• Is my toddler a stochastic carrot?  (New Yorker)
  
  No.  Your toddler is actually capable of learning.
  
  This piece of art is a better discussion of the risks, benefits, and underlying mechanisms of generative AI than I have seen coming from almost anyone in the industry.

• Microsoft has renamed Bing Chat to Stochastic Carrot.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Or if it hasn't, it should.
  
  
  
• Amazon has stopped selling seven brands of eye drops that lacked FDA approval.  (New York Times)  (archive site)
  
  Eye drops might not seem like a big issue.  All you need to do is take a saline solution, boil it so it's sterile, and bottle it.
  
  And yet in the past year in the US, eye drops have caused infections, blindness, and at least four deaths.
  
  Oh, and there's lead in baby food.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Do you people want an overbearing regulatory state?  Because this is how you get an overbearing regulatory state.
  
  
  
• Developers keep putting security keys into public code.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Stochastic carrots.
  
  
  
• Asus has apologised for its "Evengenlion" limited edition motherboards.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  All purchasers will get an extra year of warranty coverage and a replacement part that correctly spells "Avengelyne".
  
  I'm sure that will make everybody happy.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Friday, November 17 2023 02:03 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: normal at Friday, November 17 2023 11:22 AM (bg2DR)

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• A federal district court in California has ruled that Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Snapchat have to face lawsuits alleging that they are running social networks.  (The Verge)
  
  The plaintiffs claim that the social networks have deleterious and addictive effects on children, which seems plausible because social networks have deleterious and addictive effects on everyone, because they're social networks.
  
  
  

Tech News

• An in-depth review of the new AMD model of HP's Pavilion Plus 14.  (Notebook Check)
  
  I'm typing this on last year's Intel-based Pavilion Plus 14.  Great screen, good keyboard, pretty fast CPU (12700H), Intel integrated graphics, and 16GB soldered RAM which is the only major shortcoming.
  
  This new version has a Ryzen 7840U.  That offers about the same CPU performance - a bit better on multi-threaded tests - and twice the graphics performance.
  
  At as little as half the power consumption.
  
  And since HP also increased the battery size this year, battery life has jumped from eight hours to sixteen.
  
  All they need to do is offer 32GB of RAM and it would be perfect.
  
  
  
• Rivian released a software update for its electric vehicles on Monday, which bricked the onboard infotainment systems, affecting literally dozen of customers.  (Electrek)
  
  The cars might need physical servicing to restore them to normal operational state, because everything is awful.
  
  
  
• Is there some law of nature requiring that websites proposing radical redesigns of the web must look terrible?  (Camen Design)
  
  Or is it some kind of alien conspiracy?
  
  Or both?

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, November 16 2023 06:35 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, November 16 2023 06:41 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: normal at Thursday, November 16 2023 10:20 AM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, November 16 2023 04:31 PM (PiXy!)

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• SpaceX is planning a test launch of Starship as early as this weekend.  (FAA)
  
  If the FAA website stays up.  Maybe even if it doesn't.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile further out, the James Web Space Telescope is finding hundreds of rogue planets at a time.  (Quanta)
  
  These aren't neatly orbiting stars, but just floating around in the middle of nowhere.
  
  Often in pairs, which is not something we normally see planets doing.  They've been called JUMBOs, for Jupiter Mass Binary Objects, and there seems to be a lot of them.

• Operationalizing Progress on the Path to AGI.  (Arxiv)
  
  Or, What the Fuck is AGI Anyway?
  
  It examines nine definitions for AGI, dismisses them all as useless, and posits that current state-of-the-art AI systems are approaching AGI Level 1, which is to say, a mechanical idiot.
  
  
  
• Samsung's 990 Pro - one of the best consumer SSDs around short of the still wildly overpriced PCIe 5 models - is now $250 for 4TB.  (AnandTech)
  
  That's a lot for a little and it has no shortcomings.  It's not limited to PCIe 3, it's not DRAMless, it's not QLC, it's not from a second or third tier manufacturer.
  
  Ten years from now that will look absurdly expensive but right now it's a steal.
  
  
  
• Intel has announced its 5th generation Emerald Rapids Xeon range, along with some very, very selective benchmarks.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Understandable, because these models go up to 64 cores, where AMD already goes up to 128 cores.  Intel has certain areas of strength but overall they just get clobbered.
  
  
  
• ChatGPT's new Code Interpreter function lets you upload your data for processing - and also lets other people steal it.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  If you upload a file, and that file contains a link to a web page, and that web page could be interpreted as instructions for ChatGPT, ChatGPT will thus interpret them.
  
  As I said earlier, mechanical idiot.

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, November 14 2023 10:34 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, November 15 2023 02:15 AM (r9O5h)

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• Now that Sam Bankman-Fraud has been found guilty on all charges, what is next?  Well, sentencing is scheduled for March 28, but before that he goes on trial again for another long list of crimes.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Oh no.
  
  Anyway...

• In a US first, a plant has started pulling carbon from the air.  (Yahoo)
  
  I kind of thought that was what plants had been doing all along.
  
  No?
  
  
  
• Developers are being targeted by malware on the Python package index.  (Ars Technica)
  
  This is a real thing.  I haven't been bitten yet but I am far more cautious about installing Python packages than I used to be, double-checking exactly what I am asking for every single time.
  
  
  
• Apple's upcoming M3 Ultra could have twice as many GPU cores as the M3 Max, which is not really a surprise because the M3 Ultra is two M3 Max chips glued together.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Okay, it's a slow news day.

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, November 14 2023 01:48 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, November 14 2023 01:48 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: Mauser at Tuesday, November 14 2023 12:36 PM (sZ6tC)

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• The Tuxedo Pulse 14 is a Ryzen 7840HS laptop with a 2880x1800 OLED display.  (Tuxedo Computers)
  
  It has 32GB of RAM - soldered, but at least there's a good amount, room for two M.2 2280 SSDs, four USB ports, HDMI, and two mini-DisplayPort, uh, ports.  It comes installed with Linux by default but you can choose Windows instead, or install it yourelf.
  
  There are 29 keyboard layouts to choose from, including the option of a fully custom layout where you edit the design template and upload it when placing your order.  That's about $85 extra but that doesn't seem unreasonable.
  
  So, can you get the Four Essential Keys?
  
  Lol.  No.
  
  
  
• The Fedora Slimbook 14 is a Core i7 12700H laptop with a 2880x1800 OLED display - these displays are showing up everywhere, which is great because they are terrific displays - Thunderbolt and USB-C ports, two regular USB ports, HDMI, a full-size SD card reader, a headphone jack, and a separate power socket.  (Slimbook)
  
  It supports up to 64GB of DDR4 RAM in two SODIMM slots, and a single M.2 SSD.
  
  There are 14 keyboard layouts available with further options for other layouts, though they don't detail exactly how that works.
  
  So, can you get the Four Essential Keys?
  
  Lol.  No.
  
  But.
  
  The Fedora Slimbook 16 weighs just 1.5kg - barely more than my existing 14" laptop, has Nvidia 3050 Ti graphics, and a three-column numeric keypad with a single-height enter key.
  
  Which means, if they support custom keyboard printing, that you can turn it into a 15-key macro pad with any layout you can dream of.  (Actually 18 as there are three half-height keys above the main keypad.)  Four essential keys and another fourteen.

• AMD could be looking to Samsung's 3nm process for some of the chips coming next year.  (WCCFTech)
  
  This would make sense, from a perspective of not putting all your eggs in one basket hanging directly over a hungry snake, and also from a perspective of not buying all your eggs from one egg shop.
  
  Samsung's 3nm process isn't quite as good as TSMC's, but that's like saying a Ferrari isn't quite as good as a Lamborghini, when the third option is an Edsel.
  
  
  
• Monaspace is a monospace programming font superfamily from GitHub.  (GitHub)
  
  Good monospaced fonts used to be scarce; in the last couple of years there's been a flood of them.  This particular font provides five styles, seven weights, twenty-six widths, and twelve degrees of slant
  
  This has a couple of interesting features, including ten sets of ligatures - where adjacent characters are combined into a more complicated glyph - and what they are calling "texture healing".  If you have the letters imi in that sequence, in a normal monospaced font that looks ugly because the i characters are wide and the m character is squished.  Texture healing keeps everything in the monospaced grid, but lets the m fill the entire width of its cell while each i is moved to to give the m more room.
  
  If your application properly supports TrueType/OpenType fonts, it doesn't need to know anything about this; it uses a trick built into TrueType that us normally used to support variants of Arabic characters - in Arabic, letters can look different depending on where they are located in a word.
  
  You can play with it on the GitHub page and it certainly seems to work.
  
  
  

Posted by: Siergen at Monday, November 13 2023 12:42 AM (WUBpd)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, November 13 2023 02:01 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, November 13 2023 02:01 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, November 13 2023 02:05 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: J Greely at Monday, November 13 2023 02:46 AM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, November 13 2023 04:04 AM (BMUHC)

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• Apple says 8GB of RAM on a Mac is equivalent to 16GB on a real computer.  But how does an 8GB Mac perform objectively on simple tasks?  Poorly.  (WCCFTech)
  
  If you leave your browser open with a bunch of tabs while using Lightroom, expect things to take 2.5x longer.  If you're using Final Cut Pro to edit video, up to 4x longer.
  
  There's absolutely no excuse for the existence of a $1600 laptop with only 8GB of RAM.  16GB of RAM is barely adequate for running any serious desktop task these days.

• Childhood vaccine rates are falling right across the US.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Some of the commenters even understand why.  Many of the childhood vaccines really are safe and effective, and we don't want a return of polio.
  
  But whenever the usual suspects try to blame conservatives, they run head-first into the fact that Mississippi has the highest vaccination rates in the US, and Hawaii one of the lowest.
  
  
  
• Microsoft now wants to give you a quiz when you close OneDrive.  (PC World)
  
  There needs to be a write in option for fuck off and stay there.
  
  
  
• Comments might be down for a few minutes between 2AM and 4AM Eastern tomorrow.  I'm setting up database replication on the server in preparation for some upgrades I'll be making to the blog.

• Apple's new M3 Pro - specifically, the 11 core version - has the fastest single-threaded performance of any CPU. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  By 1%, but a win is a win.
  
  Downside is that on multi-threaded tests it ranks 312th, right behind AMD's ultra-low-power Ryzen Z1 Extreme, used in portable gaming devices like the Asus ROG Ally.
  
  So Apple has some work to do there.

• Speaking of portable gaming devices there's now an OLED version of the Steam Deck. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Unless you live in Australia, in which case there is no Steam Deck at all.
  
  
  
• Micron has introduced 128GB DDR5-8000 server memory using its new 32Gb DRAM. (AnandTech)
  
  Which is really fast for server memory, which normally runs at more pedestrian speeds like 4800MHz, which is merely absurdly fast rather than insanely fast.
  
  To get 128GB on on module you previously had to stack two memory chips two deep (and before that, four deep), which slowed things down. Server CPUs have been adding more memory channels to get the bandwidth they needed with those slow modules, so an overnight 66% increase is going to shake things up a bit.
  
  Well, when I say overnight, these modules will be available next year.
  
  Expect 64GB desktop and laptop modules as well.
  
  And in 2026, says Micron, 96GB desktop and laptop modules, and 192GB server modules.
  
  
  
• The first planned small nuclear reactor in the US has been cancelled due to spiraling costs. (Ars Technica)
  
  How unusual.
  
  
  
• The Illinois state senate has voted 44-7 to approve the construction of small nuclear reactors. (AP News)
  
  How unusual. But seriously this time.
  
  
  
• Tumblr is reportedly on life support, and is not getting much of that. (Ars Technica)
  
  Tumblr these days is owned by Automattic, which also runs Wordpress.com.
  
  The site is best known for the 2018 Verizon Containment Breach, in which its parent company banned porn and millions of lunatics fled to infect ever other website in the world.

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, November 10 2023 11:46 PM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, November 10 2023 11:48 PM (BMUHC)

Posted by: normal at Saturday, November 11 2023 01:21 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Saturday, November 11 2023 01:31 AM (r9O5h)

Posted by: madrocketsci at Saturday, November 11 2023 03:10 AM (hRoyQ)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, November 11 2023 03:56 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, November 11 2023 10:25 AM (PiXy!)

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• The second Starship test build is stacked up, ready for launch as early as next week.  (Ars Technica)
  
  This version should fix the issues that caused ground control to hit the self-destruct button four minutes into the first test flight.  Starship can lift more than a hundred tons into Low Earth Orbit and then land back on the ground - once they get the explosions ironed out - and has been contracted by NASA for future manned Moon missions, so I'm really keen to see this work.
  
  So are the commenters at Ars Technica.  As much as they're hardwired to hate Elon Musk, they are rocketry fanboys and want to see this fly.  The people getting banished from this particular thread are the ones hoping for fireworks.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile the Space Force has tapped SpaceX to launch its space plane.  (Ars Technica)
  
  The X-37B is a robotic mini-Shuttle that has flown seven times so far - actually a pair of shuttles, just called 1 and 2 - often spending multiple years in orbit doing secret space stuff.  It usually launches on the Atlas V, but this time will go aboard the more powerful Falcon Heavy, which could be sending it into a much higher orbit.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile the ESA is run by petty bureaucratic assholes.  (Ars Technica)
  
  All the worst qualities of all the European member states rolled together with no accountability.  What did you expect?

• Apple says that 8GB on an M3 MacBook Pro is equal to 16GB on other systems.  (WCCFTech)
  
  This is not entirely invalid.  Apple is pretty aggressive in tackling memory bloat.  Microsoft just doesn't care.
  
  But if you're running a complicated application, whether that's Adobe Anything, or a JetBrains IDE on a large project, or Chrome, it doesn't matter how much work went into reducing memory usage by the operating system.  If Photoshop wants 20GB of RAM and you don't have that, you're going to have a really miserable time.
  
  
  
• All good things must come to an end: Hollywood actors may have reached a deal to end their strike.  (The Verge)
  
  Well.
  
  
  
• ASRock's Z790 Nova WiFi has six M.2 slots.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Which is the most I've seen on any regular consumer motherboard.  At $299 it's not exactly cheap though.
  
  
  
• Maine just passed a right-to-repair ballot measure for cars.  (404 Media)
  
  Despite some very expensive lobbying and advertising by carmakers, the measure passed 84.3 to 15.7.
  
  That might serve as a signal that there are votes out there for restoring the right to fix the stuff you own.

Posted by: Frank at Thursday, November 09 2023 07:56 PM (0001W)

Posted by: normal at Thursday, November 09 2023 10:12 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: Mauser at Friday, November 10 2023 12:47 PM (sZ6tC)

Posted by: cxt217 at Friday, November 10 2023 01:17 PM (2tHvf)

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• Optus, Australia's second largest telecommunications provider (I think), went down today.  (ABC)
  
  And I thought I was having a rough time when ARP updates for some of the IP addresses I needed to migrate were taking minutes to propagate rather than seconds.
  
  Anyway, around 4AM the entire Optus network ceased to be.  Mobile phones and internet access simply dropped dead right across the country.  Shops had to remember what cash looked like as point-of-sale terminals became useless bricks.  Melbourne's trains stopped working because, well, Melbourne.  Some remote towns with a single communications link via Optus were cut off entirely.
  
  I'm not sure quite how they managed this, because the national internet backbone itself was completely unaffected.  Probably DNS.  It's usually DNS.
  
  
  

Tech News

• It looks like AMD's Zen 4 laptop chips are headed to the the desktop.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This is good news, because while the current generation of AMD desktop chips do have integrated graphics, the laptop models have up to six times more graphics and can actually be used to play games.
  
  
  
• If you have a Chamberlain MyQ smart garage door opener - which can do useful things like automatically close the garage door when you lock your front door at night - now you don't.  (The Verge)
  
  That is, you still have the device, but it is now a Chamberlain MyQ stupid garage door opener.  All "unauthorised" API access has been cut off, which means while it can talk to other home automation devices, it won't.
  
  On the other hand, the Chamberlain mobile app now has ads.  So there's that.
  
  
  
• What do do if your shiny new M3 Mac comes preinstalled with a weird outdated version of MacOS that can't be updated.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Get a refund.
  
  Well, or download the update manually.  That works too.

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, November 08 2023 10:12 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, November 08 2023 10:13 PM (obo9H)

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