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: 30 November– 6 December, 2020

Summary of this week:

• The UK approves a couple of coronavirus vaccines
• DeepMind solves the protein folding problem
• American companies oppose an anti forced-labor law
• HPE moving to Houston
• Nvidia releases low end 3000 series graphics card
• The Arecibo Observatory collapses

Monday 30 November 2020

"David Prowse, the actor who played Darth Vader in the original Star Wars films, has died...He was 85."

Strong rumors that VolksWagon will have a small electric vehicle in the US for $24K...real soon now.

MIT advances their self-navigating boat. The new model is large enough to carry people around canals and closed waterways.

The bubble is bursting in San Francisco as the rich tech CEOs are leaving town. If everyone else is telecommuting, they can too. Buy yourself 10,000 acres in Wyoming.

Tuesday 1 December 2020

The year of the virus has been ... well 329% higher profits this year than last. It is difficult to find an adjective for this.

The year of the virus has been so boring for Americans that we are playing video games in record numbers—79% of us are playing.

Shame on Apple, Coca Cola, Nike, and other major American companies for opposing a law against forced labor in China. Shame.

Western Civilization is safe: Disney removes prop guy who was accidentally on screen in an episode of The Mandolarian.

Google's DeepMind solves the protein folding problem. This is a breakthrough that should lead to much better medicines—e.g., vaccines for viruses. This is a major event.

A thoughtful piece on the PC Malaise Era. Must read.

Wednesday 2 December 2020

HP Enterprise is leaving Silicon Valley and moving to Houston.

The year of the virus has been good to HPE as they have another good financial quarter.

The year of the virus has been good for Reddit with is daily active users up 44% from last year.

Predictable and predicted: Amazon retail has its biggest year ever. Again, the year of the virus has concentrated wealth into a smaller number of groups and multiplied the divide. Perhaps we didn't think our reaction all the way through.

Google opens new avenues for locals to add to Maps.

Gravity and entropy win again as the  Arecibo Observatory collapses.

Nvidia announces the low end of its RTX 3000 series of graphics cards. The 3060 is available 2 December for $399.

Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon 888 processor for next year's Android mobile devices.

China lands another vehicle on the moon. This one is supposed to return to earth with soil samples.

Salesforce buys Slack for $27.7Billion.

We have another monolith! This one appears in Romania. It appears that someone is running an ad campaign for something that is coming.

A programmer is running a crowd funding campaign that will allow him to work full time on porting a real version of Linux to the Apple M1 processor.

Thursday 3 December 2020

Google is in trouble with the National Labor Relations Board over the firing of two employees who organized protests.

You can now have a video chat with persons on your TV via an addition to Amazon's Fire TV Cube. No longer have to use a computer or smartphone. Perhaps when the year of the virus ends we will wonder why anyone wanted such a thing.

Google continues to step out of the AR/VR marketplace.

Microsoft continues to step into the eSports marketplace.

We have a third monolith; this one is in California.

Friday 4 December 2020

A new executive order from the President regarding the use of artificial intelligence in government.

China claims to leapfrog everyone in quantum computing.

GitHub releases its list of most-used programming languages. JavaScript, Python, and Java are the top three.

Vaccines coming? Not so fast. Pfizer's CEO isn't sure. Once you are vaccinated you may still be a spreader of the virus.

Some virus vaccines require cold, cold storage. The systems that provide that cold storage are called the "cold chain." Right on schedule, hackers are attacking the cold chain. Why? Money.

An engineer runs Windows 10 on Apple Silicon using the QEMU emulator. As expected, the Apple Silicon runs much faster than the Microsoft Surface.

Our Dept of Justice files charges against Facebook for hiring foreign workers instead of Americans. There are laws about such.

Saturday 5 December 2020

After 75 years, divers find an Enigma crypto machine on the bottom of the sea.

A small company produces a RISC processor that sets a record for computing power per electrical power.

Ars Technica reviews and praises the new MacBook Air with Apple Silicon.

Sunday 6 December 2020

The new Mac computer have enough security hardware so that you have to contact Apple to do unusual things with them. And there are plenty of people who do unusual things with them.

The saga of the monolith continues. Here today, gone tomorrow. It is all good fun until...

Another question for society to answer.

Writing is one of those things that doesn't understand age. Write, write, write, Let everything else fall where it may.

A few tips on marketing. It is "the holidays," when many people don't work so hard or as much. Get ahead.

Thoughts on automatic writing. I am not sure what that is, but some claim to do it.

Some lessons from independent writing and publishing and money. Folks, the great majority of writers don't make any money. We write  for the same reason that we breathe.

The "U Experience." If everyone is doing college online, bring 150 together in a resort hotel to do college online. Might as well have fun or something.

A few ways that people are still working while restricted in the reaction to the virus.

Habits to keep in the habit of writing during the year of the virus.