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: 12-18 May, 2025

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• Angst over Qatar giving the US a 747
• The international trade deals are rolling in
• President Trump takes CEOs not diplomats to the Middle East (success)

Monday 12 May 2025

Now we have AI native companies...so new that they use AI from the start to create AI and keep their overhead very low with minimum staff.

In England, someone trains an AI model on the data of 57million persons using the National Health Service. Not to worry as everyone remains private. Oh, I worry.

Slashing tariffs? Negotiating new deals? Perhaps that Trump guy knows what he is doing?

Why bother recognizing someone's face when you can recognize everything else about them? Clever folks drop facial recognition, but do the same thing with a different name.

Testing Starlink on a United Airlines flight. Seems to be fun.

Let's go image-to-video on a smartphone.

A look at Spaceport America.

It appears that vibe coding or hobby programming (my term) will become the first real killer app of AI. It continues to improve...quickly.

Fear and loathing at the US Copyright Office. Fair use means you can't use copyrighted materials in much of AI training. Someone is fired. Someone may edit the latest report. More fear and loathing.

I seem to have noticed several things this week on neurodivergent brains. This writer writes novel chapters out of order and that is supposed to be odd. Well, I guess I am odd as that seems to be the way to do it for almost every writer. There is no law saying everything starts at the beginning and ends at the end. Who wrote that in stone? Oh well.

Thoughts on hiding truth in fiction. This is called a mystery novel or story. The writer drops clues and the skilled writer drops clues that no one notices until the end.

Moving out of a rut: education and writing help.

Some thoughts on overcoming the fear of writing a book. If you are comfortable financially (opinions vary on this), write a book. No one else ever has to see it. No one has to publish it. You can take ten days or ten years to write it all day or five minutes a day before bed or before breakfast. Write that book. It can be ten pages long or a thousand pages long. Write that book.

What to do with all the ideas that come to a writer. Jot them down. Keep them for later use.

Thoughts on organic writing and what that might be.

Writing at the speed of those writers who wrote the pulp fiction novels. Ten to twenty novels a year. Still can do it. NO REWRITING. NO REVISING. WRITE IT. SHIP IT.

Tuesday 13 May 2025

Good news for India, bad for China as tariffs are pushing Apple to double its iPhones from India factories. Oh, there is something to these things.

In sports, the Washington Wizards lost badly in the NBA's draft lottery last night. The Dallas franchise overcome unbelievable odds to be gifted the first pick in the draft. I emphasize GIFT for Dallas. And yes, people wonder about the honesty in this lotter.

Google changes its G logo a little bit. These things are quite important to some folks.

Quoting, "The Trump administration is considering a deal that could send hundreds of thousands of U.S.-designed artificial intelligence chips to G42, an Emirati A.I. firm"

Is it paranoia to say, "Excuse me, I don't know you. Can you confirm something for me before we begin?" Smart folks are doing this more and more. I strongly recommend that if someone approaches you wearing a law enforcement uniform, call 911 and confirm their identity.

Samsung releases its Galaxy S25 Edge smartphone. $1,100 gets you a thinner smartphone.

Not having much else to do with his time, a US Senator writes a bill requiring Nvidia et al. to put location-tracking devices in all their advanced processors. This will somehow prevent advanced technology from go to places he doesn't want them to go.

The Saudis create a new AI company with lots of cash behind it.

Listing the download counts for major AI models.

Everyone is buzzing about Qatar's royal family giving the US a 747 to be used as Air Force One.

Of course folks of different ages use AI differently. And OpenAI et al. track who is using their systems. Yes, they are watching.

Trump Executive Order cuts the price of prescription drugs to the same as lowest price in other developed countries.

More and more smart folks are proclaiming that there is water on Mars. Call me when they are making coffee with Martian water.

How would you like to preserve data for 5,000 years?

Meanwhile in Britain, lots of famous creatives, e.g., Paul McCartney, want AI trainers to reveal it when they train on my content.

Reddit turns 20.

Wednesday 14 May 2025

The case for making Guantanamo Bay into a special economic zone and being the next Hong Kong or Singapore. Do it.

In sports...the is big. The Commissioner of baseball reinstates 17 persons banned from the Hall of Fame. Once you die, you can go into the Hall of Fame. Here comes Pete Rose and Joe Jackson among others.

Shell developed a lubricant-based method for cooling servers. After two years of testing, Intel say it works. This could cut the energy used in datacenters by half.

Microsoft announce a cut of about 3% of its employees---6,000 jobs. Trim the fat and focus.

The sales of tablet computers rebounds with 9% growth.

A budget bill is in Congress that says, "If you (states) take Federal money (which they all do), you cannot regulate AI in any way, shape, or form for ten years."

Rapid advances in AI coming out of China. It is brainpower and a numbers game.

If you are using Windows 10, which won't be updated any more, Microsoft 365 apps will continue updates for three more years.

Gaming on mobile devices is growing, well, sort of, but the outlook is down.

Meanwhile in Finland, they are pulling heat from datacenters to heat homes. This is, of course, a no duh idea that is long past due.

Foxconn reports a good financial quarter.

Use AI as a therapist. Oh wait, the doctor-patient confidentiality agreement does not apply.

DJI, that Chinese company that makes great drones, is not bringing its latest product to the US. Go to Canada or Mexico, buy one, and try to sneak it into the US (NOT).

Meanwhile in Ukraine, they will produce 4.5million drones domestically this year.

Changes at USENIX and their conferences.

A company named InventWood has just about perfected a material based on wood that may be stronger than steel of the same weight.

Thursday 15 May 2025

Telework works well in Federal jobs when used THOUGHTFULLY. Easy to see the key word there. Federal government everything works better when done THOUGTHFULLY.

Meanwhile in Montana, a new state law allows for experimental medical treatments. Doctors can treat patients with things not yet approved by our FDA.

Uber announces Route Share. This inches towards making Uber a bus service as the vehicle goes back and forth on a route and there are up to three different passengers on board at a time.

The return of the cassette tape boombox. I like this. Where can I buy Maxell tapes?

And, belief it or not, here they are at Amazon.

ChatGPT can now read and use files stored in Microsoft's OneDrive. I tried this in vain.

Meta releases some new AI models based on chemistry data. This is the biggest AI system for chemists ever.

People are quickly moving to Netflix's ad tier.

Foxconn moves more into India with a half billion investment $$$.

CoreWeave, AI infrastructure related to Nvidia, increases revenue 420% in a year.

And CoreWeave will spend $23Billion (with a B) this year on new construction in the US.

I'll just quote, "OpenAI launched the Safety evaluations hub, a web page showing how the company's models score on various tests for harmful content generation, jailbreaks, and hallucinations."

Radiology has always been a prime application of computer vision. I am still confused as to why computer vision is not used much more in that field. The Mayo Clinic has found that CV is helping instead of replacing doctors in this field.

Communications devices (phone home) are found in some Chinese power equipment. Yes, the Chinese can turn off US power systems remotely.

Odd comments about Europe and Saudi Arabia from the CEO of Palantir.

Friday 16 May 2025

A new book is out that shows lots of folks lied for years about the declining mental abilities of our prior President while in office.

A look at the new Motorola Razr Ultra.

Back in Montana, they become the first state that prevents law enforcement from buying location data without a warrant.

Reports that if you want to sponsor an H-1B visa, you now have to actually fill out all the paperwork...honestly.

YouTube starts having a podcast top charts chart.

Big reveal: the man behind Mr. Deepfakes is a Canadian pharmacist.

One advocate for, "When you graduate college, do something that betters mankind."

Who is using AI in colleges? Students? Professors? Administrators? Yes, to all. Is that wrong?

More angst with education and these chattering bots. Kids are learning; kids are smart. They just aren't learning what the old folks think they should learn.

Quoting, "Google has overtaken IBM to become the leader in generative AI-related patents ..."

Meanwhile in China, they are moving into satellites that process data in orbit instead of at ground stations.

Saturday 17 May 2025

Apple in China. This expert opinion is that they cannot leave, yet.

Our President visits the Middle East and returns with a couple of trillion (with a tr) $$$ in business deals.

If you can't buy 'em, build 'em yourself. China imports chip-building equipment.

Grievous vexation about big tech folks having government jobs that watch big tech. This story is a hundred years old. And why are their government jobs that do nothing but watch big tech? Eliminate those jobs and the "problem" goes away.

Meanwhile at Microsoft, a study shows that no people were harmed using MS technology.

If you can't live with what your company does with foreign partner, quit your job. Anybody's company trade with China? Huh? How about that one?

Nvidia says it won't ship intellectual property to China. The Communist Party of China will merely continue to steal the intellectual property.

Meanwhile in the UAE, here come OpenAI and Oracle to help build and use massive datacenters.

Meta to build its biggest datacenter ever at a cost of $10Billion (with a B) in Louisiana. Here come the critics. Okay folks, yell loud enough and Meta will cancel and all those jobs will disappear.

Meanwhile at MIT, authorities there (who is that?) no longer back a paper written by a grad student about AI and its effectiveness in research. Someone is losing money somehow. Otherwise, nothing would be said.

Folks, for many,many, and many more professions, the chattering bots have the potential to change everything. Less than half the employees pumping out twice the work product.

Politics or smart business. Let the arguments begin.

It appears to be a disastrous time for the male of the species in America.

Sunday 18 May 2025

Some DoorDash drivers figured out a way to steal $2.5million from the company. In the end, they were caught and punished.

Comparing the most-watched podcasts on YouTube and the other platforms.

Meanwhile in South Korea, about 30% of schools have adopted AI tools that help teachers. In America, land of the teacher's unions, uh, well, we are trying to study some study about something or other.

Nvidia spreads its business beyond the usual big tech customers.

Some analysis on the major business deals in the Middle East in the last week. Career diplomats were replaced by business leaders. Boom. Thing$ happened. And people wondered why all those big tech CEOs were frequently visiting the White House since January.

A new term: appstinent. This are mostly young adults vowing to live a life free of endless scrolling. The not-so-smart phone is their device of choice.

Meanwhile at Starbucks (I'm sitting in one as I type these words), they are going to people instead of tech. Remember Mary Kay cosmetics? That business ran on motivated customer service. Starbucks is betting on the same.

AMD made gains in the market for processors for PCs. Intel is trying to push back, but has yet to succeed much.

A US Senator has a bill that would make all pornography in America a Federal crime.

Flock is a company that makes license plate readers and all sorts of related technologies. Privacy? Constitutional rights?

Thoughts on AI in the workplace and how some companies are reorganizing or disorganizing on purpose.

Second part of report on Computer Vision.