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: December 5-11, 2016

Summary of this week:

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

Monday December 5, 2016

Changes in tornadoes. At least we think we are see changes in tornadoes.

Airbnb and NYC reach some sort of agreement on short-term rentals.

Thoughts on the vast complexity of the world economy and how AI may influence it.

People forget their laptops in airport security. Tape your business card to the computer.

Got the message yet? Donald Trump will be tough on the government of China.

The Information: an Internet-only news organization that is trying to be old school in a new place.

MakerBot and the 3D printer didn't make it in the marketplace. I guess we didn't want to make our own toys.

It appears that guessing credit card numbers, dates, and such is pretty easy.

Flir, world's leading maker of thermal imagers, buys world's leading maker of pocket drones.

Virgin Galactic, remember them?, has a successful glide to landing of its space plane.

Russian meta-propoganda has real news outlets running in circles. I guess they aren't so smart, either.

Google releases the OpenMind Lab AI platform as open source.

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Tuesday December 6, 2016

Pizzagate: the story spread, no one squashed it, and a vigilante arrived to rescue non-existent children. It should have been a national story of how police investigation proved it to be false. Except that didn't happen.

Facebook asks us to note the fake news stories for it.

Free speech wins one, I guess, as it become illegal to punish negative review posters.

Amazon opens a grocery store with no cashiers and far fewer jobs.

Apple sets some sort of holiday sales records with its watches.

A giant tech startup campus opens in Paris. Sounds like expensive real estate.

Want your own (un)reality show? Call Netflix. They are hiring for 20 new shows.

AI clashes with old education systems. Finland forgoes the gateway-to-knowledge model. Teach kids how to ask questions.

CEOs want more technology and fewer human employees.

A call for CEOs to have compassion on displaced employees.

Microsoft tries another chatbot. This time, the trial is far more limited in scope.

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Wednesday December 7, 2016

If you are fortunate enough to pick and choose where you work, here are the top 25 tech companies.

If you want to work at Google, at coding bootcamp isn't enough preparation.

Our Supreme Court rules that Samsung doesn't have to pay Apple a few hundred million $$$.

Google claims to use only renewable energy.

A little late, but HP is closing unsecure ports on its newer printers.

In a major step towards practical, researchers build a mind-controlled robotic hand for quadriplegia sufferers. This is what we should be doing with all this technology—not eliminating jobs of cashiers and other poor persons.

Headline says it all: Vinyl Records Outsold Digital Downloads In the UK Last Week.

The world of the motor-driven skateboard advances.

Our lameduck President releases a report on US cybersecurity. Where was he the last 7 1/2 years?

Apple will start publishing some of its AI research.

Donald Trump invites tech leaders to meet in NYC. Will they swallow their pride and show up?

IBM launches a Watson for Cybersecurity beta program.

Too good to be true. One of the reasons fake news spreads so fast is that Apple et al provide tools that allow just plain folks to product great-looking content.

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Thursday December 8, 2016

Once again Apple shows that corporate lawyers are much smarter than those employed by governments.

Facebook has obtained the ability to enable ePayments across Europe.

Industry leaders unite to form the Global Virtual Reality Association.

America: fake news. Europe: hate speech. Facebook and others: we were just having some fun.

Apple music has 20million subscribers. The definition of success has changed.

Google and Slack are partnering to tie their services together and bring more value to their customers.

Mars One announces a five-year slip in schedule for their one-way trip to Mars.

United airlines to start charging to use the overhead bin. This is simple fee for service. Don't want to pay? Don't use.

Microsoft Windows apps to now run on ARM processors like Qualcomm SnapDragon.

How to waste $125Billion without really trying. Consult the DoD.

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Friday December 9, 2016

John Glenn dies at 95.

The Microsoft purchase of LinkedIn becomes official and the technology integration begins. Look for LinkedIn to become much more useful as it is easier to move data to Office365.

Google finally decides to watch its money. It never had to in the past because it always succeeded.

Own a Pebble product? Warranty? Forget it.

Have we seen the death of the gadget? Killed by smarter manufacturing.

ooops, Epson printers connected to the dreaded Internet went crazy. Someone broke something.

Congress saves us from ticket-buying software. I didn't know we were are peril.

Nvidia gains permission to test self-driving cars on California roads.

Teenage cryptograms revealed. Parents beware.

Google continues to expand its education offerings based on Chrome and Chromebooks.

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Saturday December 10, 2016

The big news stories today are about the Russians and our recent election.

A no-longer-secret secret CIA report says the Russians tried to help Trump be elected.

Another no-longer-secret secret CIA report says the Russians had the Republican email, too, but didn't release it.

Some Republican Senators want to investigate the influence the Russians had on the US election.

Our outgoing President orders some type of review of cyber attacks by you know who during the election.

Alphabet (Google) donated this year's employee Christmas bonuses to charity instead of the employees.

ooops, Facebook reported a few measurement errors on how many people did how much stuff online.

Unelected, unaccountable regulators at the Department of Transportation consider allowing cell phone calls on airliners.

Western Digital announces updated, helium-filled, enterprise class disks with 12TeraByte capacity.

Joel Spolsky discusses intellectual property rights for programmers and employers and advises, "read before you sign."

Thoughtful piece on machines killing the middle class. People will adjust with time, but many will suffer greatly during that time lag.

Bose may just have invented hearing aids that just about anyone can buy and afford.

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Sunday December 11, 2016

A look inside the NYC offices of the privileged few.

How the definition of success has changed: Discord—never heard of them—has 25million users. That is a large number for someone I have never heard.

All the big-name tech leaders are lining up to visit Mr. Trump in his tower.

Current hiring indicates that Google is readying its self-driving car for production.

Our DEA has been paying airline workers to spy on us. What are we doing to ourselves? And some people wonder why Donald Trump was elected.

Amazon warehouse workers sleep in tents instead of ride expensive company shuttle.

Motherhood enters the life of this writer. Being a parent and trying to write at home has its challenges as well as its often unexpected resources.

The value of a blog for freelance writers.

Writing retreats: they can be quite helpful to sit with other writers and share life.

Techniques to keep the writer writing when ... well you know.

Can a story "heal the divisions in our country?" Yes, if they exist. There are other methods of fixing out mess.

The editor's letter or how to receive feedback on my wonderful writing.

As writers, we are rarely good enough. We practice and practice to improve.

How to use the present tense in memoirs.

The value of writing short stories. There are many good things about writing short stories.

Research papers: Google Docs' Explore now creates the citation and changes the format for you. Excellent.

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