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: 6-12 August, 2018

Summary of this week:

• All the big tech firms are racing to who can censor the most
• Android 9 Pie is released
• IBM has a 19TeraByte SSD
• Europe's GDPR is basically a censorship tool
• The race to censor continues...what First Amendment?

Monday 6 August 2018

It is Monday, the news is slow.

Wells Fargo admits that an error by its programmers caused several hundred people to lose their homes to foreclosure.

Facebook continues to stumble in its censorship efforts. This time by bungling which political ads are legitimate.

Apple dips its toes into censorship by banning podcasts from iTunes.

Taxi drivers in Spain end their strike in victory and force a reduction in Uber drivers.

Be ready folks, we will soon be in the age when all smartphones cost $1,000+. Please, someone reverse the trend. I want the phone equivalent of the Chromebook.

Tuesday 7 August 2018

Airbnb for business claims 700,000 users. Business travelers are moving towards apartments and such instead of traditional motels.

It appears that a tiny minority of us use these smart speakers to shop. Perhaps one day, but not now.

What could possibly go wrong? West Virginia to allow mobile phone voting. Someone will challenge if this is constitutional—among other things.

After "customer feedback," Microsoft changes its mind and will continue supporting Skype 7.

Mystery solved: the P in Android 9 means Pie and not any of the other "p" words we liked.

This story must be important as it is all over the Internet: The FCC was NOT hacked. Perhaps I can push a news story about my site not be hacked either.

SpaceX hits another milestone by relaunching one of its more powerful rockets.

Apple plans to open several retail stores in India—one of the few places where Apple is performing poorly in the marketplace.

How about a 19TeraByte SSD? IBM and Everspin have released one.

Wednesday 8 August 2018

Here come the force multipliers—literally. Ford puts exoskeletons in 15 factories worldwide.

The emotional stress of cybersecurity—where there are thousands of folks trying to sneak past you—is gaining attention.

Europe's GDPR has become the most effective censor of news in history. Was that the intent?

This censorship article actually makes some sense: look to libel and slander laws and let's stop this "hate speech" which is grammatically problematic and means just about anything anyone wants it to mean at any time.

Trade Wars: the Chinese government threatens to do threatening things to Apple in China if a US trade war turns threatening.

Snap has an up and down and up day.

Oracle files a complaint over our Department of Defense's cloud computing project. Let the $10Billion games begin.

Here come the 4TeraByte SSDs from Samsung to the consumer market. No price yet, but a comparable HDD is $100.

Thursday 9 August 2018

"Price is unrelated, except for one thing: Charge enough that you can afford to actually keep your promise."—Seth Godin 

New York City Council clobbers Uber with new regulations.

Magic Leap releases their first product, and folks aren't impressed. These glasses just aren't ready.

LibreOffice 6.1 is released.

An election precinct in Georgia had 243% voter turnout. They still claim there is nothing wrong with the computer voting machines.

ooops, Comcast Xfinity leaks the identities of 26.5Million customers.

How Google built a censorship search engine for the Chinese government.

Friday 10 August 2018

Samsung jumps into the smart speaker home gadget market.

Samsung rebrands its smart watches and introduces new models.

Dropbox has a good financial quarter.

And now we will use augmented reality to put on makeup. I suppose there are worse things we can be doing.

Some groups are asking social media giants to censor other groups. Scratch my head in disbelief: if I can cause you to be censored, tomorrow someone else can cause me to be censored. It has always been this way. Don't these folks realize...

SHAASUIVG ... you have to look at the photo on the link to get the joke.

A social network is hosted on Microsoft's cloud computing stuff. Hence, Microsoft claims the right to censor content on the social network.

CNN studies Twitter's rules and tells Twitter to censor some folks. The free press is promoting censorship. I have to write that again, the free press is promoting censorship.

Why is it in America—where we (used to) revere the First Amendment—we are competing to see who can censor the most with the most hatred?

With all this censorship news, let's introduce some levity, yes the TSA.

Speaking of government futility, the Baltimore Police Department is still using Lotus Notes. Never heard of Lotus Notes? Your youth and vigor are showing.

Saturday 11 August 2018

A group of online students wrote an AI algorithm that beat Google's. It goes to show that no one has the monopoly on brains. It also shows that the needed computer resources are commodities, not owned by only the super-rich.

Those folks who hand out the Oscars partner with The Linux Foundation and create The Academy Software Foundation: open-source software used to make movies.

Spruce Pine, North Carolina: never heard of it? It supplies the sand that makes our smartphones possible.

The "ruler" SSD from Intel. It is long and narrow like a ruler (remember those?) and packs 32TeraBytes into 1U server racks.

Firefox 61 is released.

Xiaomi expands its line of products with a mechanical keyboard for gaming.

Sunday 12 August 2018

The privateers return in the 21st century. Once criminals, hackers are hired by nations to harass enemies.

Claiming viewers of your YouTube videos is worth money. Hence, people pay for the views. Surprisingly, some are surprised by this.

OpenBook: Yet another attempt at a social network where we aren't the product or service, i.e., they won't sell us to advertisers.

A researcher finds a back door into x86 processors made in 2003. The unfortunate news is that these things exist in just about every processor ever made. Some persons find them, and...

Programming languages: Julia 1.0 is released. An open-source language for crunching numbers efficiently.

We reach the time when we try to dismantle a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. We don't know how to do this.

Writing as therapy: maybe you don't like "therapy." There are other words that convey the same: work my way through my problems by putting them on paper in front of me.

Tips on appreciating great writing while not comparing your current self to the great writers at their best.

Not good face-to-face with actual book buyers? There are ways.

"Narrowing the topic made ideas blossom" Excellent advice. One of the best in my experience.

One fiction writer's rules for writing fiction.

Some basic tips about starting that book you will write.

Almost everything you need to write and publish a book can be had at no expen$e.

Building the email list so you can sell your writing to people.

“We learn to connect with characters by seeing them connect. You want to make all your characters feel like they’re right, like they have a legitimate point.”

What keeps us from succeeding financially as writers, and who isn't out there taking money from us.

The magic of making an otherwise simple story turn in just the right direction at just the right time.