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: 26 October - 1 November, 2026

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• xxx
• xxx
• xxx

Monday 26 October 2026

The marketplace adjusts: OpenAI and Anthropic cut their prices.

Meanwhile in Phoenix, TSMC engineers have taught American workers how to make semiconductors.

Long live the king of rock and roll: those who own the rights to Elvis' songs sue Anthropic.

Marissa Mayer makes the newspapers again. This time she has an AI startup that is trying to make AI work for the rest of us the rest of the time. I think it will work. Forget about hacking into the Kremlin or some such thing. Get the kids to here and there, fix the car, return library books, decide what to cook for dinner, etc. Help people keep things straight.

Amazon has a gadget that "listens," i.e., it has a microphone. It does speech-to-text and summarizes.

Reddit's opensource group bans AI contributions.

In the fickle world of politics, AI tech leaders are now supposed to stand in the back row of the photos.

Meanwhile on Wikipedia, folks are having their profile pages deleted because they are not notable enough to deserve one. And, the editors are finding mistakes that are 20 years old and trying to correct them. Ah, the problems we have these days.

It appears that companies overestimated what they would need, bought too many resources, and are tying to figure out what to do. Nothing new here.

Few will read this. I believe that to be a shame. Companies are companies, not people. Let's stop treating companies and machines like they were people. Some managers at a company are doing this and that. Machines don't have feelings. Software doesn't have feelings. AI is software. Never prompt AI with, "Would you please give me such and such?" The prompt is, "Analyze this and that and show results in 100-word summary."

Fiction writers are supposed to be creatives, not disciplined organizers. Well, there are times to be organizing in a disciplined manner. My profession and personality always pushes me to think years ahead and keep organized. That pays dividends at time, not always, but sometimes.

Quoting from someone who as big succe$$ as a writer: The only way writers make any money is understanding copyright and trademark and branding

A few new ways to read books. Well, the writer says these things are new.

More discussion on how to prepare for writing a novel.

Quoting the headline: To Read a Little or To Read Lot? Are You Kidding? Read a LOT!

News on the Anthropic copyright settlement. As usual, you had to spend money years ago to be eligible for money today. The little guy is bypassed, again.

Tuesday 27 October 2026

Wednesday 28 October 2026

Thursday 29 October 2026

Friday 30 October 2026

Saturday 31 October 2026

Sunday 1 November 2026