• My internet is back.
  
  Which is good because both my wireless backup connections crapped out this morning.
  
  
  
• Speaking of which Australia's NBN is spending $750 million to upgrade fixed wireless connections.  (ZDNet)

  As part of the upgrade, all users will be able to get up to 100Mbps speeds with 85% of the network capable of 250Mbps, have busy hours at minimum speeds of 50Mbps, 120,000 homes will shift from satellite to fixed wireless coverage, and those left on satellite will see off-peak quota-free window expanded from midnight to 4pm each day by mid-year.

  I've rejected some very nice houses over the past couple of weeks because they were on fixed wireless rather than fiber, but if this upgrade is going to be completed in the next couple of years then that's not going to change one bit because I don't believe anything they say.
  
  I've seen ping times as high as 120 seconds.

• Innovative experiments looking for dark matter have discovered absolutely nothing.  (Quanta)
  
  We know that there's something going on, because galaxies (including our own) don't move the way they should based on what we can see.  But the stuff we can't see is really good at hiding.
  
  
  
• Apple's new monitor has an A13 CPU and 64GB of flash storage.  (9to5Mac)
  
  It's basically an oversized iPhone 11.
  
  
  
• Why you should buy an iPad Air 5 and not an iPad Pro.  (WCCFTech(
  
  
  
• Why you should buy an iPad Pro and not an iPad Air 5.  (9to5Mac)
  
  Many years ago I bought the original Nexus 7.  It wasn't really a great tablet, but I didn't have a tablet, and there's a big difference between no tablet and tablet.
  
  I loved it.
  
  Convinced that tablets were great, I spent a lot more money on the brand new Retina iPad.
  
  Hated it.  It turned out to be a very expensive paperweight.  It worked fine, it just didn't work the way I wanted it to.  I tried again with an iMac which at least I still use because it just keeps working, but I'm really not interested in Apple products anymore.

Posted by: Karl at Tuesday, March 22 2022 08:04 PM (S0kTz)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, March 22 2022 11:22 PM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, March 22 2022 11:45 PM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, March 23 2022 02:21 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, March 23 2022 09:18 AM (r9O5h)

Posted by: Mauser at Wednesday, March 23 2022 05:17 PM (gVjvf)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, March 23 2022 10:31 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Thursday, March 24 2022 03:26 AM (r9O5h)

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• Now that the floodwaters have receded there's a technician coming out to repair my internet.  Again.
  
  
  
• Studies show that sleeping with the light on will probably kill you.  (Northwestern)
  
  On the other hand studies show if you sleep with the light off, the monster under the bed will bite off your hands and feet if they hang over the edge of the bed.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Western Digital's new Green SN350 SSD is a DRAMless QLC budget model.  Don't buy it.  (Serve the Home)
  
  There are two reasonable ways to make SSDs cheaper: Use slower but denser QLC flash, or leave out the DRAM buffer and rely on the host computer and pseudo-SLC flash to handle that.  Either option is reasonable for the average consumer workload.
  
  If you do both, though, the results are going to suck.  At $86 for the 1TB model you are only saving $12 over the much better SN570 and it's just not worth it.
  
  
  
• Everything we know about the upcoming 27" iMac refresh.  (9to5Mac)
  
  Wait, didn't you just say there is no upcoming 27" iMac refresh?
  
  Why yes.  Yes you did.
  
  
  
• Shenzhen is leaving lockdown.  (The Register)
  
  Or half of it anyway.  Or half of half of it.  Five of the ten districts in the city are reopening at 50% capacity.
  
  
  
• Go gets generics.  (Go.dev)
  
  After fifteen years of telling you you don't need generics.
  
  
  
• The Radeon RX 6500 XT is selling below MSRP in Germany.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Not clear if this is a sign of better things to come or just because the RX 6500 XT kind of sucks. 
  
  
  
• The Elegoo Jupiter Resin Printer is a large volume high-resolution printer that doesn't exist yet.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  And may irradiate you.
  
  You can preorder now for $1300.

Posted by: Jay at Monday, March 21 2022 10:07 PM (mrlXS)

Posted by: Mauser at Tuesday, March 22 2022 09:11 AM (gVjvf)

Posted by: QNE Software Philippines at Tuesday, November 29 2022 08:37 PM (Ohjqn)

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• Now that the Mac Studio is actually selling to customers we don't need to rely on Apple's own benchmark results anymore and it's not all that pretty for Apple. (WCCFTech)
  
  On the CPU side it does very well on Geekbench if you spend a lot of time running Geekbench. On Cinebench R23 the very expensive M1 Ultra comes in behind Intel's 12900K and AMD's 5950X. Intel's latest mobile chip, the 12900HK, is faster than the M1 Max.
  
  On OpenCL benchmarks the M1 Ultra is technically something that can run OpenCL. it comes in somewhere after AMD's 5700 XT and the Max-Q (low-power) version of the RTX 2070 Super mobile.
  
  And if you want to play a less graphics-intensive game like Civilization 6, the M1 Ultra is slower at 1440p than a ThinkPad P1 Gen 4 is at 4k. (Tom's Guide)
  
  Markedly slower. In fact, it may be slower on that than my own laptop, which only has an RTX 3060.

• From Brickmuppet:

  I've often heard it said that "All the chips not made in China are made in Taiwan", but how true is that?

  Taiwan's TSMC is the world's largest chip manufacturer, but there are major factories operated by various companies in Japan, South Korea, Germany, and the United States. In fact, China produces 0% of leading-edge chips - their latest production lines are at 14nm where TSMC and Samsung are already at 4nm.

  Can anyone recommend a good pre-built gaming/streaming PC?

  I'd suggest checking out Gamers' Nexus series of reviews on YouTube. At least they weed out the worst pre-builts. Some of them aren't terrible.

  However, the tech sector logistics problems seem to be continuing and have multiple second order effects. Does anyone see any light at the end of the tunnel this year regards things like appliances and cars?

  I don't expect things to return to normal until 2024. Some particular areas are improving - DDR5 RAM, for example, and Nvidia graphics cards - but overall everything is still in short supply and all the factories are running 24/7.
  
  Which means that some parts of the economy are working, and if you're in one of those parts you're doing great (so long as you don't need to work 100 hours a week yourself).
  
  
  
• From sock_rat_eez:

  What are your thoughts on the whole search - engine thing ?
  
  Do you have a preference ? Which one do you use ?

  I use DuckDuckGo, and it's mostly okay. Learning how to use the custom search extensions helps (enter ! and one or more letters at the end of your search query and it will use a different search index - and there are thousands supported).
  
  
  
• From Legion of Boom:

  I am looking for a 12 to 16 port 2.5 GB ethernet switch for a central residential. PoE not needed, but would be useful.

  The most cost-effective option I know of would be to use two TP-Link SG-108 8-port 2.5GbE switches. But it might be worth looking at the Ubiquiti - they have a 26-port model (12 x 2.5GbE, 12 x 1GbE, 2 x 10Gb SFP+) with 400W of PoE and Layer 3 management that's about twice as much as the two cheap unmanaged TP-Links.
  
  I'll take a closer look at that one for my new house.
  
  
  
• From flounder, wrecker, hoarder, saboteur:

  Modern (mostly for newer OS releases) Android smartphone with decent size screen and decent enough memory size and CPU speed, SD card, and headphone jack.
  
  Can be a few years old. Does such exist?

  I recently got the Samsung A52S which ticks all those boxes. The just-announced A53 model removes the headphone jack, because of course it does.
  
  
  
• From Honkeysuckapigheadedjiveturkeyfool:

  I have a 1050 Ti. Is there a newish significant upgrade for $200-$250ish USD?

  Maybe the RTX 3050? I tried to check US pricing on Newegg but the site is not talking to me right now - more the fault of my internet than Newegg, I think.
  
  Update: Nope, not even close. You might find a GTX 1650 in that price range if you are lucky.
  
  
  
• From Ex-CopyEditor:

  I have a TP-Link AC1900 router at home, purchased in 2016. No firmware updates released since mid-2016. It works fine and I have no WiFi 6 devices yet. Upgrade or not? New router or reasonable hardware firewall, if such a thing exists? And does any soho company actually patch firmware after the device is sold?

  I have a TP-Link AC1600 provided by my ISP. Wasn't using it except to provide the basic wired internet connect until my own Asus router caught fire. I've replaced it with a Netgear model, though when I say replaced I mean the new one is currently sitting in a box.
  
  As to the hardware firewall - one popped up in the roundup today.
  
  
  

• Good news: It's a convenient and fairly powerful four-port 2.5GbE hardware firewall running pfSense at a not too crazy price. (Serve the Home)
  
  Bad news: It's a guessing game as to who actually makes it. Some small company in China.
  
  
  
• Why America can't build quickly anymore. (Full Stack Economics)
  
  In 2080, the average - the average environmental impact study takes longer to complete than the original 1904 28-stop New York Subway.
  
  
  
• The RTX 3090 Ti will be 10% faster than the current 3090 for just 50% more money. (WCCFTech)
  
  Sure, sounds great.
  
  Probably not the best time to buy massively expensive graphics cards with both Nvidia and AMD promising next-generation hardware this year.
  
  
  
• Belarusian rail workers allegedly cut off rail links to Ukraine. (Deutsche Welle / MSN)
  
  Which is an interesting article because it tells you absolutely nothing about what actually happened. There's no rail traffic between Belarus and Ukraine, but that was already true because the Ukrainians aren't idiots and cut the lines on their side of the border.
  
  
  
• Dark matter and cosmic inflation could be explained by an evil twin universe running backwards in time. (Live Science)
  
  This explanation also works for CNN and Twitter.
  
  
  

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, March 21 2022 02:49 AM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: normal at Monday, March 21 2022 07:19 AM (obo9H)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, March 21 2022 09:54 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: J Greely at Tuesday, March 22 2022 02:15 AM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, March 22 2022 05:05 AM (PiXy!)

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• Weekends are Question and Answer time.  Skip your questions gaily across the comment section like a stone across a pond full of frogs, and I'll serve up what answers I can tomorrow.
  
  
  
• When are we likely to see graphics cards at anything approaching reasonable prices again?  (WCCFTech)
  
  Well, here in Australia, the answer seems to be today:
  
  
  
  
  I've confirmed this with a couple of retailers here; prices are down close to 40% since last week.  If I wasn't in the middle of buying a house I'd be buying a new desktop.  (Despite the fact that I already have two laptops with RTX 3060 graphics.)
  
  AMD prices have not adjusted nearly as much, so instead of the 6700 XT competing against the RTX 3060, it's now facing the RTX 3070 Ti.  Which is not a good matchup for Team Red.
  
  Pricing on the top-of-the-line RTX 3090 has also barely moved, still marked up by about 100% over MSRP.  But from the RTX 3060 up to and including the RTX 3080 there's been a seismic shift.  (Which also leaves the recently re-introduced RTX 2060 more expensive than the much better 3060.)

• How Zillow lost $881 million investing in real estate.  (Full Stack Economics)
  
  They fucked up.  They trusted Zillow.
  
  
  
• More on the latest Node.js / NPM debacle.  (Krebs on Security)
  
  Node.js programmers are mostly young and stupid.  Being young is a problem that cures itself, one way or another.  I'm not sure what the direction of causality is on Node.js programmers and stupidity, but the significance of the correlation is undeniable.
  
  Even if Node.js hadn't thrown away sixty years of computer science because someone wanted to scale up a chat server - which is precisely what it did, even if NPM wasn't the worst package manager in human history - which it is, the very idea that we should write server software the same way we write client software is fundamentally retarded, and has led to an avalanche of retarded code written by retarded programmers.
  
  This wasn't a case of somebody doing something that was obviously stupid and dangerous to anyone with more than a casual understanding of software development methodology, this was deliberate malice amplified by years of people doing things that were obviously stupid and dangerous.
  
  Stop it.
  
  
  
• The Vue.js CLI was directly affected by this nonsense.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Because they didn't pin the versions of their dependencies despite a long list of Node ecosystem catastrophes.
  
  Fortunately you can use Vue.js perfectly well without the CLI tools, without venturing into Node.js at all, and that is how I would recommend you use it.
  
  
  
• A look at the passively-cooled 48GB Nvidia A40 server GPU.  (Serve the Home)
  
  This one has not come down by 40% overnight; it's still selling for A$9499 if you can find one at all.
  
  
  
• The OSI secured a win for open source software in the Ninth Circuit case of Neo4j vs ONgDB.  (The Register)
  
  
  
• No it fucking didn't.  (/dev/lawyer)
  
  Having read both articles the lawyer seems to be correct.
  
  
  
• Brazil has banned Telegram for - basically - completely ignoring Brazilian court rulings.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Which seems reasonable on both sides.
  
  
  
• Chinese state hackers are now targeting Ukraine.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  And Europe.  And, uh, basically everyone else.  So this might be aid to Russia, or it might just be the ongoing low-level warfare we've come to expect from them.
  
  
  
• Tech company executives could face jail time under the new UK Online Safety Bill.  (ZDNet)
  
  Good.
  
  
  
• A proposed Minnesota law bans the use of recommendation algorithms by social networks for users under 18.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Mike Masnick of TechDirt who I have mostly stopped linking because he spends half his time of his meds thinks this is bad.
  
  This is part of YouTube Kids.
  
  
  
  I mean, that one is relatively innocuous (the video, not the food, which is apparently what she regularly ate when she was stranded in Australia for a year due to travel restrictions), but Haachama doesn't stop at cooking and eating tarantulas; she has a lengthy and hugely popular psychological horror series and, um, reviews porn fan art of herself.
  
  
  
• Anti-piracy outfit MarkMonitor requested leave to file evidence under seal specifically to keep piracy news website TorrentFreak from reporting on it.  (TorrentFreak)
  
  Which is kind of like being name-dropped by Victor Davis Hanson.
  
  
  
• Android 13 has a desktop mode.  (Liliputing)
  
  This and other recent updates (the ability to run Linux VMs, for example) would make Android a very promising operating system - year of Linux on the desktop and all that - if Google were not run by the clinically insane.
  
  
  
• Internet Explorer ends in June.  (Liliputing)
  
  It will no longer be supported, and a subsequent Windows update will kill it if you already have it installed.
  
  IE compatibility mode for Edge will continue to be supported through 2029.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Sunday, March 20 2022 12:14 PM (r9O5h)

Posted by: Mauser at Monday, March 21 2022 08:09 AM (gVjvf)

Posted by: normal at Monday, March 21 2022 11:05 AM (obo9H)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, March 21 2022 02:05 PM (PiXy!)

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• The Apple Mac Studio: A historic achievement in not being overpriced garbage so long as you spend all day in Photoshop.  (The Verge)
  
  It has a fast CPU, an adequate GPU, lots of memory bandwidth, and can run Photoshop and probably other Adobe apps quite well.
  
  If that's what you want to do, it should be great.
  
  If you want to run some Python code as well, it should be a solid choice for that - not the most cost-effective perhaps, but just fine.  Likewise if you run Adobe apps and, say, JetBrains IDEs.
  
  If you want to play games, forget it.  If you need to run x86 code, definitely not your best option.  If you need to be able to upgrade memory and graphics later on, run in the opposite direction.
  
  And if you believe Apple's claims that the GPU on the new M1 Ultra is faster than Nvidia's RTX 3090, well:

  It was a different story with graphics performance, however. Apple, in its keynote, claimed that the M1 Ultra would outperform Nvidia’s RTX 3090. I have no idea where Apple’s getting that from. We ran Geekbench Compute, which tests the power of a system’s GPU, on both the Mac Studio and a gaming PC with an RTX 3090, a Core i9-10900, and 64GB of RAM. And the Mac Studio got… destroyed. It got less than half the score that the RTX 3090 did on that test — not only is it not beating Nvidia’s chip, but it’s not even coming close.

  That's on a GPU acceleration benchmark.  Gaming performance is even worse:

  On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark, the RTX was also a solid 30 frames per second faster. Now, this is Apple gaming, of course, so Tomb Raider was not a perfect or even particularly good experience: there was substantial, noticeable micro stutter at every resolution we tried. This is not at all a computer that anyone would buy for gaming. But it does emphasize that if you’re running a computing load that relies primarily on a heavy-duty GPU, the Mac Studio is probably not the best choice.

  Good to see an honest review like this.  The M1 Max / M1 Ultra are well-designed chips with excellent CPU performance and decent GPU performance, coupled with industry-leading power efficiency thanks to TSMC's 5nm process.
  
  But they are not, as Apple keeps claiming, a fundamental breakthrough in performance.  They're merely very good.
  
  Also the article mentions the interconnect bandwidth on the M1 Ultra: 2.5TBps.  That's rather a lot.
  
  
  

Tech News

• The Apple M1 Ultra shows the future of chip design.  (Serve the Home)
  
  Actually, no.  It doesn't.  In Apple's peculiar niche, it makes sense.  They want one big chip they can use in laptops, and then glue two of them together to make a workstation chip.  They don't want to design, test, and support a dozen different chips.
  
  AMD already has much faster CPUs than the M1 Ultra.  Nvidia already has much faster GPUs.  And that's despite both companies using an older process node than Apple.
  
  They can do this because they are designing chips that do one thing well.  Apple is making laptop chips and repurposing them for desktops, and while there are benefits to that - low power consumption being key - there are limitations as well.
  
  
  
• Russia has confirmed that it is behind cyber attacks on Ukraine.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  They are extremely huffy about Ukraine joining a NATO-accredited cyber defense group.  Not part of NATO, not requiring NATO membership.  Because, apparently, this might make it harder for them to continue with their attacks, and that just isn't fair.
  
  
  
• Samsung has launched new Galaxy A-series phones.  (Thurrott.com)
  
  I just bought an A52S and now the A53 is out.  But it looks like it's significantly more expensive and they've removed the headphone jack, so the new version gets a big meh from me.
  
  Also, I'm using mine as a wifi hotspot and have yet to make a phone call with it.
  
  
  
• A new AI invented 40,000 chemical weapons in six hours.  (The Verge)
  
  Well, that's just great.
  
  
  
• A Chinese Go player has been banned from competitions for a year for using an AI to cheat.  (Global Times)
  
  The article does not state whether novel chemical weapons were also involved, but we must assume the worst.
  
  
  
• China meanwhile continues with its Orwellianisation of everything.  (The Register)
  
  1. Put everything online.
  2. Control all internet access.
  3. Disappear anyone who argues.
  
  The question is, how far can this go before their economy implodes?  I used to think it could go a long way, but recent moves have been extremely anti-business as well as oppressive generally.
  
  
  
• Microsoft is facing a complaint in the EU over anticompetitive behaviour in its cloud computing division.  (Reuters)
  
  European cloud provider OVH is particularly upset that none of Microsoft's datacenters have burned to the ground recently.  This just isn't fair.
  
  

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at Friday, March 18 2022 10:58 PM (nRMeC)

Posted by: normal at Saturday, March 19 2022 12:24 AM (LADmw)

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• Nvidia has quietly cut the cost of its GPU chips to graphics card makers by 8-12%.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Does this mean the price of graphics cards is finally coming down?
  
  ...
  
  Apparently, yes.  Still well over MSRP, but much less over MSRP than previously.  AMD CPU and GPU prices are also down, though their GPU prices weren't marked up as much as Nvidia's and haven't come down as sharply.
  
  Plus DDR5 RAM is now in stock and only twice the price of DDR4.
  
  I'm not in the market having (a) just bought two laptops and (b) to move house shortly, so I'll just have to hope prices are still low six months from now or that the new insect overlords are at least relatively benign.
  
  
  
  
  
  

Tech News

• I'm not sure if Node.js induces mental illness or vice versa, but the correlation is at 0.95: Recent versions of the node-ipc module had a 25% chance of deleting all your files if it thought you were located in Russia or Belarus.  (Reddit)
  
  Not hacked.  Deliberate.
  
  Okay, Russia and Belarus suck, but so does Node.js.  Don't use it.  Don't use projects that use it.
  
  
  
• I was expecting an Earth-shattering kaboom: Experiments on hybrid matter/antimatter atoms surprised researchers by not acting weird.  (Quanta)
  
  In fact, the artificial atoms behaved markedly less weird than regular atoms under the same conditions, and nobody knows exactly why.
  
  
  
• You have that right.  It's called resignation.  (ZDNet)
  
  Do it.
  
  
  
• Does the Australian government know about [insert very very long list of incredibly NSFW websites here].  (ZDNet)
  
  Hopefully no.
  
  
  

Party Like It's 1980-ish Video of the Day

Posted by: normal at Thursday, March 17 2022 09:34 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, March 18 2022 04:24 AM (r9O5h)

Posted by: cxt217 at Friday, March 18 2022 11:09 AM (MuaLM)

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• Chinese CPUs could catch up with Intel by 2025.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Says an Intel exec - speaking at a gathering of the Chinese Communist Party who are not people who would appreciate being told the truth, that their home-grown CPU efforts are basically garbage.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Memory and SSDs will be in short supply through 2023 and prices are expected to increase.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Says the CEO of memory and SSD maker Micron.
  
  
  
• The goggles, they do nothing.  (Business Insider)
  
  Microsoft is concerned that the Department of Defense may walk away from a contract for mixed-reality goggle because the goggles don't actually work.
  
  That links pops up an annoying subscription screen (at least for me) that has a link to more details about their subscription plan, or at least is supposed to have a link to details about their subscription plan.  What it actually has is a link to an article about how much customers hate subscription plans.
  
  
  
• Microsoft has said that the embedded ads in a preview version of the Windows file explorer were an experiment and were not ever intended to be released to the public yet.  (Thurrott.com)
  
  The article includes links to six more articles about the previous times Microsoft's experimental never-to-see-the-light-of-day embedded ads saw the light of day.
  
  
  
• Cannot write to /russia - no space left in country.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Russia has two months of cloud storage left before things start going seriously pear-shaped.  With foreign providers shutting down services there isn't enough capacity in the country to provide for its own needs and they might need to start deleting their old saved games.
  
  
  
• Intel is looking at expanding its manufacturing facilities in Europe, spending as much as 80 billion Euros of the next decade.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Across eight countries including expansions in Poland and Ireland and a major new factory in Magdeburg, Germany.
  
  
  
• A full list of AMD's new chips.  (AnandTech)
  
  Nothing truly groundbreaking; these are just variations on the existing Zen 3 lineup.  The new 5800X3D is interesting but with 8 cores and 96MB of cache it costs the same as the 5900X with 12 cores and 64MB of cache, which is likely to be faster for most tasks.
  
  
  

Party Like It's 1980-ish Video of the Day

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, March 17 2022 12:50 AM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: normal at Thursday, March 17 2022 09:06 AM (obo9H)

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• Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn is in talks with Saudi Arabia to set up a new $9 billion factory in that country.  (9to5Mac)
  
  This makes total sense given Saudi Arabia's renowned pool of low-cost skilled workers.
  
  Um.
  
  Actually it does make total sense when you consider that both parties are hedging their bets.  Foxconn wants more factories outside of mainland China - it doesn't care so much where they are as long as they're not in China.  And Saudi Arabia wants industries other than oil - it doesn't care so much what those industries are, so long as they're not oil.
  
  Both have tons of money to invest.  Both want to invest somewhere other than where they have been investing so far.
  
  Downside is, Saudi Arabia kind of sucks.
  
  Upside is, they're not likely to actually launch a missile strike on Foxconn HQ.

• Microsoft is testing ads in the Windows 11 File Explorer.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Seriously, Microsoft, WHAT THE F*CK ARE YOU DOING?
  
  The desktop / laptop market is yours.  They only thing you need to do is not piss off your users too much.  And yet, and yet...
  
  
  
• QNAP has another severe privilege escalation bug.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  This time, though, it's not entirely their fault.  It's the "Dirty Pipe" bug that affects all recent versions of the Linux kernel.
  
  But mainstream Linux releases have already been patched.  QNAP's version has not.
  
  
  
• Twitter has rolled back a change that tried to force users into their awful algorithmically-driven "Home" timeline.  (The Verge)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Speaking of privilege escalation bugs in Linux there's another one.  (The Hacker News, which is not the same site as Hacker News(
  
  Please not.
  
  
  
• Google is being evil again.  (Ars Technica)
  
  In this case they have on online app for ordering food from restaurants.  They set up helpful pages for restaurants who join the program where customers can order food online.  And being Google, they preferentially link their own ordering pages from search results.
  
  Also, being Google, they create these online ordering pages even for restaurants that do not join the program.  And preferentially link to those pages rather than to the restaurant's own website.
  
  Google has responded to the lawsuit, saying:

  We are not doing what we are obviously doing.  We will vigorously defend ourselves from these baseless claims of malfeasance which are obviously true and which we completely deny.  We did not create the hundreds of thousands of web pages in our application we we run and  link to them from our search engine and we don't know who did, and in fact, they're probably not there at all.  Dave, can we scrub those, like, now?

  
  
  
• There is something of a kerfuffle in the physics world right now over room-temperature superconductors.  (Science)
  
  One group published a paper claiming they had created a room-temperature (though not STP) superconductor.  Another researcher got hold of some of their raw data and, not mincing words, called it a case of "probable scientific fraud".  Then things started to get heated.
  
  Both parties have had papers removed from prepublishing site arXiv.

  Hellman says the superconductor controversy may stem in part from the ethos of physics, which has historically encouraged combativeness. "The culture of physics is one that is more aggressive and not very welcoming," Hellman says, which can lead to accusatory language ending up in papers. She would like to see that change. "I flinch at some of the language being used."

  Oh, grow up and quit whining.  If they're not actually calling for pistols at dawn, leave them to it.
  
  
  

Party Like It's 1980-ish Video of the Day

Posted by: Frank at Tuesday, March 15 2022 06:29 PM (rglbH)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, March 15 2022 11:38 PM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: Cybernetic at Wednesday, March 16 2022 01:01 AM (xawZJ)

Posted by: J Greely at Wednesday, March 16 2022 01:33 AM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: Minervaparamediclas at Thursday, March 24 2022 10:59 PM (gImYv)

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• In a move that experts say could affect supply chains, China has locked down tech industry hub Shenzhen.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  I was reliably informed that there was no bat flu in China.
  
  This includes Foxconn factories making iPhones.  (9to5Mac)

  China placed the 17.5 million residents of Shenzhen into lockdown for at least a week on Sunday, seeking to halt a growing Covid-19 outbreak.  All bus and subway systems have been shut, and businesses, except those providing essential services, have been closed.

  Expect lead times on a lot of things to slip, if it's not in stock today.
  
  This is partly why I have two main laptops each with 64GB of RAM and 5TB of SSD.  I don't know when the supply chain is going to become unfucked, and I can't afford to not have a working laptop.
  
  I also can't afford not to have working internet, but here I am.
  
  
  

Tech News

• At least once I move house I'll be able to upgrade from the 80Mbps I got before it stopped working to at least 500Mbps.
  
  
  
• Veloren is a multiplayer voxel RPG written in Rust.  (Veloren)
  
  And open source.  Wait, it is open source, right?  Yep, there we go.
  
  Voxels mean that 3D objects are made up of little 3D cubes, rather than being a 2D texture printed over a 3D block the way Minecraft mostly is.  The 3D equivalent of pixel art.
  
  The game looks pretty neat.
  
  
  
• Congratulations, you just invented upvote spam.  (DKB)
  
  Any time you use a proxy to measure something of value, you create a matching incentive to generate that proxy without generating any value.
  
  Google's PageRank algorithm created comment spam.  It simply wasn't a thing before that.
  
  And nobody seems to be learning the lesson.
  
  
  
• You can't get the chips, you know: So Ford is just going to sell cars without them.  (The Verge)
  
  If it's something you can live without - like back seat climate control functions - they're just going to ship the damn things and give you a discount.  But probably not much of one.
  
  
  
  

Party Like It's 1980-ish Video of the Day

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, March 14 2022 11:26 PM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, March 15 2022 12:17 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, March 15 2022 07:11 AM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: cxt217 at Tuesday, March 15 2022 08:37 AM (MuaLM)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, March 15 2022 01:10 PM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: cxt217 at Tuesday, March 15 2022 02:11 PM (MuaLM)

Posted by: J Greely at Tuesday, March 15 2022 02:20 PM (ZlYZd)

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Posted by: Rick C at Monday, March 14 2022 03:51 AM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, March 14 2022 03:53 AM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: normal at Monday, March 14 2022 05:05 AM (obo9H)

Posted by: normal at Monday, March 14 2022 05:11 AM (obo9H)

Posted by: J Greely at Monday, March 14 2022 06:57 AM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: cxt217 at Monday, March 14 2022 09:43 AM (MuaLM)

Posted by: J Greely at Monday, March 14 2022 10:18 AM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, March 14 2022 11:31 AM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: J Greely at Monday, March 14 2022 11:36 AM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: SundogUK at Sunday, March 20 2022 07:09 PM (UWepf)

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