• Elon Musk bought Twitter.  (Sydney Morning Herald)
  
  For a lefty rag, a not entirely terrible article.
  
  
  
• Elon Musk bought Twitter: Here's five things he needs to take care of.  (The Guardian)
  
  1. Fire everyone.
  2. Edut buten.
  
  
  
• Elon Musk bought Twitter: The neurosyphilitic communist canary in the free speech coal mine is having a stroke.  (Mashable)
  
  Aww, they look so sad.  Can I troll them just a little?
  
  
  
• Elon Musk bought Twitter: Free speech experts worried about the prospect of free speech.  (SBS)

  "For him to say he's doing this for free speech is just a fallacy. It's just wrong. This is not about free speech, if it were there would be a completely different approach needed," said Professor Katherine Gelber, Orwell Professor of Political Science at the University of Queensland.

  
  
• Elon Musk bought Twitter: Sadly he will not immediately begin cleaning house with flame and sword.  (Daily Mail)
  
  The deal could take up to six months to finalise - requiring a shareholder vote that won't take place until May 25 at the earliest - and there are no layoffs planned "at this time".
  
  Whatever you think of the Daily Mail, this is one of the most detailed articles I've seen so far - they've rolled all their previous content on the takeover bid into one huge thread.
  
  
  

• The EU has unveiled its plan for the largest ever ban of "dangerous chemicals".  (The Guardian)
  
  Allegedly including PVC plastics and all flame retardants, the ban could hit a quarter of all chemical production in Europe.
  
  Which sounds great until an apartment building burns down and turns two hundred voters into so much illicit bacon.
  
  
  
• The crypto industry - which is awash with money - can't find enough lawyers.  (WSJ)
  
  Call me crazy but I somehow think there's a solution to this problem.
  
  
  
• Social networks will be required to publish and explain their content recommendation algorithms under the EU's new Digital Services Act.  (The Verge)
  
  It's not all good news, but at least it makes life progressively more difficult the larger a social platform is, which correlates closely with those most needing a kick in the teeth:

  The DSA will, like the DMA, distinguish between tech companies of different sizes, placing greater obligations on bigger companies. The largest firms — those with at least 45 million users in the EU, like Meta and Google — will face the most scrutiny. These tech companies have lobbied hard to water down the requirements in the DSA, particularly those concerning targeted advertising and handing over data to outside researchers.

  
  
• Speaking of making life difficult the lockdowns in China are leading to a growing shortage of laptop components.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Fortunately inflation has taken a bite out of discretionary spending and laptop sales are down 10% over last year, so the component shortage hasn't immediately cleared the shelves of stock.
  
  
  
• Just following pre-orders.
  
  

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, April 26 2022 11:28 PM (6oqhX)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, April 26 2022 11:31 PM (6oqhX)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, April 27 2022 03:07 AM (r9O5h)

Posted by: Mauser at Wednesday, April 27 2022 03:28 PM (gVjvf)

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, April 27 2022 11:03 PM (6oqhX)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, April 28 2022 04:39 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Mauser at Thursday, April 28 2022 02:52 PM (gVjvf)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, April 28 2022 11:23 PM (6oqhX)

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• Well, that's one solution: If your politics require you to maintain lockdowns but your economic survival requires getting as many people as possible back to work just lock workers in the factories.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Even the Ars Technica commentariat aren't on board with this one.  A few try half-heartedly to blame it on capitalism, but they're getting downvoted to oblivion.  There are mentions of Mao's war on sparrows, and those are getting upvoted.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Ryzen 7000 is probably going to be DDR5 only.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Ryzen 6000 - the new laptop chips that just came out - is already DDR5-only (or LPDDR5).  It truly needs that bandwidth to enable its fast integrated graphics, where a pure CPU doesn't really, not unless AMD goes beyond 16 cores with these new chips.
  
  Intel's Alder Lake still supports DDR4 as well as DDR5 - depending on the motherboard - so AMD is betting that DDR5 prices will come down over the course of the year.
  
  
  
• Twitter's board of directors finds itself unexpectedly at the bottom of a hole it just dug.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Nobody else is interested in Twitter at the moment because the first thing any buyer would need to do is fire the board and senior management, so if they succeed in fending off Elon Musk's takeover bid for their propaganda platform the stock price is almost certain to collapse. 
  
  Netflix and Disney actually have content people want and are willing to pay for, even if their new content is crap, and their respective share prices are in the toilet.  Nobody needs what was on Twitter yesterday; the value of the company is entirely on what people expect in its future.
  
  If the board succeeds in resetting that expectation to all Maxism all the time, as they seem to want, they could also reset the share price to zero.
  
  
  

Just Move Disney to Seattle Video of the Day

Posted by: normal at Sunday, April 24 2022 11:31 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: Frank at Monday, April 25 2022 12:55 AM (rglbH)

Posted by: normal at Monday, April 25 2022 01:52 AM (obo9H)

Posted by: Mauser at Monday, April 25 2022 02:12 PM (gVjvf)

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• It's the weekend or something closely approaching that, which means that it's Question and Answer time or...  Something closely approaching that.
  
  Put something resembling a question in the comments below and I'll put something resembling an answer in the post tomorrow.
  
  
  
• Netflix wants to invest in fewer, better originals.  (Thurrott.com)
  
  The company plans to invest $20 billion in original content, and has indicated that they'd like at least one or two shows not to suck.
  
  
  
• Because apparently the original plan of flooding the end zone with liquid shit hasn't been a runaway success.  (Pajiba)
  
  Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in a quarter where they had expected to gain 2.5 million.  Not me, though.  I quit years ago.  All my entertainment spending gets dumped into Hololive.  Uh, and Nijisanji, and Prism, and indies.  I spend a lot more on vtubers than I ever did on streaming services and it's still infinitely better value for money because they don't immediately turn around and use that money to destroy everything I love.

• TSMC's 3nm process is on track, 2nm still a long way off.  (AnandTech)
  
  N3 - the basic 3nm node - is due to start production this year.  The enhanced N3E is due for the first half of 2023.  Keep in mind that advanced chips take about six months from the start of manufacturing to appearing on the shelves in finished products.
  
  TSMC's 3nm brings the same level of advances over 5nm that 5nm has over 7nm: 15% faster, 30% more efficient, and 40% smaller.  My newest computers are built on Intel's 10nm and TSMC's 7nm process, so 3nm would completely blow them out of the water.
  
  TSMC's 2nm N2 node is not expected to enter production until the second half of 2025, where Intel's theoretically equivalent 20A node is scheduled for the first half of 2024.  (AnandTech)
  
  Whether the nodes are in fact equivalent and whether either company will stick to that question I have no idea.  Though Intel is expected to be one of the first customers on TSMC's 2nm node and why they'd do that when their own 2nm node will come a year earlier is a very good question.
  
  All that aside, at this rate we'll be pushing the limits of bulk planar silicon by the end of the decade; further advances will require a change in approach.
  
  Though that means that without the Red Queen's Race of updating fabs every couple of years to remain competitive, chip production will become much, much cheaper.  Compare the cost of a couple of trillion transistors of 3D NAND flash against the same transistor count in logic - sixty RTX 3090 GPU chips from Nvidia.
  
  
  
• Analysts predict the end is near for the global chip shortage.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  We're doomed.
  
  
  
• Not least because with China seemingly determined to self-destruct we could be in for a supply chain meltdown that makes the last two years look like an all-you-can-eat Vegas buffet.  (General Crisis Watch)
  
  Chinese provinces home to hundreds of millions of people have either gone into lockdown or closed their internal borders to prevent escalation of a COVID outbreak that has officially killed 17 people.
  
  
  
• Speaking of which, I found the 128GB of RAM I bought to upgrade my laptops.  I was going to do that over Christmas, then the blockchain melted down and I had to pull an 80 hour week during my vacation, which put me behind schedule on my other work, which snowballed until I pulled some more 80 hour weeks to clear the backlog, whereupon I discovered I had to move house by the end of May.
  
  Anyway.  RAM located, upgrades can proceed.  I need to get that done before I move because I won't be able to find anything smaller than a breadbox for six months afterwards.
  
  One of the reasons I was in a hurry to buy so much computer stuff earlier this year is that I was anticipating a possible Chinese interdiction or even invasion of Taiwan.  Which is appallingly cynical of me but all my old computers were dying and not being able to work for a living would be something of an inconvenience.
  
  Now I'm expecting just as much supply chain disruption overall but in different areas.  Might be living in a half-empty house for a while.
  
  
  
• You can now buy the Framework laptop motherboard for your own projects.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Starts at $399 with a Core i5-1135G7.  It supports up to 64GB RAM, one M.2 SSD, and four USB-C ports for everything else.
  
  Now do a Ryzen 6000 model.  And the Four Essential Keys.
  
  
  
• Apropos of nothing, I bought a big bag of salted cashews last weekend that turned out to be contaminated with gluten, so that was fun.
  
  
  
• Softbank is planning an IPO of Arm at a $60 billion valuation - but maintain a controlling stake.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The $40 billion sale to Nvidia foundered on regulatory rocks, but Arm is a technically solid company and is finally making some inroads into the server market.
  
  The woke plague hasn't yet infected semiconductor design the way it has software development, because preparing a new chip for production can cost up to half a billion dollars.  The beancounters still rule with an iron fist.
  
  
  
• I deployed an Ubuntu 22.04 virtual server.  I also noticed that Percona has a release of MongoDB 5.0 out - 5.0.7 in fact - which indicates that it may now be stable enough for use.
  
  Percona's MongoDB 5.0 won't install on Ubuntu 22.04.
  
  Oh well.
  
  
  
• Will Microsoft cut off security updates if I run an unsupported install of Windows 11?  (ZDNet)
  
  ZDNet is also running a weekly Q&A post.  They point out that Microsoft says you won't be entitled to receive updates, not that you won't receive updates.
  
  
  
• Ebook services are bringing "unhinged conspiracy books" into public libraries.  (Motherboard)
  
  Oh no, books.  In libraries.  World ends, film at eleven.
  
  
  
• Twitter has banned ads contradicting the "consensus" opinion on climate change.  (Washington Post)
  
  I'm less concerned about Twitter blocking ads than I am about them banning accounts because I block every account I see with a promoted tweet.
  
  
  
• Tech companies face substantial fines if they fail to meet the EU's new content rules, whatever they are.  (Bloomberg)
  
  The rules forbid targeting ads based on race or religion, targeting ads to children, and using "dark patterns" like making the Decline button smaller or harder to see than Accept.
  
  And fines can be up to 6% of annual gross revenue.  Not profit, revenue.
  
  
  

Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, April 24 2022 12:06 PM (DB9Lx)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, April 24 2022 10:20 PM (PiXy!)

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• Elon Musk now has $46.5 billion in committed financing for a Twitter buyout.  (CNBC)
  
  There's still the poison pill that Twitter's maliciously incompetent board has coughed up, but Musk may be able to bypass the board and take the offer straight to shareholders.
  
  

• Russia has sanctioned Mark Zuckerberg, Kamala Harris, and assorted other undesirables.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Took them long enough.
  
  
  
• The Samsung Galaxy S8 is a pretty decent tablet.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  Fast CPU, great screen, good pen if you want to do art, and a pretty functional camera.  Not cheap - starts at $699 - but well designed and well constructed.
  
  
  
• Nvidia's next-generation Ada Lovelace GPUs could be a thing.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  
  
• Or they could be a different thing.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Can't even get their rumours straight.
  
  
  
• The Dunning Kruger effect is not autocorrelation.  (Andersource)
  
  Unless it is.
  
  But it's probably not.
  
  
  
• QNAP.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Again.
  
  
  
• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is here.  (Thurrott.com)
  
  I'll give it a try soon.  I was pleasantly surprised by 20.04, and that's getting a bit dated now, so I'm keen to see how well this new release works.

Posted by: furball321 at Friday, April 22 2022 11:28 PM (n+R81)

Posted by: furball at Friday, April 22 2022 11:48 PM (n+R81)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, April 22 2022 11:54 PM (Z0GF0)

Posted by: normal at Saturday, April 23 2022 12:42 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: Bob in Houston at Saturday, April 23 2022 01:45 PM (IC7R4)

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• Why South Africa is running out of Marmite.  (The Economist)
  
  Commies.
  
  Marmite is made from the crap that you have to scrape off the bottom of a beer vat before you can brew a new batch.  That's why it exists - brewers were stuck scraping this stuff out of their vats so they tried adding salt and selling it.
  
  South Africa had the bright idea of banning beer production during the pandemic because, I don't know, happy drunk people don't obey social distancing rules very well.  And now, even though those restrictions are over - social distancing and brewing bans alike - there's still no Marmite because when you fuck with the supply chain like that the effects ripple on for years.
  
  
  

Tech News

• There may be an exploit in the Windows version of popular compression app 7-zip.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Or there may not.  One researcher suggests that the exploit only works if certain registry changes are made first, e.g. if your computer has already been hacked.
  
  
  
• AMD's next-gen APUs - not the ones that just launched, but the ones coming next year - could push regular laptops well into console graphics territory.  (WCCFTech)
  
  The table provided puts the current Ryzen 6000 APU close to the performance of the Xbox Series S; the new model will be nearly twice as fast.
  
  It will still fall behind a full PS5 or Xbox Series X, but since you still can't buy those, that might not be a problem.
  
  
  
• GitHub bad.  (JSQ)
  
  I mentioned earlier that GitHub was suspending the accounts of Russian users associated with sanctioned companies.  
  
  It turns out that when GitHub suspends a user, they delete all of that user's history, including work they've done in projects they don't own.
  
  The code itself remains intact, but all the information about who made particular changes and why is simply gone.
  
  
  
• Speaking of simply gone smart home company Insteon is.  (Ars technica)
  
  Congratulations on your very expensive brick.
  
  Oh, and the company's C-suite executives have been busily scrubbing all mention of Insteon from their online profiles, so don't expect any help from that end.
  
  
  

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, April 21 2022 10:52 PM (Z0GF0)

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• The Brave browser has introduced a new feature to bypass Google's AMP.  (ZDNet)
  
  AMP was an effort by Google to improve search results and speed up page load times by, um, forcing you to host your content on Google's servers using Google's own proprietary platform.
  
  Since this wasn't universally supported you also had to host your content on your own severs using standards-based software.  Brave deliberately bypasses the Google version of content and always takes you straight to the standard version.

• 100 models of Lenovo PCs have firmware bugs that let hackers install undetectable malware.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Once in place, it would be invisible and immune to normal virus scanners.  This type of malware is rare and only really deployed by intelligence agencies - it's too specific and too much trouble for hacker gangs just seeking a quick buck.
  
  
  
• Upgrading a 4TB PostgreSQL database from version 9.6 to 13 with 15 minutes of downtime.  (Retool)
  
  Using replication, and a fair bit of manual fussing around.
  
  I'm about to deploy something like 20TB of PostgreSQL databases at my day job, so I've been looking for articles like this.
  
  
  
• If you're using a QNAP NAS together with a QNAP router both with default settings you might want to not do that.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Like, not do that right now.
  
  
  
• Google Cloud is making a big focus on security.  (The Register)
  
  Google Cloud is third in a field of three, but given Amazons notable outages and Azure's security disasters over the last year, it's not necessarily the worst option.
  
  Just have all your data and apps backed up to an entirely different platform because while Google Cloud retains significant engineering talent, the company as a whole is rotting from within.

• Web scraping is legal says the Ninth Circuit.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  If you put the data out there in public, it's out there in public.  You can mess around making it difficult to scrape (Instagram) but if the data is public, it's public.

  "We’re disappointed in the court’s decision. This is a preliminary ruling - stop laughing - and the case is far from over - I said, stop laughing," said LinkedIn spokesperson Greg Snapper in a statement. "We will continue to fight to protect our members’ ability to control the information they make publicly available on LinkedIn.  On LinkedIn, our members trust us with their information, though we don't know why, which is why we prohibit entirely legal scraping of public data."

  Well, he almost said that.  Close enough.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Never back up anything.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  In fact, the more important the file is, the more important it is not to back it up.  In this case, a MetaMask seed file couple with a weak password, an iCloud backup, and a bit of social engineering enabled the theft of $665,000.
  
  
  
• Need a 4 port 100GbE / 16 port 25GbE web-managed switch but  only have $800?  MicroTik has you covered.  (Serve the Home)
  
  SFP of course; I haven't seen any switches supporting 25GBASE-T just yet.
  
  
  
• Which universe do we live in?  (Quanta)
  
  This matters, because if we live in an Algorithmica universe then there's an easy way to break all forms of encryption and we just haven't found it yet, and if we live in a Pessiland universe then many mathematical problems are effectively insoluble but cryptography is not reliable.
  
  They only problem is the labels all peeled off and we can't tell which one is us.
  
  
  
• The four day work week is coming.  (ZDNet)
  
  Not sure how you fit 100 hours of work into four days, but okay.
  
  
  
• Benchmarks have already leaked for Intel's Sapphire Rapids server CPUs.  (WCCFTech)
  
  How do Intel's new 56 core CPUs compare to AMD's existing 64 core processors?  Not all that well, to be honest.

• Employees at Apple's flagship New York store are working towards unionisation.  (9to5Mac)
  
  That's not the good part.  The good part is the comments.  Pro-union liberals and anti-Apple conservatives fighting pro-Apple liberals and anti-union conservatives.
  
  I need popcorn.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Dell has implemented proprietary DDR5 memory modules in its new Precision laptop range.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The single "CAMM" module supports up to 128GB of RAM - which would otherwise require four 32GB SODIMMs.  Four memory slots are rare but not unknown in workstation-class laptops.
  
  It's still a little better than soldered RAM, just not much.
  
  
  
• Samsung's main semiconductor division is, reportedly, a mess.  (SemiAnalysis)
  
  The problem is corporate culture delaying necessary changes to fundamental processes - not unlike what was happening with Intel for nearly a decade.
  
  A lot of the article is speculative, but there are definitely delays and yield issues at Samsung's fabs, not to mention a distinct lack of progress at developing their own mobile processors.
  
  
  
• Speaking of Intel its new 56 core Sapphire Rapids server chips hit 3.3GHz at just 420W.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  If you're thinking that's rather a lot, that's because it is.
  
  This should be a pretty fast chip and provide much-needed competition to AMD's 64 core Epyc range, except that AMD is expected to ship 96 core Epyc CPUs this year and 128 core models early next year.
  
  
  
• I for one embrace our new robot chef overlords.  (ZDNet)
  
  Where's the obligatory dig at the Chick-fil-A owners' religion - oh, there it is.  Still:

  it's renowned for good food, staff who say "my pleasure" -- and sound like they mean it -- and traffic jams at its drive-thrus.

  Which is more than most journalists are prepared to concede.