• So I'm banned from Twitter again.  They have at least sped up the appeals process.  Where it used to take a week for a bot to automatically reject your appeal, it now takes less than 24 hours.
  
  I only really used it to mock the stupid - because that's where they congregate - and it turns out the stupid didn't appreciate it.
  
  
  
• Specifically I was banned for suggesting that Comrade Dan Andrews - Premier of Victoria - should resign or be thrown into a volcano, whichever works.  And this morning Melbourne got hit by a 5.6 earthquake, so while Twitter might have banned me it appears that someone was listening.
  
  Oh, and despite the earthquake the tradies were on the march again - and Comrade Dan banned the news networks from filming the protest from the air.  That's because they want to keep up the propaganda effort that it's a small group of Neo-Nazis, and that lie dies instantly when you see the extent of the protests from above.
  
  (Also dies instantly when you see the large Sikh contingent.)
  
  
  
• If you're a farm service provider don't use chicken1 as your password.  (ZDNet)
  
  Make it chicken123 next time.  Get the hackers to put in a little effort.

• The new Windows 11 Update Checker tells you why you can't update to Windows 11.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Funny, all it seems to say is because fuck you, that's why.
  
  
  
• If you let goats eat the underbrush, it can't catch fire.  (New York Times)
  
  Thank you Captain Obvious.
  
  Also you can eat the goats.  Not bad, actually.
  
  
  
• We also run Linux.  (Pluralistic)
  
  More nice words being written about the Framework laptop, this time from a hardcore Linux user.  Only major issues she raises are the fiddly installation of the tiny WiFi module if you buy the DIY model, and the lack of a trackpoint when coming from a long line of Lenovo laptops.
  
  
  
• PostgreSQL 14 has updated the JSON query syntax.  (Crunchydata)
  
  And gets it almost sort of right.  PostgreSQL's query syntax is a complete mess when it comes to supporting advanced features.
  
  
  
• A new bug in MacOS lets web bookmarks execute arbitrary commands.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  You need to persuade the user to click on them, but you wouldn't expect a bookmark of a web page to run things on your computer.
  
  
  
• Atlassian's Trello is down, improving the productivity of software developers everywhere.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Trello sucks.
  
  
  
• The FBI had a key to decrypt servers hit by the REvil ransomware.  (Washington Post)
  
  They kept this secret from the companies hit by ransomware attacks because they were planning some kind of operation against the Russian hacker group - exactly what doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere - only REvil disappeared before they could do it.
  
  And then popped right back up again.
  
  
  

Posted by: cxt217 at Wednesday, September 22 2021 11:02 AM (MuaLM)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, September 22 2021 11:18 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: cxt217 at Wednesday, September 22 2021 12:32 PM (MuaLM)

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Wednesday, September 22 2021 12:45 PM (iKe46)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, September 22 2021 01:53 PM (r9O5h)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, September 22 2021 07:44 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Thursday, September 23 2021 01:09 AM (r9O5h)

Posted by: cxt217 at Thursday, September 23 2021 09:31 AM (MuaLM)

Posted by: J Greely at Thursday, September 23 2021 10:58 AM (ZlYZd)

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Posted by: normal at Tuesday, September 21 2021 11:40 PM (LADmw)

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• The Southerly Kerfuffle continues: After the weekend protest in Melbourne, the Victorian state government - which recently lost in a pub quiz to a plate of sandwiches - decided to shut down all construction sites and throw the workers out of, well, work.
  
  Instantly creating an army with nothing better to do than protest.  Every.  Single.  Day.
  
  
  
  
  Long, long thread.  News outlets, politicians, their own union leaders, and other assorted communists first tried to play down the size of the protest, and then, after  the center of Melbourne had been shut down for several hours, decided that they were all Nazis, probably come from overseas just to stir up trouble.
  
  Yes, they booked their flights two weeks ahead and sat around in quarantine all that time because they knew on the 4th that the Victorian state government was going to shut down building sites on the 18th.
  
  Our politicians up here in Sydney can certainly be heavy-handed and I would like nothing better than to never see any of them disgrace my TV screen ever again, but they can't come close to the self-destructive idiocy of the mob running Melbourne. 
  
  Case in point: Construction sites will be allowed to operate at 100% capacity in Sydney again, even though we've had more Bat Flu cases recently and fewer protests.
  
  
  
• Senate Democrats are calling for the FTC to pass privacy regulations because they are incapable of writing coherent legislation.  (The Verge)
  
  I'm not sure the federal government needs to get involved here, since California already has, and everyone is already failing to live up to those rules.
  
  
  
  

Tech News

• After 30 years, Python is getting a case statement.  (Ben Hoyt)
  
  First defined in mathematics in 1952, first appeared in a programming language around 1960, so they took their own sweet time about it.
  
  
  
• You can also use goto.  (GitHub)
  
  Don't.
  
  Though it's impressive that this trick works with PyPy, the Python compiler, and not just regular Python.
  
  
  
• Amazon is filling search results with ads, making their own storefront useless.  (CNBC)
  
  "Other" is the company's second most profitable revenue stream, so don't expect them to stop doing this.
  
  
  
• After 30 years of PC Load Letter we've now advanced to Connect to printer Windows cannot connect to the printer. Operation failed with error 0x0000011b which I'm sure we can all agree is a huge improvement.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Not.

Anime Girls With Surprising Voices Video of the Day Two

Anime Girls Sing Bonus Video of the Day

• Some accidental clarity regarding that idiotic story about gunshot victims being turned away from hospitals in rural Ohio Oklahoma because the ICU beds were full of ivermectin overdosers: In the past six weeks in Oregon, the number of such patients admitted to the ICU is...  Two.  (OHSU)
  
  Which isn't a lot, but it's odd that it happened twice.
  
  A commenter on Slashdot points out that in the US last year, 951 people died in lawnmower accidents.

• Xata is a serverless database for serverless apps.  (Xata.io)
  
  Serverless is one more step of wishful thinking beyond cloud.  There's no serverless, there's just someone else's servers and you have no control over what happens on them.
  
  
  
• People said I was mad to embed SMB in the kernel, but I embedded it all the same.  It sank into the swamp.  (Phoronix)
  
  It has - surprising no-one - a security vulnerability.  Involving .. which is the first thing you check when handling a file path on Unix-like systems.
  
  And the patch to fix that has a buffer overflow bug.
  
  
  
• You can no longer run Windows 11 in VirtualBox.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Funny thing, I was checking my desktop system for that AMD chipset driver bug yesterday, and I noticed that it has TPM 2.0, the critical requirement for running Windows 11.
  
  I still can't run Windows 11 because it doesn't support my CPU either.
  
  
  
• The Surface Pro 8 may or may not have leaked.  (Thurrott.com)
  
  It will be announced in two days so the chance of accurate leaks right now is high, but there's limited information of dubious provenance, so taking this with a bucket of salt for now.
  
  
  

Posted by: PatBuckman at Monday, September 20 2021 10:25 PM (r9O5h)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, September 20 2021 11:19 PM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: normal at Monday, September 20 2021 11:44 PM (LADmw)

Posted by: J Greely at Tuesday, September 21 2021 01:18 AM (ZlYZd)

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• A tale of two protests: The DC protest rally didn't happen because it glowed bright enough to be seen with the naked eye from the Oort Cloud.
  
  The Melbourne protest went right ahead.  The police locked down public transport and major roads in the center of Melbourne in preparation...  So fifteen minutes before the event was supposed to start, the organisers simply moved it by a couple of miles.
  
  
  
• AMD's next-gen graphics cards could triple the rendering power over the current generation.  (WCCFTech)
  
  At the high end they're also expected to cost twice as much - but twice as much as current MSRP, not twice current retail, which is close to twice MSRP anyway.  Since they're not expected to ship until late next year (ignore where it says Q4 2021, that's an error) we might actually see supply constraints somewhat improved and prices likewise.
  
  The mid-range 7600XT will have - according to these leaks - similar hardware to the current high-end 6900XT, but with more cache and less memory bandwidth.

• It being a slow news day, I'm going to post some of the stuff I would usually filter out.
  
  
  
• KySync is a multi-threaded file-distribution protocol based on Zsync.  (Kyall)
  
  Somewhere between Rsync and BitTorrent as far as I can make out.
  
  
  
• Excision's CRISPR HIV therapy has been cleared for human testing by the FDA.  (Fierce Biotech)
  
  Good.  Probably.
  
  
  
• Sysz is an fzf terminal UI for systemctl.  (GitHub)
  
  Fuck systemd.
  
  
  
• Toshiba's N300 18TB NAS drives use FC-MAMR.  (Serve the Home)
  
  This uses a spin torque oscillator to focus the magnetic flux of the write head, increasing the capacity of the drive by, um, 12.5%.
  
  Oh, and an uncorrectable error rate of 1 in 1014 bits.  Allegedly.
  
  
  
• An open source DRM driver has been made available for Mediatek AI cores.  (Phoronix)

  ... DRM driver that implements communication between the CPU and an APU. This uses VirtIO buffer to exchange messages. For the data, we allocate a GEM object and map it using IOMMU to make it available to the APU.

  It also makes julienne fries.
  
  
  
• AMD and Valve are focusing on a P-State / CPPC driver with Schedutil.  (Phoronix)
  
  This is to improve performance of the recently announced Steam Deck portable gaming console.  
  
  I think.
  
  
  
• KWinFT is continuing work on the WLROOTS render / library split.  (Phoronix)
  
  No idea, sorry.
  
  
  
• Google is resetting permissions on billions of Android apps.  (Thurrott.com)
  
  This will be annoying for users but is probably a good idea.  Permissions used to be rather lax and apps were installed with permissions they never really needed.  Those permissions will be taken away so an update to a game can't start checking the numbers you dial even if you originally said it could, three years ago.
  
  
  
• If you want an iPad Mini 6 because it's the only good small tablet around, be prepared to wait.  (9to5Mac)
  
  Pre-orders have been pushed out to November.
  
  It's also rather expensive.  Samsung's Galaxy Tab A7 Lite is a quarter the price, and is a perfectly viable alternative if you don't care about typography.  The iPad has a 2266x1488 display, which is fine at 8"; the Samsung has a 1340x800 display, which simply isn't enough.

• Deliver sixteen tons what do you get
  A bottle of piss and deeper in debt
  Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
  I owe my soul to the Amazon store.  (Bloomberg)
  
  On the one hand, anything that hastens the exodus from and collapse of large liberal cities is an unalloyed good.  On the other hand, all the people pushing for these company towns vote Democrat anyway and they will turn out to be just as bad as the first time around.
  
  
  
• Speaking of company towns, bit of a kerfuffle in Melbourne today.  The old-school working class socialists have had quite enough of the new-wave managerial class socialists and decided to break things.
  
  Safe prediction: The Victorian government, which collectively has the decision-making capacity of a week-dead wombat, will promptly step in to make everything much worse.
  
  Update: That was indeed prompt.  Victoria has just announced lockdowns won't be lifted until 90% of the population is fully vaccinated.
  
  Riots it is then.

• There's a chipset driver bug that affects security on all AMD desktop and laptop systems.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This probably doesn't affect Linux servers, particularly ones with Epyc CPUs, which don't actually have a chipset.  And it only affects you if you're running untrusted software on your computer, at which case you're already screwed.
  
  
  
• The lower-end Alder Lake desktop parts won't have the low-power efficiency cores.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Which makes total sense for several reasons.  Those cores are mostly for laptops where you need to save power, but are also useful for Intel's high-end desktop parts because they draw about as much power as a space heater.    The lower-end desktop parts don't fall into either of those categories.  Mostly.
  
  
  
• The Biden administration is planning to sanction crypto exchanges and wallets used by ransomware groups.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  That description is a bit confused, but the idea is not without merit - prevent them from turning their ill-gotten digital gains into ill-gotten fiat gains.  I expect the implementation to be a disaster.
  
  
  
• The operator of a DDoS for hire service is facing 35 years in prison.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Good.
  
  
  
• If you're a Linux admin on Microsoft Azure you're probably having a lousy week.
  
  As mentioned yesterday, if you don't pre-emptively firewall every single thing it only takes one network packet to get root access. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  If you do, it still only takes one network packet from a local user.
  
  Also, you need to manually update every single server because Microsoft neither told you about the management agent it was installing nor provided automated updates.
  
  And it's already being actively exploited. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  So if you don't want all your Azure servers mining crypto and joining botnets, update them now.
  
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Sunday, September 19 2021 05:28 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: normal at Sunday, September 19 2021 11:19 AM (obo9H)

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• Australia is acquiring a fleet of nuclear submarines specifically to counter the growing threat of China.  (ABC - ours, not yours)
  
  This makes so much sense that I'm shocked it was even considered.
  
  The usual suspects are apoplectic:
  
  
  
  
  Just gravy on the cake really.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile China's property market - the scam that supports the rest of the economy - is busily imploding.  (CNBC)
  
  Sometimes literally.
  
  

• Slot machine chain Dotty's suffered a data breach.  (ZDNet)
  
  Among the customer data leaked is (deep breath) social security numbers, drivers license and state ID numbers, passport details, financial account information, health insurance, treatment information, biometric data, MEDICAL RECORDS, tax details, and credit card numbers and expiry dates.
  
  IT'S A FUCKING SLOT MACHINE.  YOU PUT YOUR MONEY IN, IT SPINS AND BEEPS, AND YOU LOSE YOUR MONEY.  WHY THE FUCK DO THEY HAVE YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS?
  
  
  
• Ahem.
  
  
  
• USB SSDs are almost here.  (AnandTech)
  
  Yes, you can already get SSDs with a USB interface, but they are internally either SATA or NVMe drives with an adaptor.  These new controllers connect the flash storage directly to a USB-C port.
  
  I've been saying for a few years now that it's time for USB to replace SATA.  USB 3.2 is four times as fast as SATA, and USB 4 is twice that again.  It provides power and data over a single convenient cable, it works the same for internal and external drives, and it supports hubs to easily expand your ports.
  
  
  
• The Solana blockchain crashed.  (Bloomberg)
  
  This is not something that blockchains are supposed to do, but it did.
  
  On the other hand:
  
  
  
  
  400,000 TPS is a lot.  Ethereum does 14.  Not 14,000, 14.
  
  
  
• I think I mentioned a partial leak of this before but pricing and specs are out for AMD's full Milan-X lineup.  (WCCFTech)
  
  These are the same CPU cores but with extra memory stacked on top of them so that they have between 3 and 6 times as much cache.  All models of Milan-X have 8 CPU chiplets, where low-end Milan-non-X have only four, so while there are low-end Milan-X models they are far more expensive than their non-X counterparts.
  
  At the high end the difference is only around 10%, which is promising for the desktop versions expected shortly.
  
  
  
• The entire network of South Africa's Department of Justice got encrypted by a ransomware attack.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  How?  How can a network of that size be so homogenous that a single attack can encrypt it all?  From what I've seen of government systems, 80% of the data would survive because the servers were too old to run the virus code.
  
  
  
• Microsoft Office 2021 is out - sort of, if you're not a big corporate customer it's another couple of weeks.  But if you prefer to buy it outright rather than pay a subscription you'll...   Oh.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  If you prefer to buy it outright you'll find Microsoft happy to take your money, it turns out.
  
  I do want Visio Pro.
  
  
  
• This is rather nice.
  
  
  
  
  I watch Hololive just about every day - or just have them on as background noise, more often - and I still needed a guide to who everyone was.  Everyone is here except HoloCN (who get a shoutout on the poster) and that girl from Gen 1 whose name shall not be spoken.  That includes not just Coco and Aloe but all of Holostars as well.
  
  You need to click through and open the image in a new tab to appreciate it - it's 4096x1613 pixels.
  
  

Posted by: Jay at Saturday, September 18 2021 12:28 AM (mrlXS)

Posted by: cxt217 at Saturday, September 18 2021 07:28 AM (MuaLM)

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• TipTop's "The One" gluten-free bread is bread.  Sure it's made of tapioca starch and rice flour and - yes - soy, but it tastes like bread, has the texture of bread, doesn't fall apart the moment you butter it, and only costs twice as much as bread.
  
  It's the breadiest bread I've had since I was diagnosed with celiac back in 2010. 
  
  
  
• Microsoft has fixed a bug that potentially let anyone hack your Azure Linux servers. (Wiz)
  
  They silently install a management agent on your servers if you use certain Azure services. The management agent has a hole in it - not so deep as a well, not so wide as a church-door... Actually, it pretty much is. If you don't firewall your server properly, anyone can access that agent to run any code they want without needing anything fiddly like a password.
  
  It's a double whammy: A remote code execution vulnerability coupled with complete failure to actually check the password. You can just waltz straight in.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Microsoft is now offering the option to go passwordless on your Microsoft accounts.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  
  
  
  Just like your servers.
  
  What could possibly go wrong?

• The Xiaomi 11T has an A78 core and the 11T Pro the newer X1 core, allowing for an easy performance comparison. (AnandTech)
  
  Except that both models cheat to get better scores on performance and battery benchmarks, so the easy performance comparison is basically useless.
  
  
  
• AMD is ready to produce Arm CPUs. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  They're just... Not actually doing so. So the announcement, and the article, and this news item, are all kind of pointless.
  
  
  
• Intel is cutting prices on its server CPUs to compete with AMD. (WCCFTech)
  
  Just not for you. Unless you ship a million servers a year you're stuck with list price and that's not changing.
  
  
  
• When Stack Overflow goes wrong. (Litle Man in My Head)
  
  Looking for a quick example of how to implement encryption? Stack Overflow answers will give you a convenient cut and paste solution that will ruin your day.
  
  
  
• Developer burnout: Shut up you whiny little bitches. (CodeSubmit)
  
  Seriously? This is what people consider "burnout"? There's no mention at all of auditory hallucinations.
  
  
  
• Don't pass mutable default values to Python functions. (Valinsky)
  
  That's it. That's the article. Now you don't need to read it.
  
  
  
• Is Apple's new A15 mobile CPU actually faster than the A14?  (MacWorld)
  
  Apple's own marketing numbers suggest that it's slower.  That seems unlikely but you'd think they'd oversell rather than under.
  
  
  
• ExpressVPN's CIO was a former UAE spy.  (Motherboard)
  
  And they knew that when they hired him.

  Daniel has a deep understanding of the tools and techniques used by the adversaries we aim to protect users against, and as such is a uniquely qualified expert to advise on defense against such threats. Our product and infrastructure have already benefited from that understanding in better securing user data.

  Yeah, that's one way to look at it.

Posted by: cxt217 at Friday, September 17 2021 10:27 AM (MuaLM)

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• Apple announced a new range of cameras with phones attached to them.  (The Verge)
  
  They're supposed to be pretty good cameras too.
  
  
  
• Apple also announced a new small tablet which gets a few things right but has some bizarre marketing.  (The Verge)
  
  The iPad Mini 6 has an 8.3" 3:2 screen with a resoluion of 2266x1448.  That's pretty good, and the narrower ratio is better for reading than the old 4:3 screen.  At a little under 300 grams it's the a similar size to the old Nexus 7 except about 20mm wider.
  
  The weird part?  Apple trumpets a "new all-screen design".
  
  It has huge bezels.
  
  "An all-new enclosure features a new edge-to-edge screen, along with narrow borders and elegant rounded corners."
  
  It has huge bezels.
  
  What do they even think they're saying here?  They have a claim about the new edge-to-edge screen surrounded by photos of huge bezels.
  
  I don't get it.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Rare earth metal prices are soaring.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Along with less rare metals like lithium - up 150% since last year, aluminium, and copper.
  
  China mines half of rare earth elements and processes 85% of production, because it produces pollution like nothing else.
  
  I mentioned earlier that the Salton Sea by itself contains enough lithium to supply two thirds of the world's demand.  There's no shortage.  It's just that extracting these materials makes a hell of a mess.
  
  
  
• Kioxia - which I insist is pronounced kosher - formerly Toshiba's flash storage division is making SLC SSDs again  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The disadvantage is that these drives cost tree times as much to make as typical TLC models.  The advantage is that they're up to 10 times as fast in terms of read latency, so you can sell them for five times as much.
  
  That still leaves them slower than Intel's Optane, which uses an entirely different technology, but Optane costs about five times as much again.
  
  

• Russia has issued fines against Facebook and Twitter for failing to delete illegal content.  (Reuters)
  
  In all, eight fines were issued by a district court totalling 35 million roubles  ($4.26).
  
  
  

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, September 16 2021 04:17 AM (eqaFC)

Posted by: normal at Thursday, September 16 2021 12:08 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, September 16 2021 03:19 PM (PiXy!)

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