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: 9-15 September, 2019

Summary of this week:

• Google employees facing inside retaliation
• Amazon employees protest their carbon footprint
• Google investigated by all 50 states
• Microsoft cruise$$ under the radar
• Apple shows the iPhone 11 with three cameras

Monday 9 September 2019

Apple's suppliers in China are breaking the labor laws of that country. Far too many part-time workers among other things.

People know how to game or hack Google search results and are doing it quite well.

Apple's big big event is tomorrow. Strong strong rumors about what we will see and hear. And nothing that surprising.

Schools and the surveillance industry. Lot$$$ of money in it.

Tuesday 10 September 2019

A better prosthetic leg provides feedback from the sole of the shoe and allows more confident walking. This is what we should be doing in technology.

Daimler begins testing autonomous trucks in Virginia.

Bad news out of Google where you don't talk about what happens inside the building. Success brings questions and questions bring spotlights at successful companies.

Microsoft releases a new to do list app called (what else?) To Do.

The attorneys general from all 50 states are chasing after Google. Are they seeking justice or money in fines going to their states and boosting their own political careers? Oooops...who asked that?

Microsoft, which spent years in Federal courts, is now worth more than all the "really famous" companies and has learned how to keep quiet.

Amazon, which certainly hasn't kept quiet, faces walkouts of hundred of employees based on carbon footprints or something.

Industrial espionage and theft is alive and well-practiced. A Chinese professor is arrested for funneling tech from an American company to one in China.

Wednesday 11 September 2019

Now for real fun, Audi shows a concept dune buggy that is all electric and instead of headlights has drones fly ahead of it and light the trail.

Something new from the Polaroid Lad: a photo development lab that scans your phone display, develops film, and produces a hard copy.

Books published in the US before 1964 are probably in the public domain, i.e., the copyrights have expired. Which ones, however, is difficult to determine, but there are those working on it and scanning the open ones.

Several hundred email scammers are arrested worldwide in a global effort. Several hundred were in Nigeria with half that many in the US.

California's Senate takes the first of three steps to outlaw the gig economy in that state. The House and Governor are expected to quickly agree. Part-time workers will become employees and all lose their jobs.

The Jeffrey Epstein trail continues to capture the rich and famous who associated with him through the years.

Thursday 12 September 2019

Apple TV jumps in the market with lower prices. Expect competitors to lower their prices. Consumers win, at least for the short term.

Apple's newest iPad—with a lower price—moves us closer to a true laptop computer replacement. Closer, but not there.

Uber versus the State of California, see you in court. Uber has a pretty good argument that its drivers are not employees in their core business (a technology platform for digital services (what is that???)).

Got a few photos to store on a computer? Western Digital now has a 20TeraByte disk drive for us.

Friday 13 September 2019

News Flash (not): really successful American company pays really large ($1.1Billion) fine to European regulators.

CEOs of the major tech companies declined to sign a petition to urge the government to violate the Bill of Rights.

Yet more celebrities in the tech industry apologize for links to Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein must have been a charismatic hustler given all the influential and smart persons he influenced.

More investigations at MIT concerning Jeffrey Epstein and money.

McDonald's is working to replace humans at the drive thru lane speaker with computers. If the voice is clear, go with it. Then replace the persons making unintelligible announcements at the airports.

Researchers are progressing at using the heat of the earth and the cold of space to generate electricity. This is an old technique and we hope one they can utilize.

A political candidate will sponsor a test in universal basic income. Of course the sample size is too small and the period too short for meaningful conclusions.

Given early successes, SpaceX is speeding its deployment of small satellites to increase broadband coverage.

Saturday 14 September 2019

Some notes on how the streaming entertainment world (Netflix, Amazon, Apple, et al) has changed the timing and amount of money flowing to creatives. Yes, the "networks" will keep more of the money.

The title says it all, "What Happened to Urban Dictionary?"

Apple has sort of learned a lesson: we don't want to spend $1,000 on a telephone, no matter how cool the camera is.

How IBM is behind, but betting it can recover with a push into the hybrid cloud market.

The richest person in the world has just cut the health benefits of his part-time employees. Nothing has changed since the dawn of ... well... dawn.

We learn that programmers who share their programs with other programmers become better programmers. Research must tell us so. This concept is so simple that it is a stretch to call it a concept and require research.

We learn from people who speculate about such that the universe is 2Billion years younger than people who speculate about such formerly speculated.

Sunday 15 September 2019

Strong rumors about Microsoft and newer laptop computers.

More of our cities are hiring a small number of companies to run their IT. Hack into a couple of these companies and you have a large number of cities in trouble. Did anyone do any risk management? Evidently not.

For programmers: Google has a new tool that will complete (suggestions) lines and sections of code similar to tools that complete words and sentences in English.

Some evidence that these new meatless meat offerings are worse for our health. One strong warning is that they contain more salt than the meat meat.

More backlash around MIT and Jeffrey Epstein.

Freelance University: Perhaps there is some good here in these online courses.

Some sound financial advice if you wish to live outside your home country and support yourself by writing.

"If people complain, you’re making a difference"

Yet another list of books on writing. They are worth reading. Nevertheless, you have to write to write. My advice is to read one book on writing each year. No less and no more.

Doubting self and writing anyways.