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: 11-17 July, 2022

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• Reports of Uber's unethical acts towards governments worldwide
• Inflation hits 9.1% in the US (highest since 1981)
• Microsoft changes its software delivery schedule
• Amazon had its summer Prime Days and had huge traffic

Monday 11 July 2022

It appears that folks at Uber were acting unethically for years to fool law enforcement in several countries.

Meanwhile in Myanmar, the governors have purchased and installed Chinese gear to watch their subjects.

Reports on how the North Koreans steal money worldwide.

Woe is us (not). Our social media made it easy to gossip. No one prevented anyone from ignoring gossip.

The Chinese did it to themselves with poor public health and public lying. Manufacturing in America rebounds.

For those who like Linux laptops, this has been a very good month.

Microsoft studies employees who thrive. Fewer hours, fewer meetings, fewer interruptions, just work.

Some bloggers (just a few) earn $200,000 each month (month, not year).

Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation. It seems that if you write about anyone but yourself...

Some tips on a resume for a freelance writer. Recruiters don't read resumes. Software searches for keywords. The keywords are in job descriptions. Copy and paste.

Thoughts on editing and hiring the different types of editors.

We now have conferences for digital nomads and location-independent professionals.

This is basic; this is true. I will just quote these few paragraphs. I will sit here in my comfortable desk chair, and I will write my 3000 words, one sentence at a time. I'll write a scene that feels like an entry point so I can get myself going, and then move on to another one, until all those words are written. In a couple of days, or next week, I'll garden. I'll go see my granddaughters and spend time with friends. This, my friends, is the great secret. Writing is a practice, like meditation or walking or practicing piano. We get the book on the page by writing. It might shock you when I say that at this point, I wrote pages instead of taking the phone call in the middle of the day. Anyone who knows me and loves me understands this is how I get it done.

And I quote another wonderful sentence or two: The very best stories act as medicine, delivering some emotional insight or understanding that changes who we are, on some level, and the way we operate in the world. And they stay with us much, much longer.

One writer recalls going from spiral notebook to manual portable typewriter to electric typewriter to MS-DOS Wordperfect and on and on. I did all the same steps.

Magazines that pay travel writers.

Tuesday 12 July 2022

More leanness and meanness at Meta.

Some companies claim to keep you anonymous. They are lying, and our FTC is coming after them.

It is now Amazon Prime Day(s). I hope real soon now that they will stop showing that awful commercial.

NASA shows the first color images from the James Webb Space Telescope.

Coming to Bluetooth real soon now is better audio for our speakers and headphones.

The economic outlook is bad. Elections are coming.

Recent study shows...adding salt to food after it is cooked knocks a couple years off your life.

GameStop is now selling Non-Fungible Tokens.

Birth rates and such don't lie: India will pass China as the most populous country next year.

The folks at Twitter didn't want Elon Musk to buy the company. Now they are suing him because he isn't buying the company. We are an odd lot.

Wednesday 13 July 2022

SpaceX's Starlink now has 2,300 satellites beaming Internet coverage to practically the entire earth.

It is only on the drawing board, but here are some details of the Apple car that we may see some time after now.

Meta releases its AI tool called Sphere to open source. The Wikipedia Foundation is using Sphere to check the validity of references in articles.

The fun is gone in the tech job market in China. The governors have ruined a generation.

Nvidia announces Quantum Optimized Device Architecture or QODA as it attempts to combine really fast conventional computers with early quantum computers.

O'Reilly starts a new education program called Cloud Labs.

Here come the "citizen developers." There are folks in the (home) office who can create some of their own tools. This doesn't replace the professional programmer, but augments a too-small staff of programmers.

Deloitte over-estimated the length of the semiconductor shortage and now says the shortage is just about finished.

I'll just quote the headline, "Deloitte launches a new zero-trust access managed service"

IBM updates its Power line of RISC processors for servers in data centers.

Folks at Twitter admit that they loved to hate Donald Trump because it meant money for them. Now if the rest of the American media would be honest and admit the same.

Google steps towards being lean and mean.

Nikon has been making single lense reflex (SLR) cameras since 1959. No more.

Thursday 14 July 2022

Over 90% of industrial companies report they suffered cyber attacks in the last year. Capture the factory and hold it for ransom.

Netflix partners with Microsoft in its advertising and sales.

A woman from China wrote 206 Wikipedia articles on medieval Russian history. They were all untrue. She just made them up. Alas, Wikipedia saved itself by readers finding the false articles and removing them.

We now have international cyber gangs that fight one another. Some hacktivists foil the Russian army in Ukraine. Other Hacktivists foil the other sides.

Pandemic prosperity continues for TSMC.

Samsung claims an advancement in memory chips that will speed graphics cards and video gaming. There are other good applications as well.

Meanwhile in Kansas, Panasonic is building the world's largest EV battery factory.

We enter the age where almost every feature on our car will be a subscription. Like that radio? $20 a month please. Same for the rear window defroster.

Bill Gates gives $20Billion (with a B) to the Gates Foundation for charitable work. That is his personal money.

Bidenflation hits 9.1%. That is the highest since 1981 (which was the end of the Carter administration). We know what happened to Jimmy Carter in the November 1980 election.

Friday 15 July 2022

A new company seeks to bring electric vehicle technology to the RV market.

I highly recommend this practice: publish your work.

Some photos of the inside of the new MacBook Air computer (not in anyone's hands yet).

Functional Programming: much is being made of this. It is an old, old, old (like me) concept. Someone messed it up at some time and now return to it.

Amazon's Prime Day was another big hit this year. Just don't run that same awful commercial.

Meta has research called Make-a-Scene that combines text description with sketches to create images. This allows people to direct the AI as to what kind of image to create.

Despite losses in value, crypto currencies continue in use. "Mixers" are a newer technique to separate users from their use.

An in-depth look at the newest MacBook Air.

Google releases Chrome OS Flex. It turns an old PC or Mac into a Chromebook. There are some big advantages to this.

Inflation comes to computing, too. Intel announces coming price hikes.

Saturday 16 July 2022

Thoughts on humans programming alongside AI code generators.

GM commits to building a coast-to-coast network of EV charging stations. Let's see if the auto makers correct their mistakes of a century ago when they didn't build gas stations.

The birth, rise, and decline of the Firefox browser.

Nice tools called BERTopic that help find the topic of an article.

Years ago, a company was created for guys 'n gals in college to keep up with one another. Who decided that company should help nations fight wars?

Disney raises the price of EPSN+ subscriptions 43%.

This story is all over the Internet, so it must be important. Microsoft has changed its software delivery scheme. Some believe that we shall see Windows 12 in 2024.

More Legos. More Legos. More Legos.

The camper van and work from home. A wonderful collision. If you can make coffee, access the Internet, and take a nap, what else might you want?

Sunday 17 July 2022

Smaller towns are paying folks to move in and work remotely. We don't have great jobs, but you have a great job that you can do from here. Please move here. I would have taken that offer years ago.

The Free Software Foundation is trying to make all software running on Intel and AMD processors free. It is quite difficult.

An extensive study shows that there are no health benefits to alchohol for people under 40 (who happen to consume the most alchohol).

Work remotely most of the time. No one wants to come into the office on Friday. Casual-dress Friday has become stay-at-home Friday.

This one is SIGNIFICANT! A company has developed a display that sends different light in different directions. One early application is a display at an airport. Many people stand in front of it and they all see different messages.

There must be something I don't understand about this: have a sex change operation and be nominated for NCAA Woman of the Year.

Different folks are experimenting with different types of batteries. Perhaps something will work and electric vehicles will be practical. Our current electric vehicles are not practical.

Companies continue to struggle with what kind of office building works. Sigh. This isn't rocket science folks.

Tech companies (they have mountains of money) want taxpayers to train tech employees for them. Yes, there is great benefit for educating more persons. The tech companies can contribute their share of the money.