to the real world.

Need 5TeraBytes of portable, backup disk? Seagate brings it. Put the Library of Congress in your coat pocket.

G-Technology releases 500GigaByte and 1TeraByte SSD portable backup disks.

post-truth: adj., relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. The Oxford Dictionary's word of the year.

Hundreds of light-emitting drones may replace exploding fireworks. Pretty, but they lack the impact of sound waves.

More analysis of Facebook's fake news problem. And it is a problem.

Tech supporters at Office Depot are lying to customers about problems with their computers. This is neither the first time nor the first industry where maintenance persons lie to customers so they can do more work and make more money.

DIRNSA claims the one country tried to alter the outcome of an election in another country. It's happened before and will happen again.

SpaceX wants to launch 4,400 satellites to ring the world with WiFi.

Twitter kills the accounts of alt-right members.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Friday November 18, 2016

Amazon Prime Video goes worldwide next month and premieres The Grand Tour, a.k.a., Top Gear.

Our outgoing President laments the fake news world.

The Washington Post interviews a professional fake news writer, a.k.a., comedy writer.

Qualcomm shows its next Snapdragon system using a 10nm process.

AOL laysoff 5% of its staff—500 jobs.

How to break into password-protected PCs with a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero.

In New Zealand, where the FAA doesn't rule, Domino's is delivering pizza via drone.

DNI James Clapper won't be around for President Trump. He presided over the Snowden fiasco and over reacted ruining the lives of thousands of law-abiding citizens.

This year Apple will do Hour of Code workshops at its retail stores for five days.

This is an excellent article on some drawbacks of cloud computing—it is a timeshare system.

Do we put too much emphasis on college degrees and other pieces of paper? Yes, but they make life easier for those who already have a job.

This is excellent: combine speech translation with a megaphone.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Saturday November 19, 2016

Lamenting the lack of updates to Apple's desktop computers.

NASA does another reset and puts itself ten years behind, again. Your tax dollars at waste.

Ars Technica—a news site—calls for Facebook to stop trying to be a news site. Many of the calls to kill Facebook news are coming from jealous news sites.

System76 shows a powerhouse Linux laptop with 4K screen and Nvidia GPUs.

Google launches AI Experiments to help people experiment and learn.

The lives of the 1% who "work" for Facebook in NYC.

Maybe, just maybe, Apple will move some manufacturing back into the US.

Microsoft will now discriminate to end discriminating in its hiring. That is a troublesome task.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page

Sunday November 20, 2016

More Android malware planted by the Chinese government.

Barnes and Noble will sells its own $50 tablet running real Android (not Amazon sort of Fire OS).

Zuckerberg pledges to fight fake news as he stands next to a fake news story. oooops

Researchers claim that smartphones and smartcars and all those apps are causing a spike in auto deaths.

Some Silicon Valley execs realize that they should make the best of a Trump presidency. Good lesson.

Tips to get the creative stuff happening again. Tip: don't try too hard.

Exellent tips from a 10-year veteran freelance writer. Note, many of the tips are oriented to the business of writing.

This post references lists of things to do and avoid in writing and publishing your book.

Book marketing mistakes—especially if you think social media will sell your books.

The basics of freelance writing.

Some writing tips gleaned from the Donald Trump presidential campaign. You have to admit, like Bill Clinton, he had some amazing techniques for being elected.

Writing about personal experiences—give it some time.

How to pack lighter for writer travel.

Traits of "master writers." Dubious post.

Success at writing—whatever success means to you—takes more time than anticipated.

Excellent gift ideas for writers and everyone else.

This is an excellent post with questions that help bring memories and write memoirs.

Simple tips to show people your blog using social media.

Email me at d.phillips@computer.org
Go to Day Book Home and pointer to previous weeks
Go to Dwayne's Home Page