• Why AI sucks.  (Dwarkesh)
  
  Because it doesn't learn.
  
  Specifically, current large language models are not designed to acquire and verify new facts and to discard old one that turned out to be incorrect, or to adopt new modes of though that streamline reasoning.
  
  They are trained, once, and then left to slowly rot until they are replaced.
  
  Interesting comments on this article too: Arguing about when AI will replace humanity and then admitting that nobody really knows anything and it will probably never happen.

• Why software teams slow down as they grow.  (Medium)
  
  Because everything does.
  
  
  
• Nvidia's new desktop CPU arrives this month.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  No, you can't buy one.  But you will be able to buy mini-PCs built around it...  For around $3000.
  
  I don't expect it to set the world on fire.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Frank at Monday, July 07 2025 11:25 PM (+i6Xr)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Tuesday, July 08 2025 12:12 AM (rcPLc)

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• The Nvidia RTX 5090 - the fastest graphics card available - can lose up to 25% performance if it doesn't have full PCIe 5.0 x16 bandwidth.  (WCCFTech)
  
  For example, running at half speed - with either a PCIe x8 slot or PCIe 4.0 - it loses...  Basically nothing.  Maybe 1%.
  
  At a quarter of the bandwidth - so PCIe 3.0 - it loses 10% of its performance.
  
  If you drop all the way back to PCIe 2.0 you finally see that 25% performance loss.
  
  Meaning that PCIe 5.0 doesn't improve performance unless you don't have all 16 lanes available, even on a 5090.
  
  And if you're using it for a workload that resides mostly on the card, like AI processing, you hardly need anything.  There's more variability between test runs than between a single lane and a full x16 slot.

• The OneXGPU Lite offers a Radeon 7600M GPU on a Thunderbolt 5 connection, which is...  Kind of pointless.  (Liliputing)
  
  The 7600M runs at about a quarter the speed of a 5090, so it would work just fine with Thunderbolt 4.  Or Thunderbolt 3, since it's exactly the same speed.
  
  
  
• Intel has a new network card.  (Serve the Home)
  
  The E610 offers two ports at up to 10Gb speeds and uses just 5W.
  
  
  
• Serving 200 million requests per day using CGI on an entry level server.  (Simon Willison)
  
  CGI may not be fast, but that's all relative.  It scales smoothly on whatever hardware you might throw at it, and hardware these days is fast.

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, July 07 2025 02:39 AM (1zWbY)

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• AMD's Zen 6 CPUs could be really fast and have lots of cache.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  Some of the rumours around Zen 6 - expected next year - appear to be solid: It will have 12 CPU cores per chiplet, up from 8 in all earlier models, and L3 cache will likewise scale by 50%.
  
  Speed is expected to pass the 6GHz mark, which seems reasonable.  Intel has already done that with its fastest models, and AMD is planning to move from TSMC's 4nm node to 2nm, which is notably faster.
  
  The one new rumour here is to do with the X3D models.  The X3D cache chips are also rumoured to be 50% larger, and it is possible to stack two of them on one CPU for up to 240MB of L3 cache on a single chiplet - up from 96MB currently.
  
  Also rumoured are the speeds for the smaller, slower Zen 6c cores: Up to 4.5GHz.  Since these have exactly the same performance per clock as full-size Zen 6, they will be quite respectable performers.
  
  Zen 6 will launch on the current-generation AM5 socket, so you can easily upgrade existing Zen 4 and Zen 5 systems.  Intel already abandoned Socket 1700 which supported its 12th, 13th, and 14th generation chips (which were basically all the same), and is expected to abandon its current Socket 1851 for yet another platform when it launches Nova Lake next year.  So forget any upgrades on that side.
  
  

Tech News

• Beeg cat means beeg error.  (arXiv)  (pdf)
  
  Adding useless cat facts when posing questions to so-called "reasoning" AIs instantly triples the error rate.
  
  
  
• Because it's Potemkin reasoning.  (The Register)
  
  And the peasants are revolting.
  
  
  
• The Playstation 5 Pro can't run AMD's latest FSR 4 upscaling.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Zero surprise there; neither can last year's AMD cards.  FSR 4 relies on eight-bit floating point hardware found only in the 9000-series cards.
  
  
  
• There is no safe amount of processed meat in your diet, according to idiots.  (CNN)
  
  Why, eating as little as one hot dog every single day could increase your risk of diabetes and cancer.
  
  At no point did CNN consider the possibility of eating more than zero but fewer than one hot dog per day.
  
  
  
• How Congress rejected King George, or, fascists are f***ing stupid.  (The Verge)  (archive site)
  
  These people.
  
  
  
• Why does Valve produce so few video games itself now that it has taken over the PC gaming market, everyone loves it, and it makes billions of dollars per year in profit for doing almost nothing?  (Financial Times)  (archive site)
  
  You know, guys, I think you may have answered your own question.
  
  
  
• Two Bitcoin wallets have woken up from a 14 year nap.  (MarketWatch)
  
  When they were last used in 2011 they were worth a total of $15,600.  They just became active again, now valued at more than two billion dollars.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: PatBuckman at Saturday, July 05 2025 11:57 PM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Sunday, July 06 2025 03:55 AM (KOtXO)

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• The US government is planning to breed billions of flesh-eating flies, zap them with radiation, and dump them on Mexico.  (CBS)
  
  Take that, you smug-druggling bastiches!
  
  ...
  
  Actually, this has been going on for years in Panama.  These are New World Screwworm flies, and they are a major problem.  The project - which has been keeping them penned up in South America for decades - breeds huge numbers of sterile but otherwise healthy males, which then compete to breed with the females, which produces...  Nothing.
  
  But that's the point.  It has to be kept up continuously (and has been) but it has drastically reduced their numbers north of the canal for since the 1960s.  Until recently, when they swarmed and made a break for it.
  
  The fly-factory in Panama currently produces 117 million dead-inside flies per week; the plan is to increase the number of sexual zombies to 400 million per week to outcompete real men.  Real flies.  Real fly men.  You know what I mean.
  
  
  

Tech News

• The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill will make it harder for solar and wind renewable energy projects to get access to government funds: They will need to actually build something.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Inconceivable.
  
  It does make it easier for nuclear and geothermal projects to gain access to government funds: They will also need to build something.
  
  
  
• The Radeon 9070 GRE - a cut-down version with 12GB of RAM and 48 graphics cores instead of the 16GB and 64 cores on the 9070 XT - will be getting a release in Taiwan.  (WCCFTech)
  
  No official prices so far outside of Taiwan and West Taiwan.
  
  
  
• Samsung is delaying the construction of its new $44 billion chip factory in Texas because it has no customers.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Better to figure that out before spending the $44 billion, yes.
  
  
  
• AI is very good on the A, much less so on the I.  (Nikkei)
  
  If you pass a letter to someone to give you a million dollars, and they just give it to you, that kind of sucks the joy out of life.
  
  
  
• The Stop Killing Games initiative has passed a million signatures in Europe thanks in no small part to efforts to kill the Stop Killing Games initiative.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Well, if it isn't the consequence of my own actions.
  
  

• At release, Nvidia's 5070 Ti was a little faster than AMD's competing 9070 XT but at a significantly higher cost.  In the months since, things have changed.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Now with a few months of driver updates behind it, the 9070 XT is faster overall - and the 5070 Ti is more expensive than ever.
  
  It's not a huge win for AMD, but given that their card is also 20% cheaper, there's not much reason to go with Nvidia in any but the highest price brackets which are completely unaffordable anyway.

• Microsoft's Copilot has joined ChatGPT in being humiliated in chess by the Atari 2600, which dates from the Cenozoic Era.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Copilot boasted of its skill at chess, but couldn't even keep track of the board, despite being explicitly fed that data.
  
  
  
• Microsoft is laying off 9000 employees, with the Xbox division being hit particularly hard.  (The Verge)
  
  That ranges from 10% of the people working on Candy Crush being laid off to the entire studio behind the game Perfect Dark being closed down.
  
  
  
• Interstellar apples are visiting the Solar System.  (LiveScience)

  A11pl3Z is most likely a large asteroid, or maybe a comet, potentially spanning up to 12 miles (20 kilometers). It is traveling toward the inner solar system at around 152,000 mph (245,000 km/h) and is approaching us from the part of the night sky where the bar of the Milky Way is located.

  If it hits something at that speed there's going to be juice everywhere.
  

Posted by: Mauser at Friday, July 04 2025 01:19 PM (QE7eq)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, July 04 2025 06:34 PM (PiXy!)

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Top Story

• Search engines like Google and Bing will be required to verify the age of users from Australia by the end of 2025, forcing them into safe mode if they are logged in and under the age of 18.  (Information Age)
  
  Which is stupid for many reasons, not least of which even under the law it doesn't work if you're not logged in.
  
  
  
• In more surprising but more welcome news, Chris Elston - "Billboard Chris" on Twitter - and Elon Musk won in separate cases against Australia's "eSafety Commissioner" Julie Inman Grant and some random crazy lady who goes by the name of Teddy Cook.  (MSN)

  In the post, Mr Elston, who goes by the name Billboard Chris on X, slammed the proposed appointment of Mr Cook, a biological female, to a World Health Organisation panel on healthcare delivery.

  The post reads: "This woman (yes, she's female) is part of a panel of 20 'experts' hired by the WHO to draft their policy on caring for 'trans people'. People who belong in psychiatric wards are writing the guidelines for people who belong in psychiatric wards."

  Speaking of random crazy women:

  Ms Grant labelled the remarks "degrading" and issued a takedown notice to X on March 22, threatening the company with a fine of up to $782,500 for any refusal to remove the post.

  Not only is the relevant law stupid - which is the ground state in these matters - but Australia's Administrative Review Tribunal ruled that Grant broke the law in forcing the content to be taken down.
  
  Elston and Musk sued separately to have the posts restored, and both won.

Tech News

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, July 02 2025 11:03 PM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Thursday, July 03 2025 03:27 AM (KOtXO)

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• Why AI is not useful for programming.  (Ordep)
  
  Because writing code was never the problem.  Anyone can write code if you don't care whether it works.  Even an AI.
  
  And even if it works, it is almost certain to make the overall system more complicated than the value it adds.  Keeping a complex system manageable as you add more features is the real battle.
  
  And AI is still at the stage of selling refrigerated tungsten cubes in its snack bar because one guy jokingly requested that.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Why do 80% or more of email startups fail?  (ForwardEmail)
  
  Because email already works.
  
  
  
• Building a working computer in MSPaint.  (GitHub)
  
  Uh...
  
  
  
• Why React is insane.  (mbrizic)
  
  This is literally the COMEFROM statement from Intercal.  Which was supposed to be a joke.
  
  
  
• Why Matt Mullenweg claimed WordPress belongs to him personally.  (The Verge)
  
  Because he's insane.
  
  
  
• Norway inflated the announced prizes of winners of its most recent lotto game.  (The Register)
  
  The agency in charge multiplied by 100 instead of dividing by the same amount.
  
  Oops.
  
  
  
• Potentially millions of pairs of Bluetooth headphones are hopelessly insecure.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  Oops again.
  
  

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Wednesday, July 02 2025 03:08 AM (KOtXO)

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, July 02 2025 08:16 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Frank at Wednesday, July 02 2025 05:09 PM (+i6Xr)

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• Don't buy an Nvidia video card.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Because the leaks have already started for the upcoming 5000 Super family of cards, which are only very slightly faster but have 50% more memory.
  
  Upgrading the 5070 from a middling 12GB of RAM to 18GB makes it a solid product that will likely last for years.  The same goes for the 5070 Ti, already fairly good with 16GB of RAM, if somewhat overpriced; with 24GB it becomes a high-end model that is not going to easily become obsolete.
  
  If you weren't inclined to pay that much in the first place, AMD's 9060 XT is still the pick of the litter, with 16GB cards going for less than an 8GB 5060 Ti.

• Reddit made a deal to sell its content to AI companies for training.  Now it's being spammed by AI bots.  (9to5Mac)

  Multiple ad agency execs confirmed to the FT that they are indeed "posting content on Reddit to boost the likelihood of their ads appearing in the responses of generative AI chatbots."

  Tragedy of the commons on speed-dial.
  
  
  
• Trying out a low-end previous-generation AMD server.  (Serve the Home)
  
  It's 2025, so a "low-end previous-generation" server has 64 cores.
  
  
  
• In a welcome change, companies promoting AI in new products are finding it can make customers less likely to buy.  (MSN)
  
  Now they just need to stop putting AI in their products entirely.

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, July 01 2025 12:59 AM (Buqiv)

Posted by: Mauser at Tuesday, July 01 2025 11:34 AM (QE7eq)

Posted by: Mauser at Tuesday, July 01 2025 12:00 PM (QE7eq)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, July 01 2025 01:44 PM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Mauser at Wednesday, July 02 2025 01:25 PM (QE7eq)

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Posted by: PatBuckman at Sunday, June 29 2025 08:21 PM (rcPLc)

Posted by: normal at Monday, June 30 2025 06:12 AM (VNhpM)

Posted by: cxt217 at Monday, June 30 2025 09:06 AM (ZLF73)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, June 30 2025 10:13 AM (PiXy!)

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• In the midst of a string of straightforward decisions by the Supreme Court upholding the plain meaning of the Constitution, such as Trump v. CASA, limiting the power of the inferior courts, and Mahmoud v. Taylor, limiting the power of the the indoctrination guilds, there was one with the exact same 6-3 split that went in a perhaps unexpected way.  (The Verge)
  
  In FSC v. Paxton the Free Speech Coalition sued Texas attorney general Ken Paxton to block legislation to enforce age filters on online pornography on the grounds that it would inevitably infringe upon the free speech of adults.
  
  A 2004 decision against the federal Child Online Protection Act, as well as a 1997 decision against the Communications Decency Act, both ruled that the legislation would violate the First Amendment on precisely those grounds.
  
  This time though the court ruled that there was no fundamental right infringed by the Texas legislation - or by similar laws proposed or enacted by 21 other states - stating that advances in technology something something something, an argument I find questionable.
  
  Expect sales of VPNs to teenagers to soar.
  
  This does leave open the question of more recently proposed age filter laws for social media.  I don't care much if fifteen-year-olds have to circumvent the filters to watch PornHub and OnlyFans, but if they suddenly can't access Bluesky they'll infest sites that aren't age restricted and we all remember the Great Tumblr Containment Breach catastrophe.

• Gigabyte says its new turbo mode can boost performance of recent Intel systems by as much as 35%.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It can't.
  
  
  
• If you have Brother printer - or one of several models from Fuji, Toshiba, or Minolta - change the wifi password.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Or you might find yourself the victim of of a drive-by print job.
  
  
  
• Which came first, colour vision, or the existence of colour in animals so that there was a need for colour vision.  (Quanta)
  
  Colour vision, and by a lot.
  
  
  
• Speaking of seeing stuff, Facebook wants access to your pictures to feed them into its AI - including pictures you have never uploaded to Facebook.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  The answer is no.
  
  
  
• Speaking of the answer is no, Facebook is upset that Republicans are taking its slaves away.  (FWD.us)
  
  FWD.us is a lobbying group founded by Mark Zuckerberg nominally to - among other things - promote improved border security.
  
  Either that was a lie or...  Well, given their past activity, it was pretty much just a lie.
  
  The answer is still no.
  
  
  
• Microsoft is finally getting rid of the Blue Screen of Death.  (Tech Republic)
  
  Going forward, it will instead be black.
  
  
  
• What the Supreme Court doesn't understand about vivisectionists.  (StatNews)

  Recently I saved three toes of a patient with type 2 diabetes in the earlier stages of gangrene using maggots to eat the dead flesh, allowing the remaining healthy tissues to regrow and recovering almost complete function.
  
  But when I trap young children and feed them into my basement maggot pit, I could face felony charges in 49 states.
  
  The careful medical evaluation is the same. But one is celebrated while the other is criminalized - with devastating consequences for the children whose futures hang in my bank balance.

  Slightly edited, yes.  This doctor is not talking about feeding children to maggots, but rather about chemical sterilization and surgical mutilation.

  As a pediatrician, I never imagined having lawmakers decide which children's suffering deserves treatment.

  Maybe he should stop making children suffer then.
  
  Yes, this was another 6-3 decision by the Supreme Court upholding a state law and affirming the Sixth Circuit's existing decision.
  

Sort Of Tech News

Not At All Tech News

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Posted by: Frank at Sunday, June 29 2025 05:58 AM (+i6Xr)

Posted by: three-humped camel at Sunday, June 29 2025 11:57 AM (Ncog+)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, June 29 2025 04:15 PM (PiXy!)

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