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: 13-19 July, 2026

Summary of this week:

• The Russians are still in Ukraine
• New York state bans datacenters
• Louisiana welcomes them
• xxx
• xxx
• xxx
• xxx

Monday 13 July 2026

Tokyo becomes the smuggling center for Russians bringing technology home to fight Ukraine.

Meanwhile in Europe where the regulators gotta' regulate, they are figuring out how old a teenager should be before using social media. Well, who else would know best? Not the regulators.

As I have written, hardware is the new software. You can't run an AI datacenter without a trainload of hardware, and not just computers. There is so much more that is needed and in short supply. Supply chain theft has become bigger business than AI processors.

Good news for Taiwan and the Kuomintang (founded in 1912 by Sun Yat-sen). TSMC is putting billion$ more into new factories on the island.

It appears that Apple is shifting its own processors, the M family, towards AI processing and away from general processing. If true, this is a risk, but it may pay off. We shall see.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, they are using more robotic technology. Once again, if they are so advanced, why can't they repel the Russians?

Quoting: How Does Perfect Grammar Trigger AI False Positives? If you write for hire, the clients want you to write, not AI. So they run AI checkers. And then say, "You didn't write this." And you say, "Yes, I did." And they say ... and so it goes.

If you want to earn money as a writer, you need to know how to make an invoice. Huh? I am a writer, not an accountant. Okay, you are now an unpaid writer.

As in writing software systems, there are a few ways to do it well and a few hundred ways to ... no so well. So is writing and writing and writing.

And here is some math to show how to earn $40,000 per year with 20 novels. They have to sell. The covers have to be enticing.

Good and practical tips on editing your own work.

Tuesday 14 July 2026

We see some progress in the hands of home robots. This is still early. There is much to be done before anything is practical.

I have to admit that I have never thought of it this way. Relatively small teams understand everything they have done. Relatively large teams have a system so large built over so long a period of time that they don't understand all of it. The smaller teams, because there are many more of them, dominate discussion boards.

The reverse information paradox. There are some of us who are not revealing anything new when using AI systems. It is the same old stuff. This begs the question, "If we are doing the same old stuff, why are we wasting our time?" This all occurs in government work. Hence, that explains the basic waste.

AI, as in everything: there is nothing worse than seeing a great theory mugged by reality.

Our current President gambled by backing Intel. The bet is paying well.

A warning about how the current AI systems may reshape culture without us noticing.

All the current AI systems perform well enough for 98.6% of us. It is time to race to the bottom and shop at Walmart for cut-rate AI. There are other implications as well.

Meanwhile in China, shipments of smartphones have fallen five financial quarters in a row.

Global smartphone shipments drop. Everyone already has a smartphone. Upgrading is for some other time.

Those chattering bots were supposed to haul in mountains of advertising dollars. They are doing pretty well, enough to buy a home, but not as desired.

If you built a solar or wind farm anywhere near a datacenter, you have a customer. And those farms need customers.

In the attacking-AI vs. defending-AI wars, the defenders currently are winning. Wait until next week.

Nvidia is doing better at making its shipments to customers worse. This has something to do with identifying smugglers and not selling to them.

We are five months from 2027, and Apple releases the public beta of all its '27 operating systems.

Quoting the headline: Microsoft announces a Windows 11 search overhaul that prioritizes local results

Meanwhile in America, 12 states band together to fight the merger of two entertainment companies. Because here in America, we have so much money and time for entertainment that we think entertainment is some sort of public right that must be defended with taxpayers' money. This is a so-called first-world problem.

These numbers are staggering. In the past three weeks, Apple's value rose $650Billion (with a B). This isn't the value of the company. This is the increase in value in three weeks. How did the world come to be so rich? And note, there is no Mr. Apple like Mr. Musk and Mr. Zuckerburg.

Reverse engineering, we now call it "distillation" for some reason, is basic and as old as fire. In the AI world, it is supposed to be some existential threat to someone.

Meta is building a datacenter in Louisiana. It started as a $10Billion project or some huge number. Now Meta is pouring $250Billion into it. That is 25x or something like 2,400%? I can't figure numbers that big.

Meanwhile in the state of New York, they have banned datacenters. I guess they already have enough money and jobs there. Send the money and jobs to Louisiana where those things are welcome.

Quoting the headline: The EU blacklists Russian intelligence group members it says were responsible for spying on and hacking targets across the EU and Ukraine from as early as 2010. Oooooooh. Those guys are now on a black list. Oooooh, they are so scared (not).

Wednesday 15 July 2026

The Apple lawsuit against OpenAI has some hurt in it for OpenAI.

Here comes the Starship launch 13 delivering Starlink satellites that will test communicating with commercial airliners.

Apple has a new speech-to-text system. I can't run it like an app. It works only as an API in apps people write. I want a standalone app.

Quoting the headline: Control the ideas, not the code If only it were that simple.

And AI does make it easier to build some things. Expect a leap in the number of things being built quickly. The market will decide. Usually, when the numbers grow, there are delightful things happening.

Another positive outlook on the future with the current AI systems. Build more. Make more. Change. Of course work will change. Work changed a lot with the introduction of the screw and screwdriver. Same for the ruler. And then the pencil! Whoa! That one was huge.

IBM's stock price crashed yesterday. Big blue is really blue.

In the opposite direction, ASML reports good financial numbers.

The USA, Japan, Oracle, cybersecurity, and the dreaded air gap.

Our Dept of Defense realizes that its requirements for cybersecurity are too burdensom for small and innovative companies.

The UAE recently acted like an ally. Hence, they were given access to advanced computing hardware. Well, no duh. Is anyone in Europe paying attention?

Angst at Meta over whose jobs were eliminated.

The UK is literally becoming a nanny state.

Anthropic tries to run an ad about AI. People react badly to the ad. You know, folks in California have deep thoughts and such that folks in the rest of the country ... well, they are not the same.

Meanwhile in China, a new company claims to have a new AI processor that works just as well as the banned imports. If you embargo a country, they usually develop local systems. And then what?

Meanwhile in Memphis, more backlash against Elon Musk's datacenter as the company has the audacity to generate its own power. Somehow this is a racist move.

AI eliminating jobs? Experts predict the biggest labor SHORTAGE in American history.

It appears that the age of social media is fading.

Thursday 16 July 2026

Strong rumors that OpenAI is building some sort of smart speaker with a camera or something.

It's about time: someone is testing a solar mirror to bring sunlight down any place at any time in any season. Writer and thinker Jerry Pournelle advocated this for decades.

Discussing the phenomenon of terminal lucidity.

I love this headline: You Just Hired a Million Bad Employees More Quote: For the first time in history, humans are cheaper than software. This is the case if your are using the chattering bots too much and running up your bill.

These agents and loops are merely software. If you program incorrectly and do not test thoroughly, you cause bad things to happen. Don't blame the chattering bot.

TSMC and other tech companies toss around billion$ as if they were pennies.

TSMC reports yet another excellent financial quarter.

Angst in research and the right of association. Sigh. Just find something useful to do.

Among the jobs boom related to the AI boom is that of personal and physical security. Executives are hiring bodyguards. Datacenters are hiring night watchmen and day watchmen.

OpenAI releases information on how it tests its systems before releasing them.

Thinking Machines Lab releases an open-weight model called Inkling.

Meanwhile in South Korea, auto workers go on strike over AI and the use of Boston Dynamics robots in factories.

History repeating itself: Apple buys its parts suppliers to ensure supply of parts.

Friday 17 July 2026

Saturday 18 July 2026

Sunday 19 July 2026