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: 16-22 September, 2024

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• Israel-Gaza conflict continues
• A second assassination attempt on Donald Trump
• Pagers and such explode in Lebanon

Monday 16 September 2024

Now we can blame online dating for income inequality. Other folks call this a rising of the middle class into wealth or some such thing.

We have another attempt on Donald Trump's life.

Big tech is fighting local utilities over who pays the upfront cost of electric power.

Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest AI data center is nearing completion. Groq is supplying the processors and Aramco supplies the money.

We have a second brain-implant company whose implant allows persons to control Amazon Alexis with thought. Excellent.

New ownership and management is turning around the Evernote app. A price increase comes along with this.

Like sports on big screens? Gotta see this: Cosm for years has built planetariums. Now it builds arenas with floor-to-ceiling screens for sports.

How many writers reverse the advice of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People etc. Just do life wrong and writing is almost impossible. Then you can tell people how tough it is to be a writer. And then you feel good because you are tackling the world's toughest profession.

Do you want to be a freelance writer AND earn a living at it? Learn some economics. Magic doesn't happen; numbers happen.

Want your historical fiction (and non-fiction) to be believable? Go to the library and read old newspapers.

Here are some basic concepts about writing and "being a writer." Yes, write. I have met few people who couldn't do it.

One writer's advice about writing for money and running a writing business.

Tuesday 17 September 2024

Meanwhile at Amazon, everyone back to the office all the time starting January 2, 2025.

Meanwhile in Israel, journalists quit their jobs in protest that their papers are too in step with the government.

Meanwhile in Hollywood, Disney won 60 Emmy awards clobbering HBO and Netflix. Award inflation. Just too many awards.

Meta continues to walk in step with the Biden administration.

Intel announces plans to spin off its foundry business.

Intel and AWS announces plans to build AI processors in partnership.

And in (un)Presidential politics, our current President gives Intel $3Billion more as part of the CHIPS Act. Somehow you could take the acronym CHIPS and turn it into something about buying votes.

Microsoft is putting more AI into its existing products. Drop the "AI." Just tell people your products do more.

Microsoft shows CoPilot Pages. It is an attempt to integrate AI LLM tools into something that brings value to persons at work.

Note what they did in France last year: if you are CEO of a company and someone uses your product to commit a crime, you go to jail. They just outlawed all corporations.

Chipotle is testing robots that will peel avocados and make burrito bowls without human hands. Just prepping for the living wage laws.

Meanwhile in China, reality hits and the governors raise the retirement age.

No whatever to win a Nobel Prize, then start retracting parts of your work. Whatever.

Linux kernel 6.11 is released.

It's about time: the new postal carrying vehicles are arriving.

I'll just quote this, "The FDA has approved sleep apnea detection on the Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Watch Ultra 2."

Wednesday 18 September 2024

Intel announces two-year delay in building plants in Germany and Poland. The Europeans are quite unhappy about this.

Meanwhile in California, they have a new law essentially banning lying about elections. What about candidates lying? Is that still legal (and expected)?

oops, upon further review, Apple is stopping updates to iPadOS for the models with M4 processors.

Meanwhile in a part of China, a company is de-chinafy-ing its business. The Communist Party of China certainly doesn't like this.

It appears that we are to build a memorial to journalists in Washington D.C. They are the self-proclaimed watch dogs of democracy. History tells a different story.

AI is booming, but not as much as the industry of writing potential laws regulating AI. Congress, the last group of folks to talk about AI, is hot on it with 120 bills circulating.

I'll just quote this, "A news survey shows that AI use among high schoolers has exploded in recent months, as educators and parents struggle to keep up." The kids are learning; they aren't always learning what the adults want them to learn, but they are learning.

Amazon ordered everyone back to the office. Most CEOs are leaning that way. Work from anywhere will go back to pre-pandemic levels in the next couple of years.

Smartphones have good cameras in them---quite good. The demand for better cameras is rising.

It looks like we finally have Python in Excel. Low code adds onto low code and we have low-low-code or something.

Thursday 19 September 2024

Big money lawsuits in the video game industry.

Good old YouTube continues to be a big player in international politics.

With all this AI mimicry, it is possible to make million$$$ with the voices and images of dead people. Bring back Elvis!

Meanwhile in Europe, regulators tell a successful American company how to run its company. This is what regulators do best: the complete unknowing tell the knowing what to do.

And a surprise from Europe as a court reverses a billion$$$ fine against Google from 2019.

The newer Starlink satellites are leaking RF energy and interfering with everything else. Poor EMI and EMC.

It appears that the Iranians are helping the Harris campaign by stealing information from the Trump campaign and sending it to Harris.

The job market in the tech sector is bad. Over 100,000 layoffs this year with far fewer help wanted ads.

The ultimate regulators at the UN are ready to tell everyone else on earth all about AI. The UN is the AI expert, right? When did that happen?

LinkedIn admits that is also trains it AI models on user data. Well, again, if they are using my words to train their models, do you trust any of their results.

As the days go by, folks find more recordings of things Ms. Harris has said and believes. None of that matters as the this election will be in the hands of 100 voters in one state. What a bad situation this country finds itself to the detriment of all of us.

This is a bizarre and chilling story as pagers etc. explode and kill people. This is a supply chain attack. Anyone can do this to anyone anywhere at anytime. I emphasize ANYONE.

This is SIGNIFICANT: AI use in a hospital cuts deaths by 26%. Good. Let's be smart and smarter.

Lionsgate happily uses AI to cut costs in movie production.

YouTube uses AI to do everything in making $$$ videos.

Winding its way through our Congress is a bill requiring AM radios in new vehicles. Good idea.

SpaceX is succeeding too much in space launches.

Friday 20 September 2024

Advertisers are often surprised to see where their ads appear on YouTube et al.

Apple releases all its updated operating systems into limited public beta.

Microsoft is bringing in Anduril to help save its AR/VR goggles program with the US Army.

Nvidia is moving into Abu Dhabi to help build a climate lab with a local AI firm.

Disney is dropping Slack after a big data leak at Slack.

Nvidia is pushing AI to fix the networking problems caused by AI. This seems like a technical conflict of interest, but maybe those things don't exist.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, they don't have enough human soldiers to stop Russian attacks. Here come "ground drones."

Let's ban election deepfakes and disinformation, but what if it is obviously comedy? What happened to comedy?

More on the disappearance of tech jobs.

Saturday 21 September 2024

This is interesting in a bad sort of way: an agency of the Executive branch of government is sanctioning a person who has endorsed a different candidate for President. Is the current President using agencies to pick on political opponents?

It appears the Tumblr is yet another site that is profitting from the ban on X in Brazil.

This would be HUGE: Qualcomm has tried to buy Intel. WHOA! The world would spin backwards on its axis.

Someone has a firm grasp of the obvious as he calls out the western democracies for spending so many resources on AI safety and such. Get on with it and stop trying to find ways to regulate the scientists and engineers.

Seven central international banks team to put blockchain technology to some good use.

This sounds like the plot of a bad movie: someone will spend billion$$$ to resurrect Three Mile Island to power a Microsoft data center.

This isn't easy to install, but once done it uses your vehicle's alternator to charge batteries. While driving away from the hurricane you are charging all your batteries for better living when you park.

Meanwhile in Norway, electric cars outnumber gas=powered cars. This works in Norway, not in the US. Lots of things work in Norway, but not in the US.

Sunday 22 September 2024

These words summarize the situation: X capitulates in Brazil. If you want to have a product in a country without a Bill of Rights, well, good luck.

Here is inside one of the big data centers near my home. Some people call this data center alley.

Some at Google predict the UK will once again fall behind in tech if they don't add more of these data centers.

Meanwhile in California, it appears that parents are unable to raise their children without oversight from Nancy Pelosi's nephew.

Chasing a hactivist. Good luck with all that. The trail will probably lead to a 25-year-old bachelor who lives with his grandmother or other relative and spends all day on the computer.

Want to travel the world but don't have any money? Simple. Just ask everyone in the world to give you money. The Internet enables panhandling on a big scale.

Someone has ChatGPT running on a Texas Instruments graphing calculator. Well, there are worse things to do with your spare time.

When does "privacy" become "hiding illicit activities?" iOS 18 has features that highlight this question.

Coming next year from Apple (or sometime after that), Apple's own 5G modems in its devices.

And more regulation coming in California as they may require autos in the state to tell drivers when they exceed the speed limit.

Let's build a hovercraft. Again, their are worse things you can do with your time.