Items I happen to view each day. Science, Technology, 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.

Summary of this week:

• Stephen Hawking dies at 76
• Stronger rumors of new laptops from Apple in June
• Our President blocks the Broadcom Qualcomm purchase on national security
• SEC charges Theranos founder with fraud
• Ford recalls a million cars—the steering wheels fall off
• Cambridge Analytica mines Facebook (legally) and we have an uproar

Monday 12 March 2018

Can we get a dictionary here? Or maybe just some people who read dictionaries? What does "blockchain" mean anyways?

Who is leading the high-tech right-to-repair movement? Farmers.

Someone has a firm grasp on reality: "abusers" of social media are using it exactly as it was designed to be used. And the wrong guy was elected President, so some of us are required to scream FOUL!

tweetdecks...Twitter delves into censorship. Troubled waters.

Stronger rumors that Apple will updates its line of portable computers in June.

Read the calendar, Ubuntu 18.04 is available for download.

Digging into YouTube's recommendations leads us from mainstream to niche. Somehow this is news or surprising.

Tuesday 13 March 2018

The promise and maybe reality of 3-D printed homes.

Microsoft Teams, its Slack competitor, appears to be ahead of Facebook and Google in this market.

Small drone deliveries may actually happen this summer in the US. Credit our President and his desire for government to work with American innovators instead of slowing them.

Arlington, Texas drops public bus services and instead subsidizes ride sharing. Let the company manage the employees instead of the government. This idea goes back decades and generally works.

Facebook is now rating "journalists" to point to real stories. It appears Facebook is being tricked often.

Our President blocks the Broadcom-Qualcomm merger-acquisition citing national security.

YouTubeTV continues to raise its prices.

Our TSA stumbles into trouble again with the search of computers and phones on domestic flights.

Apple buys digital newstand Texture and hopes to cash in on the content.

A glimpse into the world of programmers. People program in languages that pay the bills, not languages they love.

Wednesday 14 March 2018

Stephen Hawking has died at 76.

The world's top brands: Apple falls out of favor. The list is fascinating and frankly beyond explanation.

Microsoft is being sued by many of its female employees. The complaints in this decade alone are above 200.

YouTube will begin adding Wikipedia links to conspiracy-theory videos. I guess they want us befuddled adults to educate ourselves.

Our country will soon have a new Secretary of State.

We have a new Raspberry Pi...the 3 Model B+. Improvements in chips, same size, same $35 price.

Google's Waymo now has completely driverless self-driving cars running the streets in Arizona. For all the hype, these things will be a blessing for those who cannot drive themselves—the infirmed, the elderly, and others.

Security researchers have now found flaws in AMD's processors.

Firefox 59 is released.

Thursday 15 March 2018

Headline says is all: SEC charges Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes with massive fraud.

Madison Square Garden has been using facial recognition to identity customers and look for ne'er-do-wells.

Real users are now seeing Microsoft's new user experience for Outlook.com.

Toys R Us is leaving us, closing 800 stores. I used to shop there for my sons.

Microsoft claims a breakthrough in Chinese-English translation.

Nest appears to have weathered the storm of a startup and is now integrating all its home products.

Your Audi can communicate with the street lights in several cities, now in Washington D.C.

"half of the world’s urban population lives on unnamed streets" To the rescue come Google Plus Codes.

Google releases the code for the learning model that powers their smartphone camera.

Friday 16 March 2018

The use of drones to manage construction sites. Of course it works. The bird's eye view empowers managers to understand what is actually happening and make better decisions.

A story of Amazon's success. Let everyone know that cloud computing financed everything else.

Our government admits that the Russian government basically whipped up at computing usage in the last decade. And we invented all this stuff and were so supposed to be so superior.

The New Orleans Police Department stops its relationship with Palantir.

Microsoft announces a cloud gaming division. The future of games is using someone else's computer.

Adobe has a better-than-expected financial quarter.

Ford recalls 1.3million cars—the steering wheels literally fall off.

iHeartRadio—which owns over 800 radio stations in the US—files for bankruptcy.

7 11 is using facial recognition at its 11,000 stores in Thailand.

Government agents in Japan raid Amazon's office. They suspect Amazon of anti-trust violations.

Saturday 17 March 2018

Microplastics are found in over 90% of bottled water. The search for "pure water" has brought us poison or something.

Facial recognition systems are now in US airports.

"What does this remind you of?" A good question from Seth Godin. Often better than, "Do you like this?"

Apple announces an Education event for later this month.

The government of China now has a measure of "social credit" to help keep its subjects in line.

Interesting essay showing how poorly government operates services and then asks, "Do you really want government health care?"

Sunday 18 March 2018

And now we have Cambridge Analytica: they  mined data from Facebook and others and turned that into useful information for political campaigns. Somehow, everyone is aghast at the obvious use of the obvious. Facebook is shocked that someone used what Facebook advertised they could use. This is data science folks. Nothing to see here. Persons on the losing side of elections in the US and UK can now say, "Aha! No wonder we—even though we are on the right side of history—lost! Someone 'cheated'."

Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, data science, elections, and angst. When the electorate decides against you, it is comforting to find a scapegoat.

Some technical explanation of how Facebook allowed others to mine data of millions of customers. Those customers? Well, they didn't pay Facebook a penny, so they have no complaint. Oh, and by the way, the whole thing hinges on a person allowing someone else to tell them how to vote. That has never worked well in America.

Interesting reader surveys from the revived The Linux Journal.

Unusual characters and unusual situations—the essence of story. And people wonder why fake news and wild ideas spread quickly on the Internet. We are fascinated with them.

Write about what you want to write about. Caution in the digital and online world. Sometimes write it with pencil and paper. I am not the only person in the world or in my life.

Evidently it is difficult to have writers of fiction or non-fiction switch to the other side.

Some writers, some persons who want to say they are writers, are always looking for the perfect conditions before they can write. Hands on keyboard—even hand on pencil. Now that is all we need.

You are a writer. Write all the time. There are opportunities we miss to create. See this post.

What one person did to improve the length and quality of their sleep. This is important to writers. Take care of yourself. If you are sick, you don't write, you have no income.

A look at the no-cost $$$ sources that you can use to boost your writing audience.

Six novels in a year writing part time. This author does it.

For another source of income, turn your non-fiction book into a workbook.

Questions to consider before accepting a writing assignment for pay. Yes, there is more to consider than money in exchange for your time and hard work.