• Side note: A number of people asked - reasonably enough - why on Earth I would take a variable rate home loan rather than locking in historically low interest rates with a 30 year fixed mortgage.
  
  The reason is, so far as I can tell, 30 year fixed rate mortgages are a uniquely American creation.  They simply don't exist in Australia.  The closest thing I could find here is a 10 year mortgage at 7.45%, when my variable rate loan is currently at 3.15%.
  
  That rate will be going up again after the latest Reserve Bank announcement here, but it would have to go up a lot to match the fixed rate.
  
  
  
• Also, thanks - a few people pointed me at CZUR scanners, and that does look like the way to go.
  
  
  
• Closer to home but not much the EU has declared war on Apple.  (MacRumors)
  
  More specifically they've adopted legislation requiring big tech companies (including but not limited to Apple and Google) to allow developers to use third party payment providers (killing the 30% cut they take of every transaction) and access all services provided by the hardware device if given permission by the user.
  
  Users meanwhile are covered by a requirement to allow third-party app stores and sideloading.  Not a drama for Android, but a huge change for iOS.
  
  Apple would also not be able to force developers to use the Safari web engine, and manufacturers and carriers would not be allowed to pre-install applications that the user cannot remove.
  
  Cue a great wailing and a gnashing of teeth from the Bay Area.
  
  Just a few short years ago I would have decried this as massive government overreach, but Big Tech pooped their bed and now they must lie in it.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Bun is a JavaScript and TypeScript packaging tool, transpiler, and runtime, written in Zig.  (Bun)
  
  It transpiles your JavaScript code to C, and since you might not have a C compiler handy, embeds one in your code just to be safe.
  
  On the one hand this is insane; on the other hand it is three times faster than Node.js.
  
  On the third hand Node.js is the single worst thing humanity has created.
  
  
  
• Congratulations!  You have solved philosophy.  (Neal.fun)
  
  My kill count was 93 but I'm sure you can do better.
  
  
  
• The QNAP TS-h1290FX is a 12-bay desktop NAS with everything.  (Serve the Home)
  
  On the one hand, QNAP.  On the other hand, it ships with 2x 2.5Gb and 2x 25Gb Ethernet as standard, and runs an AMD Epyc CPU with at least 64GB of ECC RAM.  On the third hand the 25Gb Ethernet ports are SFP+, 25GBASE-T and Cat 8 cables not being exactly commonplace at this juncture.
  
  On the fourth hand it has four PCIe slots - 3 x8 and one x16 - so you have plenty of upgrade room.  On the fifth hand, it's aimed at NVMe SSDs, not hard drives.  The article says "One can utilize SATA as well" but it's not clear if that's the neuter indefinite pronoun or a specific count, which would be very different.
  
  Goes and checks.
  
  It is the neuter indefinite pronoun, but also those are 2.5" drive bays.  Which means that it's smaller than I expected but given the stated net weight of 20lbs is apparently constructed of cast iron.
  
  Oh, and it supports up to 1TB of RAM, but that might start to get expensive.
  
  
  
• Intel says its 4nm process - formerly called 7nm but roughly on par with TSMC and Samsung's 4 and 5nm processes and it's all marketing anyway - is on track for the second half of this year, which is what we are currently in.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Which means devices in customer hands in the first half of next year, because it takes a long time for any sausages to come out the other end of the machine.