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: 16-22 July, 2018

Summary of this week:

• Twitter removes fake followers, celebrity counts plummet
• Amazon's Prime Day has technical glitches
• Netflix stock falls as growth isn't as much as estimated
• EU fines Google $5Billion
• Walmart and Microsoft team to battle Amazon
• European earth-based telescope works better than Hubble
• Microsoft has a good financial quarter
• The Data Transfer Project makes the news
• Take care in Missouri, people (Uber drivers) can record and broadcast you

Monday 16 July 2018

For the record, France won the FIFA World Cup. Novak Djokovich won Wimbledon's Gentlemens's title.

Got two Segways and some time? Turn them into a go-cart. Fun.

Silicon Valley, this time Facebook, continues to embarrass itself with diversity reports.

Microsoft, who is lagging in facial recognition technology, wants the leaders in the field to be regulated by the government.

Twitter removes fake followers. Big-name celebrities are found to have million$ of these fake fans.

Minecraft, like almost all video games, also encourages kids to read actual paper-and-binding books.

Benchmarks on Apple's updated MacBook Pro show that its SSD is the fastest ever in a portable computer.

With a lot of help from this researcher, Amazon's Alexa can understand American Sign Language.

Tuesday 17 July 2018

Someone in Helsinki figured out that public transportation is public transportation regardless of the details.

Microsoft pushes new Skype features out to the desktop.

Prime Day begins, but Amazon has a few technical difficulties.

Netflix grows, but not as much as estimators estimated. As usual, no one punishes the estimators for their errors.

Chinese money flows into the US in tech investments. Until now, no one seemed to see the national security risk.

One analysis shows a nice picture of AI creating more jobs than it removes. We shall see. It is unfortunate that those who will lose their jobs will not have the ability to move into the newly created ones.

Facebook continues to flounder in its censorship. They simply need to hire more persons to do the work instead of hoping that software will provide some sort of miracle.

The best use of AI is aiding persons to do jobs, not replacing persons. This requires almost one programmer per two other persons to create custom software.

Apple, luxury products at those prices, just can't seem to make it good in the market of India.

By some measure, Jeff Bezos is now richer than King Solomon was at about $150Billion.

Some details on how the Russians hacked the DNC. As with almost all hacking, stupidity by the victim was a great aid to the hackers.

Wednesday 18 July 2018

Voting machines, i.e., computers had remote access capabilities in them. Hence, hackers could of course access them and such. Computers would make wonderful voting machines if we did it correctly. It is unfortunate that the folly we have is of course because of fools running the show.

A look at evolutionary computing: a different approach from the usual deep learning and neural networking.

Walmart and Microsoft partner in cloud computing and other advanced methods to battle Amazon.

Amazon bumps up the processors and such in its AWS cloud computing options.

Google starts yet another major undersea communications cable project. These "old" things are the backbone of all international communications, i.e., the Internet.

A "study" links ADHD with looking a screens all the time. I doubt the findings.

A "journalist" goes undercover to infiltrate Facebook and learn how their moderators fake their way through the day and ignore all the fake stuff they see etc. Of course you can get a job and goof off, this is real but not news.

Another European regulatory body levies another huge fine on a successful American tech company. This time it is Google and it is $5Billion with a B.

Seth Godin provides simple yet powerful things to do when giving a presentation.

Strong rumors that Microsoft is improving its command-line interface. BASH? Maybe? That isn't difficult to do.

Thursday 19 July 2018

I love this essay from Seth Godin, “garbage in, gorgeous out.”

Strong rumors that Samsung will enter the smart speaker market this year.

More Samsung rumors: they will have a fold-able smartphone next year. I would like to see this one.

Facebook promises to improve its censorship and remove speech that leads to violence. Of course such is a prediction, and most of us are not good predictors, but hey, Facebook is smarter than the rest of us (not) and...what could possible go wrong?

This must be plutocrat apology week: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg jump in.

Research shows...if it weren't for hackers, online retailers would have very little login attempts. What would they do with all their spare time?

The Europeans have an earth-based telescope that produces better images than Hubble in orbit. Credit new technologies and better image processing.

News Flash (not): our President spends a lot of money on Facebook for ads. When the prior President did such, he was hailed as a pioneer.

News Flash (not): there is a lot of $$$ in health care. Hence, health insurers are gobbling data to learn what we do and raise our rates. Tip: don't put photos of your drunked driving self on social media.

The myth of all-powerful Amazon. Except for book selling and cloud computing, Amazon really doesn't control much of anything.

Reddit adds live chatrooms. Let the games begin.

Friday 20 July 2018

Alphabet's project Loon balloons are coming to fruition and will start working over Kenya.

We learn a few things about Google's Fuchsia OS that has been in development for two years now.

Amazon rolls out the "Part Finder." Use our phones to photograph and measure a screw or other part, and the software will find the part and order it for us. Yet another way to help us spend our money.

Microsoft has a good financial quarter. They had big gains in cloud computing and their personal computer hardware.

It appears that about 10% of Instagram users are bots, not persons.

Against all odds, Best Buy is still here. Personal chief technology officers are a big reasons why, i.e., Best Buy learned how to serve customers. What a concept.

Move Mirror: Google gives us something to play with today. Could be fun for the kids?

Our Department of Justice will now tell us when foreign actors are trying to dupe us into voting for someone or something like that.

Worldwide, wonderful new skyscrapers look good and provide housing for the rich. They rest of the poor masses? Who are they?

New powerful Apple portable computers have inadequate cooling. Hence, their processors don't reach the speeds advertised.

This appears to be the biggest news of the day: Mark Zuckerburg called Donald Trump in November 2016 to congratulate him on how his campaign used Facebook to win.

A look at the Fortnite money machine.

McDonald's now delivers orders via UberEats at 5,000 US locations.

Saturday 21 July 2018

The numbers prove that the Nike Vaporfly lets you run faster while burning less energy. Hence, if you are like me, and run to burn energy, NEVER wear these as they defeat the purpose. What is the objective?

Someone (else) creates a 10-second delay on Tweets and an edit feature. Fewer ooops are now possible.

Sriracha was done completely and totally wrong and succeeded. Hmmm. Perhaps there is a lesson here.

America landed on the moon 49 years ago. Today? Well, maybe we can put a person into space sometime in the next decade. What went wrong?

The busiest air route in the world is in and out of South Korea's Jeju Island. My son lived there two years.

If you want a phone, buy a phone. If you want a camera, buy a camera.

Waymo continues to push self-driving vehicle tech as it logs 25,000 miles a day in Nevada.

It appears that Adderall ... well, no one is sure what it does for or against college students. Someone has conned the students into buying this stuff. I guess the $$$ is the ultimate winner.

For the short-term, must emphasize SHORT-TERM, people accomplish more in a four-day work week than working five days.

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter are the big players in the Data Transfer Project: make it easier to move data among your social media life. Problems? What could possibly go wrong?

Western Digital closes a factory in Malaysia and signals the decline of the spinning disk drive and the rise of the "solid state disk."

Some good suggestions for Apple and its iCloud offering. Yes, the free 5GigaBytes of storage is laughable. Let's move on, please.

Sunday 22 July 2018

Calling on Walmart to do better than Amazon at online retail. Amazon's Prime is somewhat bloated in that we pay for things we don't want and don't use.

The odd rise of the Python programming language. Essentially, it is the Pascal of this century, i.e., a suitable language for an introductory programming course.

NetBSD 8.0 is released.

An update on SpaceX and its Block 5 version of the Falcon 9. They are progressing towards sending persons into space. I hope they succeed.

The New York State Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board has ruled that Uber drivers are employees. If this holds, the entire business changes.

Jerry Weinberg provides some understated yet brilliant advice on "advice" and "help."

It seems that Google's Confidential Mode email is not quite so confidential.

People are typing garbage into Google Translate and are receiving "religious prophecies" back. Some folks have too much time on their hands.

The state of Missouri has a one-party consent law, i.e., I can record you without your (the second party) consent. Uber/Lyft driver livestreams his rides without telling them and is making money doing so on Twitch.

A great example of horrible writing. There are so many negatives in this headline that I cannot understand what they are saying.

Commonly feared fears of letting others read what you wrote.

Excellent post on 10 rules for writers. In fiction, you are entertaining the reader, not easing your own conscience. Entertain.

Excellent idea: read bad writing. We can learn from it. Another exercise is then to rewrite it.

Sell your books locally. Some ideas.

I usually don't like pieces like this one, but this one is pretty good. Some feel the world is burning down with our current President. Others felt that way with our prior President. I have worked under seven Presidents, so I realize that the come and go. Still, when all is burning down, continue to write.

If you are trying to earn a living as a full-time writer, you are running a small business (a very small one). So here are some links to guide a business.

"Stop trying to be disciplined and be a good person. Instead, put your efforts into setting up a supportive environment and creating the systems that allow you to follow through with good behaviors." Well said. Now just do it.

Thoughts on celebrating success as a writer. We can fall into a trap where every publication is a relief and every rejection is an absolute disaster.