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: 4-10 February, 2019

Summary of this week:

• The New England Patriots win the boring Super Bowl
• Apple to pay France $571Million (back taxes)
• Climate measures confirm that the world is in a cooling trend
• Microsoft measures confirm the Internet is less hateful
• Gravity measures confirm that if you fall from a scooter, you will hurt
• German regulators clobber Facebook
• Jeff Bezos versus The National Enquirer
• Amazon may not build a HQ2 in New York City

Monday 4 February 2018

The New England Patriots win the Super Bowl in what was the most boring game in a generation.

A review of the success of Satya Nadella and Microsoft.

New, less expensive tools for mastering audio, especially  music.

Not having any crime in their states (I suppose), the Attorneys General of half a dozen states are investigating Facebook and how to make headlines by fining the Harvard-California company a bunch of money.

The great Amazon minimum-wage increase comes to nothing as many warehouse workers now earn less than before.

No surprise, Netflix viewing drops a third on Super Bowl Sunday.

Tuesday 5 February 2018

Alphabet had a good financial quarter, but not good enough for many as it stock price fell 3%.

The next Firefox will follow the lead of others and mute annoying audio.

Google releases Live Transcribe. The deaf or hard of hearing can have phone conversations as it prints to the smartphone screen what another person is saying.

An electric scooter from Harley Davidson. It's just a prototype at this time, and no one has a price, but it looks fun.

Volkswagon is buying Tesla battery packs to help quickly build its network of charging stations.

Wednesday 6 February 2018

A nice new photo of earth from the far side of the moon.

GM continues to layoff people while pulling in profits. This is all to prepare for the future. Recall how the taxpayers basically bought GM to save jobs?

The Apple AirPod and healthcare. There is much potential here.

Apple agrees to pay $571Million to the government of France. They call this one "back taxes."

Facebook tries to shift into adulthood with pay bonuses based on improving social responsibility or something.

The EPSN+ sports subscription now has 2Million customers.

Tesla tries every trick to bring the price of the Model 3 down to $35,000.

Google's Translate now is running on its Home device.

Howard Schultz of Starbucks may run for President. Of course there is a lot of ego in these things.

Everyone wants to live in San Francisco, they all have money, and not much sense. This 480 square foot home sold for $600,000. And it needs a lot of work.

Thursday 7 February 2018

Microsoft runs an ad like the old Mac vs PC to show that Office 365 is better than Office 2019. Uh, what?

GoPro makes a profit for the first time in a few years. They moved away from drones and concentrated on a better camera, their core business.

2018 was the fourth hottest year on record. Since the three hottest years preceded it, it is obvious that we are in a cooling trend. Check the numbers.

Caution: eScooters don't balanced themselves. You can fall off and hurt yourself. Caution: why do we have to caution people about falling and going Ouch?

Microsoft saves western civilization: Skype will now blur the background so folks on the other end would clearly see where you are and how sloppy you are.

For today at least, Apple is the most valuable company in the world. They passed Microsoft this time.

Similar to climate change measures, Microsoft measures the civility of the Internet and learns that it too is in a cooling trend.

Friday 8 2018

The game Apex Legends hits 10Million players in only three days. This breaks some sort of record.

Jeff Bezos accuses the National Enquirer of being the National Enquirer.

Twitter has a good financial quarter.

Forget selling rides to people. the gold mine at Uber is food delivery via Uber Eats.

Google is working with the government of Russia to censor search results there.

ooops, Wells Fargo had a nationwide online, automated, mess. "The computer is down" rang loudly and proudly.

Google Fiber is walking away from Louisville, Kentucky.

Raspberry Pi now has one retail store in the UK. Coming soon to a shopping center near me? I doubt it.

LibreOffice 6.2 is released with new user interface features.

A German government regulator hits Facebook with a ruling that essentially puts it out of business there.

Saturday 9 February 2018

Amazon may not put 25,000 new jobs in New York City as local opposition is high and Amazon reconsiders.

Jeff Bezos, the National Enquirer, the Washington Post, the White House, the President, a busted marriage, and all that.

Even Microsoft is recommending that no one use Internet Explorer.

The fake fake-news situation. Headlines sell newspapers and raise ratings of news broadcasts.

Not to be outdone by QVC or other shopping shows, Amazon now has Amazon Live and tools to create your own shows showing the showy stuff you can buy on Amazon.

Amazon has its own neighborhood-watch type of social media service where Neighbors report suspicious activities. Of course the suspicious are targets of discrimination and there is much grievous vexation.

One reporter attempts life without the Big Five of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple. We need a new acronym for these like GooFAMAp or MAFGA or MAFGAp or something. Any ideas? 

Paraphrasing Yogi Berra, nobody goes to the Apple Store anymore, it's too crowded. How can Apple reduce the crowds at their stores?

News Flash from Finland's Basic Income Experiment (not): the recipients were happy to have the money and they didn't go out and try to find a job. Why work when, well, you know...

Sunday 10 February 2018

Google's self-driving car project is now ten years old. We are nearing something that works, but not there yet.

A look at AMD's attempt at a high-end graphics processor.

In the old days, you avoided magazine subscriptions so that companies didn't know all your habits. Today? Well, just forget it.

A retail store veteran calls the Amazon Go concept a fairy tale; it won't scale.

It must be a slow news week as the entire Internet is buzzing about Marvel's 1990s-style website for the next super duper hero movie.

I am 60; the Boeing 747 is 50. Yes, we grew up together. I flew inside these on cross-Pacific flights. I miss them.

How to use a fountain pen.

The memoir and the autobiography. They are not the same.

The amateur that we once had can be what rescues us as a professional.

There are times when the writer has edited a piece to death and should send it on. I like this little article about this big topic.

The romance industry for writers.

The art and skill of "noticing."

How one writer moved away from $1 per page to actually earning a living.