Tuesday, March 19
Daily News Stuff 19 March 2024
Good, Betteridge, Best Edition
Good, Betteridge, Best Edition
Top Story
- Ars Technica violated Betteridge's Law (any headline phrased as a question can be answered with no) and the First Rule of the Internet (never read the comments) with a single article: Is TikTok's parent company an agent of the Chinese state? (Ars Technica)
Yes, they say, but only because if Bytedance executives refuse to comply the communists will murder their families.
Which is accurate but would read better if you elided the "but only".
Oh, and the first comment simply reads, Yes.
Now, whether the proposed legislation is a good idea is another thing entirely; the very worst legislation often comes with massive bipartisan support, because it benefits them, not you.
But doing something about TikTok seems necessary.
Tech News
- Here we go again - or not: The naturally occurring mineral miassite turns out to be a superconductor. (Tom's Hardware)
At liquid helium temperatures. Most things are.
- MacOS 14.4 breaks all the things. (Ars Technica)
When I was regularly using my Mac (I have a 2015 Retina iMac which probably still works) every time I updated the operating system the mouse acceleration utility I was using would break. So I just stopped updating, because the default mouse support was unusable on a 27" screen.
14.4 breaks USB, printing, Java, many command line functions, and license key managers - which would be a big deal for professional audio users except they're probably still clinging to 10.6.
- In other news, Apple may be partnering with Google Gemini to provide AI functions. (Ars Technica)
Laughs in Microsoft.
- Microsoft meanwhile is deprecating 1024-bit RSA keys. (Bleeping Computer)
Which... Is actually sensible and necessary; 1024-bit keys have been deprecated in internet standards since 2013.
- Stripe and Substack want all your financial history. (Substack)
Well, Stripe certainly does, and Substack doesn't seem to have clean hands here.
Substack processes all payments via Stripe, and Stripe appears to be selectively enforcing new rules that require you to provide them with the full transaction history of your bank account.
Robert Malone (author of the piece) got a lawyer instead. Substack has so far refused to speak to him.
- I bank with CBE. (BBC)
As you can see, my last transaction was yesterday, when I withdrew $40 million from the nearest ATM.
- The TOXMAX rocket uses a molten, radioactive mix of lithium and cesium-137 as fuel, and a fluorine oxidiser. (Twitter)
It has a higher specific impulse than hydrogen/oxygen while keeping itself warm on cold winter nights. Yes, it will kill you, and everyone else in the area, but who wants to live forever?
- How to make your large Minecraft modpack run smoothly with 16GB of RAM.
Step One: Upgrade to 32GB.
I read r/feedthebeast (the modded Minecraft subreddit) to see if I was doing something wrong and nope, Minecraft uses ten times more RAM than disk space for mods.
Just Java things, I guess.
Disclaimer: Get sniped, losers!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
05:41 PM
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I can recall running java applications on freebsd back in the days of yore, and if you had any unused memory slots java would come pouring out like that scene in Jacob's Ladder.
Posted by: normal at Wednesday, March 20 2024 02:05 AM (zx18t)
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Re: miassite If appropriate, would work as a Youma name in a Sailor Moon fanfic.
Re: Tiktok. No need to allow congress to unnecessarily seize power over any social media entity. A reasonable man would understand that we were in a de facto war with the PRC, and a reasonable man would understand that TikTok was a PRC proxy, and what that implies given a de facto war. Therefore, we can simply hang the TikTok users under existing law.
JDs trained in CRT are not reasonable men, and perhaps should be excluded from the practice of law. ("logic is an 'ancient oppressive super-conspiracy'" has the logical implication that CRT users turn their backs on mathematics, and on other things founded upon logical argument.)
Re: Tiktok. No need to allow congress to unnecessarily seize power over any social media entity. A reasonable man would understand that we were in a de facto war with the PRC, and a reasonable man would understand that TikTok was a PRC proxy, and what that implies given a de facto war. Therefore, we can simply hang the TikTok users under existing law.
JDs trained in CRT are not reasonable men, and perhaps should be excluded from the practice of law. ("logic is an 'ancient oppressive super-conspiracy'" has the logical implication that CRT users turn their backs on mathematics, and on other things founded upon logical argument.)
Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, March 20 2024 02:24 AM (r9O5h)
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I realize it's a bit silly but I upgraded to 32GB several years ago specifically so I could run a modded Minecraft server and run the client with 10-12GB of RAM, with plenty left over. (Doing it that way instead of using the integrated server has tradeoffs: the client runs more smoothly for some reason, but time doesn't stop when you pause, either.)
Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, March 20 2024 11:10 AM (BMUHC)
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