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: 18-24 February, 2019

Summary of this week:

• President's Day in the US
• British Parliament investigation slams Facebook
• Some security holes found in blockchain
• Apple releases SDK to move apps from mobile to Mac
• Google to announce game streaming service in March
• Samsung shows the new S10
• Samsung shows the world's first folding-screen smartphone
• Microsoft announces the coming of Dynamics 365 (not sure what it is)
• The Israeli probe heads toward the moon
• Virgin Galactic flies into space again
• Microsoft partners with Albertson's in the grocery business

Monday 18 February 2019

It is President's Day in the US. I guess we have yet to declare George Washington and Abe Lincoln to be dastardly cads.

This is a good review of battery-powered, portable power systems. These run lights, fans, and even air conditioners. If you have blackouts several times a year, get one.

An investigative committee of the British Parliament finds Facebook in all kinds of trouble. They don't mince words. Facebook is in big trouble in the UK.

Strong rumors about Apple's offerings in 2019. A new laptop computer design and a return to high-price and high-performance (and high-fashion) monitors.

Looking for a new industry? One word: eSports, i.e., playing video games really seriously. It should top $1Billion this year.

For a while, Google led the way in self-driving car technology. Has Google, however, missed their opportunity?

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is talking with former employees of Cambridge Analytica (remember that company?). They are cooperating fully. They have nothing to lose.

The major political parties in Australia have been hacked. I guess they are victims, not people who did not take the public's trust seriously enough to lock the door behind them.

The Kansas legislature wants to link pornography and human trafficking. They want porn filters in all Internet-capable devices sold in the state as well as a special tax on porn companies.

News Flash (not): In the workplace, if you are too disorganized to keep up with your work, you are disorganized. Email is the subject of this "study."

Tuesday 19 February 2019

More and more of us believe the earth is flat. This is the fault of YouTube. Note, this is not the fault of government employees paid to teach science in schools.

ooops, 2.7Million telephone calls to the Swedish healthcare hotline have leaked.

Our Federal government needs more tech talent. Our Federal government refuses to reform its workplace. Our Federal government believes in fairy tales, or at least it seems that way sometimes.

This must be important news because it is all over the Internet: Netflix cancels "Jessica Jones" and "The Punisher."

Always on top of things (not), some of Hollywood's biggest names are worried that people will stay home and watch streaming movies instead of going out to the theater.

Wednesday 20 February 2019

Sitting here in the Community Canteen drinking coffee and watching the snow fall. The Federal government is closed here, so I'm locked out of work and will have to pull ten-hour days for a while to make up the time.

oooops, folks are finding security holes in the blockchain. Like the Titanic, its was unsinkable.

One measure shows the Russians are much, much faster at breaking into systems than anyone else. They always were excellent mathematicians.

Qualcomm is on its second generation of 5G modems. The world is still waiting for someone to have the first 5G system.

WalMart has found a booming online business in...groceries. People love to order online, drive to the store, and have someone load the bags into their minivan. No waiting at the checkout counter.

ooops, it seems that the Google Nest security devices had a microphone in them all this time. Someone "forgot" to tell the customers.

Apple is providing tools to easily move apps from mobile to the Mac. They are leaning towards "write once, run everywhere."

Well, nobody's perfect. Our National Park Service had some buckets of uranium sitting around in a museum at the Grand Canyon for who knows how long.

Citroen shows what is a basically a fancy golf cart for the street. 28MPH for about 2 hours. Move around the city a little and share rides.

"The opportunity is to recast your outcome in terms of the other person’s worldview, not insist that they change what they want or what they think they know."—Seth Godin

Push Ups. Do push ups to reduce the risk of heart disease. A research study finds this is the key exercise, not running miles or zoomba (whatever that is).

Here in Virginia, we declare one of the richest counties in America an "economically distressed community" so Amazon can have $$$ of tax break$$$.

Google is rumored to unveil its new game-streaming service at next month's Game Developer’s Conference.

Thursday 21 February 2019

Samsung unveils the new S10 smartphone. Of course the price is too high, but let's see if Samsung can get away with this where Apple couldn't.

News Flash to Parents: Some kids don't like it when parents put "cute" photos of them online. Children win 98.6% of all family disagreements simply because they outlive their parents.

It is official: the United States now has a Space Force.

Somehow, YouTube became of network of childporn.

Major companies are removing all ads (and ad money) from YouTube as a response. The folks at Google-YouTube need to get their act together, quickly.

Want attention? Declare you are running for President. All sorts of "foreign actors" will attack you online in devious and cunning ways. Then you can complain that taxpayer money isn't protecting you and that "someone inside the current administration is colluding with these foreign actors because those foreign actors are not, you know, smart enough to do this all on their own."

Microsoft releases a new, free Office app hub sort of thing. It replaces a current, free Office app hub sort of thing.

Samsung releases the world's first folding-screen smartphone. About $2,000 coming in April. Spend your tax refund on this.

And the social media giants are fighting to see who can be more anti-anti-vaccine.

SpaceX, a non-profit in Israel, a South African billionaire: here comes an attempt of landing an unmanned ship on the moon. I hope it works.

Mark I'm-not-running-for-President Zuckerburg starts his nationwide tour of public debates with debaters of his choosing.

2019 will be the first year that online advertising surpasses offline, actual paper-in-the-hand advertising in the US.

For fans of large numbers: (1) Samsung has sold 2Billion smartphones. (2) Samsung now has a phone of 1,000x1,000x1,000x1,000 bytes of storage.

Friday 22 February 2019

Facebook, directed ads, and Nazis. Perhaps there is an explanation here somewhere.

Amazon pledges to fund computer science courses in 1,000 high schools across all 50 states. This will do some good. It will also create a larger pool of possible employees, and that means lower wages.

ooops, it seems that a lot of video screens in airliners also have cameras in them. American Airlines claims that it has never turned them on.

Dropbox has a good financial quarter as more of us are storing our stuff up their in the clouds. Still, the stock price fell for some reason.

Facebook has its own little division that makes posters to put on the walls everywhere else. There are some good one, still the idea is a bit creepy.

New analysis shows that our moon is actually in our atmosphere. And I thought we knew everything already. Maybe those climate change guys need to ...

DeepFake technology continues to be simpler and within the reach of more of us. Fun, fun, fun until someone gets...

YouTube cleans out the child porn and other stuff that showed up.

Saturday 23 February 2019

An Israeli vehicle begins a 40-day journey to land on the moon.

In an effort to avoid patent-infringement lawsuits, Apple is closing stores in the lucrative market in eastern Texas.

There must not be much crime in the state of New York as the Governor has several law enforcement agencies chasing after Facebook and other companies regarding how they share information.

Daimler and BMW partner in car sharing, ride sharing, and all things related. They could fend off Uber et al and dominate personal transportation in Europe for then next several generations.

The tussle over vaccinations, free speech, advertising dollars, and such continues at YouTube.

A group of Microsoft employees wants the company to cease contracts with the US Dept of Defense. Perhaps they would be happier if Microsoft worked with someone else's Dept of Defense. Perhaps they would be happier if they quit their Microsoft jobs and went to work for someone else.

The surveillance and censorship business in China is booming. Perhaps the above Microsoft employees would rather live in such a place where the government basically owns its subjects.

Virgin Galactic sends its space place up into the edge of space with a passenger on board.

NASA...NASA...NASA...they must be in here somewhere in this space exploration news...where is NASA???

Nvidia releases the GTX 1660 Ti—lower performance at a lower price, but still higher performance than the previous generations. We continue to pay less and receive more in this industry.

Sunday 24 February 2019

Forward to the past: the city of Toronto reminds us that the city bus does just about everything we want self-driving cars to do. The nagging things about the bus is all those other people.

Microsoft partners with Albertson's (the #2 grocery chain in the US). They intend jump ahead of Amazon and compete more with WalMart and that company's digital grocery experience or whatever we'll call it.

Britain's "suicide generation" and the role of social media pushing ideas as a favor to users. In Britain, the suicide rate is double of that just eight years ago.

The death of the newspaper, the evening news, and basic journalism continues. About half of highly-educated, professional technologist lend their weight to the idea of fake news from the main stream media. Self-inflicted wounds in an effort to boost ad dollars. That is a shame, and it is bad for all of us. I wish the persons who "run" the news media and the persons who "run" social media would all go someplace nice and lie on the beach for the rest of their lives and leave the rest of us alone. I guess that isn't practical or wise, but on the surface it sounds nice.

Google looks at the marketplace in India—a billion people. India is the new China in many ways. How to make a profit without being an evil cad.

Some ideas for things to do at a writing workshop. If you participate in a writing group, some of these may be applicable.

The "writing retreat." I wrote an essay on this a few years ago. Just go on a retreat. Just do it. It is mostly in our minds.

Writing short stories: there is much benefit here. One is that you finish things, and you move to the next thing.

Some markets that pay for writing about writing.

Some TED talks to inspire writers and teach us all a few things.