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: 8-14 July, 2019

Summary of this week:

• FBI and ICE are mining state DMV photos
• Amazon faces strikes on this year's Prime Day
• Ross Perot dies at 89
• Facebook claims to have poker-playing software that is too good to release

Monday 8 July 2019

Facebook and Twitter appear to be uninvited to this week's White House social media meeting.

Federal law enforcement is easily mining photos etc. from state DMV databases.

I thought all this was outlawed? Inside the robocall world.

Perhaps this melting ice is a good thing. We are finding species long thought extinct.

Low wages are plaguing the video game industry. It isn't enough to pay pizza and Jolt Cola anymore.

Tuesday 9 July 2019

The Chinese government is not equal to the governments of the Western world as the Chinese now have been shown to have insecure databases that leak private information of their subjects (do subjects have private information?).

To date, a small handful of persons employed by Silicon Valley technology companies have attempted to organize employees for collective bargaining. Results have yet to appear. Many are laid off.

We remain in the early phase of the AI Age. Companies don't have overall strategies; half of AI projects "fail." And, like some of us saw in the 1980s, this version of AI will fade into practice and out of research quietly.

This year's Amazon Prime Day will feature strikes for a few hours at a few warehouse facilities. Expect longer delivery times.

Perhaps the promise of the truly driverless car is fading into the reality that our system of roads and parking lots is a mess that is regulated by each individual driver and the desire to avoid the fender bender accident.

Real News that isn't news: someone studied the resumes of 25,000 employees and learned that many do actually work for the government of China.

Qualcomm releases a new processor that brings power down to $100 smartphones. Now if the big makers will use these and sell these to us.

The government of the UK is about to fine British Airways $230Million for a data loss. Will governments start fining themselves for data losses and security holes? Oh, I didn't think so.

Wednesday 10 July 2019

Silicon Valley: the myth of starting from nothing. The reality was that we the taxpayer funded the early days of the valley with defense and space contracts.

oooops, New York City's transit authority was caught considering purchase of a system to track residents daily and keep records on where they were and were likely going.

The marketplace isn't often "fair." Microsoft Teams is growing while Slack isn't. Microsoft funds Teams and makes it no-cost to the consumer.

Text analysis software applied to Abstracts of scientific papers have found unnoticed-by-humans patterns of new research. There is simply too much to notice.

Twitter goes to great lengths to define "hateful conduct." As usual, the struggle is not the definition but the definer.

To note: Ross Perot dies at 89. He did much good. He also facilitated the election of Bill Clinton to the presidency—a troubling occurrence even to this day.

Google and Amazon settle legal differences. Their respective streaming services now work on their respective streaming services.

Thursday 11 July 2019

Friday 12 July 2019

The governors of France have passed a tax on successful American companies.

Microsoft pledges $10Million over the next five years (a pittance) for something called "AI for Cultural Heritage."

After six years of declines, the PC market turns back upwards.

YouTube introduces "Learning Playlists" for education videos. In a change of direction, they will have humans put things in the right places instead of an algorithm.

Ford and VW extend their partnership to include autonomous and electric vehicles.

Facebook claims to have poker-playing software so good that it will ruin the game. Hence, it will not release it. Bold claims.

Saturday 13 July 2019

No Internet viewing today.

Sunday 14 July 2019

A German state has banned Office 365 from schools stating that the software is basically a spy tool operated by the US government.

Our FTC fines Facebook $5Billion for privacy violations. Some scoff calling it a slap on the wrist, but it is 1/4 of last year's profits.

Amazon announces a big training program, but run the numbers and it amounts to a below-average project.

oooops, K12.com exposes records of 7Million student clients.

The first Social Media Summit was held this week at the White House. Conspiracy theorists theorize that it was noting but a gather of conspiracy theorists.

Our FBI sends requests for proposals to industry for new social media surveillance tools. Red lights blink everywhere.

Fernando "Corby" Corbato dies at 93. He invented the computer password to allows users of the Compatible Time-Sharing System to use a computer at the same time.

Tips on being a good employee and maybe being rewarded for it.

Some tips on FINALLY starting that book you always wanted to write. My big tip: start with a sheet(s) of paper and a pencil.

Find a pile of old magazines? Flip through them for writing ideas. The older the magazines the better.

Looking for things to write? Go through junk drawers or any junk pile. I did a lot of that last week. Yes, full of ideas.

Drawing nothing, a.k.a., doodling. Do the same with writing: write nothing, a.k.a., writing nothing.

Three more writing jobs: people will hire you to write break-up letters. oohh, aahh.