Wednesday, November 05

Geek

Daily News Stuff 5 November 2025

Any Teacup In A Storm Edition

Top Story

  • DC-based tech startup Besxar has signed a deal with SpaceX for 12 launches of experimental chip fabrication hardware.  (Tom's Hardware)

    The idea being that on the ground, maintaining a hard vacuum is difficult and expensive but essential for chip production.  In space, though, you can just open a window.

    The tricky part - and a key point in these experiments - is seeing if wafers can be launched into orbit and returned intact.


  • You know what else has been launched into orbit?  Memory prices.  (Tom's Hardware)

    It's a good thing I bought my 128GB of DDR5 RAM when I did, because the price of those high-density high-speed modules has doubled.

    The price of low-density and low-speed modules has also doubled.

    The price of older DDR4 modules has - you guessed it - doubled.

    Or in some cases, more.

    Thanks, AI.


Tech News

  • Without access to Nvidia's high-end AI chips, China has resorted to making their own.  Only problem is they are far less power-efficient.  (WCCFTech)

    The Chinese government is subsidising power bills for AI companies by 50% to try to make up that gap.


  • It's not all bad news for Nintendo on the patent front.  Sometimes its worse news.  (WCCFTech)

    Their patent on capturing monsters and putting them in your pocket was recently rejected by the Japanese patent office for being unoriginal.

    Now the company's US patent on summoning monsters from your pocket and making them fight is being re-examined by the USPTO and could end up being revoked.


  • Three security experts working at Sygnia Consulting and DigitalMint had a profitable little side-hustle: Hacking and extorting their employers' customers.  (MSN)

    They are now facing federal prison.


  • Meet the real screen addicts: the elderly.  (The Economist)
    Hundreds of teenagers, sometimes strong-armed by their parents, have trooped through the doors of Britain’s National Centre for Gaming Disorders since it opened in 2019.  Yet lately the publicly funded clinic has admitted a steady trickle of rather different patients.  Its specialists in video-game addiction have so far treated 67 people over the age of 40.
    Die in a fire.


  • The Python Software Foundation is going broke.  (Lunduke)

    The PSF is facing a funding shortfall of $1.5 million.

    The PSF recently cancelled its own grant request for $1.5 million from the National Science Foundation because the funds would have come with a requirement that it abandon DEI.

    The PSF can also die in a fire.  Python will survive.


Musical Interlude


This is apparently another recovered Scopitone reel.  The original Scopitone machines are museum pieces now, but they used regular 16mm film and most of the original library has been recovered and converted to digital form.



Disclaimer: Including the live performance of Golden Brown by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, which fell through a wormhole from an alternate dimension.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:29 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 474 words, total size 5 kb.

1 The Register had an article about the Python funding thing, and both it and the commenters were like "ugh, Trump, who wants his money!1"
Well, good.  Go broke with your racism.

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, November 06 2025 12:45 AM (iUcB9)

2 It isn't Trump's money, it is taxpayer money, and the tax payers may also be pretty sick of all the woke academic race war insanity. That said, I'm perhaps a bad source, because I am generally salty, including at UK government and EU.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Thursday, November 06 2025 04:21 AM (rcPLc)

3 I agree...but the commenters (and author) at El Reg think it's Trump's money, and they don't want it if they can't hire unqualified people in preference to qualified ones.

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, November 06 2025 09:45 AM (1zWbY)

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Apple pies are delicious. But never mind apple pies. What colour is a green orange?




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