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: 17-23 February, 2020

Summary of this week:

• "Sonic the Hedgehog" breaks some niche box office record
• Jeff Bezos creates his own charity to save the planet
• Apple admits that the coronavirus will hurt its financial quarter
• Chess is the latest hit on Twitch
• Brexit fallout: tech companies moving data centers to the UK where the regulations are easier
• And the Russians are election meddling again (not fake news but not news, either)
• The Russians are helping the Sanders campaign
• Twitter suspends 70 accounts of Bloomberg campaign

Monday 17 February 2020

We now walk into the age of Virtual Reality therapy.

We also walk into the age of mental health practices in the workplace. Of course it can be abused, but it can also bring great benefit.

The Indian economy, as opposed to America's, runs on tiny, family owned stores. The giant tech firms that adopt to this culture will win that vast market.

The "Sonic the Hedgehog" movie opened this weekend and broke records for some sort of niche category so that it could claim it broke some sort of records.

Redbox starts a free, ad-supported streaming service. It is free $$$. Don't expect much from it.

Zuckerburg wants regulation of social media. Of course he does. Regulation usually favors the established and creates barriers for those trying to grow.

TCL may have something here: a smartphone that slides out a second screen to be a tablet or phablet.

Ride sharing promised reduced traffic. Well, does any mature adult really believe advertisements?

Stable businesses still run software written in COBOL. If it works, don't fix it. Really. Nothing simpler.

Tuesday 18 February 2020

Jeff Bezos creates his own charity and puts $10Billion into it. Oh, the charity will save the planet or something.

The role of the Chief People Officer in today's giant tech companies.

Apple won't meet financial expectations this quarter. The coronavirus shut down too many Chinese operations for too long. Perhaps Apple and others will reconsider having China as a partner.

The UK's Weather Service spends £1.2 billion on the most expensive weather computer in the world.  50% chance of rain today.

Purdue University continues to hold tuition at the same point as in 2012. Cuts would be better, but everyone else should also be able to do this.

Our FDA approves portable MRI machines that can be rolled bedside to perform tests on persons in their hospital rooms.

A look at the business prospects of AI companies. They are not as good as other types of software companies as computing resource costs are high and reuse of technology is low.

An overview of data science analytics platforms. IBM and DataBricks are climbing fast in capabilities and use. Amazon is not shown anywhere. It is not a player in analytics.

Wednesday 19 February 2020

Patreon starts a Capital program to loan freelancers money instead of paying them per customer.

Twitter acqui-hires Chroma Labs to gain image and video editing capabilities.

One of the fastest growing sports to watch on Twitch is...get ready for this...chess.

An in-depth review of Intel's Clear Linux distribution. It beats all others in benchmarks and seems to be a dependable product.

Qualcomm updates its 5G modem line.

I guess we've all seen this video of the guy with a jet engine and wing attached to his back flying over Dubai.

It appears that the foldable phones aren't ready. One explanation is that if you have one you do a month's worth of folds and unfolds in an hour to show all your friends. The first digital watches suffered short battery life as owners pushed the buttons to impress their friends.

Thursday 20 February 2020

Our IRS goes after Facebook claiming $9Billion in back taxes. If the IRS "wins," the money will disappear into "the Treasury," and no one will ever notice it. Again, I advocate for actually doing something specific with a donation and then drop the case.

Larry Tesler dies in his 70s. At Xerox PARC, he invented "cut, copy, paste." He didn't make any money, but he changed the world.

How the Saudi's put a couple of people inside Facebook and spied on Americans. Simple espionage operation. It worked quite well.

With open-source software, we have learned to stand on the shoulders of others. It is unfortunate that we brought some problems with us.

"Microsoft is starting to roll out new app icons in Windows 10 that are designed to modernize the company’s operating system." I just don't get it—"modernize the OS"???? I missed something in my education.

Hasbro revives its line of Tiger Electronics handheld electronic games. The Internet leaps into a frenzy.

A little-mentioned result of Brexit is that tech companies are moving data storage out of the EU territories into the UK where the regulations are different.

Chemotherapy may go away, and not for a good reason. Strains of virus are taking over after chemo weakens the immune system.

Hacking AI: researchers put black tape on a 35MPH sign and "trick" Teslas into going 85MPH. This is a high school gag. Billion$$$ in research down the drain to a high school gag.

The Europeans have largely been passed over by US and Chinese tech companies. The EU strikes back with—what else?—government regulation. If you can't beat 'em, regulate 'em.

ASUS updates its compute stick.

Friday 21 February 2020

The Attorney General of New Mexico is suing Google for collecting data via state-issued Chromebooks. Seems that state employees are not monitoring the contract sufficiently.

Lambda School offers computer programming courses. You don't pay until you have a job. This company is ... well, lying to people. Can a new and struggling industry withstand such a bad actor at this point?

Right on schedule, Russian election meddling is charged. Let the games begin. I guess someone needs to explain how running an ad campaign on social media is meddling. Then someone should explain how poking at insecure IT organizations is also meddling. The Russians did everyone a big favor four years ago by showing how badly major campaigns were with IT security. Everyone had ample time to learn and improve. Cries of "we are democracy in action" and "we are to be admired" so how can anyone disparage our sanctity are silly at best. Campaigns have money. People go after money. That isn't new or news. Lock your doors and stop complaining.

The Bloomberg presidential campaign does what all such do—edit s video to look good—and the "deepfake" debates begin.

A look at 7 Eleven's first cashier-less store.

Microsoft plans to invest $1.1Billion in Mexico over five years. That is a good amount, but not much considering what Microsoft has.

Someone at Google AI thinks that the concepts of "man" and "woman" are outdated. We went through this 50 years ago. I guess it's time to try this folly again. It too will pass.

Gretel: in construction now, but the new company is aiming to provide real but "anonymized" data for programmers.

Saturday 22 February 2020

MIT researchers join a now-crowded field of folks using AI to create new medicines.

Twitter suspends 70 accounts used by the Bloomberg campaign. Sitting on the sidelines is easier than running a campaign.

The story of Xia Peisu, the Grace Hopper of computing on mainland China. She managed to navigate politics to stay alive and build an industry.

The cast of Friends will come back together for an HBO special and for a few million$$$ each.

We learn that the Russians are helping the Bernie Sanders campaign.

More companies are trying a four-day, 32-hour work week (at the same pay as working 40 hours). Just get 'er done faster and go home.

150,000 sketches of animals are now online. The collection spans 500 years. The site for this is here.

Fascinating story how companies are using the faces of famous persons in advertising. The "famous" are social media "stars."

MSI shows a new laptop with 15" screen and impressive computing power for about $1,500.

Sunday 23 February 2020

A study of smart speakers, key words that activate them, television shows that activate them, and the like.

Computer security: phishing—trust me, I'm someone you know—is the most successful lie and becoming more successful.

Coming soon—I hope not—artificially grown shrimp cells to replace actual shrimp.

Also coming soon, the "democratization of expertise" where tools will make everyone an expert at anything we want. This is a self-defeating prophecy as it will require more expertise to build these tools than to use them. Hence, there will still be experts and non-experts. Heaven is in heaven, not here.

The Author's Guild 2020 Report: it isn't easy to make a livable income by just writing. A writer needs someone to feed, shelter, and clothe them while they write. You need a family, an actual family, to support you. None of this, "It takes a village" nonsense. This is America, not the UK where the taxpayers provided for J.K. Rowling so she could write and become richer than the Queen of England.

Thoughts on useful writing. Take heed.

Word counts. Is long is a .... ? Look here.

Use your own life and the lives of others around you as ideas for short stories. Of course you do.

Today I saw yet another post suggesting reading the Holy Bible as a writer. It is full of good characters, plots, principles, and lots of everything else to give writers good ideas. I didn't not the URL of today's post, but there are many out there.

Books that are not about writing, but have improved the writing of good writers.

How one writer increased productivity by understanding that there is more than one step in writing.

Yet another list of good books on writing.