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: 4-10 May, 2020

Summary of this week:

• Eight weeks into this isolation stuff, the fringe is now the norm
• Apple updates the 13" MacBook Pro
• Apple's WWDC will be free online week of 22 June
• We have AR Cut and Paste
• Firefox 76 released
• Disney+ subscriptions boom
• Microsoft updates its Surface Go and Surface Book
• GitHub shows its online development environment

Monday 4 May 2020

Musings on the iPad with the newer smart keyboard. I recently bought the iPad #10 for $350 with a keyboard (another $150). It is quite useful, i.e., I can write a book on it without killing my hands.

A growing money maker: kidnap someone's content and give it back only for large amounts of money.

If you have contrary thoughts, keep them to yourself. Facebook doesn't like such.

Uber to require drivers and passengers to hide their faces. What a great year to hide from those trying to find you. I recently saw a policeman addressing a fender bender where one of the participants was fully masked with a bandana. If you don't want the authorities to know you, well, this is your year.

The need and nature of company executives embracing agile principles. Hype in some sense, but those companies that are doing this seem to be succeeding this year.

Tuesday 5 May 2020

Google is slowly rolling out its Meet video conference capability. I haven't seen it yet.

And all these video conferences appear to be collecting data on the users.

Apple quietly announces the new MacBook Pro with 13" monitor. The insides are new chips. The keyboard is also replaced. After all these years, it is still the keyboard and screen that makes the computer. I/O is still everything.

MUST SEE video or demonstration of "Augmented Reality Cut and Paste." It is so different, it is difficult to describe other that it will soon be incredibly easy to put a photo of something in the room into a document.

Eric Schmidt, Google, Silicon Valley, our Federal Government, our Army, and leading-edge technology. Fascinating times with predictable outcomes.

Longtime Amazon VP Tim Bray quits in protest over how the company fired warehouse workers who criticized how Amazon's management responded to working conditions.

Another hiccup in all these online learning. College students want refunds as they didn't pay for online classes but are forced into them.

Wednesday 6 May 2020

The Hawthorne Effect is in play today. I sit outside Chick-fila-a instead of in my house. Productivity blossoms. Keep changing the environment.

MIT issues a series of reports on a global AI agenda.

Firefox 76 is released.

Apple's WWDC starts June 22 and will be no cost online.

Herds of lawyers are gathering in California about those persons who "work" for Uber and Lyft. Employees? Contractors? Chattle?

Sitting in the parking lot close enough to the building to use the WiFi. That is what I am doing while writing this.

Seth Godin discusses a "slog," which is an apt description of our current situation.

During this slog, the video gaming industry is booming. And their programmers are working from home.

Also during this slog, Disney and its Disney+ product are booming. The rich get richer.

Those in the know of the US and UK governments warn of extremely busy hacking against those who are preforming COVID-19 research. There is big money in finding the right chemicals. There is also big terror in the same endeavor.

When spending someone else's money...it appears that the soon-to-be activated contact tracing cellphone thing in the UK simply won't work.

oooops, CAM4 has a security lapse and exposes 10Billion records. That is a large number. Larger than the population of the planet.

Frontier airline is charging passengers for an empty seat next to them. The seat would be empty anyways as no one is flying, but it is a way to raise your ticket price and call it something else.

Continuing to receive more power for less money, Acer updates its Swift portable computer.

Thursday 7 May 2020

Microsoft releases new updated hardware. The Surface Go 2 has a bigger display while maintaining the same overall dimensions. It also has more power inside. Prices start at $399.

Microsoft releases the Surface Book 3. It as new processors and GPUs inside. Not much as changed outside. $1,600 for the base model.

And Microsoft has new headphones and ear buds and such.

Alphabet's (Google's) Loon partners with AT&T to have coverage in the event of disaster. Loon has those high-flying balloons that provide broadband service.

Ring updates its doorbell. They've  the features and cut the price in half.

Volvo announces that it will sell cars with LIDAR sensors in 2020. They have found a LIDAR provider with sensors that are affordable for the consumer market.

GitHub shows its new CodeSpaces, an online development environment. Everyone seems to have an online development environment these days.

ooops, India turned on its location-tracking app to follow round those infected persons. In about two minutes, researchers find that it is easy to hack into it and follow around anyone you want.

Fortnite now has 350million players. That is greater than the population of the United States. The definition of success has changed.

The open-source graphics editor Inkscape 1.0 is released (after 16 years of work). Runs everywhere (Linux, Windows, macOS).

In India, the number of rural Internet users passes the number of urban users. The cell phone has taken over.

In the first quarter of this year, global smartwatch sales were 20% higher than the same quarter of last year.

In the UK, Virgin Media and O2 merge ($30-something-Billion).

Friday 8 May 2020

Google tells its office workers to work from home for the rest of 2020.

Facebook will reopen office in July, but will allow employees to work from home for the rest of 2020.

Fake news, real news, misinformation, disinformation, YouTube...we don't trust one another. Healthy skepticism is good. Unhealthy anything, isn't so good.

A deeper look at Apple's updated 13" MacBook Pro. Everyone raves about the keyboard. I guess my Apple laptop is so old that I skipped over all that keyboard trouble.

AMD shows a new line of processors aimed at portable business computers.

Neiman Marcus files for bankruptcy. Their other name was "needless markup" as they sold luxury goods at exorbitant prices.

Saturday 9 May 2020

Apple will open some of its retail stores in the US next week. Local restrictions will apply.

Both the Defcon and Black Hat conference in August have moved to online-only events.

Facebook supposedly has a new look on its website. I can't tell any difference.

This makes me feel really old. Someone has been running a complete IBM 360/370 on a $5 Raspberry Pi. IBM 360 Assembly Language was the first programming class I took at LSU. A night class. Hated it, but made it through.

I wish I had seen "The Plandemic" before it was pulled off the Internet. Such a visceral reaction to something shows that it had some merit. Emphasis on "some."

Our self-imposed unemployment rate is at 14.7%. Hard to believe.

Our Army Corps of Engineers built emergency field hospitals around the country. They treated practically no one. I guess that is good in that we didn't have that many sick persons. $660Million spent.

In Singapore, a robot patrols a park telling persons "don't bunch up." The fringe becomes the norm.

Sunday 10 May 2020

Where the money is: ShinyHunters is a hacking group that has penetrated lots of organizations and is selling the stolen data on the dark web. Of course it is all illegal, but it is something you can do from home while isolated.

The San Diego Comic Con will be held online this summer. Details forthcoming.

The governors in California won't allow Tesla to open its factory there. Elon Musk threatens to move to another state. Good. Do it. For some reason, some governors want to ruin the economy and the society.

One big survey shows that C is the most popular programming language. Efficiency returns. Java falls to #2.

The Python programming language swings to being a data analysis very-high-level scripting tool.

Speculation about the location and layout of future office buildings.

A guide to writing style guides. This is a good article.

Writers, and many others, sit all day. Here are some ways to move your body during the day in just a few minutes.

Four basic concepts to help the writing take care of itself.

How one freelance writer makes a living. Market all the time—all the time.

One person's good experiences with writing in a journal. This is one of the few practices that I recommend to everyone.

20 (count 'em, 20) ways to write a better novel.

(1) There are different types of copyrights. (2) This is especially true for magazines. (3) Everything is negotiable.

Some positive-outlook tips to help the writer.