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: 22-28 September, 2025

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• OpenAI and Nvidia sign $100Billion deal
• Jimmy Kimmel returns to TV
• A quarter of ABC stations don't show Kimmel
• MLB will use cameras and computers and allow challenging balls-and-strikes calls 2026

Monday 22 September 2025

Loudon county, meet Wuhu, China where farmland was replaced with datacenters.

The memorial service for Charlie Kirk was yesterday. About 95,000 attended in person and 100 million watched some of it online. Estimates from reliable sources (mainstream media) don't exist. That is a shame and a dereliction of duty. On an NFL Sunday, crowds and online viewing like this is a news event. Report the news. Write editorials if you wish, but report the news.

Meanwhile up in Seattle, tech layoffs are hurting an already hurting city.

Repairing undersea data cables off the coast of Africa.

SMS Blasters: the ne'er-do-wells have yet another way of scamming people.

Jaguar Land Rover falls to cyberattacks.

And ne'er-do-wells are stealing money from job applicants. They go around and about in a circle, but get money. Ensure all incoming checks clear. Take great care in spending a penny.

With all the fuss about H-1B visas, we learn of the O-1 or "Einstein" visa.

Astronomers find a rock out in space with an orbit of the sun similar to ours.

Google lays off a couple hundred skilled content moderators that watch the output of Gemini.

One writer who is strongly against using AI in writing.

I like tip #1 (I think): find the tip that works and make it your #1 tip.

Tuesday 23 September 2025

Nvidia and OpenAI sign a $100Billion contract. This is not the government...the government doesn't have this kind of money. This is private enterprise and American industrial power. These are huge numbers. Go back five years: had anyone even heard of OpenAI?

More big numbers from this deal. How about 5million GPUs?

Speaking of OpenAI and Nvidia...their CEOs comment positively on the $100,000 fee for H-1B visas.

And now we have "workslop." Folks use AI at work to produce junk. Other folks spend twice the time cleaning the slop.

Meanwhile in India, $18Billion is pouring into ten projects to up the chip-making capacity.

Sidenote from this article: idealistic roots? What? When? I saw it start. Idealistic?

MediaTek shows a 3nm technology system on a chip with more cores and other things than you can shake a stick at.

$100,000 fee to bring a person to America? International telecommunications permit "offshoring." Just stay at home in India et al. and work for American companies from there.

Companies are using everything out there to train their AI models. That includes research papers that were redacted because of errors and fraud. And to think they are even using stuff I scribbled to do all that AI stuff!

And all the AI training brings a thought (careful here). If you want to influence the world for generations to come, put everything you have out on the Internet somewhere. AI companies will use it to shape their systems. You too can influence world history from your den.

And here we go... Louisiana's Public Service Commission voted to build power plants to power Meta's huge datacenter in the state. "Elected representatives" give taxpayer money to one of the richest companies in the world. Okay. Makes sense. Meanwhile in Washington D.C., the same happened as elected representatives recently gave a Billion$ to the NFL, another one of the richest companies in the world.

Quoting, "Sorry, home-office enthusiasts. So-called hybrid creep is gaining traction." Two days a week in the office become three, then four, then, let's see, what comes after four?

This report, however, claims that folks are not abiding by the return-to-the-office mandates. They are ignoring the mandates and "getting away with it."

And the Jimmy Kimmel show will be back on the air this week. I am happy to see that folks didn't lose their jobs due to stupidity of a celebrity. Mr. Kimmel is probably not a bad guy. Poor judgement last week led to a lot of brouhaha.

Skeptical about smart glasses like those from Meta? "there's "a growing group of blind users... finding the devices to be more of a life-enhancing tool than a cool accessory." My granddaughter could use a pair that actually worked.

Does this mean the return of the flying toasters?

Wednesday 24 September 2025

Scientist find funny-shaped rocks and declare a rewrite on human history. I guess I don't have the imaginative powers of some scientists.

404 Media sues our  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) about spyware and a contract with Paragon.

Meanwhile in Bangladesh, seven years ago they launched a satellite. This brought a wave of national pride and interest in science and technology. Reality hits, funding disappears, and a deep sigh of disappointment.

Meanwhile in China, the regulators are halting competition so that something they want will happen.

Let's run the numbers of datacenters and electric bills. The result is really bad as tech companies will fall short by over a Billion $$$.

China, South Africa, Taiwan, and trade wars.

Jimmy Kimmel returns to TV and sort of apologies or mostly explains that folks just didn't understand what he was saying.

About a quarter of ABC TV stations are owned by other companies. They did not show Jimmy Kimmel's program.

Part of Kimmel's talk was about a government official saying something like, "We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way." Those words are spoken everyday in America by prosecutors and police. Kimmel is not unique or persecuted. I don't like any of that.

Well, I guess this is important: mood boards. So important that Google has a new app called Mixboard that helps create mood boards.

Microsoft is talking to several large publishers about paying for access to content for AI training.

Well, better late than never or the opposite or something: YouTube to reinstate creators banned during COVID and such and YouTube blames our prior President.

Microsoft experiment with micro-technology for cooling computers.

Larry Ellison and family "could soon control an empire that includes CBS, Paramount, Warner, CNN and a piece of TikTok."

I'll just quote, "Meta launches the American Technology Excellence Project, a super PAC to fight AI policy bills at the state level"

Our Secret Service claims to have busted a ring of SIM card servers etc. run by ne'er-do-wells in New York City. The bad guys were to disrupt cell phone communications in the coming United Nations meetings.

Android for PC is coming real soon now.

News Flash (not): the Hollywood folks don't like Donald Trump.

The U.S. News & World Report ranking of American colleges is out and is pretty much the same as it has been. The expensive elite schools remain the expensive elite schools.

Folks are using AI to rewrite published papers and claim originality. Oh the halls of science and learning. Trust the experts. Follow the science. Really?

Okay, this is the big news of the day: MLB approves a system of cameras that will allow pitchers, catchers, and hitters two challenges a game on balls and strikes.

Thursday 25 September 2025

Some of are old enough to remember when the big names in AI research all were at universities.

The US and China battle it out for AI dominance in Kenya in a valley with abundant and inexpensive energy.

Apple wants the EU to repeal their DMA laws. Good luck with that one 'cause regulators gotta regulate.

It appears that today is the day for this TikTok thing to be settled with new ownership in the US and all that.

Meta plans to open a few small stores to sell its Ray-Ban smart glasses. They already sell that at small stores.

And now we have Waymo for Business with self-driving cars limiting their audience.

Google attaches a new Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server to its Data Commons to make it easier for AI developers.

Microsoft adds more of Anthropic's AI models to Copilot and other offerings.

Predictions of doom for the $100,000 H-1B visa plan.

I would be delighted to see this, but I have big doubts: NASA plans to send four people on a flyby of the moon in February.

More datacenters. More. More. More.

Microsoft wants to make its Edge browser "Agentic." When we figure out what "agentic" means, we can talk about it.

Mr. Zuckerburg claims that Instagram now has three Billion (with a B) monthly active users. That is a large number.

Everyone loves Windows 10. Well, not everyone, but a sufficiently large number to cause Microsoft to extend cybersecurity support.

Friday 26 September 2025

Chinese tech talent is returning to China. Not sure why this is in Rest of World as China is no longer in that group.

Doom and gloom and AI will destroy the planet. Sigh.

Notes from Platformer and maybe a different way for news and journalism to survive.

Let's see, if we use three systems in a row that are each 90% reliable ... the answer is 70% reliable. Hmm. Systems science can be cruel.

Our current President has some plan about requiring equal domestic production to match imports of computer chips.

Microsoft puts all its cloud tools into one Marketplace.

Intel was supposed to build a $28Billion plant in Ohio and well, you know, sometimes things don't go as planned.

Meanwhile in South Korea, there is a place called Pangyo Techno Valley where things are doing just fine.

And in China, things are pretty rough as expected at the Foxconn factory.

And in radiology, computer vision isn't working as well as it should. There should be an investigation into this. The problem isn't that difficult and the technology has been around for several decades.

I guess the deal has finally done and we have a TikTok US or something.

Intel's current CEO continues to talk to everyone in an effort to keep the company afloat. Or perhaps Intel will become a name only with nothing behind it.

Finally, something practical as Google has apps to help robots do the laundry.

Amazon to pay a $2.5Billion fine. The money will disappear down a hole never to be seen again. They should use it for something the public can see and put up big signs like, "This year's national park road maintenance paid for by an Amazon fine."

Microsoft cancels access to one of its tools from an Israeli military unit.

Trade secrets, non-disclosure agreements, and lawsuits, and what all that includes.

Let's follow shoplifters with drones. What could possible go wrong?

Starbucks shrinks a little and lays off 900 office workers.

Federal government shutdown next week? Our current President says that perhaps the resting-at-home employees won't come back to work and won't be paid their lost wages. This one will hurt.

Saturday 27 September 2025

Meanwhile in California, a proposed law banning AI use in firing or disciplining an employee. If you MS Word, you use AI. If you use MS Windows, you use AI. If you use Google, you use AI. I can go on. Are they banning all these products?

Is today's method of AI, the LLM, a dead end? Probably. But many of us knew that at the start. And folks like me who knew that from experience couldn't get a job because the hiring managers couldn't see the obvious.

It appears that Meta is working on humanoid robots. Sigh. Cute, but really folks, not a good form for work.

US Court rules that, duh, many Chinese companies are supported by the Communist Party of China. Well, it's about time.

Hey, someone is hiring for new jobs. Anthropic plans to grow its workforce by whole number multiples, not little percentages.

Meanwhile in China, where censorship lives on for real, mum is the word on the TikTok deals.

Meanwhile in the UK, in an effort to combat illegal immigration, they will have a national digital ID that will be stored on your phone. What could possible go wrong?

Microsoft is adding a self-organizing feature to its Photos app. This is like facial recognition that Apple was using 15 or 20 years ago.

Looking forward to yet another Federal government shutdown. What a bunch of unpatriotic so-and-so's. Do your job, even the hard parts of it. One of the problems with Congress is that no one is fired for being lazy.

Raspberry Pi updates its keyboard computer. They also, unfortunately, double the price to $200 by adding bells and whistles (bells and whistles is an old say about things that don't really matter but folks add them to products to, you know, make nice noises and attract attention).

Meanwhile in Germany, a company has an idea of a driverless delivery of a rental car to you and then you drive the car.

OpenAI demonstrates how their systems perform better than humans at some jobs.

How do you curb the spread of misinformation, a.k.a., incorrect information on society media? Put correct information on society media. Duh. This one has escaped the grasp of many.

Sunday 28 September 2025

I like this blog post's content. Also good title, "There's plenty of AI ROI - if you're willing to work for it"

Nvidia is giving money to computing companies who use the money to buy Nvidia's processors. Is this jump-starting the market (good) or merely making things appear much better than they are (bad)?

This is a good piece on the failings of humanoid robots. The iRobot vacuum cleaners are a great example of a robot that works well because it is not humanoid.

AI governance? When will we do Excel spreadsheet governance or MS Word governance?

Big job cuts and more coming at Accenture.

Bumbling and stumbling at our Dept of Defense as efforts to be quick and inexpensive with drones just ... bumble and stumble. Our Dept of Defense claims all sorts of reforms, but continues on with the same old things and the same old folks.

Defense and other government acquisition is mired in "past performance." They want new ideas from new people, but to win a contract you must cite the government contracts you held in the past. How do you get new people if you require old people? The answer isn't difficult, but it is beyond those government employees who decide what to do.

When you put all your eggs in one basket, and that basket catches on fire...

The decision makers at Oracle have poured their money into new datacenters. The investments were more than the income. Will this be a long-term win?

Don't rush. But act. --- Seth Godin

The cost of attending a professional sporting event: it shows the wealth of America. We go to these things.

This report is startling as in "AI will take every job!" This report is also real news that isn't news as in "new tools change work." The screw and screwdriver changed jobs. So did the hammer and nail. Get real, folks.