Items I happen to view each day. Science, Technology, Management, Culture, and Writing

    This is my day book for this week. It is a log of things I see on the Internet.

This week: 2-8 April, 2018

Summary of this week:

• The Cambridge Analytica coverage continues
• Villanova wins NCAA basketball championship again
• Intel pushes six-core processor to the laptop
• Apple may push Intel processors out and replace with their own in Macs
• A shooting (failed) at YouTube
• Mr. Zuckerburg to appear before Congress
• MIT has a breakthrough in a subvocalization interface
• All the 2018 H-1B visas were consumed in five days

Monday 2 April 2018

CloudFlare announces a new tool that speeds Internet access and provides more privacy.

Rural Internet companies, with fewer funds, are hurt by tariffs and restrictions on Huawei.

AI systems are "trained" with data. If you use the data at hand, you recognize it. If you don't have photos of different races, you don't recognize different races. Somehow this confounds some people.

Let's boycott the big tech companies! Good luck with that one.

A look at the high school for aristocrats in India that produces CEOs of American companies.

Linux 4.16 is released.

Companies are trying to have Silicon Valley residents move to places where they can actually afford to live.

The Chinese space station fell harmlessly into the Pacific ocean and mostly burned up on re-entry.

An in-depth explanation of all these data science projects and Facebook and politics and such. No one has any magic, and—believe it or not—the analytics didn't sway elections. Plenty of losing candidates used the same tools. The winner was the salesman.

Tuesday 3 April 2018

Villanova wins the NCAA basketball championship again. College basketball is a sport where the little schools with the right coach routinely beat the big schools.

Panera Bread has a big data leak on its website and leaked information for a few million customers.

The President of the United States versus Amazon. And there are rumors that the AWS government contracts may be cancelled.

The story of how Microsoft has slowly but steadily walked away from Windows and operating systems as the foundation of the company. Now it is Azure and Office365.

Intel evolves their line of processors and brings a six-core CPU to the laptop.

Strong rumors that in 2020 Apple will replace Intel processors in the Mac with Apple's own processors.

Google and the Rolling Study Halls—putting WiFi and Chromebooks on school buses in rural areas where the bus rides often are more than an hour and the homes have no broadband.

Is coffee bad for you? Some continue to argue. The State of California will now regulate it. Yet another reason to not live there.

Reddit shuffles its site for the first time in a decade.

Mindfulness, meditation, and money...big money. They all go together in the self-care app business.

OpenBSD 6.3 is released.

Tesla slowly learns that designing technology is not the same as manufacturing cars. Musk takes over management of manufacturing as they continue to fall short of goals.

The limitations of virtual reality—at least for now.

Wednesday 4 April 2018

There was a shooting a YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California. Only the shooter died.

The female shooter had a history of conflict and angst with YouTube. Her father told the police to find her, pre-shooting, and that she was going to YouTube because she hated them.

Our President announces the $50Billion in Chinese imports that will be hit with new tariffs. I guess I don't understand the US Constitution. I didn't know that the President could do these things alone. It used to take acts of Congress, but I guess sometime in the past Congress passed a law giving the President full reign. Silly Congress.

Apple hires Google's former AI chief John Giannandrea.

Our Federal government admits or leaks that foreign governments are running cellphone spoofing equipment in our nation's capital.

Gaming laptops are always on the leading edge of technology. These already have the new Intel six-core processors and a lot other stuff, too.

Something I have to absorb: the IRA is no longer the Irish Republican Army; it is now the Russian Internet Research Agency.

Something that was probably illegal  to reveal, but ... Facebook tells us that the Trump campaign spent more on Facebook than the Clinton campaign. 

Dell has a new series of gaming laptops that are powerful on the inside, but flimsy on the outside.

And Dell puts the new Intel six-core processors in a "business" (not gaming) laptop—the standard XPS 15.

Microsoft adds an AI offering to its online series of Professional Programs training.

Thursday 5 April 2018

Young, earnest, rich Mark Zuckerburg to face Congress just like young, earnest, rich, Bill Gates did a generation earlier. Some of the young, earnest, rich ones among us never seem to learn.

Facebook has "learned its lesson" and will not share so much of the information of its (non-paying) customers.

Cambridge Analytica disagrees with the depth of its research. Facebook says...Cambridge Analytica says...and on we go.

Our Department of Defense is about to award a $10Billion (with a B) contract to Amazon for cloud computing. The rich get richer.

The Facebook news continues and continues and drones on into the just pure boring.

Friday 6 April 2018

If Facebook is going to collapse and close I wish they would do it today so the Internet news won't be dominated by it any longer. Let's get it over, OK?

Amazon has deleted Prime accounts and won't explain anything to anyone. Customer service. How can a business stay in business when it refuses to sell its products to its customers? I guess I don't understand business.

Microsoft is bringing 64-bit app support for ARM-based computers in May.

Facebook has removed any messages we might have received over the years from Mr. Zuckerburg. Deleting tapes? Shredding files? What is next?

The tale of how Amazon Web Services is the prime source for cloud computing for our central government.

A case of bad timing: Facebook was just beginning a medical research project helping hospitals and patients. On hold amid all the other controversies.

Nvidia releases some slower, lower-priced video cards. This is a typical practice of taking the ICs that really didn't turn out as expected in the processing. They work, not completely, but deliver some features. So mark down the price and clear off the shelves.

HP updates its ZBook. Better processors, better hardware everywhere.

Dell updates all its offerings with the newest Intel processors. Gotta' get an Alienware portable (super)computer.

The growing connectivity of hearing aids. Could be great. I hope someone in that industry is considering security and privacy.

Twitter has suspended over a million accounts because of terrorism content. I wish I knew what that was.

Science rewrites itself again: flowering plants wiped out the dinosaurs.

Saturday 7 April 2018

Transcript of a Tim Cook interview. My interest is his comments on teaching programming in schools. I like the idea of rational, logical thought in schools. Let's not forget that the more programmers in the US, the less Apple and others has to pay them.

The role of younger adults in South Korea in the world of crypto-mining and all that it brings.

Western Digital releases a line of SSD storage built for high-end graphics, a.k.a., gaming.

Some folks at MIT have built a device that senses subvocalization (sort of like reading silently to yourself or speaking silently) and interfaces that to a computer. A prototype now, but could be a huge help to those who can no longer speak aloud.

The relatively short career of a professional video game player. Yes, the hand-eye reflexes needed to play at a high level depart us at a young age.

Walmart greatly expands the use of "Pickup Towers."

I love this post by Godin. I especially like his comments about how rich rich persons can live a post-national existence and leave everyone else behind. There was a day in America when the rich brought everyone else along with them upwards.

Here we go with yet another loss of customer private information. This time from Best Buy, Delta Airlines, and Sears.

We have reached the saturation point. For the first time, the number of apps in the Apple store has fallen.

All the H-1B visas for 2018 are gone; it only took five days to consume a year's supply.

Rumors and expectations and desires of the next Apple Mac Pro desktop powerhouse computer. Modular? Expandable? We have to wait until sometime in 2019.

Sunday 8 April 2018

Wired takes an interesting long-term view of Mark Zuckerburg and his apologies. Good intentions, but...well, you know.

Want Amazon HQ2 in your town? Think about the changes that will happen. Yes, change will happen, and you may not like it.

The race to mine the gold in crypto-currencies is causing the prices of GPUs to rise beyond acceptable levels. Nvidia, the one company benefiting most, is realizing that it is benefiting a little too much. Their success is creating a space for competitors to rise.

As a writer, go back to something you wrote long ago (subjective time period). What did it say? How did it say it? How would you change the message and the method? Most important, what were you trying to say that you didn't say?

I enjoyed reading this essay about the role that writers play in creating the culture of tomorrow and the culture where in tomorrow the writers change the culture again.

The use of a grammar checker on your computer. Yes, do this. Pay attention. Learn. Don't be a slave to the software, but use it for hints.

Writing a scene and the Five Elements of Story Telling. This is one method. Consider it and use it if it works for you.

Sometimes, well...often times, we write about ourselves. How to sort of make me look like someone else.