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 August - 1 September, 2024

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine and vice versa
• Israel-Gaza conflict continues and is spreading
• NASA will send the Starliner capsule back to earth empty
• Nvidia as a huge financial quarter, revenue up 122%
• AnandTech shuts down after 27 years

Monday 26 August 2024

More news about more ways that the governors of China are bypassing all the tech embargoes and buying all the AI processors they want.

And more news on the same topic.

Musings on robots from Apple and practical anything from Meta.

Here is the story of a person who was famous in the gaming industry for a few years...except she never existed. It was a persona created and then destroyed.

Meanwhile in China, IBM closes its R&D labs. IBM is trying to move 1,000 researchers to other countries in Asia.

Yet another post on "My gosh the world is going crazy! How can I write in times like these?" What does that little poster say about keeping calm and carrying on? Good grief folks. America survived the Carter presidency. By the way, Mr. Carter is one of the greatest former Presidents in our history. His presidency, however, was not good.

Some thoughts on "the author life" whatever that is.

It may help immensely to create a book proposal even if you don't send the proposal to anyone. It also helps even if you don't write the book. You have written a proposal. That takes thought and writing. Writing anything is better than writing nothing.

Several people comment on your writing. To whom do you listen?

Tuesday 27 August 2024

Supply, demand, and trying to get hired as a computer scientist. It is bad right now. The cycles continue.

Microsoft releases new Phi 3.5 systems. More and better. Well, larger and larger and hopefully better.

An attempt to explain what happens in machine learning, i.e., supervised learning, i.e., neural network simulations. Yes, it is all a simulation of a machine.

Apple officially announces an event on September 9th.

Amazon to release a major change to Alexa in October.

Some insight into the COVID-19 years: the Federal government put great pressure on Facebook et al to censor information. Oh, this is America.

And the above censorship came from the Biden Administration which is currently running for re-election as VP Harris.

Nothing new here: a government agency is sloppy in handling classified information.

After further review, Microsoft will keep the Windows Control Panel.

Strong rumors that Apple will release Mac computers with M4 processors in October.

NASA announces that the Boeing Starliner capsule will return to earth with no passengers.

Volkswagen backs out of battery making as Americans simply aren't buying electric vehicles like government officials predicted.

Wednesday 28 August 2024

Researchers at UC Berkeley and OpenAI do some basic systems engineering and learn its is much better to spend brain power on using AI systems than compute power in building them.

X blamed for election misinformation. On a deeper level, states claim they have the correct information and no one else does. Only governments are correct. All others are wrong. Odd claim.

Meanwhile in Venezuela, some speak out via AI personas as it is too dangerous to use their real identities. Only the government has correct information. All others are wrong and punished. Odd claim. Odd juxtaposition of stories, huh?

OpenAI teases a new system to be called Strawberry. Official release to be in the fall.

Cerebras Systems claims performance better than Nvidia at inference systems.

In a limited release, Google has a new feature to its Meet service that not only transcribes what is said in a meeting, but also summarizes it.

Meanwhile in Mexico, China has become the biggest supplier of cars. It is a short drive across the border, and the lawyers are working on the loopholes in import laws.

Meanwhile in America, it appears that you cannot remove yourself from an election.

It appears that younger adults don't answer the phone when it rings and won't call anyone on the phone. Text etc. is what they use.

For the first time in its history, women outnumber men for CalTech's incoming freshman class.

Google release three new versions of its Gemini system.

Thursday 29 August 2024

Once again, a Federal court tells President Biden that he doesn't have the authority to erase student debt. For instructions on how to erase student debt, see US Constitution.

News flash (not): if you stand in a crowd for hours on a hot day, you might feel bad. This is news to some adults.

Nvidia has an extra strong financial quarter. An established and profitable company saw revenue grow 122%!

ESPN releases a Where-to-Watch service. There are so many streaming services and such, you know your team's game is available somewhere.

Strong rumors that Meta will release a mixed-reality set of goggles called Puffin. We are slowly moving towards something practical.

Meanwhile in Memphis, the locals accuse X AI of using the wrong type of electricity generators to power its super-duper-computer center.

The parent company of Tumblr is moving the services backend to WordPress. They claim that users will not notice anything different.

Electric Vehicles have taken on the software updates of computers and smartphones. Hence, when an EV company closes, the cars turn into bricks.

Meanwhile in AI, it seems that there was a moment when folks were concerned about "safety," but that has passed.

Meanwhile in France, Pavel Durov, the chief executive officer of Telegram, was charged for helping people spread photos of sexual abuse of children. He didn't do it, but his product didn't stop it. Is he responsible for the illegal actions of his customers?

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, the Communists show they really know how to censor people.

Meanwhile in the Philippines, AI is replacing those call center jobs. I am not happy when someone becomes unemployed, but the folks at those call centers rarely provide any service...at least not for me.

Meanwhile in America, study shows that office workers are staying away from the office building.

I'll just quote this as it makes perfectly good sense (Microsoft will use a Microsoft product): Microsoft's in-house professional networking site is moving to Microsoft's in-house Linux.

Friday 30 August 2024

AWS announces yet another service. This one brings high-performance computing rental.

OpenAI and Anthropic agree to work with our government's NIST on AI safety. Good luck with all that.

OpenAI claims that ChatGPT now has 200million weekly active users. That is doubled from a year ago.

Supervised learning (AI/ML) works in acoustics (of course it does) as companies seek to "listen" to coughs to detect disease. This isn't as glamorous as guessing the next word, but is much more valuable.

Dell has a good financial quarter with servers used in data centers driving results.

In a similar health application of pattern recognition, Cal Tech builds a mask with sensors to alert you when it is time to go to the doctor. A bit extreme, but Hypochondriacs everywhere will love it.

The founders of Backpage.com go to jail.

I like Seth Godin's post today on logical arguments versus airing emotions. It is a critical difference.

Kamala Harris does a staged interview of previewed questions and makes lots of meaningless promises. That's showbiz folks.

America's teenagers are bored with America's publicly funded schools. Yet another lesson from the failed pandemic school closings.

Meanwhile in California, the legislature has passed a bill that will force AI research out of the state. Good luck with all those jobs leaving for Utah and Nevada.

Americans' tax dollars are building charging stations so rich people can charge their luxury vehicles. Some people see this as a good thing. Take from the middle class and give to the rich. Odd, but we are an odd lot.

Saturday 31 August 2024

Meanwhile in California, Google has run afoul of journalists (does anyone remember journalists?).

Meanwhile in Brazil, X has run afoul of the legal system (do they have a legal system there?).

Social media companies rely on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for protection. A Federal judges strips that protection from TikTok. Who is next to lose it?

WHOA! MAJOR STORY IN TECH INFORMATION ONLINE: AnandTech shuts down after 27 years.

Amazon acqui-hires key persons from a maker of advanced warehouse robotics systems.

For a few more dollars, gmail users can chat with an AI about their emails. Summarize the emails about the stock market in the last month, etc.

I like this little piece on the Mac Mini and who buys it? The young and the old buy it, i.e., no folks who have a job and are using the computer in their job.

Once again, someone studies an old technique for simulating neural networks and finds that it works much better than the techniques in use today. Here is the fault of machine learning today: someone applied one method to a large network of powerful processors. That one method worked (what wouldn't work with all the powerful hardware?). Since that one method worked, the people stopped working on other methods. Just go with it. That was a mistake. The method that worked wasn't the best or better. It was the first; it worked, so let's go with it.

Meanwhile in Asia, someone is to offer everyone 100GB of free cloud storage. Why not? What is cheaper than disk drives?

Scientists have finally detected and measured the ambipolar field, a weak electric field surrounding Earth. Ah, we are still learning, but some think they know the planet's temperature 10,000 years ago to a tenth of a degree. Folly.

Life and death in cubicles: a Wells Fargo employee dies at work and no one notices for four days.

Sunday 1 September 2024

Meanwhile in Brazil, the governors find a way to fight misinformation during an election: censor everyone but the government officials.

What does it mean to "be on TV" as opposed to having more people watch you on YouTube than most TV shows have?

Our FAA decides that SpaceX can resume flights of its Falcon 9 booster. Two flights occurred immediately after the ruling. Few people realize how many launches SpaceX performs. It is truly a space launch factory that is unprecedented.

Meanwhile at Starbucks (where I sit while typing these words), there aren't enough employees to handle all the mobile orders.

Yet another piece on having children during the face of our current crisis. Is it okay to have children while we are experimenting with Marxism in the White House?

Tales of long Covid and such.

Yet another reminder that we know precious little about our planet. Yet some claim to know the temperature 10,000 years ago to a tenth of a degree.

Here are numbers from a survey of Python programmers. No shock here as lots of people are using Python less than a year because all the job opening are for data science using Python. Someone said that was important, so everyone did it.