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: 21-27 January, 2019

Summary of this week:

• NFL referee puts Los Angeles, not Louisiana, in the Super Bowl
• Disney loses $1Billion in streaming services
• IBM has a big financial quarter and year
• 30Million students and teachers use Chromebooks
• Amazon testing rolling-tub robots for deliveries
• The Apple Macintosh is 35 years old
• The partial Federal government shutdown ends, temporarily

Monday 21 January 2018

The NFL playoffs leave the team from Louisiana hurting after a referee blows a call on a game-deciding play. The NFL itself admits the referee made two mistakes on the play, but that's the way it goes sometimes. Sorry folks. Let the conspiracy theories fly as a team from Los Angeles—the second biggest television market in the country—goes to the big game for the first time in 35 years.

Streaming entertainment is big business, and Disney has big losses: $1Billion in the last year.

Speaking of losing money...Uber continues to lose a 100million $$$ a week mostly because it keeps trying to invent stuff everywhere instead of running a money-making transportation company.

A call for Apple to reduce the price of its iPhones and spur the economy of the entire place.

One side note: viewing the Internet daily is becoming more difficult recently as more pay walls are up and there are more limits to how many stories I can read. And to make matters worse, these places have no customer service, no person who will talk to me, look at my accounts, and correct the mistakes. Medium.com is notable in this folly. In my inexperience, I can't seem to create an account that works. They won't even take my money for pay channels.

The Russian government is suing Facebook and Twitter for failing to comply with Russian laws concerning the use of those two services in Russia.

Tuesday 22 January 2018

YouTube "stars" reveal how much hard work it is to create something new everyday. The gig economy strikes again: lots of work and—even for those who succeed—the pay isn't that good for the hours.

Another European government fines another successful American company tens of million$ of $$$.

In yet another European country, a Dutch surgeon wins a right-to-be-forgotten, a.k.a., censorship, case against Google.

In order to limit free speech, WhatsApp limits free speech. Needless to say, they will succeed.

Where the pendulum money swings this year: data scientists. Once there were too many, now there are too few (willing to work for lower wages).

News Flash (not): Companies are picking happy employees to write glowing reviews of their employers on Glassdoor.

The two most important people in the world are a teenager and a tribal elder. Twitter suspends the account that started it all. Seems that person is a better marketer than everyone else.

Wednesday 23 January 2018

Thursday 24 January 2018

The Apple Macintosh is 35 years old. Raise your hand if you saw the debut. Raise your hand if you ever saw its predecessor—the Lisa.

Friday 25 January 2018

The journalism industry just lost 1,000 jobs in one day. My niece tells me the news in Louisiana. My other niece tells me the news in Georgia, and so on.

Zuckerberg writes 1,000 words in the Wall Street Journal. Facebook still serves a purpose. Of course it does. It allows me to keep up with friends and relatives that live far away. Fake News? Political ads? Who reads them?

The pendulum swings back: everyone wants to major in computer science now. Wait until calculus, chemistry, and physics hit them. Colleges "need" a computer programming curriculum that doesn't include the hard mathematics and sciences.

One person stops using a mouse and learns all the keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts are great. They same time like nothing else. I strongly encourage using them.

The Microsoft Office Suite comes to the Apple App Store. I guess there is some advantage to this?

Facebook tricked kids into playing for-pay games and refused to refund money—even when kids unknowingly ran up large bills.

HP's Spectre Folio: headline says it all: "more laptops should be wrapped in leather"

The Tech Revolt. Energy? Yes. Wisdom? That's another matter. Anti-Trump does not necessarily mean ethical. National politics is an odd thing played by far less-than-perfect persons.

Saturday 26 January 2018

The furlough of one-quarter of Federal government employees ends. They will all be paid for the time they stayed at home. Others, however, are not given such bailouts by taxpayers. As usual, the government cares for its own first. The citizens are somewhere else.

The funding of the Federal government is sufficient only through February 15th.

Facebook will alter its different messaging apps ( WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram) so they can easily communicate across one another. Silly me, I thought they could always do that. Why couldn't they?

Another News Flash (not): if you buy a range of products made by one company, they all tie together easier. See, e.g., Apple computers and phones. You pay for that. See, e.g., the price tag.

How does Tesla make expensive cars for rich people? By violating work safety rules for the not-so-rich employees. I congratulate Tesla for advancing auto tech, but at what price?

Step aside for a moment into fantasy land and look at the homes of the plutocrats—the 1% of the 1% of the...

Sunday 27 January 2018

It appears that there is stolen art work being sold on Amazon. The artists want Amazon to regulate what is sold there. Amazon has other things to do.

A lengthy and well-researched report on automation and jobs. I focused on the section that showed which cities could lose more jobs. The regulatory areas, e.g., Washington D.C., are not hit hard. Funny how that works.

Privacy wins and data "sharing" loses in the Illinois Supreme Court. Their state law requires consent to use biometric data such as photos.

Bill Gates is pushing a return to nuclear power. There are technical problems, and those can be solved.

Discovering recordings of history: Filmmakers find and restore forgotten audio and video of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.

News Flash (not): people zipping around on electric scooters and falling and going to the hospital. Such scooters require more balance and athletic ability than just plain old bicycles.

Some tips on managing time and tasks and working through mountains of little things to accomplish some pretty big things.

Sometimes the most difficult thing about writing is starting. There is so much to consider and that takes time and what am I going to do and when am I going to start and and and...

I like this post. Be realistic. Act like an adult.

The writing group: yes, these can be a tremendous help. Yes, these can be a tremendous drain on time and energy.

Short sentences and paragraphs usually mean better writing. Not always, so heed some advice.

Innovations in video game equipment can help in the office. I want a much better headset.