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 July, 2023

Summary of this week:

• I have been doing this Internet viewing for 800 weeks
• And the Russians are still in Ukraine
• Intel drops the NUC to Asus
• Meta partners with Microsoft on AI
• MS CoPilot for Microsoft365 is $1 a day
• Elon Musk becomes richer
• Satya Nadella does as well as Microsoft booms in AI
• AI companies agree to more government regulation on fledgling AI companies
• Tony Bennett dies at 96

Monday 17 July 2023

Little Internet viewing early this morning. Later today.

This writer writes a draft of a novel in six weeks. To me, that seems like an overly long time.

This writer has finished a novel. Now what?

Thoughts on setting goals and looking back at goals written long ago.

Writing prompts for non-fiction.

The art of writing "confession stories." See, for example, David in the Old Testament.

Ways to earn money from a blog. Nothing great here. Same old stuff that usually doesn't work.

Let's go to a writer's retreat. Better yet, just hold one yourself for yourself.

There are many ways to earn money writing books that do not involve writing books.

Tuesday 18 July 2023

What makes developers productive? Do not waste time on wasteful things. Focus on useful things.

Building an entire city out of wood appears to be important. We used to think this was wasteful as we would have to fell a lot of trees. Now it is a good thing?

Tesla actually built a pickup truck at its Texas factory.

Typographical errors can be really bad. Thousands of emails sent to .ml (Mali) instead of .mil (US Dept of Defense). Ooooooooooops.

That software that claims to detect essays written by software does not work well. Here are some explanations why it does not.

Airlines do not like skiplagging. That practice uses a mistake the airlines make in setting ticket prices. The airlines use their unconstitutional power to not allow people on planes who are doing this.

A new study confirms the obvious: no one holds their liquor better than anyone else.

John Romero recalls the birth of id Software in 1990. Never heard of it? Never mind.

Wix has always used templates to help folks build websites. Now it switches to generative software (AI) to do this.

ooooooooops Video from inside Amazon delivery vehicles is available online by mistake.

Survey says: here are the 20 places computer science students want to work. What surprises me is the number of government organizations on the list.

And here's the list from the engineering students. "Engineering" is a much broader area than CSC.

Thousands of authors (including some famous ones) sign a letter asking the big AI companies to stop using their materials without permission. No one asked me to sign.

Strong rumors that the M3 processor and new Apple computers are coming in October.

Wednesday 19 July 2023

And now we have WormGPT. It is a GPT with "no ethical boundaries." Some say it was built for criminals or those with criminal intent.

Eli Lilly claims a new drug that significantly slows dementia. It doesn't cure it, doesn't stop it, slows it. Many are excited at something.

Trying to make a safe AI company to save the world or something like that.

Synthetic (made up) data is being used more and more to train AI models as the Internet has become "polluted" with junk created by AI models. We have met the enemy and it is us.

Microsoft announces prices for its CoPilot for Microsoft 365. $1 per day per user. Not cheap at $365 a year per person.

More details about Intel dropping the NUC line as it licenses Asus to build them.

Environmentalists collide with environmentalists as lithium is discovered in Maine where mining is all but impossible. We have met the enemy and it is us.

H-1B visa holders in America want to go to Canada to work there instead.

Meta has made a deal with Microsoft to share AI technology. Meta is trying to move in on OpenAI's partership with Microsoft.

Here comes digital immortality provided by AI and such.

After a 51-year lapse, NASA tries to train astronauts for a moon mission.

Thursday 20 July 2023

Principles of writing a README for a GitHub repository.

Meta also teams with Qualcomm to put AI technology on smartphones.

A little-discussed topic in AI is the difficulty of building a Docker container for an AI app.

Rocket Lab, attempting to build reusable rocket launchers, recovers a rocket from the Pacific and will reuse it as desired.

Meanwhile at the doctor's office, medical trials are flawed too often. Many results are faked.

OpenAI's GPT-4 is so good at recognizing images that OpenAI won't release that feature. They are afraid that the software will identify individuals on the Internet based on one image.

Google's Nearby Share application is now available. It allows moving files between Android phones and Windows PCs.

Microsoft's Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella's has received a billion$ (with a B) in compensation as the company's value goes up up up.

Citing a shortage of skilled workers, TSMC dwlays opening its factory in Arizona.

Some people claim to have evidence that ChatGPT is falling off on its performance.

Cerebras, a supercomputer startup (is there such a thing?), turns on a new AI supercomputer (is there such a thing?).

Google is in final testing and early marketing of software that will write news articles. Such software is not new. Perhaps these perform better than past products.

Meanwhile with Elon Musk's bank, he is now worth $250Billion (with a B).

Meanwhile in Wuhan, (home of you know what) the US government cuts funding for some reason.

Friday 21 July 2023

Some claim a breakthrough in geothermal energy production in Nevada.

A small breakthrough in an electric-powered air taxi in the UK.

The concept of software system rewrites and opportunity cost.

Tesla begins building its own superdupercomputer to train its self-driving software.

In other Tesla news, they are considering packaging and selling their software for self-driving cars.

Hearing aids can cut the risk of dementia. This is real news that isn't news. Of course if a person can hear they are more likely to talk with others and keep their brain working.

Meanderings about whether has or has not been building its own large language model.

Companies that have "made it" in a new industry are happy to see government regulations on new companies that are trying to "make it." This has happened many times before and will continue. Now the new industry is AI, and the companies that have made it are happy for new regulations.

Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI are all complying with government "asks" for "responsible AI" and watermarks.

OpenAI (a company that has "made it") wants more regulations on its competitors who are trying to make it as well.

GitHub's AI-powered coding chatbot is available to Copilot for Business users starting today.

Young Chinese engineers and scientists go to the West right out of college. Ten years later, they return to China with trade secrets and intellectual property that they do not own. Chinese authorities (communist party) claims this is all false. Trade wars take interesting turns.

Meanwhile in Texas, it seems that place is the chip-making hub of America. Red neck cattle and oil roughnecks? No longer.

Has anyone else heard of the "girl dinner" trend. Just eat a few side dishes and no main course.

OpenAI is working on "custom instructions" for ChatGPT. Type information once. ChatGPT remembers you the next time. More productivity with less privacy or something like that.

Our IRS is moving ahead with a program that allows citizens to file taxes for free. Privacy? Security? Are you kiddin'?

Saturday 22 July 2023

Meanwhile in Hollywood, amongst all the strikes, it appears that little new Netflix is in a better position than the much older movie companies.

Meanwhile in the AI cloud, Microsoft puts Meta's model on Azure right next to the model from OpenAI.

We take on another layer of abstraction in AI and robotics. We now have robots that learn to teach other robots.

News flash for everyone on strike in Hollywood: entertainers in South Korea and India are not on strike.

Back and forth about how bad the Chinese hack of Microsoft systems was.

Coming real soon now are satellites from Amazon to cover the world with broadband access.

I'll just copy the headline: ChatGPT for Android launches next week.

The Linux Foundation creates the Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC). With more and more folks using AI and high-performance computing, good old Ethernet needs to keep up with new standards.

The PAN(dem)IC is over, right? Amazon wants people in the office three days a week. If you moved to rural America to work from home, move back to the city.

Everyone signed up for a Threads account and sent one message. Then everyone forgot about it.

Look at this photo. This is fairly close to where I live. Build a nice home in the outer suburbs. Then you have a data center show up in a year.

Since I have been recording the width of my little toe on my left foot, it is wider than it has ever been. I began recording this just this morning. See similar story about temperature of the earth. Its just as silly.

Some hope for understanding dementia: a 25-year study shows there are some indications in levels of proteins in the brain.

Sunday 23 July 2023

Tony Bennett dies at 96.

Gotta' flip through these images of what AI thinks Europeans think Americans from each state look like.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, half the money in the world invested in new AI went to folks in this city.

Meanwhile in America, about 2/3s of new AI companies have been founded by immigrants.

Some new work with retinal scans shows promise of early detection of cognitive decline.

I'm waiting for Google's NotebookLM. I'm also waiting for when Microsoft releases their CoPilot for all things Microsoft. Lots of promises with few deliveries so far.

I'll just quote this, "Seven leading AI companies made eight promises about what they'll do with their technology."

A look at the eight persons whose names appeared on the self-attention paper in 2017. As usual, folks attribute all sorts of grandiose things to others who were simply problem solvers attempting to solve a problem. Problem solvers do these things everyday without fanfare and bumbling by journalists.

Japan is also adding new export rules to keep chip making equipment away from China and its Communist Party.

Silicon-based speakers are coming. They will bring far superior sound to earbuds. More importantly, they will enable the hearing impaired to function in life.

The Washington Post is going to lose $100million this year. "Democracy dies in darkness?" Really?

Jeff Bezos is rumored to be walking the halls of the Washington Post to straighten the mess it is in.

All this get-back-the-office talk forgets one thing: the bosses are staying home.