• Buying a house may be time consuming, overly complicated, and of course terribly expensive, but renting isn't that great either.  Particularly when having moved out of a place after fifteen years you get complaints that not everything is like new anymore.
  
  
  
• The Metaverse sucks.  (The Register)
  
  Sucks up huge quantities of cash, for one thing, but sucks in every other way as well.  It's the signature of a programmed effort to create the Next Big Thing rather than simply creating a Good Thing: Absolutely nobody wants it.

• Katz's gluten free donuts are back in stock here in New House City after being absent for a few weeks.  Got two boxes today to celebrate completing the move. (modulo some annoying details that will get sorted out).
  
  
  
• Apparently Cricut is pronounced "cricket".
  
  
  
• Intel detailed its Ponte Vecchio server GPU which the company says offers up to 2.5 times the speed of Nvidia's A100.  (Serve the Home)
  
  These GPUs are not for playing Crysis or whatever the kids are into these days (I haven't even been playing Minecraft lately and am now hanging out for the next Holocure update).  They costs as much as a new car, and the only question is whether that's a cheap Korean subcompact or a fully-specced F150.
  
  
  
• The Biren BR1000 is another of these expensive datacenter GPUs.  (Serve the Home)
  
  It can hit a little over 1 PFLOPs - albeit with 16-bit values; on conventional single-precision floating point it only does 256 TFLOPs.
  
  Which is still kind of a lot.  As I've mentioned before, I played Mass Effect and Dragon Age on a 1 TFLOPs graphics card at 1280x720, so this chip should be able to cope with 20480x11520.
  
  Of course, nobody will be using this one to play games either.
  
  
  
• Lightmatter Passage brings Co-Packaged Optics and Silicon Photonics to the Chiplet Era.  (Serve the Home)
  
  To unpack that a little: Modern "chips" are increasingly a collection of smaller chips with high-speed interconnects.  AMD jumped on this in 2017 with their Epyc server CPUs and Threadripper workstation parts, both of which were simply multiple Ryzen desktop chips wired together.  
  
  Building large monolithic chips is getting fantastically expensive and everyone - even Intel - is moving towards this "chiplet" approach.
  
  The problem then becomes the interconnect between the chiplets, which uses far more power than the same bandwidth would on a single piece of silicon.  On large Epyc CPUs the interconnect can consume half the total power.
  
  One possible solution - which is what is being discussed here - is to use teeny tiny lasers and microscopic fiber optic cables instead of electronic circuits between the chips.
  
  
  
• Don't eat yellow snow, and don't copy-and-paste encryption examples.  (The Register)
  
  Hyundai did the latter, copying not just the code but the encryption key from the AES specification.
  
  So unusually they got the implementation of the code exactly right; they just used a password that is written down in the same place everyone looks to find the code.

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, August 24 2022 12:29 PM (obo9H)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• The problem with waiting for human review to untangle the mess when Big Tech's AI scripts have flagged your account for illegal behaviour is that Big Tech no longer employs functioning humans.  (Yahoo News)
  
  Take a photo of your toddler so that the doctor can make a quick diagnosis and get your email and phone accounts cancelled.  Permanently.  And all your photos deleted.  After they get sent to the police.
  
  The police basically said "Are you kidding?  There's no crime here." but couldn't contact the victim because his email and phone accounts had been cancelled.
  
  In a statement, Google - of course it was Google - said "Yeah, what?"

• Cory Doctorow has Kickstarted a new audiobook.  (Kickstarter)
  
  Doctorow won't put out a book with DRM, and Audible won't publish an audiobook without DRM.  This book, then - Chokepoint Capitalism - is about the ways Big Tech - Amazon (which owns Audible), Google, Facebook, Apple, and others - have conspired to take all the value from every transaction and leave the actual content creators with crumbs.
  
  It's so far raised nearly eight times its (admittedly modest) initial goal.
  
  Fair warning: Doctorow is a leftist, but an old-school one who can write coherently even when his premises are wrong.
  
  
  
• A whole bunch of stuff on Ryzen 7000.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  With the launch a week away the leaks are probably pretty accurate at this point.
  
  
  
• The first major update for the hit fan-made game Holocure - a Hololive-oriented spin on Vampire Survivors - is out September 9.
  
  
  
  
  It will add Hololive Japan Gen 0 and Gamers to the current roster of characters (just Hololive English).
  
  Hololive has a very open approach to fan-made products using their IP, with some great results.

Posted by: normal at Monday, August 22 2022 09:43 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, August 23 2022 12:07 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, August 23 2022 08:37 AM (obo9H)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• Google search is quietly damaging democracy.  (Wired)
  
  The argument here is that Google moving from providing unbiased, unfiltered search results to attempting to provide you with what they believe is the right answer has a deleterious effect on individual ability in fact-finding and decision making in the modern world and thus in evaluating political news and making voting choices.
  
  Well, so far so good.  Needs to be examined but not implausible.
  
  Where the whole thing comes off the rails, ploughs through a nursing home, crashes into a school, bursts into flames, and finally explodes is that this is the thesis of the author's book The Propagandists' Playbook: How Conservative Elites Manipulate Search and Threaten Democracy.  (Amazon)
  
  Yes, you read that right: She claims that conservatives are twisting Google's search results with the aim of "humanizing the people whose worldviews and media practices conservatism embodies" - using trickery learned in Bible studies class.
  
  This is "Jews control the weather on Mars" levels of insanity.

Tech News

• The Merge: Ethereum is finally going to Eth2, dropping proof-of-work for proof-of-stake.  (Ethereum)
  
  What does this mean?

  Misconception: "The Merge will reduce gas fees."
  
  False. The Merge is a change of consensus mechanism, not an expansion of network capacity, and will not result in lower gas fees.

  Oh, but it will be faster without the proof-of-work requirement, right?

  Misconception: "Transactions will be noticeably faster after The Merge."
  
  False. Though some slight changes exist, transaction speed will mostly remain the same on layer 1.

  It does mean that no-one will be using graphics cards to mine ETH anymore, because you won't be able to mine ETH anymore.  
  
  And it will mean that the electricity used by the Ethereum blockchain will be reduced by around 99.9%.
  
  This is expected to happen sometime.  I think it's about two years behind schedule at this point, but it's understandable that they'd rather it be hopelessly late than lose billions of dollars of other people's money.  That's a sentiment that more blockchain developers should adopt.
  
  
  
• Intel's graphics cards may suck, but they can run Crysis.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Crysis was a serious test of hardware performance when it came out, but that was in 2007.  These days it will run on a potato.
  
  Similarly, a modern low-end card like the RX 6600 can comfortably beat the performance of the GTX 1080 - and that's from just six years ago, not fifteen.
  
  
  
  
  
• Hoes Mad in Your Area: Artists react to the use of AI art to illustrate an article that would not have otherwise been illustrated.  (The Atlantic)
  
  This article is half groveling apology, have pathetic attempt at navel gazing, as you would expect from Fascist Quarterly when they inadvertently offend their core readership of complete lunatics.

Posted by: normal at Monday, August 22 2022 02:25 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: cxt217 at Monday, August 22 2022 04:04 PM (2tHvf)

Posted by: Frank at Tuesday, August 23 2022 11:25 AM (rglbH)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• I am now a full-time resident of New House City.  Thanks to my brother for his help with the infinite number of "last few items" that needed to be moved.
  
  Schedules should slowly return to normal as I begin fixing the many things that have been broken for months while I ran around like a crack-addled squirrel with its tail on fire.
  
  
  
• Samsung is building a $15 billion chip R&D facility.  (AnandTech)
  
  That's in addition to the $200 billion they're spending on new and expanded factories.  I think they might be serious about this stuff.
  
  

• The entire history of human ingenuity was leading to this point:
  
  
  
  
  The computer inside that Lego brick is an Arm Cortex M0 with 16k of flash and 4k of RAM.  That's a low-end microcontroller but plenty to liven up your next Lego spaceship build.
  
  More here.  (The Verge)
  
  
  
• Lego?
  
  
  
  
  I assumed at first that this was a 3D render but it's real.
  
  
  
• And speaking of low-end microcontrollers the Pi Pico isn't the only Pi Pico in the sea.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Raspberry Pi sells the chip they developed - called the RP2040 - directly to other manufacturers who are now selling a variety of compatible boards.
  
  
  
• Alleged specs of Intel's 13th generation Raptor Lake lineup.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  At the high end this is stuff we pretty much knew already, but further down the list the i5-13500 and 13600 both include 8 E-cores - where their 12th gen counterparts had none.  That will make those mid-range chips about 60% faster on multi-threaded tasks.
  
  
  
• A roundup of upcoming AMD motherboards.  (WCCFTech)
  
  10Gb Ethernet is still thin on the ground, but every board listed here has at least 2.5Gb.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Sunday, August 21 2022 03:31 AM (obo9H)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, August 21 2022 06:03 AM (BMUHC)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• Almost.
  
  
  
• Ow.
  
  
  
• Samsung will be launching 32Gb DDR5 memory in early 2023, with modules to follow in late 2023.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Not sure exactly why there's such a lead time between the chips and the modules, but it's pretty consistent with past launches.
  
  This will mean 64GB DIMMs for desktops and laptops, so desktops (and servers based on desktop systems) will be able to go up to 256GB of RAM and laptops that use modules rather than soldered-in RAM will go to 128GB.
  
  That assumes that the memory controllers in existing CPUs properly support the new capacity.  They should - the DDR5 spec list chip sizes up to 64Gb - but it's a bit hard to test until the chips are actually out.

• Gigabyte's new Aorus 10000 PCIe 5 SSDs deliver up to 12.5GBps transfer rates.  (WCCFTech)
  
  That's on reads - writes get 10GBps, hence the name.  Or number.  Whatever.
  
  It will be interesting to see how pricing on these works out.  The Aorus Gen 4 delivers 5GBps reads at a very competitive price, so the new drive will have to do better than just buying two of the existing drives and putting them in RAID-0.
  
  
  
• Comparing Apple's M2 vs. AMD's Ryzen 6850U under Linux.  (Phoronix)
  
  Interesting tradeoffs here.  They run lots of benchmarks, and in one AMD will absolutely clobber Apple, and in the next the scores will be just as widely divergent but the other way 'round.
  
  There are certain quibbles about the hardware being compared, but this is the hardware that is available now, which makes the benchmarks valid in the real world even if they don't meet some arbitrary ideal of like-against-like.
  
  
  
• Speaking of Apple, the company is looking to Vietnam to make MacBooks and Watches.  (Nikkei Asia)
  
  On the one hand, nominal commies.  On the other hand, not China.
  
  We'll see.
  
  
  
• Which Ubuntu desktop variant has the lowest resource usage?  (The Register)
  
  Honestly they're all the same within the margin of error.  Just pick the one you like.
  
  
  
• Snap has cancelled Pixy.  (Liliputing)
  
  You bastards!
  
  Oh, their Pixy camera drone.

• What the hell happened to ZDNet?  (ZDNet)
  
  Everything about this is bad.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Buttons and bows: Better control surfaces at a reasonable price with Loupedeck.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  I have a Stream Deck, which gives me 32 individually programmable buttons - each one with a little colour LCD built into it.  Loupedeck goes one better by adding things other than buttons - knobs, sliders, and dials to be specific.
  
  
  
• TSMC beings production of 3nm chips next month.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Right on schedule.
  
  AMD is set to start shipping 5nm chips made by TSMC next month, so it might be a while before 3nm lands in your PC.
  
  
  
• A parasitological evaluation of edible insects and their role in the transmission of parasitic diseases to humans and animals, or, do not eat the bugs.  (PLOS)
  
  Do not.
  
  
  
• Broadcom has announced a 64-port 800Gb Ethernet switch chip.  (Serve the Home)
  
  Is that a lot?  That seems like a lot.
  
  
  
• If you have a router with a Realtek RTL819x you should unplug it right now, kill it with an axe, and set the pieces on fire.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  A firmware bug allows attackers to break in even if you have everything set up securely.  There have been patches out since March but they may or may not have been released for your device.
  
  So how do you know if your router has a Realtek RTL819x?  Well, that's the neat thing.  You don't.
  
  
  

I Think People Figured It Out Video of the Day

Posted by: normal at Thursday, August 18 2022 09:37 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: StargazerA5 at Thursday, August 18 2022 09:54 PM (vA2rE)

Posted by: normal at Thursday, August 18 2022 11:35 PM (LADmw)

Posted by: Pat Buckman at Friday, August 19 2022 05:45 AM (r9O5h)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• AMD has announced a launch event for Ryzen 7000 on August 29.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  With hardware presumably shipping a few weeks later during September.
  
  I'll keep an eye on the event and post the details here, but I think everything about Ryzen 7000 has already either been officially announced or leaked.

• DotNET 6 is now in Ubuntu 22.04.  (Microsoft)
  
  Okay, I guess.  Is it any worse than Java?
  
  
  
• Hard drive shipments dropped 15% in the most recent quarter.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  A combination of factors at work here, including the timely demise of the Chia storage-based blockchain bullshit.  MSRPs haven't changed but if you shop around you can save up to 40% on high-end drives - making them fairly competitive with low-end drives that don't offer such deals.
  
  
  
• MailChimp kinda sucks.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  They made my shitlist previously for summarily dropping conservative-leaning customers, but this time the got hacked - which can happen to anyone - and didn't keep their customers informed.  Including Digital Ocean, which is a cloud provider and rather expects its emails to be secure.
  
  Digital Ocean is no longer a MailChimp customer.
  
  
  
• It's only a model: American Airlines has signed a deal to buy 20 supersonic passenger jets from startup Boom Supersonic.  (CNBC)
  
  Boom currently has no planes.
  
  Boom currently has no working prototype.
  
  They have a model.

Posted by: cxt217 at Thursday, August 18 2022 10:46 AM (2tHvf)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• Android 13 is here, bringing with it uh.  (Thurrott.com)
  
  Apparently you can stream certain things from a thing to another thing, and it has spatial audio support for headphones - it makes the sound feel like you're walking around in a room.
  
  Okay.
  
  I think the last Android release which was really a must-have was version 6 with adoptable storage.  Of course, most of the major manufacturers - particularly Samsung and Sony - immediately broke adoptable storage and leave it broken to this day, and Google's own hardware can't support adoptable storage because it has no storage to adopt.

• Linux 6.0 is here too.  (The Register)
  
  It doesn't bring any big changes either, but that's because they just flip the version number when it gets too unwieldy.  No-one wants to remember whether they're running 5.20.21 or 5.21.20.
  
  
  
• Ryzen 7000 will cost around 10% more than Ryzen 5000.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  At MSRP.  Since Ryzen 5000 is now selling at well under MSRP - the $799 5950X is available on Amazon for $546 - this could lead to a street price gap of as much as 50%.
  
  And the new chips will require new motherboards and more expensive DDR5 RAM, leaving Ryzen 5000 as a still attractive option for price/performance builds.
  
  
  
• It's only a model: Russia unveiled a model of its proposed taking-my-ball-and-going-home space station.  (The Guardian)
  
  It's no Lego Millennium Falcon, but it's okay, I guess.
  
  
  
• New Jersey police used a blood sample from a baby - taken to test for genetic issues - to pin a crime on its father.  (Wired)
  
  There are no federal laws against this and there are no state laws against it in New Jersey, but the problems are so obvious that even the ACLU is opposed to it.

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, August 16 2022 09:26 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, August 17 2022 06:28 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, August 17 2022 10:07 AM (obo9H)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• A California startup is offering subscriptions to electric vehicles.  (BNN Bloomberg)
  
  Not only will you own nothing, you won't be able to charge the car you don't own because the power grid will be down.

• Canada and Germany have signed a deal to use wind power in Canada to produce hydrogen to ship to Germany to use as fuel.  (CTV News)
  
  This is enormously inefficient and generally stupid.  They deserve what happens to them.
  
  
  
• A function added to new projects in Apple's Xcode 13.2 release punched a hole in every protection offered by MacOS.  (Sector 7)
  
  You won't believe this one stupid trick.
  
  
  
• I ordered a new computer case.  (Hyte)
  
  It's a decent case, though not what I'd normally buy, and overpriced because it's a special edition.  But I found my collection of anime cels and felt like celebrating.

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, August 16 2022 12:56 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: Mauser at Wednesday, August 17 2022 12:49 PM (BzEjn)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, August 17 2022 06:06 PM (PiXy!)

Hide Comments | Add Comment