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: 23-29 December, 2024

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• Israel-Gaza conflict continues
• Here is hoping that a new US President will be able to influence those wars
• Christmas is this week
• Quietly running down the rest of 2024

Monday 23 December 2024

Mr. Trump continues to announce that rich and successful folks from business will have seats in his White House and other parts of the Executive Branch. I have sat at the feet of senior-level government employees. I have done the same with rich and successful folks from business. In many cases, these are all fine folks, the kind of people you'd want as your next door neighbor. There almost always, however, is a big difference in competence with the business folks being far superior. No one is perfect. People stumble a bit in new environments. Regardless, I am happy to see really smart people arrive in Washington and give it a try for a couple of years. And, oh by the way, they will forego $100million-a-year salaries while doing public service.

Hundreds of companies dump large piles of money into open-source software projects---Linux being a prime example. This study says 86% of that money is by paying their own employees to work on the open-source projects.

Meanwhile in China, companies are manufacturing older chips for import into the US. The great majority of chips in use are these old ones. Mr. Biden's crew looks at import bans.

Anduril and Palantir are recruiting more tech companies that haven't been big government contractors to dive into that market. I think this is similar to the above comments on Mr. Trump bringing in non-traditional people to government.

Rumors that Meta will add display to its RayBan glasses. Perhaps, just maybe perhaps, we are moving to practical augmented-reality glasses.

Early rumors about Apple moving into the smart doorbell business that Ring dominates.

This piece takes an optimistic view of recent AI evolutions.

SIGNIFICANT: In Japan, Honda, Nissan, and Mitsubishi may merge into the world's third-largest auto company.

Companies are spending mountain$ of $$$ on AI. No profits yet.

I hope they didn't spend much on this research as it has a NO DUH conclusion. Aging isn't linear.

I like this post. It shows how we can miss typographical errors and also read and understand things where every word is misspelled.

The importance of online blogs and such for freelancers.

One writer's ping, the light bulb went on, "I just realized that writing books and producing books and getting them out in the world is one of the best expressions of the way I try and serve the world."

Omit needless words. It has been said before and will be said again. We have new writers everyday. That is life. That advice will never wear out. Oh, I could have written, "Endless advice."

Good post from Seth Godin on the first draft of a non-fiction work. Talk with a friend and record the conversation. Then to a audio-to-text thing. There, first draft. I have done with while working with people on their writing. It is the key to success with many people.

Little relatively inexpensive gifts for writers.

Sometimes the most difficult thing for some writers is life after finishing something. Write all the time. Finish something all the time. Reduce the valleys in life.

Sometimes editors give bad advice. "Bad" is subjective.

Tuesday 24 December 2024

Internet news grows scarce during this holiday week.

Our Federal Trade Commission tells Marriott how to run motels. The marketplace could have done this better.

Meanwhile in Russia, crypto mining takes so much energy that the central government bans it for six years.

And back in America, some folks realize (late as usual) that datacenters consume energy.

Some researcher realize that breakthroughs often come as a mistake.

Strong rumors about the next processor (M5 Pro) coming from Apple.

A look at Solar-powered desalination.

It seems that tea bags are polymer based. That isn't good.

I'll quote, "Xerox has agreed to acquire printer maker Lexmark for $1.5 billion, bringing the Kentucky-based company back under U.S. ownership after seven years of Chinese control."

Wednesday 25 December 2024

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Running benchmarks on AMD and Nvidia processors. The AMD products should perform better than they do.

Meanwhile in Singapore, the governors are altering policies to bring more crypto miners et al.

Strong rumors that the folks at OpenAI, not having enough to keep busy, are working on robotics.

Inside the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act is $3Billion (with a B) to rip and replace Chinese equipment chattered all over the Federal landscape. Who bought that stuff from the Communist Party of China in the first place?

It seems that the era of dating apps has passed.

New research shows that drinking four cups of coffee, tea, or both decreases risk of neck and head cancer.

Datacenters are popping up in Arizona's Maricopa County. Power capacity? Oh that.

Meanwhile in North Korea, they continue the national pasttime of stealing money to fund their government.

Thursday 26 December 2024

In-depth analysis on the use of current AI systems in military intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

Predictions that Nvidia stock will rise more.

It is that time for year in reviews and such. This one is from Stratechery.

Datacenters need electricity and that means they need electricians.

Here is a "no duh" story. The Russians are using crypto currency for the purpose for which crypto currency was made, i.e., move money without others seeing you do it.

This story shows where I should have invested a year ago. Doesn't do me much good.

Now that the PAN(dem)IC is over, so is the the use of those companies that allowed us to visit our doctors online.

Big money, the stock market, and huge college endowments. Life can be tough for the super rich. Huh?

The birth rate in Germany falls to a dangerously low level. That is common in Europe.

Yet another new first-world problem (gosh, we have so many): folks are using speakers to listen to everything. Folks sitting next to them complain of the noise everywhere all the time.

Friday 27 December 2024

A (not any longer) secret agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI defines AGI (artificial general intelligence) as $100Billion profit.

In the video game industry, they have hit the point of diminishing returns with graphics and stories and the like.

Now we have UL-LLM or Ultra Large, Large Language Model.

Meanwhile in Europe, the governors of Finland sieze a Russian tanker suspected of cutting undersea cables.

Here is an in-depth study of search with ChatGPT vs Google. Google seems to win overall.

Some doctors in the US are doing the obvious: use AI for administrative, time-killing tasks. Now if we could have government agencies do the same.

Meanwhile in the US, online shopping was supposed to be the meteor that killed the dinosaur brick-and-mortar store. Experts wrong again.

Here are a couple of stories on immigration policy and the incoming President. As a child, and given my age my childhood education would all be labeled as bad in one respect or another, I was taught that a nation welcomed highly skilled people to improve things while not so welcoming of low-skilled folks who would be a drag on the economy. I guess that was too simple or something or bad in some other way. Anyways...

The debate never ends on H-1B visas and how many skilled persons should be admitted to America to work (and take jobs).

Elon Musk, who knows a lot about skilled and unskilled persons, pushes the business side of the visa discussion.

This indicates something, I'm not sure what, but anyways...Hertz car rental is asking folks who rent electric vehicles if they would like to keep and buy them instead of returning them.

In sports and BIG BUSINESS, the NFL and Netflix had a very successful Christmas Day. Look for this to continue in the next few years.

This article claims that the paper passport is going away. I disagree.

Predictions of an AI slump and pain for Nvidia. The other side of the story is that US government, usually ten years behind, is almost ready to buy five-year-old Nvidia processors and build a few "advanced" datacenters of its own.

Meanwhile in Europe, the USB-C standard becomes law. No more Lightning or whatever Apple calls its proprietary port. It is usually a bad idea when government regulators, not know for competence aforethought, tell industry what to do. Long term, this may be a stupid idea.

Predictions of the return of supersonic flight to commercial air travel.

Saturday 28 December 2024

OpenAI triples its staff of Washington D.C. lobbyist. That brings it to 12 persons. Not much. They are trying to convince lawmakers and regulators that OpenAI is a national resource in the cyber battle with China.

Meanwhile at Oracle, it's been a good year. The stock value is up 63% and Larry Ellison is now worth $217Billion (with a B).

Meanwhile in the Facebook universe, Meta predicts AI agents will have accounts just like us regular folks.

Meanwhile at NPR and its support universe, fear and loathing reign as here comes Elon Musk, DOGE, and questions about the $500million in taxpayer's money. Public broadcasting has lost its way. If money is cut, there is no one to blame but the folks at NPR.

Someone put a voltmeter on electric outlets. Distorted power is here and there in America. It seems, no duh, that much of the problems are in areas where there are datacenters.

Meanwhile in America, here comes a new administration of our Federal government. TikTok ban? That was the last President. What happens next?

Those who control OpenAI are musing about its future structure where it will be both a non-profit and for-profit group.

The Boeing 747 is nearing the end of its useful lifetime. The 747 was THE PLANE in the early 1980s for long overseas flights. It went round the world in the 747 about eight times. Alas, time moves on.

And now we have "fractional work." I think we used to call this part-time jobs.

Researchers claim that our brains operate at very slow speeds. Not sure about this.

Another new study shows that taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest rates of dementia.

I'll quote, "Accidental missile attacks on commercial airliners have become the leading cause of aviation fatalities in recent years." Yikes.

Oops, big data leak at VolksWagen gives away lots of details of 800,000 owners.

Sunday 29 December 2024

Mr. Trump sides with Mr. Musk in favor of H-1B visas. If used correctly, I also like the idea. Bring in skilled persons. If used incorrectly, "Let's cheat Americans by bringing in skilled persons and abusing them," I dislike the visas.

Our IRS keeps declaring new regulations. Well, a recent declaration of law brought this: The Blockchain Association and two other groups sued the IRS.

Read this common-sense quote, "The panic over AGI disinformation in this year's political cycle seems to have been overblown "

Predictions for the coming year: more hyperbole about AI. This time with "agents." This is software that does useful things. Hmmm, seems that type of software has been around a few decades or so.

When Mr. Biden was Vice President, the administration passed a law that basically created national electronic health records. Now Mr. Biden is trying to declare a mountain of regulations to protect national electronic health records. A bit short sighted in my view, but perhaps someone can teach me otherwise.

Raspberry Pi Holdings is now worth over a Billion dollars.

When I borrow money, I am supposed to pay it back with interest. That one seems to elude millions of Americans when it comes to loans for education. I am sorry people are in debt they cannot repay. I am more sorry that people don't seem to understand loans and repayment. This is sad.

A big study in Universal Basic Income reports that this is all complicated and intertwined with that and the other thing. This is not a universal solution to anything. I read somewhere that we will always have the poor with us.

How to connect a 1990s-era HP palm-held computer to the Internet. I worked a $30million project that was based on such a palm-held computer. We saved the project by switching to a laptop that worked. The palm-held was a stupid idea that brought an exceptional performance award to a person that caused a disaster with the stupid idea. That, however, was senior management and how clueless they were.

The Python programming language, the Pascal of the 21st century, grows in popularity. It is the ease of adding huge libraries of code that makes it popular.

Stock in Apple, that computer company with the fruit logo, is about to be worth $4Trillion. That is TRILLION. I don't know how much money that is. Except for the Federal debt, no one knows how much money that is.