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: 17-23 May, 2021

Summary of this week:

• Microsoft working on making Python more efficient
• Amazon may buy MGM
• Google has its I/O event with several new AI offerings
• Ford shows a electric-powered pickup truck
• CDC goes back and forth on masks

Monday 17 May 2021

It is Monday...the usual slow news day.

This story must be important as it is all over the Internet: Bill Gates was involved with several females at Microsoft while being married. Some of the stories are dramatic as he was making many female employees feel quite uncomfortable.

Our current President will start issuing what are advances to income tax returns or something. I assume someone has checked the legality of all this.

And we have an odd case of some odd thing in Fullerton, Ca. The city's governors apologize for informally accusing persons of something to do with bad cyber security in the city's offices.

From Australia we may have a breakthrough in battery technology with graphene aluminum-ion battery cells. We shall see if anything comes of this.

Microsoft is funding a project to make the Python programming language much more efficient.

Tuesday 18 May 2021

I find this to be an excellent essay on the near- and long-term future of "college."

Meanwhile, in New Jersey the Governor says they will still require masks for all indoors. I like local issues being kept local. This is a matter for the voters of New Jersey.

Microsoft makes Teams available for the home teams.live.com

GitHub makes video uploading available to all users.

Strong rumors about what to expect at this year's (online only) Google I/O event.

Strong rumors that Amazon will buy MGM to leap into the middle of the entertainment industry. Recall the merger of AOL and Time Warner. That one didn't work.

An in-depth technical discussion of how Apple's M1 processors handle several tasks at once better than the Intel processors. This is pretty simple in that Apple knows their operating system better than Intel does. Hence, Apple can speed these important, low-level tasks.

Wednesday 19 May 2021

Google's big conference started yesterday. Here is one summary of the big announcements. We now have 3Billion (with a B) Android users. That is a large number.

New on Google Cloud is Vertex AI to aid in managing machine learning models.

More news of AI products from Google.

Google releases version 2.2 of its open source UI development kit Flutter.

Our reaction to the pandemic has brought isolation with its accompanying problems.

We are an odd lot as companies that contributed funds to Black Lives Matter had 20% fewer black employees.

An in-depth look at the new Apple desktop computers.

Nvidia continues its trend of limiting the crypto mining abilities of its new graphics processors.

Western civilization is safe: Burger King now has a chicken sandwich.

Thursday 20 May 2021

Qualcomm introduces a new series of processors for mid-range smartphones bringing 5G and some new processing functions.

Zoom stretches its product from meetings of a few to full conferences.

Google tries to update its Docs. I like it because it is a plain piece of paper. Many dislike it for the same reason.

It finally ends: Microsoft to retire Internet Explorer in 2022.

Facebook tells us more about its censorship. We live in odd times.

Ford shows its new electric-powered pickup truck. $40,000. One day these things may be practical.

Friday 21 May 2021

Google researchers put a Fourier Transform into a natural language processing system. The result is 92% as good with training 7X faster.

Snap shows version 4 of their Spectacles. The product is heading towards reality, but users cannot buy this version, yet.

Twitter allows us regular folks apply for "verification." It appears they have good intentions.

Right-to-repair laws, hobbyists, and lobbyist from Microsoft, Apple, et al.

The Cuomo brothers in New York cannot seem to stay out of trouble.

Electric vehicle owners don't pay gas taxes. Gas taxes fund roads. Not to worry. I have great confidence that law makers will find a way to tax those owners.

We see advances in mind-controlled robotics and prosthetics. These have been in work for decades.

Microsoft releases SimuLand. This was a tool they used internally to test defenses against hackers.

Recent research shows that there is no "safe level" of drinking alcohol. It damages the brain. Will the CDC react to this?

Obvious results from studying the effects of riding an electric-powered bicycle.

Saturday 22 May 2021

We are seeing signs, "If you are ______, facial coverings are optional." This is America? Really? If this is okay, what else is okay? "Public Health" does not suspend the US Constitution and civil rights. Fill in the above blank with notes from our history.

What is a line on a map? Besides taxes and control. Oh, those things are important.

DeepMind is an AI subsidiary of Google. Many of its employees don't want it to be. Quit your jobs. Start your own company.

Brilliance, buffoonery, or something sinister? Data apps adding vaccination badges.

The Apple computers with Apple Silicon are on sale. This usually means that the next thing is about to be released.

45,000 orders in 48 hours for the Ford electric pickup truck.

Some of us remember that actual Moog Synthesizer.

Sunday 23 May 2021

This is from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (in case some may accuse it of being from some extremist group), "A recurrent theme in Nazi antisemitic propaganda was that Jews spread diseases."

Censorship lives on in India with the government silencing any mention of a local variant of a virus. All viruses have local variants.

Aerion Supersonic quits its attempt to build a quiet supersonic jet.

California grants a Chinese company permission to tests self-driving cars. This is a big mistake. They are allowing the Chinese Communist Party to run intelligence-gathering machines up and down the roads.

Seth Godin on things and how we represent things.

DeepFakes technology auto-magically dubs movies into other languages. Of course this takes away the jobs of actors who would have dubbed the movies.

The governors of California take another step to outlaw Uber, Lyft, et al. This one requires drivers to buy electric cars.

A collection of thoughts on short stories.

Dangerous subject: setting up an office for a writer. The danger is that many writers spend months or years trying to create such an office and become interior decorators, not writers. I belief Stephen King wrote that there is one essential (only one) for a writer's office. That is a door that closes.

Forgiving people and writing memoirs. This is a good essay.

What do writers earn? Most persons who write do not pursue it as a living. Hence, the vast majority of writers do not earn much at all.

Some thoughts on the research part of writing.

E.B. White wrote both "Charlotte's Web" and "The Elements of Style" (the 1959 update). This lends credence to the idea that writing is writing.

How one freelance writer used Google Calendar to become more organized and earn more money.

Thoughts on the use of parentheses.