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: 16-22 October, 2017

Summary of this week:

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

Monday October 16, 2017

All those Uber and Lyft drivers are clogging the roads. The result is opposite of the intent, once again.

How North Korea grew a force of 6,000 hackers. Focus on a critical point. Textbook asymmetric warfare.

Snapchat grows to become the #1 social media platform of the American teenager.

Security holes in WPA2 are found and published. Time to move to something newer.

Some toys that teach a little of engineering and programming.

I am disappointed to see this one: the Apple executive that said diversity is more than skin deep has withdrawn that statement and gone back to the status quo.

Interesting speculation about the future: Don't nail your house to the ground. Let it drive itself around.

And limited viewing time this morning. Off to the office.

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Tuesday October 17, 2017

My Internet viewing is curtailed today. I am still working extra hours to compensate the Columbus Day lockout. Sigh.

Not-so-secure-security of the day: holes found in RSA.

Everyone is already correcting the security error in WiFi WPA2.

Google photos now recognizes our pets. Why are smart people wasting resources on stupid "problems?"

The iPhone 7 continues to sell more than the iPhone 8.

Facebook tries to push in on LinkedIn with a resume feature.

The DoJ-Microsoft dispute over extraterritoriality goes to the US Supreme Court.X Seems simple to me, but what do I know?

Netflix continues to grow beyond expectations. This is a case where the estimators were wrong, but everyone is happy. Then one day the same estimators will be wrong again, everyone will punish someone else.

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Wednesday October 18, 2017

The Surface Book 2—a major upgrade from Microsoft. Much more processing power.

What is the safe distance a self-driving car should allow? Now we have a new formula. Two seconds was too simple.

Google releases information on its Pixel Visual Core—its own hardware processor than runs the camera on the Pixel phones.

DropBox Professional: $20/month brings 1TeraByte storage and other features.

Facebook now lets us share our computer screen on Facebook live. This could be quite useful.

HP shows a high-end (expensive and powerful) detachable tablet for professional (monied) artists. Are there many true artists with lots of money? Probably not. This is for graphics artists who work for companies that have money to spend on such.

And while we are removing folks for sexual harassment...someone from Amazon departs...someone from Sony departs. I pity any poor fool who messes with my granddaughter...even a little bit. I will wash their mouth out with soap. It won't be pretty; it won't feel good; it won't taste good. It will be a memorable experience.

Intel promises to ship its neural network processor by the end of the year. I saw such processors 25 years ago. They never took off in the market. Maybe this time.

Conflict of interest? Of course. This is how our government works. Our elected representatives, who "regulate" Amazon, beg it to come to our hometown.

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Thursday October 19, 2017

Samsung's 360 Round: 17 cameras and 6 microphones for pros who want to record for VR applications.

Someone using your name on Twitter to say awful things? It may take Twitter a year to close the account.

Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, and the W3C agree to use Mozilla's MDN site to hold all standards doc regarding browsers.

Apple's self-driving car—an engineering version, not cosmetic—is in a new video.

Google's new Pixel 2 is now at Verizon stores with Verizon labels on them.

Google, and everyone else, uses software to censor YouTube videos. The software doesn't always work.

Hypocrisy rules Silicon Valley as all those pro-immigrant companies competed for anti-immigrant ad dollars. No, this isn't news and isn't surprising. Those companies live on advertising and will take anyone's money. Then they run around afterwards and rave against their clients.

Canonical releases Ubuntu 17.10 in the 10th month of 2017 as scheduled.

Our government increasingly uses supervised learning pattern recognition to decide right and wrong. Due process?

The autonomous construction tractor. Of course it works. Of course it eliminates jobs.

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Friday October 20, 2017

A look at how the government of China closely watches its subjects.

Some of our Senators want to protect us from advertisers who exaggerate. Can you imagine that? Exaggeration in ads? What is to protect us? You mean I won't get the super model if I don't drive the right car? Be gads. And then we can talk about how those in power want to limit the speech of those outside of power to preserve their positions. Oh well.

These Senators are adults? Really?

The Honest Ads Act. Can we have an Honest Politicians Act?

Coda: yet another attempt to replace the word processor and spreadsheet. Maybe this time...

The big tech companies band and lobby to "protect" Dreamers. Good for them, but lets not forget how a larger labor pool reduces salaries.

Intel teams with Amazon and puts voice-understanding tech into a kit for all sorts of third-party devices.

Richest person in America? You can do stunts like standing atop a 300-foot-tall windmill with a bottle of champagne.

Japan discovers a 30-mile-long cave on our moon. Just fly up there and move in. Seriously, if you live in the moon cave, you don't have to carry all those heavy building materials up there.

Blue Origin just had a successful test fire of its new, really big rocket engine, and everyone is talking about it.

GIGABYTE pushes the envelope out with a new gaming laptop computer.

MongoDB has its IPO and its value jumps up 34%.

Atlassian is on a big financial run up in value.

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Saturday October 21, 2017

Our FAA learns how to explode batteries and sees this as a reason to ban laptop computers in checked luggage.

Google's Loon balloons are restoring cell phone coverage to Puerto Rico.

Wired considers great results from flawed persons. If we only accepted the work of perfect persons, well...

A look at the history of the Slinky—that toy that walks.

Atmospheric rivers coming to the west coast. That is a good thing.

How The Simpsons predicted the future. Lots of cartoon creators have predicted the future many times. The real news media? Not so much.

It appears that police officers wearning body cameras doesn't change anything.

The big folks at Apple claim that the Mac Mini will live on despite infrequent updates to the product.

Maryland allows Elon Musk to start boring a tunnel for some fantastic future hyperloop.

The Patterson–Gimlin film of Bigfoot is now 50 years old.

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Sunday October 22, 2017

It is Sunday. We don't have much news. The Houston Astros rob us of a Dodgers-Yankees World Series. How do two National League teams play in the same World Series? Someone moved the map or something.

This is a good essay on the life on Mongolian nomads.

Our FDA approves a five-minute, home allergy tester. No, this isn't Theros. This actually works.

McDonalds and others are going back to the past to please next-gen workers by offering daily paychecks. The computers and networks of today enable inexpensive movement of money.

Tesla, which boasts cars without accidents, is trying to change the car insurance industry.

Legal gambling: you will lose. If you win, the house will bar you. You can't win. Accept it and don't play.

Tips for editing your own writing. Difficult.

I like this piece on the spark that won't die. Something inside you keeps burning, sometimes for years. At the right time, you write it.

"What is the theme or message of your current manuscript? How does it tie in with why writing is important to you?"

Writing with another person or two. Everyone gets an equal split no matter how much "work" anyone does.

Some constructive things freelance writers can do in social media.

Some things we can eliminate so we have the time to do NaNoWriMo.

Neil Gaiman rules of writing. These are excellent. Write, finish, correct, finish, do it.

Quit your job? Write full time? Check the dollars and sense. If they don't add up, don't do it.

Should you use a checklist to help write a novel. If it helps you, the answer is yes .

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