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: 20-26 April, 2020

Summary of this week:

• Plutocrats flee to New Zealand
• Coming real soon now: we will write software on the iPad
• Flop 2: Fairfax County, Virginia fails again in week 2 of online learning
• Stronger rumors that Apple is moving away from Intel CPUs in Macs
• 26.4million Americans on unemployment
• The ill-conceived coronavirus response has ruined tens of millions of lives
• Facebook announces Messenger Rooms
• Ubuntu 20.04 released

Monday 20 April 2020

In Australia, Facebook and Google need to play fair with traditional news media (so say some). It isn't fair that real reporters report news and Facebook users repeat it (I guess like I am doing now).

Individuals are finding medical supplies and passing them on to health care workers. Some find this wrong as the official channels should not be bypassed. We can only help officially, I guess.

Wanting to spice up those boring online meetings, put someone else's face (Charlie Brown would be my choice) on your body in real time. Some programming required.

Tuesday 21 April 2020

Strong rumors about Microsoft releasing an updated Surface Go 2 in May. As is the norm, it will remain the same size with a larger display and smaller bezels.

IBM had a mixed financial quarter. As expected, cloud computing is up up up.

Google releases a new product they call BeyondCorp Remote Access. It promises the moon of course. Persons can access their employer's web-based software from anywhere AND of course it is secure. Time will tell. "Security" has become a prediction instead of a fact.

And here in Fairfax County, Virginia (one of the richest places in the world), we have more stumbles with online schools. Herds of lawyers are gathering. They will fix everything (not). Has anyone called the Governor and blasted his decision to close schools? Especially when we have all this evidence that school-age children and their parents don't become sick.

Apple extends its stores and music to several dozen more countries around the globe.

I guess I am just too old to understand this infatuation with testing everyone in America before I leave my house. Someone else will do the testing and handling of all the bio-hazard material. When these testers tell me that the sick and infirmed have been removed from society, I will venture out to meet the worthy. Uh, wait, didn't I read something about such in a history book on the 1930s Europe...

It appears that some plutocrats have fled to their redoubts in New Zealand.

It appears that crude oil is now worth nothing. Can I buy a few tons for nothing and sell it for something later? Perhaps I don't understand how this works.

Strong rumors that we will soon be able to write software on, not just for, our iPads.

We learn that our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent out faulty virus test kits earlier this year. The test results were "uninterpetable" (is that a word?).

Wednesday 22 April 2020

1,900 persons in Spain, most of whom have never met, worked together to design and build ventilators. Again, this shows that much of the regulation put on makers of medical equipment is in place to keep upstarts out of the business.

Apple, Google, and others are creating apps that track our whereabouts in the name of public safety. Trading security for liberty can be fraught with peril.

ooops, our Small Business Administration has been gathering information from small businesses for bailouts and seems to have leak much of that information.

The great Wuhan virus of 2020 has been very good to some companies. Netflix adds 16million new paid subscribers in recent weeks.

Home electronics sales, which were boosted by Wuhan you-know-what, boomed but have already peaked.

Office 365 has a new name: Microsoft 365 (so much for creative marketing). It is supposed to have a few new features.

Thursday 23 April 2020

Zoom version 5.0 is released. It is supposed to fix all those security problems we were experiencing.

What was a darling a few weeks ago, is not a drudgery. Zoom-ing at work and with friends loses its appeal.

Despite all the concerns and fatigue, Zoom's daily users are up 50% since the first of April.

It appears that the Chinese government was planting seeds of distrust and panic way back at the start of this current crisis. War reparations?

Facebook and Amazon increase their spending on lobbying elected officials while Google decreases its.

Where the money is: ransonware overtakes simply stealing our credit card information. Give me your money or else.

A few persons are still going to work: SpaceX puts 60 more satellites into orbit and lands it launcher on a barge at sea.

I love this post from Seth Godin. "If you want to know how to work with new or limited resources, find a population that’s used to not having many alternatives...a home cook who’s used to the unlimited aisles of the modern supermarket isn’t sure what to do when there’s not much to choose from. An Italian grandmother is a better guide in that moment."

GameStop claims it is an "essential" service and plans to fully reopen its stores. The key to surviving in this situation is being "essential." Why are construction sites essential?

Where there is a will, there is a bot. Grocery delivery services are over booked. Don't wait two days for a delivery, run software that searches through schedules and finds little available time slots for you.

It appears that the heavy use of invasive ventilators does more harm than good. And all the industries are busy making these things. Well meaning experts are often wrong. This will be yet another in the long line of such cases in history. One day we will probably look back at this year and shake our heads in disbelief at how the experts were wrong and many of us followed along blindly having faith in someone who was supposed to save us. This is part of the history of the human condition. We can't seem to help ourselves.

Friday 24 April 2020

Our FCC approves use of more bandwidth in the 6GHz range for new WiFi 6E technology.

We are now at 26.4Million jobs lost to the response to the virus. It is never the event. It is always the response.

Sweden becomes a test case for a different response to the virus. Fact: we don't know how many people have this or that infection  in any year in any place. We don't go to the doctor every month for testing extensive enough to create all these graphs and predictions. Question: how many of us have tested for cancer this year? For growing blockage in our arteries? For any one of dozens of viruses o bacteria? For pending aneurysm? Yet we want to test everyone in the world for COVID-19. Really? Panic in the streets.

Intel has a good financial quarter. Then the stock price drops in one of those peculiar occurrences.

Business is booming for some tech companies, but they are not hiring. They are efficient enough to do more more with fewer employees.

A case study in how the IT industry in India shifted to remote work overnight. They didn't buy laptops. Instead, they moved office equipment to homes.

We aren't very good at being a police state—I am happy to report.

Let's enforce social distancing with drone patrols and alerts. Perhaps let's not.

Saturday 25 April 2020

ooops, Nintendo confirms hack of 160,000 accounts.

Another example of how bored we are as this story is highly read on the Internet: Microsoft Word now shows an error if we put two spaces after a period.

Apple and Google turn on their person-tracking systems (billed as good for public health) and promise to turn them off when ... someone says its okay. Subjectivity reigns.

"Ethical tracking tools." Is that an oxymoron?

It appears that the tech giants of Silicon Valley are struggling more than the rest of us to adjust to remote work. They built free fine-dining cafeterias, free home-to-work shuttles, free errand running, etc. to make it great to come to the office. Now what?

Want to tear the fabric of a community? Create distrust among neighbors. I find it unfortunate that political leaders have done so by pitting the haves and have nots against on another. Some still receive paychecks while others do not. All because someone labeled some as essential and others as not. I have not seen writings about how the rich are safe at home, working from home, and receiving their pay. The poor are either "risking their health" by serving the rich or are unemployed because their service jobs are non-essential. Distrust. Damage. A great shame.

Locally, INOVA Health Systems lays off 400 persons. Persons are not going to the hospital and other health care.

Right on schedule, Ubuntu 20.04 is released.

Sunday 26 April 2020

Coursera offers all this thousands of online courses free to unemployed persons. The killer of the program is that you have to apply through a government agency. Why ruin such a good idea?

It appears that the government of China is attempting to steal US medical research related to coronavirus.

I love Seth Godin's common sense post about bulletin boards. Want to know something? Check the board. Stop sending every little bulletin to every person.

Interesting work on mapping potential earthquakes across North America. Remember earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc.?

Fascinating study of programming languages ranked by salary worldwide. Pascal and Prolog made the top 15 list. People still use those? Java didn't.

The idea of a novel written for practice. You can "put away" writings without have to "throw away" them. It is a subtle twist on words that often brings calm to the mind.

Creating an online course to earn extra money as a writer.