• Why AI can't spell "strawberry".  (Tech Crunch)
  
  I've said before that currently popular AI models - which is to say, Large Language Models or LLMs - don't understand anything at all except language.  They're language models.  That's what they do, and it's all they do.
  
  Except that's not quite true, because they don't understand language in any real way either.

  The failure of large language models to understand the concepts of letters and syllables is indicative of a larger truth that we often forget: These things don’t have brains. They do not think like we do. They are not human, nor even particularly humanlike.

  Most LLMs are built on transformers, a kind of deep learning architecture. Transformer models break text into tokens, which can be full words, syllables, or letters, depending on the model.

  "LLMs are based on this transformer architecture, which notably is not actually reading text. What happens when you input a prompt is that it’s translated into an encoding," Matthew Guzdial, an AI researcher and assistant professor at the University of Alberta, told TechCrunch. "When it sees the word 'the,' it has this one encoding of what 'the' means, but it does not know about 'T,' 'H,' 'E.'"

  Typeahead with delusions of grandeur.

• Microsoft has applied the same AMD speed improvements I mentioned yesterday to the current version of Windows 11.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  So you don't need to upgrade to a new version; it will arrive with the regular monthly updates.
  
  
  
• Don't buy tattoo ink from Amazon.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Unless you're a microbiology student looking for a great topic for your PhD thesis.
  
  
  
• Can a YouTube video fix your wet phone?  (The Verge)
  
  Well, no, but curiously enough, sort of.
  
  It's not the video, of course, but the audio that goes with it, which is designed to generate the lowest tones a phone speaker can produce at as loud a volume as possible.
  
  And testing shows that this does eject water from the speaker.  There's a video of it in action in the article.
  
  If the water gets elsewhere inside the phone, though, it's probably toast.

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, August 28 2024 07:27 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, August 28 2024 07:29 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, August 28 2024 10:35 PM (MItL9)

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• If you play games on Windows and have a new system using a Ryzen 9000 chip you're not going to want to miss the Windows 11 24H2 update.  (WCCFTech)
  
  No, seriously.  It's an average of 11% faster across a broad range of games, and up to 35% in the case of Gears 5.
  
  This is great news if you just got a new AMD system and were disappointed with the performance gains over the previous generation.
  
  If you have a previous generation Ryzen 7000 (or 8000) system, unfortunately it only brings...  An average of 10% better performance and a peak of 32% in Gears 5 again.
  
  Reportedly it also provides better performance on Ryzen 5000, though Hardware Unboxed hasn't had time to run all those tests yet.
  
  What doesn't gain huge performance benefits from this update is anything running on chips from Intel...  Except for some reason Gears 5 again, where the 14600K showed a 25% performance gain.
  
  It's not clear exactly what's been going on, because this suggests that Windows has been inadvertently tanking AMD performance for years.  The update was focused on the new branch prediction features in Zen 5, but somehow it improved the prior two Zen generations as well.

• Microsoft is planning to remove the last traces of the Control Panel from Windows.  (The Register)
  
  It's been there since Windows 1.0.  Time for it to enjoy a long vacation somewhere warm.
  
  
  
• Or, y'know, not.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Microsoft's communications strategy is to confuse everyone to the point that they can never be sued because nobody knows what anything means.
  
  
  
• The FBI's secure data storage facility is just piles of hard drives lying around in a warehouse.  (The Register)
  
  Top men.
  
  
  
• The Lenovo Legion Go is getting a dock and a joystick wedge.  (The Verge)
  
  I don't want a Lenovo Legion Go (which is an 8" Windows tablet).  I want a Lenovo Legion Tab.
  
  Which has finally been released outside China, and is not available anywhere so far as I can tell.
  
  What I can get is an NEC Lavie T9, which...  Is a Lenovo Legion Tab.
  
  
  
• The French government has said the French government is not involved in any way with the French government's arrest of the CEO of Telegram.  (Politico)
  
  That makes sense.
  
  
  
• Russian military communications are reportedly in disarray because they were heavily reliant on...  Telegram.  (Politico)
  
  Look, it is Politico, so take that with a grain of salt.  In fact almost everything about the article is weird, including the corrections:

  This article has been updated to correct Margarita Simonyan's function. She is a Kremlin propagandist.

  Well, okay then.
  
  
  
• SpaceX's Polaris Dawn private mission is scheduled for launch...  Originally 22 minutes ago, now about this time tomorrow.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  A ground-side helium leak was detected a few hours ago and the launch was pushed back by 24 hours.

• Black Myth Wukong is utterly mediocre and undeserving of all the attention it has been getting thanks to games and tech media trying to destroy it.  (The Verge)
  
  Black Myth Wukong is a new Chinese computer game based on the 16th century novel Journey to the West.  One of many such adaptations, including the TV show Monkey and the anime Dragon Ball.
  
  Anyway, as far as journalists are concerned, the developers of Black Myth Wukong made the unforgivable error of not actively hating their own customers, even going so far as to not hire expert bankruptcy generators Sweet Baby Inc.  (Which is a whole 'nother drama in itself.)
  
  That, coupled with guidance encouraging independent reviewers not to be hyper-partisan communist ratbags, spelled death for the game according to journalists.  (The Gamer)
  
  Black Myth Wukong has sold ten million copies.
  
  In three days.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile Dustborn, a game which - and I quote - "let me smash fascists and flirt with my situationship on a road trip across America" - in other words, a game that has done everything right according to those same journalists, launched at the same time and has sold...  We don't know.  (PC Gamer)
  
  The developers have gone very, very quiet after release.
  
  But it has 74 reviews on Steam.
  
  Black Myth Wukong has 379,672 reviews.
  
  Dustborn peaked at 83 simultaneous players.
  
  Black Myth Wukong peaked on the same day at 2,415,714 players.  On Steam alone; Black Myth Wukong is available on console as well.
  
  Of course, Dustborn is a much smaller title and was never going to be as popular, but 3,000,000% is a hell of a delta.

• If you always wanted a Sinclair Spectrum - and I don't know why you would, because it was never actually good, just cheap - well, you can now get one for about $99.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Well, an Android emulator in a Spectrum case with a Spectrum keyboard.  In other words the worst parts of the original Spectrum have been faithfully reproduced, while the parts that worked have been replaced with software.
  
  
  
• Asus is showing off GaN PC power supplies.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  GaN power transistors are becoming common in laptop and phone chargers because they are compact and...  Well, that's it really.  How much this matters for PC power supplies is another question.
  
  
  
• Well, yes, but actually no.  Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app?  (Cryptography Engineering)
  
  This question is suddenly important with the recent arrest of Telegram's CEO by French fascists.  The answer remains...  Kind of.
  
  
  
• The Port of Seattle and Sea-Tac Airport have been eaten alive by a cyberattack or maybe they're just incompetent.  (Tech Crunch)

  Late Saturday evening, the airport said it was still experiencing outages: "There is not an estimated time for return and Port teams continue to work to restore full service." It also encouraged travelers to use airline apps to get their boarding passes and bag tags, and to allow extra time to reach their gates.

  Well, that's definitive.
  

Posted by: Frank at Monday, August 26 2024 07:16 PM (+i6Xr)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Tuesday, August 27 2024 03:27 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, August 27 2024 04:34 AM (MItL9)

Posted by: lanaderay at Wednesday, August 28 2024 12:00 PM (D02HJ)

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• Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, has been arrested in Paris on charges of...  Fuck charges, he's a libertarian and this is France.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Durov founded Russian social network VKontake before resigning because...  We don't know exactly, but allegedly because the Russian government had assumed de facto control of the company, wanted him gone, and wasn't too fussy about how he left.  China subsequently banned VKontakte as a tool of the Russian government, but China bans everyone.
  
  Ars' creative director Aurich Lawson - who personally suspended my account once for pointing out the site's rampant hypocrisy - noted:

  I'm pretty curious to see how this plays out. Is it really as simple as "you ran a platform where you didn't moderate private messages, therefore you're criminally responsible for everything people said"?
  
  Because that seems pretty chilling on the face of things.

  Do tell, Mr. Lawson.
  
  It's time to start treating Europe like North Korea.  If you go there, assume that you are not coming home intact.

• NASA has finally made a decision.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Butch and Suni will be coming home on SpaceX's Crew Dragon, after tests of another Starliner module showed similar but not identical failures in the attitude control thrusters.
  
  A second Crew Dragon module will be sent up to dock with the ISS next month - there is one docked permanently as a lifeboat - with two additional crew onboard.  The return trip is planned for February next year.
  
  
  
• Do you have a laptop, mini-PC, or all-in-one desktop that handles your computing needs just fine but you need more storage - and want to stick with an all solid-state solution - and you need something fast and don't want to mess about with NAS hardware and USB 10Gb Ethernet adapters?
  
  Yes?
  
  The TB4S-OC from Aoostar may be what you need.  (Liliputing)
  
  The price is reasonable at $179, and it supports four M.2 drives.  Connection to your computer is by USB4 at 40Gbps or OCuLink at 64Gbps if you have that (basically PCIe over a cable).
  
  You will need a USB4, Thunderbolt, or OCuLink port.  Internally it's just a PCIe switch, so it does not work at all with generic USB ports.
  
  
  
• Always wanted your own mainframe?  Christie's has an IBM 7090 on offer right now.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Price is expected to be in the area of $50,000.  Plus shipping, which could add up because it weighs 23,000 lbs.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Sunday, August 25 2024 11:49 PM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, August 26 2024 02:24 PM (MItL9)

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• Clinical trials for a new vaccine for lung cancer are under way in seven countries.  (The Guardian)
  
  It's an mRNA vaccine, which have skeptics, but you don't have to give it to everyone, because it works to target cancer cells once they are detected, and to prevent the cancer from recurring.
  
  Given how hard chemotherapy is on the body, more selective tools like this, even if imperfect, are very welcome.

• The new Ryzen laptop CPUs look perfect for mini-PCs.  Soyo's S9 is the first NUC to appear using the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Downside: Soldered RAM, but it will be available in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB models.
  
  Upside: With no DIMMs taking up space, it will have three M.2 slots.
  
  Other side: It's not shipping yet; the review model was a pre-production with a couple of hardware issues.
  
  It's not going to compete with an RTX 4090 - or even a 4070 - but if you are happy with 1080p medium settings, or you mostly play games that are a couple of years old, it does pretty well and the whole system runs on about 50W.
  
  I'm hoping to see one of these that uses CAMM2 memory so it is upgradeable - these chips don't support regular DDR5 DIMMs - but this is a good start.
  
  
  
• What's inside the Raspberry Pi Pico 2.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  A good rundown of the new hardware and the options available - or soon to be available, since it's not shipping to end users yet.
  
  Plus a couple of boards coming from Pimoroni, including one the exact same size and pinout as the standard Pi Pico 2 but with an extra 16MB of RAM.
  
  
  
• Microsoft has scheduled a security summit for September 10 to discuss what it plans to do about those idiots at Crowdstrike.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Well, that's not how they worded it, but it's what they mean.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Saturday, August 24 2024 09:29 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: normal at Sunday, August 25 2024 03:31 AM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, August 25 2024 08:04 AM (PiXy!)

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• What if the very people you trusted to accurately represent reality lied to you constantly?  That would be bad, wouldn't it?  (The Verge)
  
  Why, yes, The Verge, that would indeed be bad.

• Apple continues to take half of all income from developers who choose not to sell their applications on Apple's own App Store.  (The Verge)
  
  Do you want me to side with the communist tyrants of the EU, Apple?  Because this is how you make me side with the communist tyrants of the EU.
  
  It's so blatant that even the commenters at The Verge are debating it.
  
  
  
• The Litespeed Cache plugin for WordPress has a critical vulnerability that grants admin access to everyone.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  At least WordPress has advanced so that it doesn't often do this without plugins.
  
  
  
• The HMD Skyline is a phone that can be opened with a single screw and you can even replace the battery.  (The Register)
  
  iFixit rated it 9/10 for repairability.
  
  It's a mid-range rather than high-end device but that's just fine.
  
  The one downside is that it's rated water-resistant rather than waterproof.  Don't take it swimming.
  
  
  
• The founder of fintech company Synapse that recent imploded with $160 million of other people's money has raised $11 million to start a new robotics company.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  What could possibly go wrong this time?
  
  
  
• DNS is cached.  (Julia Evans)
  
  Uh, yes.  We know.
  
  
  

There's Infinitely More Where That Came From Video of the Day

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain at Friday, August 23 2024 06:12 PM (gHSfI)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, August 24 2024 12:57 AM (MItL9)

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• Microsoft is planning to try again with its obviously insane Windows "Total" Recall spyware system.  (Ars Technica)
  
  This is the feature - key to the so-called Copilot Plus platform - that takes screenshots of everything you do on your computer - passwords, bank account details, confidential emails - and puts them in a single conveniently labelled and indexed box for AI assistants and Russian/Chinese/North Korean/Iranian hackers to search for you.
  
  The database will now require you to log in with Windows Hello to access it, where before it was an all-you-can-eat data buffet for any application running on your computer.

  "Security continues to be our top priority and when Recall is available for Windows Insiders in October we will publish a blog with more details," reads today's update to Microsoft Windows and Devices Corporate Vice President Pavan Davuluri's blog post.

  The lie detector detected that that was a lie.
  
  Fortunately - for now - this won't function at all unless you have a new CPU with a neural processing unit capable of at least 40 trillion operations per second.  Desktop processors - even brand new ones like AMD's Ryzen 9950X - don't have that.
   

• But what could possibly go wrong oh there's another critical vulnerability in Microsoft's Copilot Studio AI platform.  (Dark Reading)
  
  Huh.
  
  
  
• Crowdstrike is mad that its competitors are making fun of its extinction-level own goal.  (Ars Technica)
  
  I'm sure they are.
  
  
  
• QNAP...  Has added active monitoring for ransomware to the latest version of its QTS operating system.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  If anything strange is detected it can be configured to back up your files on the spot or make your whole disk read-only so nothing can be changed.
  
  It's not to protect you from data theft, but from hackers destroying your data.
  
  
  
• Intel's next generation Arrow Lake desktop CPUs and motherboards are expected October 17.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Most important question is, do these actually work?
  
  Second most important question is of course, can you roast an entire ox on one in under fifteen minutes.
  
  We shall see.

How AI Works Video of the Day

Posted by: normal at Friday, August 23 2024 01:05 AM (LADmw)

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• Firaxis is getting ready to launch Civilization 7, the latest entry in one of the longest running computer game franchises (though it's beaten out by video games like Mario Bros.)
  
  It's going to suck.
  
  And you know it's going to suck because they're pushing the news out through glowing reviews in publications like The Guardian.  (The Guardian)
  
  And Ars Technica, and The Verge.
  
  One of the core features of the series has always been founding a civilisation in the Bronze Age and going on until you were wiped out or won the game (by achieving world peace one way or another, or in some editions by colonising another planet).
  
  Since that is too complicated for "modern audiences", and runs too slow on a mere 24 core 6GHz PC, the new version will reset your civilisation at forced intervals.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Asus has announced its new X870 motherboards for Ryzen 9000 CPUs.  (WCCFTech)
  
  They also support Ryzen 7000 and 8000 chips.
  
  What's new?
  
  Nothing.
  
  
  
• California's Hydrogen Highway.  (The Verge)
  
  Now with 100% less hydrogen:

  As of publication, there is no estimate for when the hydrogen supply shortage in Southern California will be resolved, leaving stations like this one offline indefinitely. The shortage will hit the one-year mark in September.

  Hydrogen only comprises 90% of the universe.  Of course California would run out of it.
  
  
   
   
• The federal judge who put a temporary stay on the FTC's ban on non-compete clauses has now put a full stay in place pending trial.  (Reuters)  (archive site)
  
  Just because it's arguably a good idea doesn't mean you have authority to do it.
  
  
  
• Why televisions suck.  (Ars Technica)
  
  And why you can't find good dumb screens.
  
  Vizio reported $88 million in profit for the first quarter...  For its advertising division.  The company lost $7 million selling televisions.
  
  
  

Posted by: J Greely at Wednesday, August 21 2024 09:47 PM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, August 21 2024 11:31 PM (MItL9)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, August 21 2024 11:38 PM (LADmw)

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• AMD is buying server manufacturer ZT Systems for $4.9 billion.  (Serve the Home)
  
  ZT Systems is one of those surprisingly big companies you've never heard of.  Been around for 30 years, sells $10 billion worth of servers a year, completely under everyone's radar.
  
  AMD plans to buy them, split the engineering team from the manufacturing business, and then sell the manufacturing part to one of the even larger competitors.

• There's a Sinkclose patch coming for Ryzen 3000 after all.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This is good, even though the Sinkclose bug is only a problem in certain specific situations.  Ryzen 1000 and 2000 are getting old, but Ryzen 3000 is still a perfectly functional design - we were using a Ryzen 3000 server until just recently.
  
  
  
• If you have a public GitHub repo, you have a public GitHub repo.  (Security Week)
  
  If you use CI/CD, all of that data is public too.
  
  By design, but easy to overlook.
  
  
  
• If you use Jenkins for CI/CD, that's public too.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Not by design.  It just is.
  
  
  
• If you have 19th century books with beautiful green binding that hasn't faded with time, they might kill you.  (Ars Technica)
  
  This story pops up every now and then, and it's worth sharing.  Synthetic dyes and pigments became very popular in the 19th century, and while the colours wee beautiful, they often contained metals like lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic.
  
  Do not eat.
  
  
  
• A high school student in England recently showed off a working fusion reactor as his science fair project.  (Interesting Engineering)
  
  This is as far-fetched as it might sound.  We've had working fusion reactors for sixty years - the Fusor was invented by Philo T. Farnsworth - yes, that Philo T. Farnsworth - in 1964.
  
  They're basically useless, because they take more energy to run than they can ever produce - but they do work.

• Roblox is the biggest game in the world, with more monthly players than Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo combined.  How much money does it make?  (Matthew Ball)

  Over the last four quarters, Roblox’s income from operations was ($1.2B) on revenues of $3.2B, representing a -38% profit margin.

  Oops.
  
  Not as bad as it sounds because Roblox's accounting procedures are properly conservative, and the company is cash flow positive.  An interesting look into where all the money goes though.
  
  
  

Tech News

• If you're building a budget gaming PC, should you go with the older 6750 XT or the newer 7600 XT given that they are about the same price?  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The 6750 XT.  It does use more power but it also delivers noticeably better performance.
  
  Only problem is that since it's no longer made it's disappearing from shelves.
  
  
  
• Your $1700 smart bassinet now has a $20 subscription fee.  (Independent)
  
  Because of course it does.
  
  
  
• A plague of rash-inducing mites has descended upon Illinois.  (Ars Technica)
  
  And the DNC as well.
  
  
  
• Micro-libraries need to die.  (Bvisness)

  This is so unbelievably wrong that it should not even be up for debate. But because there is a debate regardless, someone needs to exhaustively and painfully explain why bad practices are bad.

  Yes.
  
  This seems to be primarily a problem with Node.js, which is also unbelievably wrong and should not even be up for debate.

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, August 20 2024 12:05 AM (MItL9)

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