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: 31 December 2018 - 6 January 2019

Summary of this week:

• Amazon is pushing Whole Foods out into rural America (maybe)
• The public domain expands again after a 20-year Congressional hold
• It would take $1,000 for the average Facebook user to delete their account
• China lands an unmanned craft on the far side of the moon
• People are walking around blind folded

Monday 31 December 2018

This is the day of New Year's Eve. It feels like it is a Holiday, but that is tomorrow—Tuesday. Who scheduled it this way?

Lawrence Roberts, the program manager for ARPAnet and the birth of the Internet—dies at 81.

Amazon changes itself to market into rural India.

Amazon is also pushing its Whole Foods stores out into rural America. They need the real estate and store fronts to boost their Prime delivery program in those areas. Beware the competition from the Dollar stores.

India has a nation-wide biometrics program with over a billion participants. It is finally working.

Tuesday 1 January 2018

After 20 years of nothing being added to the Public Domain, welcome the new year with new works from 1923.

The deepfake videos continue to arrive. The technology has become so inexpensive and easy to use that non-celebrities are being hit hard with deepfakes and threats of extortion. Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.

Waymo (Google) self-driving cars are under constant attack in their test ground in Arizona. I suppose this is another reason why we can't have nice things.

Perhaps Apple has finally priced itself out of its own market. Lower prices in 2019? I hope so.

Some of the recent Netflix movies have been viewed by tens of millions of persons. Really? Does a one-minute quick check count as watching the movie?

I like this, but I have programmed in C since 1983. The essentials of the C programming language in 45 pages.

Wednesday 2 January 2018

Our FCC grants Google permission to continue development of a radar-based gesture interface.

On average, according to a recent study, Facebook users wouldn't give up their accounts for less than $1,000.

At look at how some small companies have kept their applications running in the Macintosh world for 20+ years.

Finally, it took three years, but Microsoft's Windows 10 has finally passed Windows 7 in market share.

Chinese developers rule the India market with software. Everyone else missed on this one.

The Consumer Electronics Show is in Las Vegas next week.

Perhaps the world will resume spinning on its axis next week as we come out of the holiday season.

Thursday 3 January 2018

In search of technology jobs, the government in Kansas City is treating its residents as lab rats. How much privacy do you sell to get a job?

Tyler Blevins earned $10Million in 2018 playing Fortnite. I guess there is economic justice somewhere in this world.

Apple announces the obvious: iPhones are selling as fast as hoped. This is especially apparent in China.

More bad economic news from Tesla.

And more bad economic news coming from China's dominant search engine company.

How do you censor over a billion subjects? The government of China hires a lot of low-wage people. Forget that AI software stuff that Facebook tries.

Havoc in national parks caused by...the people who are visiting national parks and causing havoc by misbehaving. Let's not blame the government shutdown for slobs.

Friday 4 January 2018

Not much time for Internet viewing this morning.

And now some folks take the Bird Box challenge: walk around with a blindfold. Please folks. Really?

Finally, Samsung has a flat monitor that pushes flat against the wall.

Technology exports have always been regulated (see ITAR). Some decry the idea of regulating exports of AI technology.

Predictable and predicted: the smartphone has hit a market and technology wall. Apple and Samsung struggle to adapt.

Saturday 5 January 2018

D-Link shows a home router that does a 5G cellphone to WiFi conversion. No cable modem, no DSL, Ethernet connections.

snackbot: little rolling ice chests are delivering snacks at the University of Pacific. A stunt in "robotics," but hey, they may make some money here.

Some of the better, lower-priced laptop computers for gaming and graphics programming.

ooops, in Germany, someone has hacked into everything used by politicians and has dumped all the candid and, well, you know, stuff to the public. Beware copycats in the US.

Amazon releases Showroom: augmented reality so you can put pieces of furniture in your room to see how they would look.

Our Federal Trade Commission is going after Qualcomm for, uh, er, I guess for succeeding too much in the marketplace.

"Culture is what we build, and that’s powerful."—Seth Godin

They have this one wrong: the solution to Apple's problems is a lower-priced iPhone, not a cheaper iPhone.  Cut some profit.

In China, tracking and watching subjects has become a technical form of art. They make the school kids wear uniforms with GPS trackers in them.

Amazon claims to have sold 100Million Alexa devices.

Coming real soon now from Western Digital: 16TeraByte disk drives for the home.

Got $1,500? Get a 49-inch curved display from Samsung. Just what I need for the kitchen computer?

Sunday 6 January 2018

With the partial government shutdown, the FCC is limiting its operations. Hence, now is the time to violate regulations regarding WiFi and "get away with it"—at least for a little while if you are so inclined.

All the fun ads leading up to the CES this week. Apple boasts about lack of privacy on Google and Amazon and Facebook and...

What to expect at the CES: cars and drones. All the rest of the stuff will be small improvements over last year.

What are the better USB microphones?

Looking ahead to the year of 5G wireless. It is coming real soon now.

Silly but believable: "Western companies routinely sell their old tech hardware to private companies in foreign countries, without wiping the sensitive data on them first."

Someone thought we would all ride bicycles to work. They were wrong.

For those who just can't seem to move and write that book, these are pretty good things to do to push onwards.

Some pretty good advice on blogging.

The journey to success as a write. Again, we attach words to "writer" and usually create problems for ourselves and others. What is "success" anyways?

The writing community and writing group. This is one of the things I highly recommend to everyone.

The writing room or the writing place. I find that I sort of write just about anywhere. If it works for you, however, do it.

Thoughts on the Book Bible: a document that contains all significant information related to a book or a book series.

Good tips for using LinkedIn as a writer's platform.

This is an excellent post that anyone who wants to write AND EARN MONEY doing it should read. Note, if you want to write and don't care about the money, that is fine. Just understand what you are doing and enjoy yourself.