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: 16-22, May 2022

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine and not making any progress
• Elon Musk may back out of Twitter purchase
• Apple delays its return to the office
• Sweden and Finland apply to join NATO
• Crypto mining returns (illegally) in China
• Vangelis dies at 79
• Boeing puts its Starliner into space in first successful launch
• And the Starliner docks with the space station

Monday 16 May 2022

We now have an Anaconda release that supports Apple's M1 silicon.

Uber Eats is trying autonomous delivery in the Los Angeles area.

UK sources claim that Russia has lost a third of the troops it sent into Ukraine. The conflict continues. It won't last four years (will it?), but it has lasted much longer than the experts predicted. As usual, the experts were wrong.

Microsoft has another Linux distribution it created for its own use.

Predictable and predicted: someone has disabled the Nvidia feature that prevented some of its graphics processor from being used in crypto mining.

Execution of Python statements is becoming faster. First you make it work; then you make it work better. Maybe 30 years was a long time to make it work better, but better late than never.

The value of a good story as shown through a series of bread commercials from the 1970s era of CB radio and truckers.

Some basic techniques of persuasive writing.

You want to write to make a living. You will need to start a business. When is too soon to start the business? I advise you to write first.

Notes on outlining, drafting, editing, and when to seek advice on what you have.

Here are tips to help you have your short stories published somewhere other than self published.

Writing "a book." It is a worthwhile goal for a freelancer. Understand what you are attempting to accomplish and why. Money will not be a big reward. There are many other good uses of a book with your name on it.

Per the above, see the New Testament letter from the Apostle Paul to the church in Rome. Many scholars believe that the letter was written as a pamphlet (what we call it today) to that church so they would know what Paul told people as he travelled. The letter summarized Paul's messages. The letter was an attempt to garner funding for Paul's trips and life as a travelling preacher. If so, the letter was a summary of messages. It was a fundraising tool or a tool to help find paid work. That is one of the reasons a freelancer would write a book. A book is something in the hand that states value.

Thoughts on writing from Ian Fleming. When writing, write. When editing, edit. Don't mix the two (my paraphrase).

I can write a book all by myself. That is about all I can do all by myself. Editors. Marketers. Et al are other people.

Earn $10. It isn't much, but it pays for a cup of coffee.

In my experience, this piece is giving excellent advice. Write the first pages of whatever you are writing after you've written everything else. All that other writing will help you learn what you need to know to start.

Yet another good thing that comes from writing in a journal. The journal helps me analyze time.

This is a good post with good ideas about having magazines publish your writing.

Some thoughts on writing headlines. Please write them in English.

Tuesday 17 May 2022

A study shows that 19% of TWitter accounts are robots or spam. Twitter's own published estimate is about 5%. It is hollow.

Elon Musk now says he won't buy Twitter unless they can prove they have real users instead of bots.

Test by the American Automobile Association show that autonomous cars of today don't drive themselves safely as advertised. We have much farther to go than advertised.

A California judge has ruled that the governors of California cannot tell businesses who to hire and promote.

The percentage of Americans wanting government to regulate big tech has dropped in the last year. We don't want us to tell a few experts what to do.

Strong rumors that the Nvidia RTX 4090 will be on the market in July. It draws 450Watts of power. A small heater.

Meanwhile in America, our government bought so many COVID test kits that we can't give them away to ourselves. Taxpayers' money.

Now we have a solar-powered electric vehicle. It is the size of a golf cart. At $6,500, it is actually practical in places where the regulators won't outlaw it.

Our Army's Psychological Operations Group has a brilliant new recruiting video. I hope their operations are as good as the video. The ghost in the machine is fantastic. It shows far more (sorely needed) imagination than is usually seen.

It appears that x-rays can indicate a person's race. This is science. It is quite unsettling. Expect those who performed the experiments and published the results to be disparaged in many forms.

Troubling results to some persons. Playing video games boost IQ in children.

Wednesday 18 May 2022

I think this is an excellent post by Seth Godin. If you give away something, give away several at a time. The recipient will now share the extra with others and help you market your product.

Just in time for returning to the office (maybe not), Google opens its new office campus. Lots of solar cells and natural light.

Apple delays (again) its return to office plans.

Ian Goodfellow, who just left Apple, has joined Alphabet's DeepMind.

Netflix lays off 1% of its employees. A cry of despair rises. Why? This is nothing.

There is something odd about this XKCD comic. The use of numbers reminds me of the great virus and how some famous persons used numbers.

A look at Alienware's desktop computer.

The state of the practice in portable computers built to play video games.

And now we have electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). It appears to be real for some persons.

Miami is trying to become the next Silicon Valley. I don't know how many times I have heard of "the next Silicon Valley." Many places succeeded in attracting tech companies and talent. Nevertheless, we have only one.

The governors of Sweden and Finland apply to join NATO. I fear this is a self-fulfilling prophecy and giving Mr. Putin just what he wants.

Thursday 19 May 2022

Acer brings an OLED display to a $900 laptop. More product for less money.

But then Acer does what I consider less than intelligent as it markets a $1,000 Chromebook.

Amazon updates its Fire 7 tablet. What I consider to be one of the best values on the computer market.

The US and China continue in the supercomputer race. Unless US policy and budget quickly and dramatically change, China will win.

HP updates it gaming laptop.

Our Dept of Homeland Security pauses the operation of the new Disinformation Governance Board. It seems no one knew what it was supposed to do or could not explain that to anyone else. What we have is a failure to communicate. Your tax money not at work.

How Black Lives Matter spent donated money. No one wants to reveal these things as they almost always show abuse of power. And this one did.

If we are to forgive student loan debt, we should also repay (with interest) all those persons who over the last 100 years repaid their student loans.

It is just a working model, but a small company has a desalinization system that uses the same amount of power as a cellphone charger.

Despite of government ban, subjects in China have started crypto mining again and are the world's #2 force in that market.

Friday 20 May 2022

Internet viewing cut short this morning.

Framework, which builds modular laptops that the user can disassemble and replace parts, releases its second generation machine.

Our Dept of Justice announces that we will no longer prosecute those of us engaged in "good faith research" into cybersecurity problems. Lots of subjective terms there. Let us see if we operate in good faith.

Strong rumors indicating Apple is building an AR/VR headset or two.

Contrary to some predictions, the smartphone market is not dead. Overall growth was 3.7% while Apple grew 19%.

Composer Vangelis dies at 79. He was the music in Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire. The second movie combined gospel hymns and electronics.

Boeing finally sends its Starliner spacecraft into space. This launch was 2 1/2 years after a first failure.

Saturday 21 May 2022

Several stories from today's Washington Post.

A couple retires at 50 (years of age, not years of marriage) and will live on cruise ships. The story doesn't explain the wealth that allows complete retirement at 50.

Complete nonsense about teenagers not sleeping enough and how it is everyone else's fault.

Back to real America, here is a man who has eaten at McDonald's every day for 50 years. He is not obese. He is in good health.

At the Pwn2Own hacking conference, bugs were quickly found in Microsoft, Ubuntu and Tesla products.

HP updates its Spectre laptop computers.

Qualcomm announces its Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor for hotter gaming and other luxuries on smartphones.

Boeing's Starliner docks with the space station.

Next we will hear that Putin tosses his chewing gum wrappers on the ground instead of in the trash can. Really folks? Stop the vilifying and work in reality.

I love this news: the Association for Computing Machinery has opened its first 50 years (1951 to 2000) of publications to everyone, no charge.

Chile claims that one of its trees is the oldest living thing on earth.

HP chooses the Pop!_OS operating system from System76 to run on its DevOne developer-oriented laptop. This fuels rumors that HP will buy System76.

Sunday 22 May 2022

Our Congress is considering laws that will tell Google how to run its business. The trick is to succeed without becoming too successful or famous.

Seth Godin on the Smallest Viable Audience.

Decades ago, we had the military "Ike jacket." Now we have the Zelensky fleece, zip up, hoodie. For those youngsters, Ike was General and later President Dwight Eisenhower.

Can the social media platforms stop violent videos? Of course they can. Hiring persons to view things first, however, eats too much of the profits. It is really quite simple.

An argument that the Internet and social media are a simulation of reality. Simulations aren't good enough, so we live in a bad approximation of reality with the predictable damage. Answer? Go see people IRL (in real life).