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 June, 2020

Summary of this week:

• Apple WWDC: the move to Apple Silicon (not Intel)
• Windows System for Linus gets GPU access
• Segway closes, no more of those self-balancing things
• The EU bans US travelers, we didn't shut down enough
• Boston bans facial recognition technology
• Slack joins the ZoomTeams marketplace with Connect
• Microsoft closes all its retail stores

Monday 22 June 2020

One way to handle a disaster: send in a team of experts (who don't work for a government) with a no-nonsense attitude and get the job done. Funded by Sergey Brin. That is something good for plutocrats to do with money.

Apple's big event is today. So we have really, really strong rumors about the appearance of Mac computers without Intel processors.

An in-depth look at the Dell XPS 15. This may be the best PC with a 15" monitor today. And we live in an age where no one gets fired for buying a Dell.

Walmart sells a laptop computer for $140 with a brand name of EVOO. One reporter tests it and cannot find anything that it can do.

The subtle differences between software engineering, developers, and those who "write" software. "Writers" create code that people enjoy reading and working.

....

Tuesday 23 June 2020

Some analysis on Apple's move to "Apple Silicon" and what this means to iPads and Macs and software developers.

One milestone in marketing: the next OS for the Mac will be OS 11. OS X was a breakthrough that lived long and will go down in the annals of computing.

Microsoft partners with a few others to bring GPU availability to its Windows System for Linux. Now we can crank machine learning and other things in a window in Windows.

As the economy tries to recover, employment-based visas for foreigners are suspended to protect American workers. Soon we learn if this helps, hurts, or makes no difference.

Rad Power Bikes moves toward the practical in a new bike for $999.

Japan inches ahead of everyone for the week with the world's most powerful super-duper-computer. This one is based on ARM processors.

An AI tool transforms a low-resolution image of Barack Obama to a white person. People are aghast. Sometimes algorithms do things that we don't like. That says more about us than about the algorithms.

Wednesday 24 June 2020

The European Union will ban Americans from visiting when they open the borders on 1 July. It appears that we didn't shutdown properly. Has everyone on the planet gone insane?

Olympus steps out of the camera business.

Segway steps out of the ... well what business were they in? Anyways, they stop making those self-balancing things and laid off everyone.

Mercedes teams with Nvidia to make cars whose computers can be upgraded as long as the car keeps running. And Mercedes is know for cars that physically run for a long, long time.

Technologists protest algorithms that predict crime. Like yesterday, sometimes we don't like what algorithms do, and that says more about us than about the algorithms.

The Indiana Supreme Court rules that police cannot force a person to unlock their phone.

The current trend, i.e., something we now like, is to not advertise on Facebook because it doesn't censor others. Again, we vs. others with we being correct and others being others.

Thursday 25 June 2020

Google starts a new service to pay "high quality" news suppliers.

Slack enters the ZoomTeams market with its "Connect."

The governors of Boston ban facial recognition technology. I guess they forgot how they caught the Boston Marathon bombers.

In an unending effort to democratize computer programming, Amazon introduces Honeycode so that non-program writers can write programs without writing programs.

We begin making lists of software that will not run on the new Apple Silicon on Macs.

"Once we realize that the world around us is filled with people who are each wrestling with what we’re wrestling with (and more), compassion is a lot easier to find."—Seth Godin

When you add data to collected data so that it "looks" better, you no longer have the data you collected. You have something else. It is unfortunate that law enforcement, governors, and other scientific illiterates use the something else as if it is real evidence.

Our Dept of Defense has linked a couple dozen Chinese companies to the People's Liberation Army of China—what most know as the army of China. Note: China's army is not loyal to China's people. It was created by and is loyal to the Communist Party of China.

Friday 26 June 2020

And our Dept of Justice is hotly pursuing an antitrust case against Google.

Get ready because here comes neumorphism. Skip all the definitions, it's something different, and companies like Apple need something different. And no, "different" does not mean "better." It simply means "different."

Western civilization is saved during the year of the virus: Animal Crossing: New Horizons now adds swimming. Lost? I was, too. It's a video game that I will be seeing my grandkids playing.

Amazon acqui-hires self-driving expertise in Zoox for a cool $1.2Billion.

There are a few alternatives to Facebook, Twitter, et al. if you want more free speech, less surveillance, and all that. No doubt some major media outlets will investigate and label these as havens for hate mongers or some other dastardly deed do-ers.

Some of the member of our Congress are writing bills to outlaw use of facial recognition by Federal law enforcement. Be careful what you wish as you may receive.

Our CDC says that the virus MAY HAVE infected up to 10x what we know. Well, that's a scientific statement (NOT). One day, it may be at least 50 years in the future, someone will investigate the year of the virus and show all the silliness and folly. I predict that far out as there are too many "smart" people ignoring the obvious and accepting the hyperbole. They would be highly embarrassed to be shown their foolishness. Hence, no one is ready to accept a scientific and rational explanation for this year.

Saturday 27 June 2020

Coca-Cola pauses its advertising on social media platforms. Now we are talking real money.

Microsoft is closing its 83 retail stores. Bye bye jobs.

The governors of Santa Cruz, California make it the first city to ban predictive policing. Were they using it? Perhaps I can make a list of things that I don't use or do and ban them. I hereby ban cauliflower for breakfast.

NASA makes a necklace that reminds us not to touch our faces. I guess NASA has little to do now that they have contracted manned space travel. In the future, we will look back at us in 2020 and shake our heads in wonder.

How did Bill Gates get so rich? By saying brilliant things like this (not): The cold and flu season will bring more cold and flu.

How did Bill Gates get so rich? By saying brilliant things like this (not): If people don't take the COVID vaccine, the COVID vaccine won't do anything (good or bad).

Stands to raise our laptop computers to the right height to work from home. I guess I am one of those who didn't spend a penny to make it easier to work from home. And no, I have not spent money over the years to be ready for this. Just sit and do your work. Get over it, folks.

A lament over how Google has not  improved Docs, Sheets, and everything else it provides to us at no cost.

Sunday 28 June 2020

Subtitle says it all, "Inside the unrest at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative."

Just to show that legitimate journalism outlets are run by illiterates, we have this story of the "meteoric rise" of such and such. Meteors fall, they don't rise.

Big layoffs coming in the financial sector. And there are some persons (most associated with government) who think all this shutdown stuff won't cost us anything.

Recent conclusions: If there is a deadly contagious disease that spreads when persons talk to one another, there can be no public gatherings. This means no school (K through PhD), no entertainment or sports events, no restaurants, in-person retail by appointment only, and other things), etc. If we have a contagious disease that is deadly to 3-5% of the population, we can work with that and protect that portion of the population while the remainder continues modified, but otherwise normal lives. In our current year of the virus, I find that we have yet to decide what we have.

We have just outlawed the form of humor known as impersonations.

Low on writing energy? Here are some practical tips to help take the first step.

Tips on writing microcopy. That is those little messages the software sends us like, "wrong password."

Dam tasks: those that block you from doing them and the other tasks you have. Procrastination is another way of writing this.

Commas: it matters where we put them.