Friday, July 16
Daily News Stuff 16 July 2021
Racist Fish Lips Edition
A closer look at the new Steam Deck.
Racist Fish Lips Edition
Top Story
- It's not censorship if it's a private company, say the communists, who have all somehow simultaneously seized upon a new talking point.
Yes, it's Gleen Grennwald, and I haven't forgotten his history. But I have to give him credit for announcing that the emperor's pants are on fire when the emperor's pants are, in fact, on fire.
At this point every country in the world should either be banning American Big Tech, shaking them down for cash, or both. Australia has so far gone for the shakedown route. I'd prefer an outright ban, but at least it's something.
Tech News
- Intel is in talks to buy Global Foundries for $30 billion. (Tom's Hardware)
Global Foundries was formerly AMD's in-house chip manufacturing division, spun off as a separate company in the dark days when AMD was bleeding cash and uncertain to survive at all. They don't have a leading-edge process node - 12nm, not 7 or 5 - but they do have production capacity and there's a shortage at pretty much every process node right now.
- Ukraine shut down an illegal footballer mining operation. (Tom's Hardware)
Eyebrows were raised at the announcement that the authorities there had closed down a crypto mining facility and seized - among other items - 3800 PlayStation 4 consoles.
Turns out that alongside Ethereum they were farming rare unlockable characters in FIFA 21.
- Samsung's Exynos 2200 will have 6 RDNA2 cores. (WCCFTech)
This apparently beats even Apple's A14, which is not a slow chip.
AMD's own upcoming - I think it's called Raphael - next-gen laptop chip will have 12 RDNA2 cores. The Xbox Series X has 52, but runs slightly hotter than a mobile phone.
- Microsoft has shared guidance on its Windows Print Spooler vulnerability. (Bleeping Computer)
No, not that one. Another one.
They just patched a major remote vulnerability. This new one is a local privilege escalation vulnerability.
- A new mathematical proof indiciates that it may be possible to know how many numbers there are. (Quanta)
Cantor's diagonalisation argument is a simple proof that not all infinities are the same size, but doesn't in itself establish what size of infinity the set of real numbers is, just that it's bigger than the - also infinite - set of integers.
Cantor hypothesized that the infinity of real numbers was the immediate next larger infinity than that of integers, but couldn't prove it. The new result indicates that either Cantor was correct, or that it is the next larger infinity after that - where other hypotheses in the intervening century proposed much, much larger infinities.
- The US CPSC has filed a complaint against Amazon for selling dangerous crap. (Ars Technica)
Go after them for the fake microSD cards too, guys.
- The US State Department is offering a $10 million report for information on state-sponsored hackers. (The Record)
Russia. China. Iran. North Korea.
Wait, the article actually lists those countries, in that order. Huh. Someone isn't asleep, it seems.
- If you have a Chevy Bolt, park it outside, next to your Ring doorbell. (CBS News)
So they can keep each other company when they catch fire.
- The Steam Deck is a pretty nice PC for $399. (Hot Hardware)
Quad core Zen 2 CPU with RDNA2 graphics - which means that this really is a custom chip, because currently those are only made for Microsoft and Sony - 16GB of RAM, and up to 512GB of NVMe SSD.
And a 7" 1280x800 display, which kind of sucks. It really needs to be 1920x1200 if you want to do anything with it other than playing games.
Steamy Video of the Day
A closer look at the new Steam Deck.
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Posted by: Pixy Misa at
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1
I like the shakedown route because they deserve to be having money taken away from them.
Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, July 17 2021 04:18 AM (eqaFC)
2
The catch on the Steam Deck is that the $399 model has 64GB eMMC for storage. To get NVMe you have to spend more. And I'm not sure if it's confirmed or not but I've heard the storage won't be user-upgradable, so if you want more storage, you'll need to buy it up front. If true that could well mean it's soldered down.
Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, July 17 2021 04:27 AM (eqaFC)
3
Yeah, the real starting price should be considered $529 for the 256GB NVMe model. 64GB isn't enough for much of anything these days.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, July 17 2021 07:31 AM (PiXy!)
4
The shakedown method has its advantages, but it has the dual disadvantages of justifying bailouts ("Google is too big to fail, so we need to funnel massive subsidies to them!") and empowering bureaucrats ("We accrued $15b in fines which statutorially aren't constrained, so we can use 'em as we like!"). I personally prefer the method of: arrest and hold indefintely without trial the entire board (hey that's totally okay since Jan 6th, dontcha know), give all the employees a five minute running start, and nuke it from space.
Posted by: normal at Saturday, July 17 2021 10:34 AM (obo9H)
5
Also, I'm pretty sure it's well-settled case law that the government can't get a private company to do something that would be unconstitutional (illegal) for the government themselves to do.
Oh, it's unconstitutional (illegal) to search your house without a warrant? Well, we'll just hire some company to do it and bob's your auntie!
Oh, it's unconstitutional (illegal) to search your house without a warrant? Well, we'll just hire some company to do it and bob's your auntie!
Posted by: normal at Saturday, July 17 2021 10:37 AM (obo9H)
6
"The CPSC said its complaint "seeks to force Amazon, as a distributor of the products, to stop selling these products, work with CPSC staff on a recall of the products, and to directly notify consumers who purchased them about the recall and offer them a full refund.""
So Amazon did all of that except "work with CPSC staff on a recall of the products", and that's why they're all shirty.
So Amazon did all of that except "work with CPSC staff on a recall of the products", and that's why they're all shirty.
Posted by: Mauser at Saturday, July 17 2021 12:29 PM (Ix1l6)
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