• SEL has shown off 8K OLED displays at 8.3" and 13.3" for tablets and laptops.  (AnandTech)
  
  Or tablets and bigger tablets.  Or really big phones.
  
  The 13.3" panel even has a 120Hz refresh rate.  Good thing it's not an external display, because that would take four DisplayPort cables.
  
  
• AMD has announced some CPUs that are basically identical to their existing CPUs  (PC Perspective)
  
  The Athlon 220GE and 240GE are respectively 200MHz and 300MHz faster than the 200GE.
  
  
• Apple tells its users to get bent.  (Ars Technica)
  
  If I spent A$2869 on an iPad Pro and it arrived as crooked as a Chicago politician and Apple told me that's the way the iPad do I might be slightly miffed.
  
  
• Discord has raised $150 million in funding.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  It has 200 million users, so that doesn't seem unreasonable.
  
  
• Intel's E-2186G isn't bad.  (Serve the Home)
  
  Its high clock speed lets its six cores compete with AMD's eight core embedded EPYC parts.  I don't understand why AMD doesn't have a socket AM4 server platform though.

• The only thing worse than Facebook is the mainstream news media.  (TechDirt)
  
  Remember when you're reading a story about how bad Facebook is (very) where you are reading it, and the last hundred stories they got completely wrong.
  
  Case in point, this pile of manure.  (Washington Post)
  
  I mean, Facebook does enough stupid shit without having to make it up.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Disclaimer: I am currently working through a document to get an app re-authorised for the Facebook API.  Ugh city.
  
  
• Facebook is planning its own cryptocurrency.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Chances of this going hilariously wrong asymptotically approach unity.
  
  
• Artstation, the site that hosts Professor Bangzheng Du's educational posters and other fine works, has had its app pulled by the Google Play Store over what those morons on Tumblr would describe as "female presenting nipples".  (ArtStation)
  
  Of course, the content is not in the app, the content is browseable via the app, and has Google looked at what's available in Chrome lately?
  
  Censourious Basterds.

Video of the Day

Bonus Patreon is a Complete Shitshow Video of the Day

Posted by: cxt217 at Sunday, December 23 2018 03:10 AM (LMsTt)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, December 23 2018 06:24 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, December 23 2018 06:24 AM (Iwkd4)

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• LG has a new ultra-ultra-wide (32:9) 49" monitor.  (AnandTech)
  
  Still 5120x1440, though.  Waiting for 7680x2160 at least.
  
  
• AMD has been added to the NASDAQ-100 index capping a couple of great years following several years that weren't quite so great.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  
• A fan was producing popular and successful films set in the Warhammer 40k universe, so Games Workshop hired him to do it professionally.  (TechDirt)
  
  What, no lawyers?  What the hell kind of story is this?
  
  Update: Link fixed. The image below was more apropos than I'd intended.
  
  
• ICE seized a million websites for no reason, eventually said oops and gave them back.  (TechDirt)
  
  Nice work, guys.
  
  
  
  
• Someone thought it was a good idea to throw $46 million more into the money pit of Star Citizen which has already swallowed $200 million in crowdfunding.  (WCCFTech)
  
  
• Fastmail responds to the AIIA - the Asinine Internet Insecurity Act.
  
  
• Gluten free in Antartica.
  
  I tripped over this.  I still don't know exactly what it is.
  
  
• IBM has partnered with Samsung to manufacture Power10 and their Z15 mainframe CPUs on 7nm EUV.  (Wikichip)
  
  IBM sold off their own manufacturing to Global Foundries, and while they had done research on 5nm and 3nm nodes, they weren't even close to production so they needed a capable partner.  That meant either TSMC or Samsung.
  
  7nm EUV is a more advanced version of the current 7nm process shipping from TSMC, with better control and more precise circuit features.  EUV stands for x-rays.
  
  
• Ceci n'est pas une backdoor.
  
  It's an oddity of GitHub's URL structure that makes this look like it's part of the Linux source code.
  
  
• Coles home-brand Nasi Goreng (Indonesian fried rice) is cheap and surprisingly good.  Why are there suddenly all these great varieties of shelf-stable microwave rice?  Has there been a recent technological breakthrough?  It has a shelf life of 9 months but once you open it, it needs to be refrigerated and used within 48 hours.

Social Media News

• Journalist shocked to discover that journalists lie.  (Six Colors)
  
  This story only got traction  (New York Times) when the facts became utterly and irrefutably damning.  (Medium)
  
  To anyone who's not either part of the left-wing bubble or dead and buried, it's obvious that the media lies.  All.  The.  Time.  If this story comes as a surprise at all, it's only that it got out.
  
  The Medium piece covers just one of his articles.  Basically, nothing in the story was true.  No-one at Der Spiegel questioned it for a moment; rather, when the facts came out, they attacked the people questioning the lying weasel's veracity.
  
  Eventually the deniers were steamrolled by a rising tide of evidence showing that many of the journalist's stories were completely fabricated.
  
  Here's the sonuvabitch with the idiots who give him a Journalist of the Year award.  (CNN)
  
  
• PewDiePie vs. the Bay Area Mafia.  (Quillette)
  
  Needless to say, I'm with PewDiePie.  Whoever he is.
  
  
  

Picture of the Day

Posted by: Wonderduck at Saturday, December 22 2018 12:27 AM (PzbzM)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, December 22 2018 02:51 AM (Q/JG2)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, December 22 2018 10:02 AM (PiXy!)

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• So...  Micron has a new QLC NVMe drive, eh?  Is it any good?  Actually, yes.  (PC Perspective)
  
  They give it a gold star, which is their second highest rating.  It's not the fastest drive they've tested, but it is fast and performance is consistent, thanks to a large virtual SLC cache.
  
  A few years ago NAND flash was approaching its limits.  Then we got 3D NAND and SLC caches, and we haven't looked back.  These changes simultaneously improved capacity, performance, and reliability, while steadily reducing prices.
  
  
• More details of the Ryzen 3000 mobile performance leaks.  (PC Perspective)
  
  Again, the big AMD news next year will be the 7nm desktop and server parts, but these are by no means bad.  The Ryzen 5 3500U looks set to deliver 90% of the single and multi-threaded CPU performance of a mobile Core i5, and 200% of the graphics performance.
  
  If you want all-day battery life, you're still likely better off with an Intel or Arm chip.  If you want to play PC games without dedicated graphics, though, AMD wins by a mile.
  
  
• The return of the....  Trying to make a Maltese Falcon pun.... Nope.  (Bloomberg)
  
  Is Malta bad news for SaltX?
  
  
• MiSTer is an FPGA-boosted extensible universal emulator widgy.
  
  It can emulate the Acorn Archimedes, Altair 8800, Amiga, Amstrad CPC 6128, Apple II+, Mac Plus, Mattel Aquarius, Atari 800XL, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, 16, Plus/4, PET, and VIC-20, Jupiter Ace, MSX platform, Sharp MZ, Sinclair QL, TI 99/4A, X68000, ZX81, and ZX Spectrum.  And also the Atari 2600 and 5200, ColecoVision, Gameboy, NES and SNES, Sega Genesis and Master System, TurboGrafx 16 and PC Engine.
  
  And 60 dedicated arcade consoles.
  
  You can do that in pure software, but this solution allows for more precise timing.
  
  
• What's inside those fancy new Intel Optane memory modules anyway?  (Serve the Home)
  
  STH finds out by the simple expedient of tearing one apart.
  
  
• In a major win for VPN providers, Australia's courts have ordered the blocking of dozens of subtitle sites I've never heard of.  (ZDNet)
  
  Update: Shit.  Nyaa is on the list.

  Domain names to be blocked are: 2ddl, 8maple.ru, 9anime.is, Addic7ed, Anilinkz, Animefreak, Animeshow, Avxhm, azmaple.com, Bilutv, Bt-scene, Cartooncrazy, Cmovieshd, DailyTVFix, Ddlvalley, Dnvod, dramacity.io, dramahk.me, Fmovies.io, Glodls, Gogoanime, Hdpopcorns, hindilinks4u.to, hkfree.co, icdrama.se, icdramase, ilovehks.com, IPTorrents, Kantv, Kimcartoon, Kissanime, kisscartoon.ac, m4ufree.com, Masterani.me, Myanimeseries, Nyaa, Nzbplanet, Ondarewatch, Openloadmovies, Opensubtitles.org, Otakustream, Phimbathu, Putlocker.ac, Putlockerhd.co, qooxi.net, Rmz, Rutracker.org, Scnsrc, Seasonvar, Seriesfree, Solarmoviez, Soul-anime, streamtvb.com, Subscene, Subsmovies, Torrentday, Torrentfunk, Torrentmovies, Tvbox, Tw116, Two-movies, Ultra-vid, Usabit, VexMovies, viewasian.tv, Vkool, Vmovee, Watchanimeonline.me, Watchcartoononline.com, Watchcartoononline.io, Watchonlinemovies, Watchseries-online, woaikanxi.cc, Yify-movies, Yifysubtitles, Ymovies.tv, Zimuzu, and Zooqle.

  
  
• Namecheap offers a VPN for $5.88 per month.  $2.88 if you pay 24 months in advance.  
  
  An untrustworthy VPN provider could be worse than no VPN.  Namecheap is legit; I've used them for domains and SSL certificates for some time.

• Did Facebook share all your private data with its tech industry buddies?  (TechDirt)
  
  Maybe not.  (Ars Technica)
  
  That is, it appears Facebook allowed expanded access to certain third parties if the user agreed to it.  Of course, everyone just clicks the OKAY YES DO WHATEVER THE HELL YOU LIKE JUST GIVE ME MY CAT VIDEOS button.  But is that Facebook's fault?  Yes.
  
  The reporting referenced by TechDirt comes via the New York Times, which is to accurate computer industry news and analysis what a herd of diarrheic water buffaloes is to ice cream.
  
  
• A Russian game developer says yes they issued dozens of false DMCA notices, what are you going to do about it?  (Tech Dirt)
  
  I've been on the receiving end of something similar.  Not fun.
  
  
• I'll quote this one unchanged as it's Peak 2018.
  
  TikTok parent ByteDance sues Chinese news site that exposed fake news problem
  
  The Chinese news site Huxiu translated an opinion article from Indian news site Technode that discussed TikTok's Indian language app, Helo, and the problem with false rumours circulating on the network.  (Which is hardly unique to, um, whichever app or network we were talking about.  I've lost track.)
  
  India, you think you've got problems?  You should see the American mainstream press.
  
  

Posted by: muon at Thursday, December 20 2018 09:01 PM (vMYTH)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, December 21 2018 01:35 AM (Q/JG2)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, December 21 2018 10:05 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Mauser at Friday, December 21 2018 12:56 PM (Ix1l6)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, December 21 2018 04:09 PM (PiXy!)

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• How much would you expect to pay for 5G?  (AnandTech)
  
  Spoiler: $500 up front and $70 a month for 15GB of data, which would last about two minutes at full speed.
  
  
• Lenovo's Thinkpad A285 is a compact business desktop with a Ryzen Pro APU.  (AnandTech)
  
  They tested the model with the 1080p IPS display.  There's also a do not want 1366x768 TN option.
  
  They note that the idle power draw of the Ryzen APU is significantly higher than comparable Intel parts, which reduces battery life.  Six hours of web browsing or four hours playing movies, so keep the charger handy.
  
  
• Python has adopted a new governance model: A five-person elected council whose members can be removed by a two-thirds vote of the core development team.  (LWN)
  
  This was the straightforward Condorcet winner among eight proposed structures.
  
  You were expecting something worse, weren't you?
  
  
• VirtualBox 6.0 is out.  (Phoronix)
  
  I said something snarky a while back about how long it would take Oracle to fix a security issue.  I was wrong.  I use VirtualBox to run Linux on my Windows systems, so it's great to see development proceeding apace.

• YouTube spent $100,000,000 on their ContentID system and it's a disaster.  (Tech Dirt)
  
  This is the barrier to entry the EU wants to establish: It will cost 9 figures to enter the market, it won't work, and then they'll fine you 10 figures for trying.
  
  
• Speaking of expensive failures in content filtering, Tumblr's new FigLeaf system blocks its own examples of permitted content.  (Gizmodo)
  
  To be fair, it's right, that second picture is horrifying.
  

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, December 20 2018 02:30 AM (Q/JG2)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, December 20 2018 02:35 AM (Q/JG2)

Posted by: Mauser at Thursday, December 20 2018 01:03 PM (Ix1l6)

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Thursday, December 20 2018 09:31 PM (v29Tn)

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• The HBM spec has been updated to support 2.4Gbps and 24GB stacks.  (PC Perspective)
  
  HBM - high bandwidth memory - is only moderately fast but very, very wide.  Where a desktop or laptop memory chip might run at 3.2GHz and be 16 bits wide, and a graphics memory chip might run at 8GHz and be 32 bits wide, HBM runs at 2GHz but is 1024 bits wide.
  
  The new standard bumps the speed up by 20%, and also allows for 16Gb dies (from the current 8Gb) and up to 12 dies in a package, making for 24GB in a stack.  AMD's Vega graphics cards currently use two 4GB stacks for 8GB of RAM, so this would allow for quite a significant increase there.
  
  
• Finland is building a 200,000 core supercomputer based on AMD's new Rome parts.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Actually, it's just for heating; the CPU power is a bonus.

• Why nobody cares about the Nate Silver / Nassim Taleb Twitter war and you shouldn't either.  (Towards Data Science)
  
  What if we held a Twitter war and no-one came?
  
  
• Patreon has apparently decided that it is their assigned task to police speech - any speech, anywhere - that may offend neo-Nazis.
  
  Many people have applauded Patreon for their stance on this issue.  Those people are idiots.
  
  
• I clicked like on a Tweet about that news story banned in Australia which I can't talk about so forget I mentioned it and Twitter told me the tweet had been deleted.  So they got to you too, Twitter?
  
  Turns out, no.  It was just a glitch.  True enough, Twitter is run by far-left censorious hacks, but it's also buggy as hell.

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, December 19 2018 12:26 AM (Q/JG2)

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• Every country's government has its own flavour of idiocy. South Korea has made paying someone to help you increase your rank in video games a criminal offence. (Tech Dirt)
  
  
• The Qualcomm vs. Apple mess is... Well, it's a mess. (Fudzilla)
  
  One of those situations where you wish for a way that both sides could lose.
  
  
• Huawei's Nova 4 has an eyehole rather than a notch. (WCCFTech)
  
  Just the one. Probably a pirate.
  
  
• Pampy is pattern matching for Python.
  
  Nothing to do with regular expressions, though it can use regular expressions. This can answer questions like, if we have sequence 1, 2, 3, and a second sequence 1, 2, x, what is x?
  
  Okay, that seems simple and obvious, but the point is, you don't need to tell the computer what you mean or how to do it. You just say, here are two sequences of, well, anything - numbers, words, dates, other sequences - find the missing term.
  
  
• Pampy.js is pattern matching for Python for JavaScript.
  
  It's 258 lines of code with no dependencies. In the JavaScript world that deserves the Nobel Prizes for both Literature and Peace.
  
  
• A roundup of details of Intel's next platform, Sunny Cove. (The Next Platform)
  
  These new chips increase the size of physically addressable RAM to 128PB. It's 64TB on current chips, and that's actually getting to be a problem.
  
  Of more interest to most people is the new GPU architecture, which will increase the total number of EUs (European Unions) from 48 to 64 (actually 72, but it looks like only 64 will be enabled).
  
  Most current Intel chips only have 24 EUs (or even just 12); only the Iris Plus and Iris Pro parts have 48, and they only come in a limited range of configurations. The 2017 Spectre X2 I have, for example, has dual core i7 with Iris Plus, while the 2018 Elite X2 has a quad core i7 with regular UHD graphics - 24 EUs.
  
  It's expected that the higher EU count parts will be more common in the next generation, though possibly without the L4 cache found in Iris Plus (64MB) and Pro (128MB).
  
  
• Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen of Axios are morons.

Social Media News

1 8GB of RAM, and, like my Mi, it'll probably aggressively kill apps 30 seconds after they get backgrounded, completely obviating the point of so much RAM (which, under Linux, would normally go to program buffers, i.e., keeping lots of programs suspended in the background.  Great job, guys!)  (Camera hole?  That's only slightly less stupid than a notch.  Just stop until you figure out how to put the camera behind the screen, and ignore twits like Ron Amadeo, the No-Bezel Emperor.
Can that JS library pattern match "anaconda, ball python, cobra, x"?
"These new chips increase the size of physically addressable RAM to 128PB."  New socket LGA-2020, coming in 2020, to handle the extra address lines!

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, December 18 2018 02:33 AM (Q/JG2)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, December 18 2018 02:49 AM (Q/JG2)

Posted by: Mauser at Tuesday, December 18 2018 11:51 AM (Ix1l6)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, December 18 2018 04:11 PM (PiXy!)

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• LG's 32QK500-W delivers 2560x1440 at 75Hz with Freesync for $300.  (AnandTech)
  
  Personally I prefer 4K for productivity and dropping back to 1080p for games, but if you want a big, high resolution display that doesn't need a 2080 Ti to run at decent frame rates, this looks like a solid choice.
  
  IPS, two DisplayPort and two HDMI.
  
  
• Gigabyte's Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce Deathstalkr Pro X 2 motherboard has everything.  (PC Perspective)
  
  WiFi 5 (802.11ac), 1GbE and 10GbE, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, four USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, two USB 3.1 gen 1 ports, HDMI, 7.1 sound, three PCIe 3.0 x 16 slots, three M.2 slots, and a bundled water cooling block.
  
  Problem is, all of that (except the water cooling) is driven by a standard socket 1151 Intel CPU with just 16 PCIe lanes.  It needs about four times that many to enable all those features at once.
  
  
• Remember that Intel demo of a 5GHz 28 core CPU?  The one with a massive 1HP external water chiller?  Well, now you can buy it!  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Sort of. The part being offered is 28 cores on an LGA 3547 socket, the same as the demo, but it tops out at "only" 4.3GHz.  255W TDP. 
  
  Price TBA, but possibly around $4000, which would make it twice the price of AMD's 32 core 2990WX.
  
  Oh, and even if you have a current year high-end Intel desktop motherboard, you'll need to replace it, because this uses a different socket.
  
  
• Those Bitcoin scammers aren't threatening to blow people up any more.  Now they're just going to throw acid at you.  (ZDNet)
  
  A huge improvement, we can all agree.  Apparently their bomb threats raised $1 and the interest of the FBI.
  
  
• That tea has been in Boston Harbor for 245 years now.  I think it might be ready.  We just need eleven billion gallons of milk and a sugar cube the size of Devils Tower.
  
  Sip.  Blerrrgh.
  
  
• Asking the important questions: What exactly is the evolutionary status of bon-kyu-bon?  (Psychology Today)

• Twitter was feeling left out so they gave everyone in the world access to your DMs.  (Bleeping Computer)
  

• Censored. (The Herald Sun)
  
  Censored-censored.  Censored?  Censored:

  {"message":"Unsupported content type \"undefined\"","code":"400","raw":"{\"message\":\"Content is deleted, expired or legal killed\",\"code\":410}"}

  Censored censored geofenced.  (The Daily Beast)
  
  
• What all that was about.  (Tech Dirt)
  
  
• Discord's game service only takes 10% of the gross, not the more common 30%.  (WCCFTech)
  
  I don't particularly need or want more game distribution services - I already have Steam and GOG and Humble Bundle and Battle.Net and fucking Origin - but if Steam keeps randomly banning slightly risqué visual novels we may need them.  (One Angry Gamer)
  
  
• There's a report of a remote execution vulnerability in SQLite.  (Tencent)
  
  SQLite is installed on approximately three and a half billion devices.  If you have a phone, it has SQLite installed.  If you have a smart home device, you have SQLite.  If you run Chrome or any of the Chromium-based browsers, SQLite.
  
  
  • Every Android device
  • Every iPhone and iOS device
  • Every Mac
  • Every Windows 10 machine
  • Every Firefox, Chrome, and Safari web browser
  • Every instance of Skype
  • Every instance of iTunes
  • Every Dropbox client
  • Every TurboTax and QuickBooks
  • PHP and Python
  • Most television sets and set-top cable boxes
  • Most automotive multimedia systems
  
  Browsers are actually the worry here, because web sites can access SQLite via JavaScript, where on most devices it's embedded and not directly accessible.  Update your browsers.
  
  Firefox and the current edition of Edge are relatively safe since they don't support direct access to the database from remote JavaScript (ZDNet) but Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, and Brave are affected.  Safari not confirmed.
  
  The bug has already been fixed, which just leaves us with three and a half billion devices to update.
  
  Google Home devices are also confirmed to be affected.
  
  According to this test page the latest version of Chrome (71) is fixed and Safari is not vulnerable.
  
  
• Ugh.
  
  
• Not that it matters if your password is 123456.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  
• Anyway.
  
  
• Samsung's 2019 (is it 2019 already?) Notebook 9 Pen 13 Arsenal Nil looks nice.  (Anand Tech)
  
  
  
  1.12kg for a 13" notebook is kind of chunky next to LG's 1.3kg 17" laptop - and heavier than my 2014 LG UltraPC - but it does have a 40% larger battery than last y...  This year's model.  And a stylus.  And Thunderbolt 3.
  
  Only a 1080p display.  That's not really a problem on a 13" notebook - it's the same pixel size as the LG Gram 17's 2560x1600 screen - but I do love the 3000x2000 resolution of the HP Spectre X2.
  
  
• Intel's Optane memory modules - as opposed to regular Optane SSDs - have an access time of 350ns.  (Extreme3d)
  
  This is where those hyperbolic numbers from the early press releases were coming from.  Intel hasn't been able to deliver that performance through a conventional SSD controller, but with this they could have a game changer for a segment of the server market.  Optane is more expensive than NAND flash, but it's a lot cheaper than RAM - and these modules are closer in speed to RAM than to flash.
  
  
• I told you butter wouldn't suit the works: Phoronix compares ZFS, BTRFS, and EXT4 with 20 SSDs.
  
  I've already committed to ZFS for the new servers, so I was concerned when I saw that first chart, then I realised it was labelled seconds, less is better.
  
  It's a mixed bag overall, with different configurations proving better for different workloads.  For example, EXT4 RAID0 is great for PostgreSQL if you don't care about your data.
  
  
• Doctors without Borders says it is becoming increasingly difficult to assist and promote human trafficking, and we are upset about this.  (Axios)
  
  Possibly not really a tech article.  Should take Axios out of my roundup; it's full of dumb.
  
  
• Huawei is getting well-and-truly Miloed.  (Axios)
  
  It is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
  
  <looks at Huawei tablet>
  
  Sigh.  Most of the concern is around 4G/5G network equipment, though, not handsets and tablets.
  
  
• A roundup of AMD's Navi graphics card rumours.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Plausible, given the publicly reported performance of TSMC 7nm, but just rumours at this point.
  
  
• Samsung's enterprise SSDs get poked and prodded properly.  (PC Perspective)
  
  All the devices show great I/O latencies, from 30µs for the SATA drives down to 16µs for the Z-NAND PCIe devices.  That's 60,000 IOPS even single-threaded.
  
  
  

Social Media News

• If you don't want important content censored post it to Facebook and mark it as private.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  
• Signal to Australia: Rule 5: NO BACKDOORS.
  
  
• Apple is the Google messaging appatoir of social networks.  (9To5Mac)

  We’ve made a few changes to Apple Music that we’d like to tell you about.

  We’re always looking for ways to enhance our focus on artists and help them better connect to fans. So we’ve given Artist Pages an all-new design and added new, personalized Artist Radio.

  Today we’re streamlining music discovery by removing Connect posts from Artist Pages and For You.

  To streamline your use of your 2019 Ford, we have created an all-new design and removed the following infrequently-used features: Wheels, doors, engine.
  

• The time has come, the Arkansas politician said, to regulate social media.  (Tech Dirt)
  
  I....  Maybe?

• I say maybe because, after Patreon banned a user for using a rude word to describe Neo-Nazis, many people jumped ship from Patreon to join competitor SubscribeStar, and PayPal immediately stopped supporting pay outs from SubscribeStar.  (Video)
  
  Regulation is one option.  Dusting off and nuking the site from orbit is another.

• Amid all the chaos and misery, some joy and hope: YouTube's Rewind 2018 is the most hated video of all time with 12 million downvotes and 1.7 million comments, most of them scathing.  (One Angry Gamer)
  
  On the other hand, good work on the comment system, YouTube engineers.
  
  

Video of the Day

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, December 15 2018 04:52 PM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, December 15 2018 05:00 PM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, December 15 2018 05:05 PM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: cxt217 at Sunday, December 16 2018 04:45 AM (LMsTt)

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• If you edit video, you can do a lot worse than picking up the Humble Vegas Pro Even More Creative Freedom Bundle
  
  Terrible name, but for $1 you get Fastcut Plus (entry level), and for $25 you also get Sound Forge Audio Studio 12, Vegas Movie Studio 15 (both current versions of their mid-range tools), and Vegas Pro 15 Edit and Vegas DVD Architect, the previous versions of their high-end tools, normally priced at...  Well, right now you can get Vegas Pro 16 for $299.  Which is more than $25.
  
  Not included in the bundle is Acid, which is my favourite of the Sonic Foundry/Sony Creative Software/Magix range.
  
  Also, if you're quick, they're giving away Lego The Hobbit free right now.
  
  
• If you need site monitoring with SMS alerts, like, for example, you run a blog platform that has a memory leak that pops up from time to time, StatusCake is offering 25% off paid plans right now.  They also have a pretty good free plan if you don't need SMS alerts, but that's not 25% off.
  
  
• Gigabyte's R161 is a liquid-cooled overclocked server based on Intel's high-end desktop CPUs.  (AnandTech)
  
  Two questions: First, why?  And second, at least it's not called the R101.  Yes, I realise that's not a question.
  
  
• This 65" monitor is 10" larger than existing 55" monitors.  (AnandTech)
  
  
• ADATA announced the XPG Gammix S11 Pro SM2262EN.  (AnandTech)
  
  A cat?  Maybe a dog?
  
  
• AMD's new video drivers deliver up to 39% better performance in Battlefield V.  (PC Perspective)
  
  If the frame rate improves 39% in a game that nobody plays, does it make a sound?
  
  
• The first Ryzen 3000 family benchmarks have leaked.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Except that these aren't the big new 7nm desktop Ryzen 3000 parts, these are the 12nm Ryzen laptop refresh parts.  (There were no first-generation laptop parts, so the numbers are a bit screwy.)
  
  
• Etsy's internal documentation is carved in stone.  (Code As Craft)
  
  Tiny, adorable, organic stone, lovingly individualised just for you and smelling faintly of lavender.
  
  
• The latest Bitcoin email scam comes packaged with its own little bomb threat.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  I suspect the FBI will be taking this one a bit more seriously than the average "we hacked your laptop camera" spam.

• So the twatwaffle-in-chief responsible for Europe's abominable new copyright laws has said ha ha fuck you and removed the critical amendment that got the legislation through the EU Parliament.  (Tech Dirt)
  
  Between America's FOSTA/SESTA, the European Articles of Intellectual Serfdom, and Australia's Asinine Internet Insecurity Act, it's really been a race to the bottom lately.
  
  
• Tumblr is back in the app store having shed 95% of its users and 130% of its content.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  
• Journalists hired as face checkers by Factbook are upset that they aren't being allowed to peddle their usual lazy, disingenuous lies.  (The Grauniad)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, December 15 2018 01:38 AM (Q/JG2)

Posted by: J Greely at Saturday, December 15 2018 02:26 AM (tgyIO)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, December 15 2018 02:57 AM (Q/JG2)

Posted by: J Greely at Saturday, December 15 2018 06:23 PM (tgyIO)

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