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: 7-13 March, 2022

Summary of this week:

• The Russia-Ukraine war continues---a surprise to most analysts
• Apple shows a new iPhone SE less $$$ and the Mac Studio more $$$
• The Endurance is found 10,000 feet down after 106 years
• Inflation is officially 7.9% (who is president?)
• Gasoline prices jumped 50 cents/gallon this week

Monday 7 March 2022

If you are going to read one thing about Russia, Ukraine, and money...read this.

Even stronger rumors about what Apple will announce tomorrow. I guess some folks cannot wait one more day. Perhaps there is gambling on these things.

Independent hacking during a time of war. The wild west returns.

Exercise, (not so) clean air, and dementia.

We all seem to want college educations for all of us. None of us, however, seem to know how to do it.

Writing advice from John Irving. I find it to be excellent.

Thoughts on using an author pen name.

I wrote this short story a few years ago about using a pen name to gain some fame and fortune.

I find this essay to contain excellent tips on memoir writing.

As a writer, success can lead to failure. Be ready. It is all hard work.

Some thoughts on the balance of writing for fun AND writing for profit.

When you don't feel like writing...

Hard-earned learnings from freelance writing. The money can be tough. You need a big cushion before starting.

Tuesday 8 March 2022

It appears that Belarus was involved in cyber war against Ukraine leading up to the Russian invasion.

Cloudflare Inc., CrowdStrike Holdings Inc., and Ping Identity Corp. formed the Critical Infrastructure Defense Project to provide free cybersecurity services.

Again we have an excellent analysis of the Russian situation that appears far outside mainstream media and government. A good read.

Google releases Android 12L.

Our President moves to reduce pollution from long-haul truckers. How many readers are old enough to remember double-digit inflation? It will return soon.

The power of deceit: Russian soldiers are liberating grateful Ukrainians from their Nazi oppressors. So believe many Russians back home as that is what they are hearing. And here in America, we heard that washing our hands for 20 seconds many times a day was needed. Hmmm. Fascinating.

Reduce stress by cancelling stressful meetings. For the past two years, the meetings I attended were fun. It is possible.

It seems to me that what we have done with blockchain technology so far has been similar to 8-bit microprocessors. We have a long way to go, and things should change for the better with leaps and bounds.

We see advances in nucelar power in Britain. If the Germans had not turned off their nuclear power plants, they wouldn't be so dependent on Russian oil today.

Wednesday 9 March 2022

Apple held an event yesterday. Here is one summary of it. New less-expensive iPhone SE; new iPad; some new Mac Studio computers (a small desktop without keyboard or monitor, but with very powerful components and pricey).

Here is more information on the Mac Studio. This is for "professionals" and others with lots of extra money to spend on a computer you won't really use.

Our President announces a ban on importing Russian oil. No replacement with US produced oil (there is lots of it here that we are not producing).

The last straw? McDonalds closes 800 locations in Russia.

Google acqui-hires cybersecurity company and capability Mandiant for $5.4Billion.

Some semblance of sanity: a study shows that the great majority of us are nice folks and that all this hoopla and hatred is simply mainstream media trying to attract viewers and sell ads. They are simply bankrupt of ideas and ethics.

Thoughts on Windows 11 and desktop-as-a-service DaaS.

Amazing. After 106 years, The Endurance has been found and photographed 10,000 feet below the Antarctic ice.

An in-depth examination of how Apple bonded two processors together to make a new M1 Ultra processor.

Thursday 10 March 2022

The performance of computers on AI problems has doubled every six months over the last ten years. That is the claim of researchers in the UK as they track computing performance.

Strong rumors that Apple's Mac Mini was not replaced by the Mac Studio. New Apple Silicon coming to the Mini real soon now.

Stories of American government personnel and contractors who have been working on Ukraine's cyber defenses for years.

DeepMind has built pattern matching AI to help archeologists read ancient texts.

Nvidia's RTX 3090 Ti is to be available at the end of March or real soon now afterwards.

Meanwhile, Apple's M1 Ultra (if nothing else, a great name) may be more powerful than Nvidia's RTX 3090.

DocGo president Anthony Capone is funding those who volunteer to go to Ukraine and defend the country.

I missed this at first, but the new Mac Studio has a large set of ports. And that is a reversal of Apple's direction.

Better late than never. Microsoft FINALLY puts tabs on File Explorer in Windows 11.

Friday 11 March 2022

Censorship quickly becomes complicated as "death to Russians" is now acceptable and isn't hate speech on Facebook.

Our President extends the mask mandate another month for transportation (airplanes).

Nvidia creates a monthly plan for its GeForce Now game streaming service.

Excellent post from Seth Godin about asking friends to look at your work. "It turns out that most people are unpracticed and unprofessional at giving useful feedback."

Colleges that sent students home and didn't refund their money are back in court. This seems obvious to me. People paid for dorm rooms and cafeteria meals. Those were not provided by organizations that were financially sound and are still operating. Am I missing something here?

Interesting comment from our trip down south: In Ukraine (and Russia, too) in the past 30 years, Christianity has become far more prevalent than during the 70 years of Soviet rule. And the Russian invasion has flopped to the surprise of analysts everywhere. Coincidence? A factor that should be considered in the future? How does that affect the China and Taiwan situation?

Another interesting comment from our trip down south: People understand COVID better. At least they have been talking about it for over a year. They don't fear it as much and don't have the severe and often deadly reactions to it as in early 2020. Fear of the unknown plays a large part in health. There seems to be a connection that we don't understand well.

I love this one: someone took an old Mac that had some real design character in it and put new processors in it. Great stuff.

Strong rumors that we will see several Apple computers later this year with new M2 processors. The Mac Studio was not the only new machine for 2022.

Saturday 12 March 2022

"It's not covid, just lung cancer."---Annabelle Gurwitch would tell her friends as she coughed repeatedly. Just another unintended consequence of how we chose to react to the Wuhan virus.

I enjoyed reading this essay on college and how those who live in college towns don't like colleges, well, they don't like those pesky students and their boorish behavior.

It is the shortest night of the year as we spring forward and lose an hour of sleep. Why can't we do this on Sunday night instead of Saturday. I have heard suggestion that we do this at 3 p.m. on Friday to end the work week sooner. All well intentioned. Alas, we do this to ourselves twice a year.

Two years ago the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. What happened since is the reaction we chose.

The sale of music delivered on a compact disk or CD rose in 2021. First time since 2006.

Half the world's semiconductor grade neon, critical for the lasers used to make semiconductors, used to come from Ukraine. Not now.

We hear rumors that senior employees at Facebook (Meta) are being told to act like adults instead of spoiled teenagers.

The marketplace is slowly but surely shifting to the 5G cellphones.

High gas prices? Buy an electric car? Sorry, it is still more expensive.

Sunday 13 March 2022

\ Arch Linux is now 20 years old. It powers Valve's Steam Deck.

The Europeans will attempt to land a machine on the moon and generate oxygen from the lunar soil.

This story is all over the Internet. In Belarus, Russian-friendly governors arrest a prominent editor of the Russian language Wikipedia. Censorship lives on.

A light day of Internet viewing.