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: 13-19 May, 2019

Summary of this week:

• HPE buys Cray
• SpaceX shows its first Internet-beaming satellite cluster
• US Supreme Court rules against Apple and the App Store
• Uber's stock price continues to collapse
• Samsung breaks the 3nm barrier
• SF passes "no facial recognition" law for city agencies
• President signs exec order banning Huawei IT goods
• White House has site to report free speech bans on social media
• Microsoft and Sony team on cloud gaming

Monday 13 May 2019

AI tools in law enforcement.

Industrial espionage and hacking in the ... school lunch provider industry.

"We need more censorship!" proclaims the New York Times—an organization that exists based on the principle that censorship (for others) is bad.

Nest fully integrates into Google. The bad side is that Nest fully integrates into Google (all the data is shared).

Lawyer up. This is what Facebook is doing.

The reason Uber's stock price fell on its first day is, "people just don't understand how valuable Uber is!" Oh, we simply don't see the emperer's clothes.

Open-source technology: on the same stage we have Red Hat, Microsoft, and IBM. What happened to the world? (I think it is better.)

New technology and the demise of services. Sometimes the person on the other side of the counter is a nuisance. At other times they save your sanity and your life.

Linux comes to Windows and Chrome OS. I like this. I spent part of the weekend putting Linux into a window on a Windows 10 PC.

Tuesday 14 May 2019

Now we work out the details. This will take years and, most likely, by the time the details are settled we will have all moved on to something else. Technology and markets for technology move faster than courts.

Wal Mart now offers next-day delivery on its website.

Amazon brings in machines to box products at warehouses. Say goodbye to jobs.

Lenovo shows a prototype computer with a folding screen.

Ooops, yet another site is left open exposing the private information of 3Million persons. This time it was in Panama.

When is my content "election meddling" and when is it "just something I wrote"? And who is given the authority to answer the question?

More billion$$$ added to NASA budget to return to the moon. No news about replacing persons at NASA who have bungled things for decades.

The government of China blocks its subjects from reading Wikipedia.

Research shows that there are more humans on earth now than when there were no humans on earth.

A little reality to dampen the hype about noise-cancelling headphones.

Lenovo shows a really small desktop computer box. No price or availability yet.

The price of Uber stock continues to fall. In one sense, they have lost $58Million since Friday morning.

Wednesday 15 May 2019

A research sub dives to 35,000 feet and finds...litter. It was left there by a generation that yelled about pollution, but wouldn't put its potato chip packages in the trash can.

A look at OnePlus' newest, biggest phone from the company that has the best value in smartphones.

HP releases a gaming laptop that has a second, albeit small, screen.

Google combines all its travel sites into Trips. Convenience and function. I think it will work.

Samsung breaks through a barrier and moves to 3nm chips.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation wins in Federal court to gain more access into the National Security Letters system.

We in America aren't very good at this censorship thing as we don't have a lot of practice. I'm hoping we don't ever get good at it. See, e.g., how YouTube seemed to miss this one.

A new generation of regulators wants to break up Facebook. IBM once needed to be regulated out of existence. Microsoft once needed to be regulated out of existence. Folly.

Researchers find a security hole in Intel processors—almost every one built since 2011.

The city of San Francisco bans city agencies from using facial recognition in surveillance. Of course this does not affect State and Federal agencies. Governors in SF like to do things that ring of form and not function, a.k.a., grandstanding or "look at me."

Thursday 16 May 2019

Our President signs an executive order banning purchase and use of IT equipment from adversarial countries (such as China). Details to follow.

Microsoft releases the smarts behind its Bing search engine as open source.

1TeraByte microSD memory cards are here. We can now put several generations of data on a thing so small that we will lose it the first day.

If Twitter et al have banned you because of political speech, a.k.a., free speech, you can now tell the White House and they will do something about it. (I added the second part. I doubt anyone will do anything.)

If you are a big company and you want more AI expertise quickly...buy smaller companies. This is what AGMFA is doing.

Number 1 in the marketplace, Amazon Fire TV now has 34million users.

We take a small step towards autonomous air taxis. Finally, we may see the age of the Jetsons (anyone remember the Jetsons?).

Research shows what most of us assumed about mental illness: life in the big city isn't good for us.

Microsoft grants resources to seven companies working on making technology accessible.

Why the Linux desktop failed? It was a copy. Nothing new. The Apple II was a hit because it had a spreadsheet and no one else did.

Friday 17 May 2019

Microsoft and Sony team up in some sort of agreement on cloud-based gaming.

One of the best values in computing becomes better: Amazon updates its $50 Fire 7 tablet with twice the memory, more processor, and same $50 price tag. I have one and love it.

The FBI and Interpol arrest the GozNym crew who hacked 44,000 computers and stole million$$$.

NASA is maybe just about almost ready to design on paper a lunar lander. At this rate we will put persons on the moon in say, well, never, not at this rate.

Our National Labor Relations Board rules that Uber drivers are contractors, not employees. This keeps Uber alive and keeps the drivers as just part-time folks who might pick up a few bucks here and there, but that's it.

There are plenty of people on Facebook impersonating celebrities. Fun? I guess some folks don't think so as Facebook struggles with success leading to failure.

ooops, it seems that ne're-do-wells can hack into air traffic control systems and talk to pilots and ...

Science fiction in hearing aids move a step toward reality.

The birth rate in America continues to fall. This could be disastrous.

The College Board (they run the SAT) will add an adversity score to reports. They are treading into extremely dangerous territory as such is all subjective and political. Once again, who decides who the deciders are?

Disney is now running Hulu.

Real news that is not news: AT&T promised to hire more persons if it had a tax cut. They lied.

Saturday 18 May 2019

You know those email receipts from stores and such? Yes, Google collects them.

HP Enterprise is buying Cray—the super-duper-computer maker. $1.3Billion and so change. True government story...in the early 1990s it took six months to obtain approval to buy an HP scientific calculator, but only six days to buy a $6Million Cray.

It seems that adding an extra layer of security and nuisance (give us your phone number to help protect your account) actually does some good.

This must be important as it is all over the Internet: Grumpy Cat has died of natural causes at age 7.

Ah technology, the evil in the world. Perhaps we should look to the persons who create and misuse it.

Hactivist activity has all but ceased to exist in the last two years. Someone is doing something different that has yet to be given a name.

Some folks never learn...the day Uber had its IPO drinking and partying was ... well drinking and partying and what could possible go wrong? Being a cad doesn't seem to go away despite all the public pronouncements.

After all these years, Wikipedia seems to be doing well financially. New technologies haven't eroded it, yet.

Data stored in the cloud: "If it's accessible, then it isn't safe; if it's safe, then it isn't accessible." Nothing better than a floppy disk in your hand or whatever I can hold in my hand these days. I guess a thumb drive.

Sunday 19 May 2019

Dell shows a competitor to the Microsoft Hub—75" of touch screen and all that. I didn't realize that Microsoft was succeeding so much that a competitor was necessary.

Lenovo does a major upgrade to their higher-performance business laptop.

Attempts to reinvent the Dew Line, but this time on the US-Mexico border.

I like this piece: A Radical Food Experiment.

The homeless population of San Francisco is growing at alarming rates—17% in two years.

Despite the cliche title, this is a good piece on marketing your writing as a freelance writer.

How one writer sets goals and makes plans in order to write books (he has written 70 books).

Where do you start writing your book? Answer: where ever the words start flowing. There is no single answer for every writer and for every book.

Idea on interior and exterior conflict in memoirs.

Some offbeat ideas to keep writing in the summer. Funny, when you enter the "empty nester" stage of life, this "summer" stuff loses much of its meaning.

The art of "following up" with a client or asking them, "How are you doing?"

Some tips for overcoming the inevitable "feeling down" as a freelancer. When you work for yourself, you can't sit and moan about the boss.

If you are going to read just one piece this year about writing, teaching, and living—read this one about teaching writing in a prison.

One writer's story structure. I guess a lot of writers use this. I can't figure out what structure I have on what day.

One writer does far more for other people since he started a for-profit business instead of working as a not-for-profit.