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: 20-26 March, 2017

Summary of this week:

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

Monday March 20, 2017

Facebook and fake news and clicks and ad dollars and the mess Facebook is in.

Speaking of a recent mess, the President of Uber leaves after less than a year on the job.

A look at Techmeme—one of the only sites I view every day.

Headline says it all: Snapchat continues to dive (SNAP).

SpaceX's capsule leaves the ISS after a month and returns cargo to NASA.

For the record, both presidential candidates' campaigns used Uber more than regular taxis. Do the Democrats believe in deregulation, too?

Apple pays zero taxes in New Zealand. Of course it is legal. These para-nations have better lawyers than the nations.

Photograph your hotel room. Contribute to fighting human trafficking? Yes, see the post for details.

About a hundred things every programmer should know.

"Robots" that deliver stuff locally. They are here, well, still a stunt, but the future is in sight.

I like this thoughtful piece on immigration, and not just for blue collar workers. The Silicon Valley elite are anti-immigrant as well.

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Tuesday March 21, 2017

Another example of Silicon Valley money solving a problem that doesn't matter: Google Maps will remember where you parked and how much time you have on the meter. The best minds in the country are working on this?

The lidar problem and self-driving cars. How do you move up to real manufacturing capacity?

Google Glass in the factory. Someone else has finally figured out what to do with augmented reality.

It seems that Apple is making a serious push into augmented reality.

WikiLeaks leaked and Cisco confirmed: there is a big vulnerability in the Cisco routers.

DoorDash starts using robot food deliveries this week in California. Only six units, but it's a start.

Toilet paper theft and facial recognition software in China. More silly problems solved by technology.

Face for radio but want to be a YouTube star? Just narrate an animation.

Exaggeration: the race to save government data. This isn't that heroic or difficult.

Watch out Facebook Live, here comes Twitter with a similar offering.

Do the math: in 18 years college will cost half a million dollars.

Google fiber fizzles out in Kansas City. It never happened.

In an odd move, our government bans tablets and laptops on flights originating in the Middle East.

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Wednesday March 22, 2017

WalMart Store #8—a tech incubator in California. Trying to catch up to Amazon.

In the past 18 months, Twitter has suspended 376,000 accounts related to terrorism. Good for Twitter.

Apple introduces a less-expensive iPad and a red iPhone.

Will Apple use its big bank account to subsidize products?

Microsoft has finished a special-China-only version of Windows 10.

oooops, Microsoft's web services went down Tuesday afternoon.

IBM nixes telecommuting and calls people back into the office.

Our President signs legislation for a manned mission to Mars. The tech world actually approves of something he does.

The UK joins the US in banning laptops and tablets on flights from the Middle East.

The news out of Chicago becomes more troubling each day.

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Thursday March 23, 2017

Seth Godin has a must-read post about the first advertisement for a well-known product.

Google has a problem with how it places ads on YouTube. Customers are leaving.

Lots of people I know wear FitBit. They don't, however, buy stock in the company. Prices plunge.

Google solves another problem that doesn't exist: where are my friends right now? Come on folks, let's put the brains to work on problems that matter.

Trending Storylines: coming soon to Microsoft's LinkedIn. They seem to have learned from Facebook's fake news follies. And it is hard to write Microsoft LinkedIn. Got to get used to that one.

Apple buys WorkFlow. This is a lesser-known app that takes care of details for you.

Hackers claim to have cracked 300million iCloud accounts. They want $100K ransom for the whole lot. Why so little money?

Facebook Live is now available for desktop bound computer users.

Twitter brings in IBM Watson technology to find bullies.

Headline sort of says it all: 'Disputed by multiple fact-checkers': Facebook rolls out new alert to combat fake news. Let's see if any of this is real or just marketing (see earlier line from Seth Godin about marketing).

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Friday March 24, 2017

Moving from paper to digital: you have to pull the staples out of the paper. Hence, a robot to do so.

Let's all censor "fake news." What was the verb? Oh, yeah, censor. Let's think this over again.

Advertising on social media: you don't know what will be next to your ad. So, uh, let's think this over again.

The gig economy. It is often long, hard hours at little or no pay. The is our economy. Who presided over this 8 years?

The economy and the epidemic of middle-age deaths in the US. Again, who presided over this?

Our Senate votes to reverse an FCC law from the prior administration. Regression or something else terrible? Or is this people holding to the campaign promises. We still have elections in this country. I believe we need term limits on Congress like we have on the Presidency.

Howard West: Google partners with Howard University and opens a campus for black engineers. Please take care here. Discriminating to end discriminating has its problems.

How Google uses AI to close caption YouTube videos.

This is a good idea: mobile devices detect when you are driving and behave accordingly.

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Saturday March 25, 2017

Tesla's SolarCity will take order for the solar roof in April—ahead of schedule.

Kids and sugar; adults and alcoholism. Yikes.

Will Manhattan get a U-shaped building? Goofy. Silly. The best minds in the world are doing this stuff. Come on folks, let's work on things that matter.

The Supreme Court, toner cartridges, patents, and what we "own" when we "buy" something. One of those little-known lawsuits that affect everyone's daily life.

Google Talk comes to an end. I used it often. I'll have to move to Hangouts or just stick with Facebook's video chat.

Learning programming and web design at San Quentin. Yes, that San Quentin, a.k.a., the prison. Of course I have to mention that there are lots of persons in the US who would like to attend such courses, but since they are not convicted felons, they can't. We try to do something good, but at what cost?

Insta360 Air, $130 gets you a cool 360-degree-shooting camera for an Android phone.

Uber troubles. CEO and others go to an escort bar. HR complaints, and so on. Where do private lives end and corporate lives begin? What is expected of CEOs? How numb are some people? And what does this have to do with the financial health of a company? If all this leads to the failure of Uber, good, hard-working persons will lose their jobs and the ability to support those who depend on them.

Uber is having technical and personal problems in their self-driving car endeavors.

The little-known work of Google with rural school districts. This is a problem worthy of Google's talent and resources.

Another little-known movement in the US: the four-day school week is growing in rural areas.

Amazon to collect sales tax in 45 states starting 1 April. This is not an April Fool's joke.

This story must be important because it all over the Internet: our Secretary of the Treasury doesn't think AI will affect jobs.

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Sunday March 26, 2017

The most important news of the weekend: the Justice League trailer is released. Aquaman is a stud.

What's not coming out of Washington DC next? H-1B visa reform.

Hadoop may be fading in big data—it's just too complex to use for large numbers of people.

This is America? This is what our law enforcement folks are buy? And it won't work as teenagers will think of 100s of ways to defeat it in five seconds.

Photoshop if for dinosaurs. Google in bringing a group, collaboration photo editing app.

This piece has great financial advice. I was fortunate to hear it way back when it did me good.

BookBub: a place to advertise your fiction. I've never heard of it. Perhaps I will use it.

Writer basics: how to format your book manuscript so an editor doesn't have to do all the work you should be doing. Make it easier on the editor. They decide if your book is published.

How a daily routine helps writers write. Note the tension: we want to be creative, so we do a terrible uncreative ROUTINE.

You want to write for a living and do nothing else. Please consider some of these questions. Especially the ones about money.

"I wish I had..." last wishes of the dying and how they apply to the living writers.

The real writer: if you write, you are one.

It seems to be quite difficult for most writers to FINISH that book. Here are common reasons why. Work through it. ooops, writing is work.

Great stuff—pen, paper, typewriter, etc.

Reading and learning from reading for writers.

Some ideas on growing your audience as a writer.

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