• Rambus has announced 3.2Gbps HBM2E memory and a matching controller.  (AnandTech)
  
  Which would be more impressive if Samsung hadn't already announced 5Gbps HBM2E.
  
  
  
• Buffalo have a ruggedized miniature external SSD, with capacities up to 960GB.  (AnandTech)
  
  It has, for some reason, a USB 3.0 micro-B port.  You know, the horrible one used by cheap external hard drives.  $210 for the largest size.
  
  
  
• A side-channel attack has been discovered that affects most AMD CPUs released in the past 9 years.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  I had a quick skim through the paper and it seems to be legitimate, though notes on mitigation and the fact that this was disclosed to AMD last year suggest that it may already have been patched.  The flaw involves L1 cache address prediction, and changing the prediction mode or simply turning it off fixes the problem.
  
  It affects all Bulldozer chips and Zen 1 and 2, but not the Bobcat family (as used in the Xbox One and Playstation 4).
  
  
  
• Not wanting to be left out, an unfixable and undetectable vulnerability has been found in all recent Intel processors.  (TechReport)
  
  It's a bug in the ROM - not flash, but mask-programmed ROM - in the secure enclave thingy within the processor that is supposed to provide certain guaranteed secure services.
  
  It doesn't seem that this can be compromised remotely, but if someone gets physical access to a server they could potentially use it to plant a completely invisible rootkit.
  
  
  
• TechDirt seems to have sobered up but New York is drunk.  (TechDirt)
  
  A property owner was fined millions of dollars for...  Painting over graffiti.
  
  
  
• South by Southwest has been cancelled.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  And nothing of value was lost.
  
  
  
• A sequel to the well-received Pathfinder: Kingmaker is currently Kickstartering.  (Kickstarter)
  
  Pathfinder is an adaptation of the core rules of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd-ish Edition, which were released under the Open Gaming License some years ago.  The campaign setting is different and original, but the gameplay is familiar.
  
  Pathfinder: Kingmaker is an old-school isometric single-player party-based RPG for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and apparently coming soon to consoles.
  
  The Kickstarter for the new game is nearly over, with just three days left, but never fear: It has not only been funded but has met 14 stretch goals, ranging from dismemberment animations to hiring a full symphony orchestra to record the soundtrack.
  
  This is what Kickstarter is good for.  I love seeing this.
  
  I have at least two copies of Kingmaker (I backed it on Kickstarter and it was just in the February Humble Bundle) but haven't played it.

Posted by: cxt217 at Sunday, March 08 2020 03:05 AM (LMsTt)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, March 08 2020 07:16 PM (PiXy!)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Not Exactly Tech News

• Got my weekly grocery delivery today, from Coles this time because I wanted to stock up on their fried rice.
  
  No toilet paper.
  
  Went out to the shops this evening.  Toilet paper section at Woolworths - shelves stripped bare.  Toilet paper section at Coles - fully stocked, but two slightly unusual things:
  
  1. There was a security guard.  For the toilet paper aisle.  Well, he might have been there for the frozen vegetables on the other side, but I suspect not.
  2. They had nothing smaller than a 20 pack.
  
  So I guess I'm good for a while.
  
  
  
• To add insult to injury:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Now who's laughin'?
  
  
  
  
  

Tech News

• AMD has clarified the situation on Zen 3 with regards to TSMC's 7nm EUV process saying it either will or won't use that process unless it doesn't, probably.  (AnandTech)
  
  Thanks, AMD.
  
  Zen 4 however is specifically targeted for 5nm.
  
  Which everyone expected, but AMD have now confirmed.
  
  
  
• AMD's Navi 2X is coming this year, with more.  (AnandTech)
  
  More what exactly isn't clear, but definitely more.  They did promise 50% better
  performance per watt, which is a pretty significant jump.
  
  
  
• When bitter political rivals join forces on a bill relating to encryption, you know the results are going to be bad.  (TechDirt)
  
  
  
• Firing Jack Dorsey isn't going to fix Twitter.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Do it anyway, just don't expect anything to change very much.
  
  
  
• Baldur's Gate 3 is on its way unless it isn't.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Terrible article anyway, doesn't even mention Minsc and Boo.
  
  
  
• Sonos is scrapping recycle mode.  (The Verge)
  
  They still won't offer software upgrades for older products, they still will offer a 30% discount on hardware upgrades, but now they won't immediately turn your older gear into e-waste.
  
  
  
• There's a buffer overflow vulnerability in the dial-up modem support on Linux.  (Phoronix)
  
  I'm sure there is someone, somewhere, who will be affected by this.  I just don't know who.
  
  
  
• I mentioned the disproof of the Connes Embedding Conjecture - and the work that led to that disproof - a few weeks ago when it popped up on Arxiv.org.  I don't recall where I saw it originally because I'm not in the habit of reading every inscrutable mathematics paper that pops up on the web.
  
  This one though has broader implications beyond computer science, into mathematics and physics.  (Quanta)
  
  The article is worth a look even if just for the banner image.
  
  
  
• Facebook is suing Namecheap over lookalike domains.  (ZDNet)
  
  Not for monetary damages, but to get Namecheap to cough up the identities of the registrants.
  
  Namecheap says it will comply with a court order to provide this information, but also called Facebook a bully for seeking a court order.
  
  
  
• Twitter has banned hasty generalisations.  (Reuters)
  
  As I said, firing Jack Dorsey won't fix this mess, but it will be fun.  Find a way to do it twice.
  
  
  
• Iran has blocked Wikipedia in its efforts to contain Corona-chan.  (Vice)
  
  Yeah, that's gonna work.
  
  
  
• It writes itself.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• First, let's automate all the lawyers.  (Fortune)
  
  For $3 per month the service will monitor online services and threaten to sue them if they violate privacy regulations.  They have a variety of other Lawsuit-as-a-Service offerings as well.
  
  This could not possibly end badly.

70s Music Video of the Day

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, March 07 2020 04:12 AM (Iwkd4)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• If you've kept up with this season of Doctor Who, well, none of that made any sense.  Within the same season the Time Lords are simultaneously extra double dead and actively intervening in the Universe in a way we haven't seen since The War Games.
  
  
  
• Western Digital has announced a range of enterprise SSDs - their Gold series, following the hard disk models.  (AnandTech)
  
  Enterprise TLC, so more for file storage than really heavy database workloads.  2.5" NVMe format with capacities up to 7.68TB.  No prices yet, so these might be amazing or they might be meh.
  
  
  
• YouTube took down a video by NYU explaining YouTube's takedown process.  (NYU)
  
  Or rather, one copy of the video got multiple copyright infringement notices for the audio content while an earlier version of the video with identical audio did not.
  
  And NYU discovered that filing a counterclaim either would or would not end up with YouTube wiping out their law school's entire channel.  They were unable to determine which, and YouTube was its useful unhelpful self.
  
  If an entire law school can't navigate YouTube's copyright system, no-one else has any hope at all.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile CBS News managed to file copyright claims against live streams of speeches by Bernie Sanders, Mike Bloomberg, and Joe Biden.  (TechDirt)
  
  So at least there's that to be thankful for.
  
  
  
• Google I/O is the latest conference to be banned over Corona-chan.  (ZDNet)
  
  No loss.  It hasn't been interesting since 2014.
  
  
  
• You don't need Kubernetes.  (Pythonspeed)
  
  Same situation as Hadoop, really.  If you're using it because it sounds cool rather than because it solves a specific problem that has already caused several engineers to quit and move to Idaho, you probably don't need or want it.
  
  
  

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, March 06 2020 01:24 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, March 06 2020 09:30 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, March 06 2020 11:21 AM (Iwkd4)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• 80 is the new 64.  (AnandTech)
  
  Ampere's Altra is an 80 core Arm server processor, based on the N1 core design, which is in turn based on the A76.  Like AMD's Epyc processors it supports eight channels of DDR4 RAM and 128 lanes of PCIe 4.0.  Unlike the Epyc it's all on a single chip - possible because it only has 32MB of cache compared to 256MB on the high-end Epyc parts.
  
  Performance is, best case, sort of on par with the Epyc.  That's if you're running integer-only code that isn't too cache-sensitive, and you're using GCC.  But given that the 64-core Epyc and Threadripper arethe world's fastest CPUs, even matching them on some tasks is no small achievement.
  
  It uses 210W, so unlikely to show up in your next mobile phone.
  
  
  
• Cypress is sampling USB4 controllers ahead of volume shipment in Q3.  (AnandTech)
  
  Exactly what parts of USB4 they support is another question, because USB4 is basically a merger of USB 3.2 and Thunderbolt 3, with the added option of USB at 40Gbps as well as PCIe.  But there will of course be USB 4 Gen 1, USB 4 Gen 2, USB 4 Gen 2x2, and so ad infinitum.
  
  
  
• How did software get so reliable without proof?  (Surfing Complexity)
  
  Correctness proofs are the Holy Grail of computer science, but like the Holy Grail they don't get used a whole lot.  Nevertheless, software systems of astonding complexity actually work.
  
  Partly because we learn what breaks them and refrain from doing that.
  
  In the case of Ethereum, this includes using it for any purpose at all.
  
  

• A protein may have been discovered in a rather unusual place: Inside a meteorite.  (Phys.org)
  
  We've found amino acids in comets and meteorites before, but never an entire protein, so this is a significant finding if it's borne out.
  
  Curious that this should be announced the day that SETI@Home is shutting down.
  
  
  
• Let's Encrypt is revoking 3 million SSL certificates today.  (ZDNet)
  
  We use Let's Encrypt extensively at my day job, but it doesn't sound like this will affect us; it only applies if you use both Let's Encrypt and CAA records in your DNS to control certificate authorisation.

Posted by: Jay at Thursday, March 05 2020 12:27 AM (mrlXS)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, March 05 2020 10:38 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: J Greely at Thursday, March 05 2020 12:44 PM (LGSd2)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• Intel's CFO says the company is so far unaffected by Corona-chan and is on track to deliver 10nm parts in 2015.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  
  
• Microsoft has a Y3K problem.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  A patch is scheduled for the Windows 10 299910 refresh, which will also include new levels for Diet Candy Crush Saga.
  
  
  
• TechDirt is still drunk.
  
  
  
• Datastax has acquired The Last Pickle.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  I don't know and neither does Tech Crunch.
  
  
  
• More Ryzen mobile benchmarks are leaking out ahead of product availability which will happen at some point unless it doesn't.  (WCCFTech)
  
  This time it's the mid-range 6 core 4600H.  The leaked results put it comfortale ahead of Intel's competing i7-10750H.
  
  
  
• I'm not saying it's aliens but...
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Corona-chan is on the retreat in China.  (Science Magazine)
  
  I don't trust China's official numbers, but this report is from the World Health Organisation, which is completely focused on -
  
  
  
  
  Never mind.
  
  
  
• Denis Moore, Denis Moore, riding through the night.
  Denis Moore, Denis Moore, with his bag of things.
  Steals from the poor, gives to the rich - 
  Stupid bitch.  (Yahoo Finance)
  
  
  
• Corona-chan has reached New York, governors and grammarians hardest hit.  (Archive.org)
  
  They did the same thing with a story about Mike Pence but I don't have a link.  Both have now been deleted from Twitter.
  

• Heading out to that big tech conference?
  
  Maybe not.  (ZDNet)
  
  Cisco's conference in Melbourne has been cancelled and the Salesforce conference in Sydney has been changed into an online event.  Probably not so much because Corona-chan is on the loose in Australia as that we're banning travel from an increasing number of countries.
  
  
  
• And potentially running low on choccy bickies.  (Sydney Morning Herald)
  
  I dropped by Coles this evening to pick up some gluten-free chicken nuggets, which Woolworths don't sell.  There weren't any more customers than usual for 9:30 on a Monday night, but they were buying a lot more stuff.  There was a long line of people taking packed trolleys through the self-checkout.
  
  Got home with my nuggets, went online to order my usual weekly delivery, looked at the packed delivery schedules, and went back to Coles and picked up a dozen rolls of toilet paper as well.
  
  The place was far from stripped bare - the fresh and frozen food aisles were just as full as always - but select non-perishables were starting to run low.
  
  Even the Coles online store is having problems.  I went back to modify my order after realising I'd ordered way too many chips, and when I saved the changes the page timed out.  At midnight.
  
  
  
• It's a brand new car NUC!  (AnandTech)
  
  Despite its six-core 10th Generation Intel Core i7 10710U, performance is pretty meh.  It does win most of the CPU-intensive benchmarks like 3D rendering and video encoding, which is no surprise since all the competitors in the roundup have just four cores.  But it's not that much faster than the ASRock Deskmini A300 with its Ryzen 2400G - and as a bare-bones system costs four times as much.
  
  On the other hand, the Deskmini is quite a bit larger and a whole lot uglier.
  
  On the third hand, the Deskmini squishes the NUC like a bug for gaming - around 2.5x faster.  Intel's new graphics will show up with their 11th Generation chips; for now it's the same old crap.
  
  
  
• A look inside a 32-port 100Gb Ethernet switch.  (Serve the Home)
  
  Most of the hard work is handled by a single huge Broadcom chip, but it also has a quad-core embedded Atom CPU and can be loaded up with a choice of eleven different operating systems.  Interesting to see a relatively high-end switch becoming a commodity platform.
  
  
  
• Australia's government sucks.  (ZDNet)
  
  First, banks were required to report cash transactions over $10,000.  Then every business was required to report cash transactions over $10,000.  Now they propose to make cash transactions over $10,000 entirely illegal.
  
  Because reasons.
  
  
  
• Amazon has banned a million products that dissed Corona-chan.  (Silicon Valley)
  
  Fake SD cards, though, no problem.

• Another Space X hopper prototype came to a sticky end during pressure testing.  (Space.com)
  
  That's what prototypes are for, I guess.
  
  
  
• Rules for running web apps:
  
  1. Hardware firewall in front of all your servers.
  2. Software firewall per server for fine-grained control and just in case.
  3. All incoming requests go through a proxy/;pad balancer.
  4. App servers only accessible on the local network.
  5. Don't expose port 8009 on an unpatched Tomcat instance.  (ZDNet)
  
  
  
• The World Health Organisation says that the Wuhan Bat Soup Death Plague could be bad.  (CNBC)
  
  This is why they earn the big bucks.
  
  
  
• You can get the Huawei Mediapad M6 on AliExpress, though I can't link directly to it because their site is a disaster area.
  
  Ranges from US$295 for the 4GB/64GB WiFi version, up to US$425 for the 6GB/128GB 4G version.  CPU is a Kirin 980 which has four A76 cores and four crappy slow cores that no-one cares about.  It's much the same as the M3 that I have (which is very nice) except that it's about twice as fast and comes with an almost current version of Android.
  
  Also, it's missing the headphone jack (that was lost with the M5) and now the fingerprint sensor as well.  Those aren't improvements.
  
  
  

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, March 02 2020 01:59 PM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, March 02 2020 11:07 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, March 03 2020 01:11 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, March 03 2020 08:33 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, March 03 2020 09:57 AM (Iwkd4)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• Sony's Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact is almost the platonic ideal of small tablets. 
  
  The problem I have with mine is that it's the 16GB model and Sony disabled adoptable storage.  If I'd been able to get the 32GB model it would be fine, but I don't think that ever reached Australia, and certainly wasn't available in the half-price sale where I got it.  Or if it had adoptable storage, also no problem.
  
  I recall now why I put it away in the box last time: The Kindle app couldn't store books on the SD card, and it was perpetually running out of space.  Amazon have fixed the app now - mostly - so I have been able to put my entire Kindle library on it (which is 16GB by itself) plus 52 Kairosoft games, Final Fantasy 1 through 6, and a bunch of other essentials.
  
  If they kept the exact same form factor, screen, and battery, updated the CPU from the Snapdragon 801 to even a recent low-end chip like the Snapdragon 460, and either put 32GB in as standard or enabled adoptable storage (preferably both), I'd buy two.
  
  Also, if you happen to be installing apps on your new/old tablet and find that Endless Frontier doesn't pick up your account and instead creates a new one and links it to your Google Play account, and you go back to your other tablet and your account is still there but you pick Load rather than Continue and it overwrites that as well...  Don't Panic.
  
  Turns out that the developer is smarter than that, even if the UI is a bit confusing.  Next time you open the game, both accounts will still be there to choose from.  In fact, I'm not sure how to get rid of the new one it created.
  
  
  
• Sonnet has a USB-C to 5Gb Ethernet adaptor for those of us stuck on all-in-one desktops like the iMac or Dell Inspiron 27.  (AnandTech)
  
  There are a few of these adaptors around, in fact.  They all use the same chipset, and they all seem to be unavailable for purchase anywhere.  I don't know what's up with that.
  
  
  
• Another day, another leaked video card.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This time it's Nvidia with a card 75% larger than the 2080 Ti.  Probably a Tesla compute board rather than a gaming product though.
  
  
  
• Finland's Minister of Economic Affairs says the EU needs its own operating system.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  If only there were someone from Finland capable of such a task.
  
  
  
• Hydrogen power is stupid.  (BBC)
  
  A hydrogen powered train, with a range of 50 miles.
  
  First, why is the BBC talking in miles?
  
  Second, the article states that the range is 50 to 75 miles, and then that the hydrogen tanks can run it for three hours, so that is one slow train.
  
  Without the style.
  
  
  
  
  
• Go is slowly morphing into Node.js.
  
  Slowly.  The author freaks out about a simple HTTP request timeout function that installs 196 packages.  Node developers would freak out too, because how can anything be that simple?
  
  
  
  
  Anyway, the whole mess (I'll spoil it because the article is pretty lengthy) comes down to one package with one file that has one useful function with one line of code that - wait for it - simply exports something that is already in the Go standard library but that you can't access.
  
  Go has since fixed that, but fixed it in a way that is neither forward nor backward compatible nor controlled by Go's semantic versioning, so if you rely on Google's solution you will, sooner or later, be fucked.  And if you import the very simple third-party solution, a hundred other packages come along for the ride.
  
  
  
• LG has updated its Gram laptop range for 2020.  (ZDNet)
  
  No major changes, just 10th Generation Intel CPUs.  The top of the line 17" model has a 2560x1600 screen (yes, 16:10), 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and a four core / eight thread i7-1065G7 and yet weighs just 1350g - a hair under three pounds.  That would make a pretty nice laptop for software development, though I'm not personally looking for a new laptop at the moment.
  
  
  
• Freeman Dyson has passed away, aged 94.  (Brickmuppet)
  
  

Posted by: J Greely at Sunday, March 01 2020 02:48 AM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, March 01 2020 03:00 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: J Greely at Sunday, March 01 2020 05:55 AM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, March 01 2020 09:03 AM (Iwkd4)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• A look at the results of AMD's 2016 Chinese joint venture.  (AnandTech)
  
  The results are basically slightly broken versions of first-generation Ryzen and Epyc CPUs, with roughly identical integer performance, half or less of the floating-point performance, and encryption that you can be sure is 100% broken.
  
  
  
• If leaked benchmarks are anything to go by Intel's upcoming i7-10700KF is slightly slower than the Ryzen 3800X - but uses twice the power.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  We know the 9900K is a terrible power hog, and Intel have pushed clock speeds even higher with their 10th Generation chips, so we rate this one plausible.
  
  
  
• The Raspberry Pi 4 now starts at 2GB for $35.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It replaces the 1GB model at that price.  The 1GB model is still available if you're using it in embedded systems, but hobbyists now get twice the memory for the same price.
  
  Also, that bug with USB-C power delivery got fixed at some point, so unless you somehow get a unit that's been sitting on the shelf for months, you should be safe.
  
  
  
• In terms of number of new mobile apps added in 2019 Google's Play Store is fourth and Apple App Store is fifth.  (ZDNet)
  
  Far in the lead is ApkGK which seems to have every Android app in existence and many that are not, which I have never heard of before, and which I would trust about as far as an elephant could jump on the surface of a neutron star.
  
  
  
• Corona-chan has scuttled Facebook's F8 conference.  (The Verge)
  
  Good work, CC!
  
  It remains to be seen what will happen with upcoming events such as Computex and, um, the Olympic Games.
  
  
  
• The Chang'e rover says that the Moon has more cheese dirt than previously thought.  (New York Times)
  
  130 feet deep in places.  A Fall of Moondust, anyone?
  
  
  

Posted by: WGWEG at Thursday, November 07 2024 06:11 AM (LJc93)

Posted by: Is Los Angeles Safe at Wednesday, March 26 2025 06:22 AM (kVQxW)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• Spent five hours tracking down a bug that turned out to be the sha3 NPM package doesn't install under the current version of Node,js.  Or the previous version.  Don't know about the version before that, but if you go to the version before that, presto.
  
  Of course nothing anywhere says that this is the case, but if you dig back through bug reports for the past couple of years, you will find that the exact same thing happened in 2018, only three versions removed.
  
  
  
• Dug out my Xperia tablet - an Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact - and fired it up.
  
  After sitting in a box for two years it works perfectly and still had 88% on its battery.
  
  As it happens, it's the 16GB model, and now that I have it running again I remember that I gave up on it because the Kindle app ate all the available space.  About a year ago the Amazon finally updated the Kindle app to support external storage.
  
  None of this would be a problem at all if Sony hadn't broken adoptable storage, but they did.
  
  
  
• If you can't find a good 7" tablet anymore, why not a 6.8" phone?  (AnandTech)
  
  I mean, Snapdragon 865, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage, 2460x1080 AMOLED display, 64MP main camera, wireless charging, 5G, IP68 water resistance, microSD, and a headphone jack.  Oh, and an optional second screen.
  
  Price TBA but probably not cheap.
  
  
  
• SK Hynix says that Radeon 5950X rumour is totally baseless and it will take legal action against whoever leaked their internal documents.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Um.
  
  
  
• TechDirt is still drunk.
  
  
  
• A case of the Tik calling the Tok a parasite?  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Or are there some things even Silicon Valley won't do for a buck?
  
  
  
• An overview of that half-height HP MicroServer.  (Serve the Home)
  
  It has four Ethernet ports which is nice, but they're just gigabit, so eh.
  
  
  
• Your browser is spying on you.  (Tech Report)
  
  Unless it's Brave.
  
  
  

Posted by: Mauser at Friday, February 28 2020 02:00 PM (Ix1l6)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, February 28 2020 02:46 PM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, February 28 2020 09:27 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, February 29 2020 01:26 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, February 29 2020 01:28 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, February 29 2020 10:00 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, March 01 2020 08:55 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, March 01 2020 01:15 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, March 01 2020 03:55 PM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, March 01 2020 08:59 PM (PiXy!)

Hide Comments | Add Comment