• An ROG RGB LED USB SSD.  (AnandTech)
  
  
• The Atari 2600 game Entombed reliably generates solvable mazes - and no-one knows exactly how.  (BBC)
  
  They have the code, of course, and it works, but no-one knows mathematically why it works.
  
  
• Thirdripper will not be backward-compatible unless it is.  (WCCFTech)
  
  In terms of sockets and motherboards, not software.  Of course, since it looks like there will be at least two variants with different numbers of memory channels and PCIe lanes, it could be both compatible and incompatible.
  
  With PCIe 4.0 it would need a new motherboard to take full advantage of the capabilities in any case.
  
  
• A Robert Heinlein cover illustration takes flight.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Or maybe John Varley.
  
  
• Firefox won't use DNS-over-HTTPS by default in the UK.  (Gizmodo)
  
  Because it makes extra work for Big Brother and we can't have that.
  
  It will be available, just not on by default.
  
  
• Speaking of Big Brother, he also wants end-to-end encrypted apps to hand over user messages.  (Bloomberg)
  
  Which is mathematically impossible, but it's not like that argument ever got anywhere with politicians.
  
  
• If you ever wondered why "banana flavour" tastes nothing like bananas, the answer is apparently it does, it just tastes like the Gros Michel, which was destroyed by Panama disease in the 1950s.
  
  The familiar Cavendish variety might be facing a similar fate.  (Nature)
  
  This is because domestic bananas are clones with almost no genetic variation within a given cultivar - the ultimate monoculture.  Fortunately we now have far better tools for twiddling genes to add resistance than we did sixty years ago.
  
  I don't know the truth of the banana flavour story, but Gros Michel can still be found as a special import, so I hope to check some day.
  
  
  

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