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: 22-28 July, 2019

Summary of this week:

• Apple probably to buy Intel's modem holdings
• Microsoft invests $1Billion in OpenAI
• Our DoJ investigates our successful tech companies
• Good financial quarters all across the tech industry

Monday 22 July 2019

How to convert your old VHS tapes to a digital format to store on your computer.

Google releases ByteBoard to aid in interviewing candidates for technical jobs. Beware such interviews as they often ask you to work for free and steal intellectual property.

Google admits to age bias in job interviews and pays a little money to settle the suit.

The New York Times sends a report "under cover" in the food delivery gig economy. The results were predictable and predicted. Low pay, no tips, hurry, hurry, hurry.

We learn from those who believe they can measure such that planet earth just had its hottest June in history. The planet will be one big ball of steam by Christmas.

A GitLab survey shows that programmers who work remotely do better work.

Yet another article that agrees with my blog post of today. Object-Oriented everything did not work.

Tuesday 23 July 2019

I suppose I am far behind the times. I still view emojis as frivolous.

Microsoft invests $1Billion in OpenAI. The goal is supercomputing AI on Azure.

Yet another study reveals the obvious: a problem with supervised learning (what some call AI) is supervising the learning, which is done by a person.

Intel finds a buyer for its modem business—Apple.

Finding places where self-driving cars can work: Mercedes is ready to have your Mercedes park itself at their museum in Stuttgart.

Oirgin PC—no, I never heard of theme either—puts all the major gaming consoles into one PC case. I suppose there is a need for this.

Real news that isn't news: the Chinese built a cell phone system for the North Koreans.

India is sending a vehicle that will land on the moon. The cost is far less than ... uh ... what NASA claims it needs.

Women are injured more and more severely in automobile crashes. It appears that the type of crash-test dummies used is mostly to blame.

Search 73million journal articles, some going back to 1847.

Wednesday 24 July 2019

The slightly smart phone for $25 is bringing hundreds of millions of persons to the Internet.

Our NSA creates a new Cybersecurity Directorate.

Our Dept of Justice opens a really big investigation of the really successful technology companies to see if they cheated and to fine them billion$.

And the tech companies lost $33Billion in value on the announcement of the DoJ investigation. American stockholders aren't happy with our DoJ.

Plex.tv becomes the media server of choice in a day of confusing packages and packages and players and players. And some innocent users are doing illegal things.

Facebook's Libra is hot. So, what could possible go wrong? How about lots of fake sites and scams?

For some lucky air travelers, there is a new middle seat on the way. It is wider, but doesn't take up more space.

And some researchers believe there are millions of ton of water on the moon. Let me know when we are making coffee with that water.

Thursday 25 July 2019

The Canadian government invests hundreds of million$ into satellite service for rural broadband. Whatever happened to that $8Billion some former US President spent on such in America?

The other Facebook (there are two of them, right?) has another good financial quarter.

Real News but not news: how the Chinese have spied on German industry for years and stolen trade secrets and technology.

Tesla, with record sales, is losing over $3million a day.

Studies show that we—those of us alive today—are the most powerful humans to live in the last 2,000 years as we have affected the planet more than any of our ancestors. Aren't we special.

Friday 26 July 2019

Alphabet (Google) has a big financial quarter.

Amazon also has a big financial quarter.

Intel had a better-than-expected financial quarter.

Our Senate reports that the Russians probed the voting systems of all 50 states during the 2016 elections. Security tip: don't connect the voting systems to the Internet. Problem solved.

Google quietly continues to invest in military and law enforcement technology. At one time in US history, it was a good thing for American companies to apply their brains to problems of national security, i.e., the common defense. I guess times change.

I love this post by Seth Godin today, "The platforms are built on the idea that the audience plus the algorithm do all the deciding." 

Ransomware attacks hit three school districts in Louisiana.

Saturday 27 July 2019

And yes, folks at Apple are listening to our chats with Siri. And yes, they are hearing all sorts of things.

Convicted hacker Marcus Hutchins is sentenced to no jail time. The judge asks him to spend his energy helping the good guys instead.

Some counties in the US use their Facebook accounts to provide voting instructions and election results. Are they kidding? Need we ask, "What could possibly go wrong?" Are there any adults working at these places?

21st-century vigilance committees go after pedophiles. Of course this could go horribly wrong.

The machine learning libraries most used: TensorFlow, scikit-learn, PyTorch, and Keras.

Our Dept of Justice has approved the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint.

The Australian government regulators declare that they need the details of Facebook and Google algorithms to properly regulate them.

Sunday 28 July 2019

Google Photos (yawn)...has 1Billion users (that's with a B) after four years. The definition of success has changed.

Have teenagers? Spend time around teenagers? Must view Famous Birthdays daily.

Much chatter continues regarding the $5Billion fine Facebook paid per the FTC agreement. No one is going to jail. No one will be on the side of the road collecting trash. Many are disappointed. My feeling is that this money is merely a transfer from one spreadsheet line to another. Nothing happens to it as it really doesn't exist. Instead of the fine, have Facebook repave the roads in all the National Parks and put up a sign stating such. Do something tangible.

Tradeoffs—there are always tradeoffs. The coming miracle of 5G data rates also brings the requirement of much more electrical power from our phones and the base stations.

Craig Newmark and his gift$ to revive journalism. I consider it a worthwhile goal, but there are many greedy persons standing in the way.

GitHub is blocking persons from countries that are on trade restriction lists.

Little "victories" as a freelancer. Take note. It may help you keep going.

Sometimes the obvious is forgotten. The vast majority of those of us who claim to write, do so by ourselves. Stephen King wrote something about a writer must have a room with a door that can close to write.

A through Z...make money writing.

How one freelance writer has used LinkedIn Profinder to find good-paying jobs.

Tell a story. That simple. No more.