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: 1-7 April, 2024

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• Israel-Gaza conflict continues
• Big earthquake hits Taiwan
• Earthquake hits US east coast, not so big, but everyone talks about it
• And the solar eclipse comes to America tomorrow (?)

Monday 1 April 2024

Microsoft, in a moved driven by regulators not consumers, is taking Teams out of Windows distributions. It is a separate product now.

Grievous vexation at AT&T with leaked accounts and resets and tens of millions of affected customers.

Autonomous long-haul trucks are coming. Lower prices of everything for consumers. The Washington Post, not wanting that, instead wants Federal regulation. States don't know what they are doing.

Someone has a grasp of the obvious. OpenAI had a big splash with ChatGPT. Splashes are quick; research that shows real progress is slow.

Mainstream media loses again. This lost comes by the gains of podcasters. Will the "real journalists" ever learn?

A take of two jobs.

We seem to have a shortage of accountants. The shortage is delaying reporting requirements.

On the other hand, McKinsey and Company has too many researchers and consultants and is offering nine Aprils severance pay if you leave.

Reddit had a big splash at IPO, but the value is now lower than the opening price.

What do we want to see at the movie theater? Godzilla x Kong. Forget that high-brow stuff.

Writers should read A LOT! Some tips on mixing it up.

The use of storytelling in marketing. The best ads are stories that convey what we need or want.

Some places where writers can find income copywriting.

How human writers can survive in the age of AI-generated text.

Telling a story is different from writing a story. Writing a story for someone to tell is different from writing a story for someone to read. Explore the wonders.

In the age of learning via AI, here are tips on being a writer. No duh, do actual research back to primary sources. Expose bologna (bonus points for that).

Tuesday 2 April 2024

There was a time when SourceForge was the code hosting platform that everyone used. GitHub came along.

Suggestions on how Git can be used as a debugging tool.

A study shows that programming students taught by AI do better. Not sure if this was sponsored by an AI training company.

The secret to success is, don't blunder. Maybe these guys have something here.

Here is an attempt to define or redefine (more likely) "design engineering."

Researchers in Wyoming, where tiny critters live in the super hot water of Yellowstone, put tiny critters in humans. It is the fountain of youth. I trust they know what they are doing.

Those who model things never have enough data for modelling. Let's just add a few more coefficients and... It seems there isn't enough stuff on the Internet to perfect AI.

Meanwhile in Israel, more censorship. Censorship is something that is easy to see in other countries, but we cannot see its growing influence in America.

OpenAI makes it easier for folks to use versions of ChatGPT.

Some of us remember using "incognito mode" on browsers to gain privacy. Well, there was no privacy.

The Israel-Gaza conflict is hurting President Biden's re-election campaign.

Once again, researchers want a highway that recharges your car while you drive on it. The "smart" roadway has been a research project for almost as long as we've had cars.

Meanwhile at Google, programmers claim that using Rust is twice as productive as using C++. Stop claiming, start doing.

Databricks created their own large language model. They want their clients to use their model instead of OpenAI's.

One person has tried to build a smarter smart home and is quite dissatisfied with all the gadgets.

Recent tech advances make these deepfake videos pretty much impossible to distinguish from real videos. Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.

Wednesday 3 April 2024

Apple researchers show an AI model that outperforms GPT-4 and runs on a device, not in the cloud.

One company's travels and such through remote pandemic work and trying to come out of it. Some folks pushed hard through the pandemic, but fell flat afterwards. I have written about the blues that come after success.

Here come roll-up displays.

How to convert air into natural gas and make money doing it. Not quite practical, but getting there.

A big earthquake hits Taiwan. Death toll is surprisingly low. That is a modern country with good buildings and emergency response.

TSMC's chip production will be low for weeks due to earthquake.

Someone tasked our National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with maintaining a National Vulnerability Database (NVD). Funding, however, did not come with the task. Of course this is all a failure.

It seemed like a good idea, but walk-out grocery stores with no checkers or scanners didn't work. Amazon drops that and moves to scanning items as you put them in your cart.

Once again, researchers show that if you pester one of these chattering bots with 10,000 questions the system breaks.

Meanwhile in China, companies are actually enforcing non-compete agreements with employees.

Microsoft ups the AI capabilities of Copilot in Microsoft 365.

Here's an Engadget review of HP's latest 2-in-1 machine. Has this format played out?

The world now has far too many solar panels. People are using them to build fences. The solar fence generates some power and is dirt cheap to buy. I haven't seen any price drops in the US.

Apple has a new AI system that uses context to outperform other models. "Context" was a key concept in my PhD Dissertation 30+ years ago. Folks are coming around to my way of thinking.

A big investigative journalist effort reveals that Russia "might have" caused Havanna Syndrome. Hope they didn't spend much money to reach that "might have" conclusion.

Meanwhile in California, someone has introduced a bill making it legal for people to not work so many extra hours or something like that.

Thursday 4 April 2024

Once again, claims that we live in the most perilous times in world history. Only us, the supreme generation, can cope with such horror. A ship hits a bridge, an earthquake hits an island nation, wars continue, the arctic is melting.

Someone has a cap to put on your head that let's you control a computer. No surgery, no implants, etc. If this works in practical settings, it is a miracle.

More advances in wearable computing: a group has a system that generates enough power from the human eye to power smart contact lenses.

After four years of growing sales, Tesla sees a drop. Is the EV market saturated? Did we run out of rich people?

Trade the car for a Moped. I am surprised that this person only saves $4,000 a year.

This is amazing. Dall-E 3 has text editing commands.

Well, they had good intentions. The governors of New York City turned on a chattering bot to help businesses. Too bad it tells people to do things that are illegal.

Strong rumors that Apple is working on home robotics. Make it practical and affordable and people, especially the elderly, will but it.

MBA programs nationwide are teaching the use of AI tools. Of course they are. If a tool works, use it. If it is no longer useful, drop it.

All this online shopping generates mountains of plastic. Find something else.

And this is what you have when you call everything "AI." A judge bars AI-enhanced video in legal proceedings. Just say, "We cleaned up the video so you can see it better."

A $3.87Billion (with a B) chip-making plant is coming to Indiana.

More jobs cuts at Amazon's super-profitable AWS.

How tall buildings stay straight, even in earthquakes. They use these swing mass dampers.

Friday 5 April 2024

This is a good report on generative AI as it exists now. The initial boom and wow is gone. Folks aren't making money. Still, the tech can be useful.

Meanwhile in Phoenix, self-driving cars are driving for Uber Eats. Excellent test case. Food doesn't complain about the ride and isn't hurt if there is an accident.

The biggest digital imager (camera) ever built is finished. 3.2Billion (with a B) pixels.

People are taking their personnel issues to independent companies instead of the employer's HR department.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has contrived a two-satellite system to study the effects of solar eclipses.

The new billionaires inherited money and let it grow. In 40 years, trillion$$$ will be passed down. We have a new royalty in this century.

Meanwhile in Sweden, Kiss retires by selling the rights to everything for $300million.

Troubles in the world of open-source software as some folks feel entitled to free stuff.

Apple cuts 600 jobs in California.

Samsung expects to report an outstanding financial quarter with a 10x (that is 10x not 10%) jump in profits (that is profits no income).

Saturday 6 April 2024

We have a new CPU/GPU hybrid in RISC-V. It is all open-source.

Effective Altruism may already be passe. Did we learn anything (that is the most important question).

We take a step closer to making a nuclear clock which is supposed to be better than an atomic clock.

More insight into the craziest talent war ever: hire anyone who can spell "AI."

Meanwhile in Germany, someone is moving tens of thousands of PCs from Microsoft to Linux and LibreOffice

Will ChatGPT withstand the new wave of commercial AI offerings? Smaller, faster, lighter, less hardware power is the trend.

It appears that journalists are constantly berating non-journalists for acting like journalists and berating journalists for not acting like journalists. Something like that, huh?

Grievous vexation continues over AI. For 45 years now, the IEEE has published a monthly called the Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence. This stuff is not new. Why does the media treat it like someone invented it last weekend?

A fundamental issue with all these chattering bots is that the builders need data that a person has "labeled." Hence, pay someone now instead of pay someone else later.

For a short discussion of the fundamental issue, see my blog post from three years ago. It is not original, i.e., I am not the only person who knows this.

TSMC, a commercial company, has reacted quickly to the Taiwan earthquake. Compare this quick reaction to government actions in such natural disasters.

The ne'er-do-wells are using AI and social media to do the types of things that ne'er-do-wells do. Let's make "ne'er-do-well" the official word of the 21st century. At least these folks see the tools that are present and use those tools to the fullest. Practical and expedient and showing a grasp of the obvious and common sense. And then the regulators come in a few years behind schedule and here we are.

The owners of TikTok, who live in China, are smart: they are having the US branch do all the lobbying in Congress.

Sunday 7 April 2024

Thoughts on tech that would prevent violent acts on NYC subways.

Yet again we find something that is better than GPT-4 at something or other.

Jony Ives is seeking a billion dollars to fund a "secret AI device" that doesn't look like a phone. Stay tuned.

Tim Cook cashes in a few million dollars of Apple stock. He sold 0.2 million shares. He still has 3.3 million shares.

AI and computer science; calculators and math. Come on folks. This is not the same. Chattering bots are nice but not as good as hyped.

OpenBSD 7.5 is released.

When was free speech equivalent to disrupting elections? Okay, the CCP doesn't vote in US elections. They do speak, and if you listen to them, that is up to you.

Do you broadcast on YouTube? Big tech did a speech-to-text on your broadcast and used it to train its models.

Who says crime doesn't pay? The governors of China continue to steal trade secrets from everyone else.

This may be the future of journalism: non-profit groups funded by donations. No law against creating and running your own media outlet. Hey billionaires, let's get to it.

More layoffs: this time from Geek Squad workers at Best Buy.

Microsoft appears to be working on the recognition of everyday sounds: wind, dog bark, baby cry, car engine. Thousands of applications for public health and safety. Breathing during a heart attack or stroke is one example. Bird flight prior to an earthquake is another.