Google and Its Mutating Smart Software
April 20, 2020
Google announced quantum supremacy. Earlier the online ad company asserted that it would solve death. Yeah.
Now the company has announced YAB or yet another breakthrough, according to “Google Engineers ‘Mutate’ AI to Make It Evolve Systems Faster Than We Can Code Them”:
For years, engineers at Google have been working on a freakishly smart machine learning system known as the AutoML system (or automatic machine learning system), which is already capable of creating AI that outperforms anything we’ve made. Now, researchers have tweaked it to incorporate concepts of Darwinian evolution and shown it can build AI programs that continue to improve upon themselves faster than they would if humans were doing the coding.
You can read about this mutating wonder in “AutoML-Zero: Evolving Machine Learning Algorithms From Scratch.”
DarkCyber assumes that the use of AutoML will allow Google to solve the death thing. However, it may be difficult for the Googler’s method to cope with degrading advertising and increasing infrastructure costs.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2020
Google Cloud: Thinner and Wispier?
April 20, 2020
The Murdoch paywall notwithstanding, DarkCyber was able to read “Google May Let Some Air Out of Its Cloud.” (My dog Tibby subscribes to the dead tree edition. DarkCyber is running an on going experiment to find out if the dead tree and the online units of the WSJ coordinate. So far the answer is “No.” How long has the experiment been running? More than 10 years.
The write up reveals that the Google will spend less on data centers. Why?
Fallout from coronavirus
The real news article points out that if Google slows down its spending, the impact on outfits lower down the food chain will be negative.
Okay, but let’s consider another angle.
Advertising is slowing down. The costs for indexing for the Google search engine are going up. Google has been struggling with cost control even with the hard eyed CFO the company has counting beans.
What’s this mean?
Google will automate more, index less, and hunt for money by providing “We’ll do the ad allocation for you” type services. Imitating Zoom’s interface signals that me-too is more important than applying the Google magic wand to products and services.
Net net: The company’s showing that it has feet of clay-based silicon. After 20 years, these feet should be resistant to perturbations in the humanoid aspect of the firm’s business.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2020
Usability: Why Not Hide Stuff and Use Low Contrast Colors? We Do, We Do!
April 19, 2020
“The Decline of Usability” complains that current user interfaces suck. The main pivot in the write up is the application of mobile design conventions to desktop applications. Yeah, mobile. Doesn’t everyone work with a phone, Franken-tablet, or a game device?
Apparently not.
The author of the article uses screenshots to illustrate the craziness applications favor. The article asserts:
Usability, or as it used to be called, “User Friendliness”, is steadily declining. During the last ten years or so, adhering to basic standard concepts seems to have fallen out of fashion.
The article points out about a stack of title bars that appear to create instant confusion:
Almost all of the title bars contain some kind of UI widget. Some have little tool icons, some have tabs, some have drop-down menus, some have combinations thereof. There is no set behavior and, more importantly, the clickable area for traditional operations (move, focus, raise) on each title bar is now of variable width. If you’re accustomed to a title bar being for handling the window and nothing else, it’s very easy to misclick and activate an application feature you didn’t intend to.
Just a thought: The youngsters who create these difficult-to-use interfaces may want to consider making it possible for users to select a less-jazzy version of an application.
Not everyone wants a black interface with gray highlights. Not everyone wants colors to be low contrast. Not everyone wants weird icons instead of words.
However, the future is clear: Game-type conventions, creating interfaces for young eyes, and removing user control of interface elements is the trend.
The approach is not cute; it is indifferent to the needs of many users.
Stephen E Arnold, April 19, 2020
In the Wake of Zoom: Microsoft Teams Phone
April 18, 2020
Google is emulating the Zoom interface. Microsoft is converting Teams into a phone system. Me too is alive and well. “How to Deploy Microsoft Phone System with Teams” is easy, according to the 24 minute instructional video. Lashing these two systems together requires a Microsoft 365 account. Just purchase a business voice plan for about $150 per year. Set up a Virtual User. Fill in personal details. Plug in payment data. Add users and provide more personal information. Review the licenses available. Now you can upgrade to Teams, and you are about 25 percent through the video lesson.
For comparison, Zoom’s phone is immediately available after receiving an invitation and joining the meeting.
People working at home with basic computer skills will find the procedure interesting. Good enough for today’s WFH professional. Oh, at the 11 minute mark the Teams Phone system was not responding. Call the company’s system administrator. Oh, snap, quarantine. Time to walk the dog.
Stephen E Arnold, April 18, 2020
Hollywood Reporter and Billboard Tech Savvy Strike Back
April 17, 2020
I wonder if there were blinking vcr clocks in the homes of the senior executives of Valence Media when the management wizards were young?
The lesson of the vcr clocks that might be correct twice a day or never has been forgotten.
“Workers at Hollywood Reporter and Billboard Vandalize Website After Getting Laid Off” revealed after the near sacrilege of modifying entertainment-related data. The article revealed:
“In the wake of Covid19 pandemic, Valence Media has decided to lay off their entire web IT staff. Effective today,” the Billboard website read in a post credited to “devops.”
And what else did the “IT staff” do? Insert a reference to the fun-loving comedy Animal House.
The article about the incident added:
Valence also owns brands like Vibe, Media Rights Capital, and Dick Clark Productions. More than 100 people have been laid off at Valence, roughly 30 percent of its editorial division, according to CNN. In a companywide memo some of the cuts were blamed on “advertising market conditions” related to the coronavirus pandemic, but other cuts were supposedly part of a restructuring that had already been planned. Valence is also instituting pay cuts of between 15 and 25 percent for anyone left making over $100,000 per year and co-CEOs Modi Wiczyk and Asif Satchu are reportedly no longer going to be taking a salary.
Valence may or may not have deserved the Animal House reference. A number of “real” news and “dead tree” outfits are are far from a happy place.
The digital revolution moves forward. Substantive, local news might be useful to some people. Without financial support, the experiences I enjoyed at the Courier Journal & Louisville Times Co. before the fine, fine Gannett operation “improved” operations will be tough to find.
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2020
The JEDI Knight Wounds Amazon
April 17, 2020
The Bezos bulldozer has stalled against a bureaucratic stone wall. The overheated engine is idling in outside the Pentagon Metro stop. DarkCyber was informed by a couple of helpful readers that the US government is going Microsoft for the significant Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Project. A representative summary of the review of the contract process appeared in “Pentagon: $10B Cloud Contract That Snubbed Amazon Was Legal.” The write up reported:
“We could not review this matter fully because of the assertion of a ‘presidential communications privilege,’ which resulted in several DOD witnesses being instructed by the DOD Office of General Counsel not to answer our questions about potential communications between White House and DOD officials about JEDI,” the report said.
“As a result, we could not be certain whether there were any White House communications with some DOD officials which may have affected the JEDI procurement,” it said.
“However, we believe the evidence we received showed that the DOD personnel who evaluated the contract proposals and awarded Microsoft the JEDI cloud contract were not pressured … by any DOD leaders more senior to them, who may have communicated with the White House,” the report said.
Clear enough. Amazon’s bulldozer may have to reverse and head over to other Executive Branch agencies. Copies of the Bezos bulldozer have been spotted in Australia pushing insurance data and in United Arab Emirates moving digital sand for the government.
The problem for Amazon is that displacing PowerPoint is a very, very tough mountain to move. Just ask Google. Palantir’s baby forklift moved some paperwork while forming a relationship with a certain figure of note in Washington, DC.
Maybe Amazon should wear a fashionable Azure T shirt and wear a Dwarven Ring of Power from The Lord of the Rings available on Etsy?
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2020
AWS Glacier: Understanding Where Your Cold Cash Goes for Cloudy Storage
April 17, 2020
If you are into AWS, you may be interested in this quite interesting write up about the AWS allegedly lower-cost storage option. “How tricky is to save 20x with AWS Glaciers?” explains what some individuals have learned via trial and error.
The write up states that Amazon offers three kinds of Glacier services:
S3 object storage class “Glacier” (accessible via S3 API)
S3 object storage class “Glacier Deep Archive” (accessible via S3 API)
S3 Glacier Service (accessible via Glacier API)
The names, according to the source, are somewhat confusing. An alternative naming convention might be:
S3 Glacier
S3 Deep Glacier
Glacier Service
Okay, is that helpful?
The key point in the write up is that each type of services has its own conventions and pricing. The write up provides these suggestions for optimal use of Glacier’s variants:
- Backups
- Logs
- Lossless versions of media files for (possible) future usage
- Replacement of in-house magnetic tape archiving.
Amazon is working overtime to provide options. Presumably those who attend one or more of the training classes Amazon offers will understand the nuances.
DarkCyber thinks that Amazon has modified some of the telecommunications pricing tables popular among the Baby Bells when online was becoming a thing; namely, a question worthy of a Google engineer interview. Oh, wait. Google prices more transparently, right?
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2020
Los Angeles Times: One of Big Dogs in Newspapers May Be Put Down
April 17, 2020
I won’t use the phrases “dead tree”, “begging for dollars”, or “online subscriptions”. I promise. I read “L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue Nearly Eliminated.” The governors of California emphasized the size of the state’s economy. At times, when I rented an apartment in Berkeley, I heard:
- California will leave the United States
- California will split into two states: The Northern part which is a money maker and the losers in LA which drain tax revenues
- California is the innovation center of America.
Did I believe these assertions? Well, it depended on whether someone with an opinion was buying me lunch or whether I was paying.
Now LA, where trends begin, may be playing that fashion forward role in the “Drama of Big Dog News.” I learned:
The Los Angeles Times announced on Tuesday that it will furlough some business-side employees and that senior managers will take pay cuts, as advertising revenue has been “nearly eliminated” due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company will also suspend its 401(k) match for non-union workers, according to a company memo sent by Chris Argentieri, president of the California Times.
One sensitive commenter using the handle matismf offered, “Learn to code, mofos.”
Another added, “A little ray of sunshine in our bleak police state.”
And a final quote: “I bet Salesforce Founder Marc Benioff will buy/bailout the LA Times like he did Time Magazine in September 2018.”
To sum up: Wait for the motion picture?
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2020
Do Mac Pro Wheels Come with an N95 Mask?
April 17, 2020
“Apple Is Trying to sell Mac Pro Wheels for Almost Twice the Price of a New iPhone SE” is a very good story for a Friday lockdown day. Google’s new partner believes that those spending upwards of $6,000 for a desktop computer will buy these roundy gizmos. The write up reports:
Apple is known for releasing some pretty pricey products, but it might have gone too far with the asking price for the Mac Pro Wheels Kit – which offers four wheels for the new Mac Pro for a staggering $699 (around £560, AU$1,100).
The wheels are round and make it easier to roll one’s Mac Pro around.
The write up points out:
If you want to raise your Mac Pro off the ground or desk, but don’t want wheels, then Apple is also selling a Mac Pro Feet Kit. This is for people who bought a Mac Pro with wheels installed and have changed their mind.
DarkCyber wants to point out that its zippy Ryzen 3900x rolls around on a VIVO platform with locking wheels.
The price? About $20 on Amazon. Delivery may be delayed due to Amazon’s inability to scale, but to save $679, DarkCyber was patient.
By the way, the Apple wheels do not include a free N95 mask from the Apple stockpile.
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2020
Amazon and France: Mais Oui, Mais Non
April 16, 2020
The trusted news source Thomson Reuters published “Amazon to Close French Warehouses until Next Week after Court Order.” Like Ben Franklin, Amazon has an on-again, off-again relationship with France. In the latest installment, Amazon is willing to allow French citizens to hunt for products at the nearest supermarché. There is a soupçon of taxation. There is a virus. There are the French unions. Will Amazon and the French remain déboussolé? Amazon continues to wrestle with governments, including the one in the US. Spring and change are in the air perhaps?
Stephen E Arnold, April 16, 2020
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