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: 10-16 June, 2024

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• Israel-Gaza conflict continues
• At WWDC, Apple announces Apple Intelligence
• Several more new AI systems announced this and every week

Monday 10 June 2024

Why does Apple bother to have these big events? All the details of everything are released before the event occurs.

This makes so much sense you have to wonder why it didn't come along decades ago. Google has a system called Green Light that uses readily available data from phones and cars to adjust traffic lights to reality and move traffic through cities far more efficiently.

Government worldwide are taking legal action against Nvidia's monopoly. They are also trying to build LLMs from their own languages and boosting Nvidia's sales. Make up your mind.

Microsoft shows new Xbox units.

Taking the long view of what Apple will show this week in AI. This piece emphasizes that Apple is setting the foundation for new AI products to come in the next few years.

This piece is on digital twins, i.e., simulations of real-world systems. The idea is simple. The implementation is as complex as the results desired.

Some thoughts on finding a writing community and what a writer can contribute to it. It is about giving.

Thoughts on the concept of confidence as a writer. I don't go along with this concept. Just write. For goodness sake, just write. No one has to read it. Just write.

More thoughts on writing memoirs.

Yet another piece on writer's block. This one blames "not knowing enough." So you pick up the pencil and write, "I don't know enough to..." And you continue.

Thoughts on creativity. What is that? Just write.

Get my drift in these few links on writing? Writing is when you write, so write. There, I have now written two, no three sentences. That is almost a paragraph. Then another paragraph. Before you know it, I have a page or two or 200. Just write.

Tuesday 11 June 2024

It appears that these supercomputer created LLMs cannot answer simple logic questions that even children can answer. These questions are also known as riddles.

Meanwhile in Boca Chica, Texas (we will soon all know that name), SpaceX is adding to its Starbase Starfactory to build version 2.0 of the Starship and build one a day. You need all those vehicles to build a supply chain to Mars.

Survey says, some companies mandated return to the office hoping people would quit their jobs and the companies wouldn't have to pay severance benefits.

And now we list some of the endless announcements from the start of Apple's WWDC.

Coming some time after now is ChatGPT as part of Siri, iOS, and macOS.

This is a GOOD ADDITION! Send messages via satellite when no cell service is available in iOS.

On iOS, Safari browser will have article summaries.

Apple updates Siri to understand more and integrate with more products.

Here is one summary of Apple's announcements.

Here are some details of the coming update to macOS Sequoia. My Apple computers will look different. I guess that is an improvement.

Raspberry Pi has an IPO in London and its value jumps up 39%.

Wednesday 12 June 2024

Bill Gates proclaims victory as they break ground in Wyoming on the next generation of nuclear power in America.

Good advice from someone who has written over 3,000 blog posts and half a dozen books, I'll just quote it: Instead, pick a smaller version of the project. Instead of writing a book, write a post. Don't commit to writing 100 posts, just one post! If it goes well, you can write another one.

An Armenian Orthodox Church preacher goes online and preaches. Some folks don't like what he says. This is, however, America. We still, however, have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights.

The stumbling and bumbling continues at Adobe where they try to explain that their Terms of Service don't mean what is written.

An in-depth consideration of Apple's Private Cloud Computer. Apple will use online compute resources on private data while ensuring that no one else will see my private data. Apple has a good reputation in the privacy realm. Will this continue or will the new service ruin everything?

I like article on Apple Intelligence. Apple's system performs okay and is efficient. Is that good enough? Probably.

Facebook's filters and such still don't catch all the "misinformation" and such. Again, is it misinformation or an op ed?

Is it okay to fire someone who is working two jobs? This boss thinks it is. Well? What happened to hustle?

Coming some time after now, Apple has a calculating machine in iOS (iPad) that looks like a smart chalkboard and can do real math.

And now we have,  "the Rot Economy---a push by executives to turn companies into insatiable revenue-growth machines at the cost of consumer happiness and product functionality." 

Wired has a long piece on that submersible that imploded last year while visiting the Titanic. Yes, the CEO was overly ambitous. He died in the implosion.

After all their Apple Intelligence announcements, Apple's stock value jumps up and the company is now valued over $3Trillion (with a Tr).

And we find that Elon Musk joins a very long list of rich and famous men who show they are noting but a cad and a boor.

The numbers on Nvidia's sales of GPUs for data centers are almost unbelievable.

The rulers of China are pushing their country's e-commerce companies to expand their influence outside China.

Samsung is combining its two North American AI research centers into one.

Thursday 13 June 2024

Contemplating the future in this time when "software ate the world." It is hardware's turn next.

Can Apple rescue its Vision Pro? Stop trying. The age of the big VR goggles and the metaverse came and went just like the 3D TV. Move on to something worthwhile.

NASA plans to put people on the moon in 2026. Paraphrasing someone famous, "Hopes and dreams are not plans."

For decades, those persons in business who decided where to take the business wanted computers to program themselves. Those programmers were just too darn hard to deal with. Well, sorry, this generation of AI won't write the programs for the business persons. Maybe in another couple of generations.

We now have several drugs that slow the progression of Alzheimers by about 30%. Again, folks are happy about a slowing of 30%. We don't have a cure, just a few things to slow the inevitable a little bit.

File this one under first-world problems Former OpenAI employees are worried about their stock value. Well, there are clear steps to get out of that worry. Good grief. If that were the only problem in life.

Solar-powered airplanes can stay aloft much longer than humans can (regardless of in-flight refueling). There are good applications for ultra-duration flights.

Living in Silicon Valley becomes even more difficult economically as layoffs and lower wages are here.

Writing of bad economics, Best Buy lays off more and more people as post-pandemic sales continue to fall.

Now this one is funny (in a way), AI can transform the voices of angry people into calm and pleasant people. This reduce the psychological toll suffered by help desk personnel. Deny the truth!

Coming real soon now from Tesla, phones in the cars. Well, why not? The phone connection has been there since the beginning. Turn on the microphone.

Epic Games has a data leak that shows new games coming real soon now. Of course, the leak could be a ploy to confuse competitors.

Meanwhile at Harvard, the levels of software are becoming silly. They have simulated a rat. Then they put AI (a brain simulation), into the simulated brain of the simulated rat. This improves something (not sure what that is). They are simulating a simulation inside a simulation. I think I got that right.

We are now paying companies to pump CO2 gas into cracks deep below the surface of the earth. I trust we know what we are doing. We are polluting to ground. I trust we know what we are doing.

It appears that we have a bicycle theft and resale business running out of Mexico that specializes in high-end ($7,000 and up) bicycles from Silicon Valley and other rich areas of America.

Best airlines? East coast is Delta. West coast is Alaska. Cross country is United.

Inflation has outpaced gains in earnings. Spend less than you earn over a long period of time to become rich. The trouble is, the "long period of time" is now much longer.

Friday 14 June 2024

Meanwhile in China, they are testing driverless cars everywhere all the time. Traffic safety? A secondary concern.

Google pushes ChromeOS into Android.

Meanwhile in Las Vegas, we have the Financial Modeling World Cup. This is basically a competition to see who can solve the world's problems using Excel. Exciting? Huh?

Meanwhile in Japan, real news that isn't news as regulators tell successful American companies how to run their businesses.

Angst inside Amazon where employees give the, "If the would have just listened to me," speech about how Alexa could have advanced AI and ruled the world.

It appears that the situation in Ukraine is turning again towards Ukraine's advantage. They are now "allowed" to hit Russian targets in Russia. This all harkens back to Vietnam where the US was not allowed to hit obvious targets because the politicians said so.

Better health: swap one hour of television watching for one hour of walking. Or, walk and watch entertainment on your phone.

Well, this didn't go so well. These AI-generated photos of people look like the result of the original "The Fly" movie.

The "Windows on ARM" market isn't looking good as there appear to be too many companies in play and they don't get along.

Meanwhile in Norway, rare earth materials appear to be not so rare as a large deposit of the stuff was found.

And in Ohio, the roads are jammed as Intel is hauling in huge equipment on tractor trailers. These massive machines are blocking the roads as they lumber across the state to the new CHIPS Act-funded factories.

Our Dept of Defense continues its contract with SpaceX to provide Starlink service to Ukraine's military.

It appears that Apple learned from the mistakes of other companies that put machine learning into their products.

Considering the mistakes of other companies with machine learning, Microsoft is now delaying the release of Recall on Windows 11 systems.

Stanford closes its Internet Observatory. Their mistake was involving themselves in opinion studies instead of sticking with facts. That is a tricky question, but it is hundreds of years old. The smart folks at Stanford didn't act so smart.

The revolving door continues to revolve as the head of the NSA retires and six months later is on the board at OpenAI.

At LinkedIn, they have a new service that rewrites resumes and cover letters and such. I, unfortunately, will be sending out lots of resumes starting next week.

These AI chattering bots flop and flounder when given basic word games.

Saturday 15 June 2024

Tesla claims that it currently has two Optimus humanoid robots working autonomously in a factory. There is no video or photos to confirm this boast.

This is an optimistic view of AI helping in the field of mathematics.

I like this piece about what computer programmers do. The bottom line is they spend 11/12ths of their time thinking. Also, a six-hour day of working is a very good day.

This piece is on abliteration or how to have a LLM answer candidly instead of safely. Almost all LLMs released to the public answer safely and refuse to answer candid questions.

I will have to try this. It is yet another and yet better text to video and text-and-image to video system.

A small company named TensorOpera releases several Small Language Models (SLM) and claims of superior performance over curretnly available SLMs.

A company called Unravel data releases three AI agents for DataOps, FinOps, and Data Engineering.

Two Meta engineers form Zeta Labs and release a software agent they call Jace. It performs tasks in the digital world. I have hope that some of these new AI agents will actually do useful things. Picking a Medicare Plan C provider would be a nice start.

Google Gemini is giving better medical advice than human doctors. We saw the same in the 1980s with "expert systems." The computers don't forget anything and are never tired after a poor-night's sleep. People today are more trusting of software that we were in the 1980s.

Meanwhile in America, research shows that TikTok is the #2 source of news. Users of TikTok, however, don't call the news "news." It is not know what they don't call news.

There are now places in America that will pay you to move there.

Meanwhile in California, a legislator wants to put goverors on all our cars so we will all drive a speed that is pleasing to him.

Sunday 16 June 2024

Nvidia releases a set of tools that generate synthetic data for training AI models. The tools are all tuned to run on Nvidia processors.

The Apple Vision Pro is like "strapping an iPad to your face." Terrible, huh? Except when you have trouble seeing. Then this is a miracle of joy.

A review of the recent elections in India, the largest in the world, shows that all this worry about AI stuff was just worry.

Mouse mover technology: something that makes it look like you are awake at your computer when working from home. If you are too clever and use too much tech, you are caught. Rely on simple things instead.

Meanwhile in Europe, regulators regulate some supervised learning AI out of existence. Oh well, their choice.

More lamenting the demise of the Stanford Internet Observatory. Let's go over this one more time: some people tell lies because the lies benefit them more than the truth. This practice is as old as, well, human memory. Sorry. Even Stanford can't fix that.

O'Reilly, whose primary mission is education and learning, has a new AI system called Answers that always gives references to the answers it provides (and pays royalties).

The "cheap drone" becomes a weapon of war striking deep within another country. I wrote a short story predicting this ten years ago.

Yet another study showing how folks who work from home are happier and more productive. It is the commute that saps time and energy.

Tuxedo Computers, they sell computers with Linux up and running, promises machines with Arm processor just like Windows 11 and just like Apple.

I find this ranking of programming-language use fascination. We have simple (Python) followed by unbelievably complex (C++) followed by simple (C) followed by unbelievably complex (Java). No, this is not functional vs object-oriented as C++ and Java aren't really object-oriented.