• Can an AI lie its way past safety checks to release?  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Given how much of a dumpster fire chatbots are, what does it matter?
  
  
  
• Dumpster fires are cool now anyway.  (The Register)
  
  Thanks Baidu.
  
  
  
• Can you just turn the damn things off?  (The New York Times)
  
  Well yes, but actually no.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Chinese military company DJI has sued the US Department of Defense for classifying it as a Chinese military company.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  The argument seems to be that the cold light of day is ruining sales.
  
  
  
• Elon Musk is offering people $1 million to vote.  (The Verge)
  
  Elon Musk is not offering people $1 million to vote.
  
  But it seems The Verge staff have got into the owner's cocaine stash again.
  
  
  
• Italy's anti-piracy agency blocked Google Drive.  (Torrent Freak)
  
  Oops.
  
  
  
• Cuba's power grid has now collapsed four times in two days, making people start to wonder if this communist utopia thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.  (Reuters)
  
  Huh.
  
  
  

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Tuesday, October 22 2024 03:23 AM (KOtXO)

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, October 22 2024 08:11 AM (bg2DR)

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• Why are Instagram and Facebook searches for "Adam Driver Megalopolis" being blocked for CSAM?  (The Verge)
  
  Because (a) "mega drive" is a code word used by very bad people, and (b) Facebook is dumb.

• Random House Penguin is adding copyright messages to its books forbidding anyone else from using the contents for AI training.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Anyone else.
  
  This is not to protect the authors.
  
  
  
• Isaac Newton is now a physics professor at MIT, with a verified mit.edu email address, according to Google.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Thanks Google.
  
  
  

How Is This Hundred Year Old Website So Fast Video of the Day

Posted by: normal at Sunday, October 20 2024 06:43 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: madrocketsci at Monday, October 21 2024 10:57 AM (hRoyQ)

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• Show me the man and I'll show you the fine: Terry Britain might be gone, but his replacement is no better and may be worse: The EU is now considering fining other companies Elon Musk is a shareholder of, for supposed crimes of Twitter.  (MSN)
  
  And this is why when you are forced to choose between a company run by sociopathic leftists who bleed their customers try but aren't actually killing people, and a government, you side with the company every time.
  
  Lesson learned.  No matter how bad a government is, they can always get worse, and you can't just choose not to do business with them.
  
  

• Case in point: The lights are out in Cuba.  (NPR)
  
  The communist dictatorship that has destroyed the once prosperous island promises they will come back on at some point in the future, probably.
  
  
  
• OpenAI's lead over other AI companies has largely evaporated.  (Yahoo Finance)
  
  Using the same benchmarks across multiple open source vendors - including the almost-open-source Llama 3.1 405B from Meta , it's much of a muchness: They all suck.
  
  
  
• Sam Altman's other scam, Worldcoin, has rebranded itself to World and announced a new version of its Orb.  (Coin Telegraph)
  
  The Orb is a device that devours a victim's soul.  It's now clear exactly who this is being marketed to.
  
  
  
• Bluesky is not a good alternative to Twitter.  (Twitter)
  
  It's "open" and "federated"...  And run by the same censorship maximalist leftist mafia that destroyed Twitter before Elon Musk rescued it.
  
  
  
• Unknown 9 Awakening, the latest big game from Bandai Namco, was released two days ago and oh it's dead.  (Forbes)
  
  It had an all-time peak of 285 players and is now down to 86.
  
  And it exhibits the same problems that killed Concord, albeit on a smaller scale and hopefully Bamco spent less than $400 million on this one.
  
  Also in its favour, it's a single-player game so it doesn't cost a million dollars a day to keep it alive.  So it can be safely left to bleed out and then decompose.
  
  
  
• WP Engine has filed for an injunction against WordPress.org to regain access to the open source repository.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  This is a cut-and-dried breach of license by WordPress, and WP Engine should win easily.
  
  If they don't, WordPress gets forked.
  
  
  
• The Space Force has awarded a $733 million launch contract to SpaceX.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  This is for eight missions - probably satellites or X37-B launches - starting in 2026.
  
  
  
• Google has been granted an administrative stay on much of the decision against it under the Epic lawsuit, by the same judge who issued the ruling.  (The Verge)
  
  Not stayed is a ruling requiring Google and its partners to allow users to install third-party app stores.  Notably Google recently worked with Samsung to introduce new security features that prevented this.
  
  
  
• My Calliope Mori Hyte Y40 Limited Edition PC case has arrived in Sydney.  Since this case has never been available for purchase locally, and Hyte's own international ordering system was broken when I tried it (twice), it might be the only one in the country.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Sunday, October 20 2024 12:29 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, October 20 2024 03:39 AM (pnaK4)

Posted by: stargazera5 at Sunday, October 20 2024 09:38 PM (ncNTU)

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• WordPress looks to be entering a doom spiral as Mad King Matt Mullenweg tightens his grip.  (404 Media)  (archive site)

  After an exodus of employees at Automattic who disagreed with CEO Matt Mullenweg's recently divisive legal battle with WP Engine, he's upped the ante with another buyout offer - and a threat that employees speaking to the press should "exit gracefully, or be fired tomorrow with no severance."

  This divides the company neatly into three factions:
  
  1. Those with principles who will quit - and take advantage of the severance package on offer because principles don't pay the rent.
  2. Those who see the writing on the wall and get while the going is good.
  3. True believers.
  
  True believers can be good if you're tackling a difficult problem under an experienced leader, like catching an office building falling from space.
  
  It can also produce Jonestown.
  
  This is looking more like the latter.
  
  WordPress itself will survive, since it's open source, but the company and foundation behind it won't.
  
  
  
• Sad to say I was today years old when I realised why the company is called Automattic.
  
  One of those things that's cute in a toddler but diagnostic of malignant narcissism in a CEO.

• Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite developer kits have been abruptly cancelled and the company will be issuing refunds.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It sounds like this is due to a manufacturing problem.  Qualcomm was very non-specific except that the kits did not meet its quality standards, but a reviewer said that bits fall off.
  
  
  
• 6G mobile networks do not reach a blisteringly quick 938Gbps.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  That speed was achieved - for a single backhaul link from the base station using lasers.
  
  
  
• Cat's are officially liquid.  (Cell)
  
  Back off, man, I'm a scientist!
  
  
  
• Virtual machine images built with Proxmox could be wide open due to a default credentials flaw in Kubernetes.  (The Register)
  
  Some of that was actually in English.
  
  
  
• A hard-coded login in SolarWinds' Help Desk product is being actively exploited in the wild.  (The Register)
  
  Didn't we hang those guys last time?
  
  
  
• Donald Trump says Tim Cook spoke to him to complain about those filthy communists in the EU.  (The Verge)
  
  Tim Apple knows which way the wind is blowing, and knows that there's no chance of Kamala Harris standing up to a stiff breeze let alone the European Union.

Posted by: normal at Saturday, October 19 2024 01:20 AM (bg2DR)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Saturday, October 19 2024 04:22 AM (rcPLc)

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• Meta (Facebook) is laying people off again.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  11,000 were laid off in 2022, and another 10,000 last year.  In addition, 5000 open positions were cancelled entirely.
  
  No numbers yet for this round of layoffs but it does appear to be smaller.
  
  
  
• Intel meanwhile is laying off 1300 workers at its Oregon foundry as part of its company-wide reduction of 15,000.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Like Boeing, Intel worked long and hard to achieve this disaster.
  
  
  
• TSMC meanwhile has recorded a record $10 billion in net profit for the last 3 months.  (The Verge)
  
  TSMC is manufacturing Intel's latest Lunar Lake laptop chips.

• That's no moon, that's a potato: Intel's low-end Lunar Lake chips might not be.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The upcoming Core 5 210H laptop chip has multi-threading.
  
  Intel's new Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake chips don't.
  
  So this is a rebranded model from a prior generation.
  
  
  
• In more positive news the upcoming Ultra 9 285K doesn't suck that much.  (CPU Benchmark)
  
  A new benchmark score puts the chip much more in line with expectations.  A little slower multi-threaded than the 13900K, but significantly faster in single-threaded tests.
  
  
  
• Western Digital's SN850X is the best option for an 8TB M.2 drive.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Just one remaining problem: It costs three times as much as the 4TB model.
  
  
  
• Western Digital's SN770 is not the best option for running the Windows 24H2 update.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  Unless you're a big fan of the Blue Screen of Death.
  
  Microsoft has paused release of the update while it figures this out.
  
  
  
• Sales of Apple's ludicrously expensive Vision Pro headset are down 80%.  (MSN)
  
  And they weren't very good to start with.
  
  It's too big and bulky for and AR headset, and basically useless as a VR headset.
  
  And it costs $3499.
  
  
  
• Samsung's next generation GDDR7 memory for video cards will deliver 50% more capacity and up to 90% more speed.  (WCCFTech)
  
  24Gb per chip and transfer rates up to 42.5Gbps, vs. 16Gb per chip and 23Gbps currently.
  
  
  
• Mitt Maybelline's psychotic attack on WP Engine continues to pay dividends.  (LWN)
  
  If by "pay dividends" we mean "destroy the WordPress community".
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Friday, October 18 2024 01:58 AM (zx18t)

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• Again with the Torquemada: The president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve has explained that nobody buys anything with Bitcoin (because the government makes it as difficult as possible) and it's a lousy hedge against inflation, having gained just, um, 1000% against the dollar over the last five years.  (WCCFTech)

  Of course, Kashkari is on record for stating elsewhere that there is an "infinite amount of cash at the Federal Reserve."

  Right.
  

• SpaceX is working on plans to boost Starlink to gigabit speeds.  (Notebook Check)
  
  This will be done using the Gen2 satellites the company started launching last year, that will also provide direct-to-satellite phone service once that is approved by ground-based authorities.
  
  
  
• If you're still annoyed with Apple unilaterally reducing the lifetime of SSL certificate from five years to one, good news: The company plans to reduce it further to just 45 days.  (The Register)
  
  This would completely kill manual installation of SSL certificates.  Nobody has time for that.
  
  
  
• SSD prices are expected to start declining again as nobody continues to buy the hot new AI PCs.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Good news.  Prices haven't increased that much since manufacturers slowed production anyway, though the very cheapest sale prices have dried up.
  
  
  
• Apple has announced a new iPad mini.  (9to5Mac)
  
  The CPU is upgraded from the A15 to the A17 chip.  Apart from that, it's the same, with the same 1000% markup on storage prices.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, October 16 2024 06:58 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, October 16 2024 07:59 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, October 16 2024 10:41 PM (rcPLc)

Posted by: J Greely at Wednesday, October 16 2024 11:14 PM (oJgNG)

Posted by: normal at Thursday, October 17 2024 03:51 AM (zx18t)

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• The Internet Archive is back online after the recent DDOS and data breach.  (The Verge)
  
  Currently it's read-only - that is, you can look up existing data but you can't request it to save new websites.  But all the existing data is intact.
  
  Work continues on restoring full functionality.
  
  
  

Tech News

• A Nobel Prize winner (Geoff Hinton) has called out OpenAI for placing profits (the company is not remotely profitable) ahead of safety (what safety?)  (WCCFTech)
  
  I swear, ever prominent figure in AI appears to have performed an auto-lobotomy with a grapefruit spoon.
  
  
  
• Google has signed a deal with nuclear energy developer Kairos Power to run its data centers using, well, nuclear energy.  (CNBC)
  
  Specifically using nuclear energy from small modular reactors which in turn use molten salt cooling.  There are currently, let's see, zero of these operating in the United States and only three in the world.
  
  The first reactor is planned to be online by 2030 but I suspect Elon Musk will have his Mars colony before that happens.
  
  
  
• I do not know why they did that: The iKOOLCORE R2 Max is a mini-PC with maxi-networking.  (Liliputing)
  
  A 4 core Intel N100 or 8 core N305 CPU, up to 32GB (maybe 48GB) of RAM, two 2.5Gb Ethernet ports, two 10Gb Ethernet ports, HDMI, USB-C with DisplayPort, and two M.2 NVMe slots.
  
  Here's the catch, though: Intel's N-series CPUs don't have a lot of I/O bandwidth, and after all the network ports are catered for, the M.2 slots get just one PCIe lane each...  Of PCIe 2.0.
  
  That's 500MB per second, when even a budget drive like Crucial's P3 Plus can deliver 5000MB per second.
  
  The kicker is that the 2.5Gb Ethernet ports have PCIe 3.0 connections, when they max out at 250MB per second and cannot possible use that.
  
  
  
• NASA's Europe Clipper mission is on its way to Europa - pure coincidence - courtesy of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.  (The Register)
  
  It is scheduled to arrive at Jupiter in 2030, just like everything else.
  
  
  
• If you are running Windows 10, a year from now Microsoft will finally stop bothering you with pointless updates.  (Ars Technica)
  
  I bet they don't though.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, October 16 2024 12:49 AM (zx18t)

Posted by: furball at Wednesday, October 16 2024 01:06 AM (As8gg)

Posted by: Bob in Houston at Wednesday, October 16 2024 01:31 AM (YBLgY)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, October 16 2024 01:38 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, October 16 2024 03:07 AM (zx18t)

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• SpaceX's Starship test completes with a remarkable "chopstick" booster catch.  (The Verge)
  
  The most successful Starship test so far, with both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship itself performing flawlessly.
  
  I'm linking The Verge for this one because the story is reported completely straight - just the facts, ma'am - and the comments are cheerfully ripping apart The Verge's usual two minute hate pieces.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile Elon Musk is planning to sue the Combat Camel Corps over blatant First Amendment violations.  (MSN)
  
  The CCC - wait, I'm told that stands for California Coastal Commission - and specifically Gretchen Newsom - were stupid enough to say that they rejected the SpaceX application for additional launch slots at Vandenburg because of what Musk posted on Twitter.

• Turns out 23andMe is a genetic robot vacuum cleaner.  (SFGate)
  
  If you used the service - or if anyone in your family did - you should probably log in and delete your data.
  
  This won't do anything but it might work in your favour in the resulting class action lawsuits.
  
  CEO Anne Wojcicki says she's open to takeover offers.  Or people who want to buy the company.  Either one.
  
  
  
• Unidentified drones swarmed Langley Air Force Base, and the Pentagon is "stumped".  (MSN)
  
  The drones circled the base for seventeen days.
  
  
  
• The average LLM (AI) jailbreak attempt takes 42 seconds.  (SC World)
  
  20% of attacks succeed, and of those, 90% leak confidential information.
  
  
  
• A detailed review of the Terramaster F8 Plus.  (Liliputing)
  
  This is an 8 bay M.2 NAS with 10Gb Ethernet and an 8 core CPU.  It's only slightly larger than an external 3.5" hard drive, and can store up to 64TB of data and hold up to 32GB of RAM for running applications (it ships with 16GB as standard, but it uses a regular SO-DIMM slot.)
  
  There's also cheaper F8 Nonplus, with a 4 core CPU and shipping with 8GB of RAM.  That should be fine if you just need the server functions and don't want to run apps on it.
  
  
  
• Gotta catch 'em all, but I'm out of disk space: A Game Freak leak has dumped company info and a terabyte of Pokemons.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Game Freak is the company developing the Pokemon games, though the franchise is owned by the Pokemon Company and Nintendo.  Anyway, the Skitty is definitely out of the bag now.
  
  
  
• The Beelink SER9 is the fastest mini-PC you can get right now.  (WCCFTech)
  
  It has more than twice the CPU performance and three to four times the graphics performance of my Beelink SER5.  But I have three of those and the SER9 costs more than three times as much if you already have memory and SSDs you can reuse.
  
  The Ryzen 370 used in the SER9 only supports LPDDR5X memory, not regular SO-DIMMS, so you can't install your own unless you have a desoldering station and a very steady hand. It does have two M.2 slots though.
  
  But if you don't need three computers and just want something small and quiet that gets the job done, it does.

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Tuesday, October 15 2024 03:43 AM (KOtXO)

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, October 15 2024 08:46 AM (bg2DR)

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• After being sued by hosting company WP Engine for libel and extortion, it would appear that Automattic, the commercial arm of WordPress, has chosen to respond with outright theft. (MSN)
  
  One thing Automattic accused WP Engine of was not contributing back to the project. WP Engine developed and maintained the WordPress plugin ACF - Advanced Custom Fields, which has two million users.
  
  So Automattic stole it. (Twitter)
  
  They took the project, changed the name, and assigned themselves ownership, dragging all two million users along with it.
  
  They said they were forced to do that because WP Engine could not properly manage and maintain the project. WP Engine could not manage and maintain the project because Automattic blocked them.
  
  WP Engine's lawyers who were already looking at replacing their Porsches with Ferraris are now thinking maybe a Bugatti Chiron would be nice.

• California has rejected SpaceX's application to launch additional missions from the state, with some officials opening themselves up to a massive First Amendment lawsuit.  (LA Times / MSN)
  
  Oops.
  
  Well, more business for Florida I guess.
  
  
  
• Boeing will lay off 10% of its employees, about 17,000 people. (MSN)
  
  This comes as no surprise to anyone, but is unlikely to affect the people who should be affected.
  
  
  
• Instagram and Threads moderation is out of control. (The Verge)
  
  Did your post get deleted? Too bad, so sad.

  Moderation is a perennial problem on social media, but based on social media posts and The Verge staff's own experiences, Meta is currently banning and restricting users on a hair trigger. One of my colleagues was locked out of her account briefly this week after joking that she "wanted to die" because of a heatwave.
  
  Others, like Jorge Caballero, say the automated system has added fact checks with mistakes to material it detects as political, as well as throttling posts with factual information for events like hurricanes. Some have dubbed their situation "crackergate," as recent posts mentioning saltines or the words "cracker jacks" have been instantly removed.

  Simple solution: Don't use Instagram or Threads. Twitter doesn't do this.
  
  
  
• The Verge is having yet another normal day. (The Verge)
  
  Geeze, lady. Take a couple of valium. Or down a fifth of bourbon. Not both, but one or the other.
  
  
  
• The San Francisco Chronicle has put in place an AI resource nobody asked for to answer questions nobody is asking about the political candidate nobody voted for. (San Francisco Chronicle) (archive site)
  
  It's unintentional self-parody all the way down.
  
  
  
• Do you need 384 cores and 3TB of RAM in a single 1U server? ASRock has a motherboard for you. (Serve the Home)
  
  No price attached but these are generally cheaper than you would think - much cheaper than the CPUs that plug into them.
  
  
  
• We keep pushing products that nobody wants, and for some reason people aren't buying them. (The Register)
  
  It's a meh year for desktop PCs, and a lousy year for Windows. There are a couple of bright spots in the laptop market, with AMD's Ryzen 370 and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X series, but not enough to lift PC sales out of the doldrums.
  
  Except for limited edition Hyte PC cases, which are reportedly doing gangbusters.
  
  
  

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Monday, October 14 2024 03:28 AM (KOtXO)

Posted by: Mauser at Monday, October 14 2024 02:01 PM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, October 14 2024 04:56 PM (PiXy!)

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• One of the two quartz mines in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, is in the process of reopening after the area was devastated by Hurricane Helene ten days ago.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Faster than I had expected.
  
  Chip fabrication depends on ultra-pure silicon.  To make the ingots of ultra-pure silicon, you need crucibles to melt the silicon in, that are of even higher purity.  That's where these two quartz mines come in.
  
  Chipmakers have a supply of pre-made silicon because they're not idiots, and the silicon makers likely have a supply of crucibles, but a closure lasting more than a couple of months could have started causing problems.
  
  

• Vietnam is planning to build six chip fabs, with the first one online by 2030.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Vietnam is nominally communist, but then so are the current governments of the US, the UK, Canada, France, and Australia.
  
  
  
• Leaked benchmarks indicate that AMD's Ryzen 9800X3D is up to 13% faster than the current Ryzen 7800X3D.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Which is kind of meh, but it's a meh year for computer hardware.
  
  
  
• If you're thinking you'll just buy a 7800X3D instead, well, good luck with that.  (WCCFTech)
  
  It's in short supply and prices on Newegg have jumped from around $399 to $699.  Though that's because Newegg themselves are out of stock and the best marketplace offer - from China - is wildly expensive.
  
  My local store actually has the 7800X3D on sale right now, so your mileage may vary.
  
  
  
• TikTok executives knew about the site's effect on teenagers.  (NPR)
  
  It turned them into giggling idiots drawn ineluctably to every new trend, no matter how absurd it might be.
  
  ...
  
  Yes.
  
  
  
• Ecovacs robot vacuum cleaners have been hacked to shout slurs at their owners.  (Vice)
  
  This is the same company under fire in Australia for collecting audio and video recordings and keeping them even after the customers deleted the files.
  
  
  
• We're not mad at you, Goldmusk, just disappointed.  (The Verge)
  
  The Verge having another totally normal day.
  
  
  
• We are mad at you, Goldmusk.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Ars Technica is having a just spectacularly normal day.
  
  
  
• Got a shipping notice and a UPS tracking number for my Calliope Mori Limited Edition Hyte Y40 PC case.
  
  Soon.  Soon I will have them all!
  
  
  
• But it might take a while to build systems in all the cases I now have.

Apropos of Moo Deng Video of the Day

Posted by: normal at Saturday, October 12 2024 08:28 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Sunday, October 13 2024 05:04 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: muddasir96 at Monday, October 21 2024 07:26 PM (qpRrH)

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