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 February, 2021

Summary of this week:

• America leads the world in vaccinations
• Apple overtakes Samsung in number of smartphones produced
• Fry's Electronics closes
• Qualcomm shows new VR glasses (not goggles)
• HP Inc has a good financial quarter
• Nvidia breaks all its food financial records
• Best Buy lays off 5,000 and closes more stores

Monday 22 February 2021

They produce many integrated circuits in Europe, up 'till now. The Europeans---along with others---realized that China is not a dependable business partner.

Researchers find malware hidden in 30,000 Mac computers.

Several big tech companies (Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc.) have agreed to the Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation.

 This is a good week as this week's research on drinking coffee favors it. Coffee drinking lowers the risk of heart problems.

America is leading the world in the pace of vaccinations. I hope we know what we are doing by being on the leading or bleeding edge.

Toshiba shows new 18TeraByte disks using flux-control microwave-assisted magnetic recording (FC-MAMR) technology.

Tuesday 23 February 2021

For the first time in four years, Apple passes Samsung as the world's leading maker of smartphones.

Must-see video of how students built a machine that plays air hockey. It took a year a several restarts.

Big tech was a big donor to the Biden campaign.

And now that its all over, big tech is allowing political ads again. Conspiracy?

Huawei shows a foldable smartphone.

Strong rumors about some new MacBook Pros coming from Apple this year. More ports and goodies.

NASA releases more video and photos of Mars, and they all lead to the question, "Who wants to go there?"

The Ready Computer Corporation of Toronto has used to Raspberry Pi to basically recreate the TRS-80 Model 100. Very desirable.

Microsoft promises text prediction next month.

Wednesday 24 February 2021

China and its expansion into the rest of the world. A long-term concept that, if nothing else, is interesting to America and the west.

Sad news: Fry's Electronics is closing its stores. The year of the virus and a few other trends have finished it.

Firefox version 86 is released.

Qualcomm shows its new XR1 Smart Viewer. The VR glasses (not goggles) may allow us to view virtual screens on the wall. That would be nice.

The current state of 5G in the US: 5G is supposed to be in many places, but no one is seeing 5G performance.

Our FCC wants to put out a few billion $$$ to give broadband to low-income and rural persons. What happened to all the billions $$$ the Obama Administration spent on the same?

A Virtual Reality headset is coming to the PS5 real soon now.

The year of the virus was good to chess.com as folks everywhere are watching other folks play chess. Anything you do at home had a good year.

The parachute that slowed the rover's descent to Mars has a message hidden in it. I trust the money spent on that was approved as it was public funds.

Gosh this is ugly, but this is what the mailman will be driving real soon now.

Apple routinely buys a company every month.

Huawei, hurt by sanctions in its 5G technology, has turned to using AI in mining and pig farming.

Lenovo shows a new 40" monitor. Great stuff."

Thursday 25 February 2021

Google's Gamesnacks are out now. Lightweight games, and in the year of the virus, everyone is playing games.

HP acqui-hires HyperX and immediately expands its game accessory line of products.

Google Cloud updates its Kubernetes engine (GKE).

The year of the virus continues to be good for Nvidia with record gaming driving record sales and profits.

Yesterday was a good day for the value of GameStop as it rose 100%.

Our President signs yet another Executive Order. This one is to cause a 100-day review of supply chains.

Amazon releases its Lookout for Vision service. It is aimed at finding defects in manufacturing. Amazon continues to become the IBM of this century.

The rulers in Myanmar know how to shut down the Internet the good old fashioned way, with hardware.

Starlink promises speeds of 300MegaBitsPerSecond real soon now.

Friday 26 February 2021

Stronger rumors about new Apple computers in 2021. Looks good.

oooooops 8million COVID test results have been leaked to everyone. Online health records, aren't they grand? (not)

HP Inc. has a good financial quarter.

A severe security flaw is found in VMWare.

\ A recent study reveals four main causes of "zoom fatigue" (video teleconference) and how to relieve them.

Western civilization is safe again. It appears that xbox live was offline for six hours.

Amazon will give $15million over three years to code.org to help spread computer science education in high schools.

Angst continues at Google in Google Research. They continue to re-organize and re-do everything to find their way.

Saturday 27 February 2021

The Washington Post reruns a story from last year about how if we all "behave" this spring, we can return to normal in the summer. Oh wait, that's a new story, not a rerun. I guess the experts were wrong last year, but of course the are right this year. Must be nice to be an expert with no accountability.

We used to say, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me." I guess that doesn't hold anymore.

The Johnson&Johnson vaccine takes a big step towards usage. It requires only one shot and has much simpler logistics.

The year of the virus (our reaction) killed retail. Fry's closed earlier this week. Now Best Buy lays off 5,000 and closes more stores. Look in the mirror folks. Us rich folks did this to our poorer neighbors. We had choices, and this is what we chose.

Examples of how law enforcement acquire information they cannot collect themselves to prosecute (or persecute) the usual suspects.

At appears that someone is faking Tom Cruise online. The deepfake is quite good, and the money rolls in.

We are such an odd group. Everyone seems to realize that government-created websites to register for vaccinations flopped. Yet we elected a President that promised a return to more government. And he is seeking help from outside government.

George Will on how past uncontrolled spending was tiny compared to the last year. We decided to stay home and crash the economy and pretend we didn't do anything of the sort.

Tax time. Some states lost revenue when folks left for cheaper pastures to work from home. The long arm of the tax revenuers is quite long. Beware.

Nvidia, benefiting greatly in the year of the virus, continues to roll with the release of an "affordable" new graphics card.

As reported earlier, big tech gave big dollars to our President's campaign fund. Now our President gives back to big tech by releasing work visas.

Sunday 28 February 2021

Some members of Congress want to give me $1,500 so I'll buy an electric bicycle. This is also known as a bribe.

Our FDA approves the Johnson&Johnson vaccine. One shot. No super cooling. The return to normal is on. Why didn't they just distribute a placebo nine months ago?

How the state of Mississippi diverted COVID funds to build rural broadband. Might as well put the money to some good use.

Big tech jumps in to build vaccination web sites. ooooops, these have to connect to government-built systems. Good luck with the connection.

Magic words: up until now. I am not a write, up until now.

Write your life story. You don't have to tell everything.

Encouragement to write a book while you are in college. I suppose some college majors have plenty of extra time to do this type of thing. Others don't.

Advice on writing gleaned from writers over the years. Sometimes it is good to remind ourselves of these things.

Looking for a market for your writing? What do you know? What is your experience?

Thoughts on publishing your own novel by yourself.

Writing with other writers. We like to call this "collaborating."

Want to use Mac software and only have a PC? You can rent a Mac in the cloud.

Writing fanfiction, i.e., using settings and characters from established stories. It is writing. It is probably good for you.

The benefits of a writing community.