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: 8–14 February, 2021

Summary of this week:

• Tampa Bay wins the Super Bowl
• France doesn't meet the Paris Accords requirements
• Microsoft is adding apps to Teams
• NASA awards SpaceX moon-launch contract
• Disney+ hits four-year goal in 14 months
• Nvidia releasing stock of old GPUs
• Big tech opposes Nvidia's purchase of ARM

Monday 8 February 2021

Amazon set records for capital expenditures in 2020. Other tech companies followed the trend with Google and Microsoft being noteworthy.

reddit ran a five-second Super Bowl commercial. Like Bernie Sanders stole the inauguration, reddit stole the Super Bowl.

Intel publishes benchmarks showing that its processors are faster than the Apple Silicon. Independent testing is needed. Independent testing cost$$$.

It appears that all that disinfecting of surfaces and hand washing didn't do much of anything to stop the virus. Oh well, it was a good ad campaign. As usual, the experts were wrong.

Those responsible in France have failed to meet the Paris Climate Accords.

Tuesday 9 February 2021

In the UK, researchers paid by the government estimate that the government has done a great job is lessening the spread of the virus. Government and money appear to be the same worldwide.

IBM partners with Palantir. Palantir will share its AI software while IBM will share its sales force and cloud infrastructure.

The Rust programming language takes a big step towards adulthood with the creation of the Rust Foundation.

The governors of China are trying to gain influence in the international standards-setting groups.

Something for everyone, well not everyone, but a few of us would like to have this for at least a day: a laptop computer with 7 screens.

Wednesday 10 February 2021

A researcher breaches the cyber security systems of 35 companies. Those hacked include Microsoft, Apple, PayPal, Shopify, Netflix, Yelp, Tesla, and Uber.

Adobes makes it easier for groups of persons to edit items online in Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fresco.

Jack Dorsey seems to have a pretty good idea about letting each of us choose what we see on social media.

Apple partners with TSMC to develop better displays for mobile devices.

Lyft's quarterly financial report confirms that our reaction to the virus clobbered them and just about anyone who tried to make aliving with persons leaving their homes.

Qualcomm now has a 10GigaBitPerSecond 5G modem. Now if anyone else in the 5G system will do their jobs we can use these things.

One by one, the tech companies are announcing that they won't expect a "9 to 5" day any longer.

NASA awards the $331Million contract to send parts to the moon to SpaceX.

"The problem with living on the delta is that as we strap into a rollercoaster of external change, we forget to work on the problems we have the opportunity to improve."—Seth Godin

And we learn that in 2018 8.7Million persons died due to fossil fuels. Seems we have invented new ways of counting cause of death. Much of America's COVID deaths probably fall under this heading.

We have an interesting collision of copyright law and the watching of public officials performing public duties in public.

Some persons have lots of time on their hands: we can run Android on the Nintendo Switch.

Thursday 11 February 2021

The folly of our governors has no limits. In New York, the vaccination registration website didn't work. A few programmers cobbled together $50 and made a site that worked. And these folks are running an impeachment trial?

Clubhouse: a rising star that is new enough to attract the A-list.

And the big tech imitators are coming after Clubhouse as Facebook as trying to make its own version.

Same song, 100th verse—in Florida, a water treatment facility was hacked. An investigation shows that the security practices were juvenile.

HP updates its line of Pavilion x360 portable computers. They are aimed towards streaming entertainment as in the year of the virus this is all we do all day, right?

The CDC—never shy about telling us how to live—releases new guidelines for those who have been vaccinated. They are quite good at creating yet another divide of the haves and have-nots.

More encouragement to "mask up." We had "flatten the curve" and a host of other slogans, so why not a new one.

Friday 12 February 2021

Disney+ has 95million subscribers. The definition of success has changed.

Nvidia is releasing its stock of older graphics processors and cards to help relieve the current shortage. This is also known as being smart and making money.

How Mackenzie Scott gave away $6billion in 2020.

Where there is money...there is a scam. Someone is making fake N95 masks and selling them to government agencies. It seems that only government workers are fooled by these types of things.

Solar and wind power generation are growing at 18% a year (doubling every four years). What happens when we try to dispose of the old ones and learn what that means?

Speak of energy, Bitcoin mining consumes more energy than the country of Argentina.

In China—where the censorship professionals rule—the BBC has been removed from the airwaves.

The grizzly bear population out west is growing. And then they bump into humans.

Saturday 13 February 2021

The call to vaccinate everyone in the world. I think the word for this is "hubris." Another word for this is "ignorance."

Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm, et al are complaining to our FTC of antitrust violations with Nvidia purchasing ARM.

"90-year-old Aaron Epstein bought a Wall Street Journal print ad to complain about his slow AT&T Internet service" and the story continues to a good conclusion. Someone at AT&T paid attention and acted like an actual human being. Too bad other corporations refuse to act as such.

The somewhat personal feud between Tim Cook of Apple and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Perhaps my description is a bit weak.

China refuses to give the World Health Organization information about the virus that originated in China. I keep mulling the idea of the rest of the world demanding war reparations from China. I doubt that will happen.

HPE and Microsoft attempt AI edge computing on the good old international space station.

Never shy to give advice (that many times has shown to be bad), Dr. Fauci tells us that a vaccine for children should be available by September. Notice how we don't have to specify a vaccine for what.

Intel launches an ad campaign to poke fun at Apple Silicon. Odd as we recall that Intel still supplies the great majority of processors for Apple.

Sunday 14 February 2021

Another predictable and predicted story: the rich got richer in all that trading of Game Stop stock.

In 2020, venture capital stayed away from black founders in disproportionate numbers. Is it personal or "just business?" Are legal quotas necessary?

Mr. Bezos lays out some of his non-CEO plans. One is to spend more time at the Washington Post.

Headline is a good summary, "British scientists say U.K. coronavirus variant is "likely" deadlier" That is a great example of something that lacks science and merely stirs angst.

Science present in this report: medical frailty is a predictor of severe illness and death with COVID. If we had simply told folks with these conditions to stay isolated and let everyone else live, we would be over this by now with far fewer problems—economic, mental health, emotional well being, etc.

Coca Cola is working on a paper bottle.

Companies are now using AI software to screen job applicants. I trust they know what they are doing, but I doubt it.

One person's experience with switching from the iMac with a 27" 5K screen to a Mac mini with a 34" super widescreen curved monitor. There are trades. The iMac is bright and sharp. The other monitor has real estate.

O'Reilly on free speech, free press, and social media.

Some tips for looking better on the Zoom Teams meetings. Better light, better camera angle.

The year of the virus has shown us the fragility of many freelancers. Mental health or outlook on life and the work are important.

The idea of how writers take from their real lives in everything they write. I agree with this concept.

Ideas on rewarding yourself after a job completed.

One set of "simple steps" to writing a novel. There are many of these available.

Finding ways to find inspiration or spur ideas. I like this "mood board" technique.