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 January, 2026

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• Protests continue in Iran with hints of American involvement
• And many diplomatic meetings about Greenland
• We have a medical evacuation from the space station

Monday 12 January 2026

According to TIOBE, C# gains in use. C, and its variants, occupy three of the top five spots in usage. Hmm. And C is dead or something. All the job descriptions on LinkedIn call for Python.

Oh the human condition. What will we do? AI can do the easy tasks at work. People are then asked to do difficult tasks all day. People can't do difficult tasks all day. It seems we needed those easy boring tasks to give us a break.

Yet another tragedy? It seems that America has hit pizza peak.

Meanwhile in California, they remain the entertainment capital of the world with the brewing one-time-only (ha!) billionaire tax.

Notice the big numbers, just in Australia and just with teenage account holders, Meta closes half-a-million accounts.

One summary of CES 2026.

Instead of renting the Nvidia processors owned by Chinese and American companies, rent the Nvidia processors owned by this Korean company. Huh?

Qatar and UAE will join the Pax Silica coalition. Well, at least I learned what Pax Silica means.

Following right after OpenAI, Anthropic now has Claude for Healthcare.

Quoting something that I find difficult to believe: Wing, the Alphabet-owned company that delivers groceries, over-the-counter medicine, and hot lattes, is expanding its partnership with Walmart

GameStop is to close 400 stores very soon. This is all about cutting an expense line so someone will meet a profit line and get a bonus?

Similarities of writing a book and running a startup company. I know about writing books. I don't know about running a startup company.

Some trends in social media for writers. Forget hashtags and flood your writing with keywords.

Thoughts on writing something that brings about change in people.

Try, try, and try harder to find a writing retreat you can attend.

It's a new year, so as a writer try something new. Several years back I received simple advice: go to a grocery story, stand a the checkout counter, and buy a magazine you have never read or would never consider buying. I did. I learned. I wrote more. I am not sure that grocery stores still sell magazines. Try the same thing. You may have to find a place that sells magazines or little books.

Tuesday 13 January 2026

Meanwhile in Congress, some sort of movement to keep China from accessing AI datacenters that aren't in China or the US, but ... well, you just have to do something, huh?

Interesting idea about printing the numbers in a LLM and covering 20 square miles or something. Sort of like, "If you put all the Federal regulations in the Grand Canyon, it would be a good idea."

A warning a out Chinese AI business spreading to "the global south." Sort of odd that businesses based in a Communist country would be succeeding so much.

Meanwhile in California, the billionaire tax contains words that counts voting power as ownership. What this means is, if you control a company, you are taxed as if you own the entire company. One possible outcome is that no one will start a company in California ever again.

Apple has turned to Google for help with AI. Some don't like that. Well, Apple and Google have worked together on many things for years.

Meta's lunge into the metaverse just didn't work.

Quoting the headline: Anthropic launches Cowork for Claude, built on Claude Code to automate complex tasks with minimal prompting. Let's see how complex a task this can do.

Link Taiwan, Arizona, Washington D.C. and $$$.

Back in China, the most popular Apple app check on elderly people who live alone.

Wednesday 14 January 2026

Scott Adams dies at 68 of cancer. Dilbert was his creation of life in the cubicle farm with the pointy haired boss.

Meanwhile in China, the governors declare that Nvidia H200 processors cannot enter the country.

Meanwhile in Myanmar, who needs datacenters when you have scam centers?

Meanwhile in Iran, Starlink systems are breaking through the Internet blackout. Protests continues. Our current President hints at intervening. Mr. Musk's system for pinpoint Internet access shows its merit.

Who is the big winner in datacenter construction? It is big yellow and big iron Caterpillar with its chugging diesel generators. Can't beat 'em.

At one time, the adults wanted to ban the kids from using calculators in class.

Pretty soon we will be able to argue about what nonconsensual, sexually explicit AI-generated images are.

Meanwhile in California, the proposed wealth tax is muddled. The current governor says he doesn't like it. Well, then veto it if it ever comes to your desk.

Apple announces a Creator Studio. Subscribe and have access to high-end video etc. software.

Public fussing about datacenters works. Microsoft pledges to act very differently with resources like water and power.

Where the money is: crypto currency scams. Chainalysis (listen to what they say) reports the scams to be a growth industry in the $10billion to $20billion range.

Reports of the death of the desktop PC are not true. Windows 10 ending spurred buying. And maybe people just wanted a faster machine.

At least one news outlet understands what college is. Then again, this is a rural news source. Country folk seem to still have some sense.

Quoting: Ford and Carhartt entered into a three-pronged partnership in an effort to boost America's trade worker pipeline. Note the part about supplying mechanics with tools. The mechanics bring their own tools. That is expensive. Office workers are accustomed to the company supplying all the tools.

Anthropic invests a million $$$ in the Python programming language.

Thursday 15 January 2026

Anthropic seems to have a firm grasp on the obvious: the rich get richer and the poor get babies.

In an unusual display of foresight, AWS goes into the copper mining business.

Wikipedia is now 25 years old. The experiment worked. People would contribute knowledge for others to use. Stand on shoulders instead of standing on toes kind of worked.

Where the money is going: spending on mobile apps continues to rise. The market for the mobile devices is saturated. The apps? Not yet.

ChatGPT now has a separate Translate web page.

More tariff deals. I can't keep track of these things.

Google launches Gemini Personal Intelligence. It considers your Gmail, photos, docs, etc. in the Google universe when it answers questions. Hmm, this could be interesting with many unintended consequences.

Quoting the headline: Microsoft's Spending on Anthropic AI Is on Pace to Hit $500 Million

I love this article. Quoting its headline: Data centers are amazing. Everyone hates them.

Need money? Heckle (what is that anyways?) someone famous. Get fired. Do a GoFundMe thing.

Friday 16 January 2026

Someone understands something that most people have forgotten. Use a FORTRAN or C routine from the old Numerical Recipes in C/FORTRAN instead of a billion-dollar datacenter. Good grief.

Quoting: A handful of police departments that use Flock have unwittingly leaked details of millions of surveillance targets. Sigh. Are we all ready for national electronic health records? I guess that one has already happened. If you put it on the Internetwork of servers, people will eventually see it. The greatest fear is those who see it and don't tell anyone that they saw it.

Meanwhile in Taiwan, offshore wind farms have cables that come ashore. Some of the cables are killing the seafood found in the tidal flats.

This article shows the rate of use of AI generative tools. North America leads the world (to either our glory or our shame).

How to you move around import tariffs and trade blocks? Rent, don't buy.

YouTube will now allow videos on sensitive issues as long as the video is non-graphic. I guess someone redefined the word "graphic." And I guess herds of lawyers are gathering for the impending litigation.

Quoting the headline: Google releases TranslateGemma, a suite of Gemma 3-based open translation models

Physical AI is the new thing. OpenAI is seeking makers of physical hardware for robotics of all shapes and sizes.

Minnesota, New York, California, and so on. When, over the decades, Congress passes laws giving Presidents the authority to do things, they really should consider what they are doing. It is easy to "declare an emergency." Sure, JFK sent Federal troops to Alabama to do good things and that was good because someone said it was good. Mr. Trump is sending Federal troops to blue states to do bad things and that is bad because someone said it was bad. Pass a law. Give the President authority. Things happen.

A new study says, "Screen time spent gaming or on social media does not cause mental health problems in teenagers" Well, who woulda thunk that?

A note in history as we have the first medical evacuation from a space station back to earth.

Raspberry Pi jumps into AI=running hardware with a $130, 8GB memory board. What happened to the $25 or $5 single-board computer?

Meanwhile in America, there is a movement from four-year colleges to community college and certificates. Note, it is a small movement. Many folks greatly exagerate the size of it. More parents see four-year college as a half-way house to get their kids on their own way. I went to college so I could land a job. I worked hard for top grades because people with higher GPAs were paid more. Times change.

Quoting: Many people who stop using weight loss drugs will return to their previous weight within two years, a new review of existing research has found. The report comes from a study by the University of Oxford.

Saturday 17 January 2026

When you have money, you are first in line at the store. Memory chips are going to datacenters backed by big money.

I am wondering who has more money, backers of datacenters or backers of college football programs who are buying players.

Speaking of money, Mr. Musk is seeking about $100Billion (with a B) from OpenAI and Microsoft about deals gone wrong and double crossing and the like.

All is not good in the tech industry as Adobe is faltering.

Three or four years after the announcement, Micron finally breaks ground on a factory in New York. In China, the place would be fully operational and expanding. In America, I guess they finished the EPA-mandated studies. Once we had a President who boasted of shovel-ready projects.

Speaking of our EPA hampering technology progress, in the Memphis area the EPA is hampering operations at xAI's datacenters. Sigh. Of course these situations are complex. There is much in play and all that. Bottom line: our government wants our companies to work here until our government doesn't want our companies to work here.

Meanwhile in Vietnam, the military-run telecom company Viettel begins construction of the country's first chip plant.

Asus is flip flopping on whether or not it will continue building a top-end GPU card. This is the most important story of the week to some people.

ChatGPT is so successul, it will soon have ads popping up. Then OpenAI can become an advertising company and make real money.

How to lose fat without losing muscle. It isn't a secret and you don't have to pay $50 a month. Eat protein while on a calorie deficit and exercise.

We have come a round about thing with AI companies now paying Wikipedia to read the encyclopedia's pages.

Where has my paycheck gone? 46% inflation in hard drives. Gosh $$$.

And we delve into the topic of risk in research projects, which shows a fundamental lack of understanding about research. Let's try a new approach. It may not work. That is a failed product and a successful research project as it added knowledge to the field. Gosh. I would think that people would know this by this time.

The most important company in the world, TSMC, reports a great financial quarter with no end in sight.

Sunday 18 January 2026

Right now, the best thing to be in America is an electrician. In a year, the situation may be different. Skilled trades are in demand. They are, however, jobs for young people. Old backs can't install datacenters.

We want entertainment, music.

State and local law enforcement buy tech gadgets. They don't have the resources to operate and maintain them. The results are not good.

So much for live demonstrations, especially those on the streets.

In a few weeks, NASA will send four people out and around the moon. Let's pray for the four people. NASA hasn't done well in the last few uh, well, last few decades.

Demographics: don't ya hate em? Colleges are closing because there aren't enough people the right age to attend them. Some public colleges take everyone who applies. Hmm, back in the 1970s, when there were plenty of us to fill seats, public colleges in Louisiana took anyone who applied. Applying was just registering.