• So what happened?  Why did Amazon's premier US-East-1 datacenter collapse, taking an uncountable number of websites and applications with it, and causing billions of dollars in losses?  (Ars Technica)
  
  DNS.
  
  It was DNS.
  
  It is always DNS.

• A single-pass Turbo Pascal 3.0 compatible compiler, written in Pascal, in a single file of around 7000 lines of code.  (GitHub)
  
  And it's clean and readable, though not exactly modular or uncomplicated.
  
  
  
• Inside a high speed optical network switch.  (Serve the Home)
  
  It's full of fiber!
  
  
  
• Why London became the global capital of phone theft.  (New York Times)
  
  Because phone thieves didn't get arrested.
  
  
  
• OpenAI's AI-powered browser, ChatGPT Atlas, is here.  (The Verge)
  
  Kill it with fire.
  
  
  
• The Banana Pi R4 Pro is here.  (Liliputing)
  
  $165 gets you a quad-core Arm A73 with 8GB each of eMMC flash and RAM, two 10Gb Ethernet ports, four 2.5Gb Ethernet port, one 1Gb Ethernet port, two M.2 2280 slots for storage, three M.2 2242 B-key slots for 5G (and maybe also storage), and two mini-PCIe slots for wifi modules.
  
  Pretty much all you could ask for in a home or small business router, except a case.

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, October 23 2025 02:05 AM (8p23U)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, October 23 2025 07:07 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: cxt217 at Thursday, October 23 2025 09:28 AM (ZLF73)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, October 23 2025 04:54 PM (PiXy!)

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• That crashing sound you heard at 3AM wasn't the cats getting the zoomies and taking out your new 4k TV, it was just Amazon's US-East-1 datacenter collapsing in a screaming heap and taking half the internet with it.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Oh dear.

  U.S. users of Downdetector are reporting issues with Snapchat, Roblox, Amazon, Alexa, Ring, Robinhood, Max (HBO), Chime, Venmo, Epic Games, McDonald's, Fortnite, Lyft, Hulu, Disney+, Roku, Signal, and carriers including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.  PC gaming platform Steam, as well as online forums like Reddit, are also impacted.

  Wait, Steam?
  
  This was actually serious.

  Popular banking apps and tools like Zoom, Pokémon Go, PlayStation Network, and more are also struggling, as are some AI services such as Perplexity.

  Serious but mostly a blessing.

• OpenAI now seems to be legally pursuing anyone who has ever mentioned it without what the company considers due deference.  (The Verge)  (archive site)
  
  Seven small non-profits that lobbied for the company to be regulated or simply commented on its deeply suspect plans to restructure from a public-benefit company have received subpoenas demanding any and all information relating however tangentially to OpenAI or regulatory efforts that could potentially affect OpenAI, including but not limited to California's SB 53, SB 1047, and AB 501.
  
  OpenAI's CSO (Chief Something Officer) took to Twitter to blame Elon Musk.
  
  Charming people.  Let's give them a trillion dollars.
  
  

• ChatGPT has found solutions to 10 open Erdos problems.  (Twitter)
  
  Can I see them?
  
  No.  Also I deleted my tweet.  And that knock at your door is probably a process server.
  
  
  
• China says the NSA tried to hack its clock.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Do you have evidence of this?
  
  Yes.
  
  Can I see it?
  
  No.
  
  
  
• If you're running the Linux 6.12.43 LTS kernel it is trivially easy to crash the entire system thanks to what appears to be a kernel maintainer's acceptance of patches generated by garbage AI.  (Xcancel)
  
  Someone's going to get a lecture from Linus.
  
  
  
• Foreign hackers breached an American nuclear weapons facility via flaws in Microsoft SharePoint.  (CSO Online)
  
  Are we not even trying anymore?
  
  
  
• The hacking group formerly known as Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters claims to have the personal information of thousands of US government officials, including those working for the NSA, DIA, and Air Force.  (404 Media)  (archive site)
  
  It is most gratifying that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated, and so we would like to assure you that the guided missiles currently converging with your ship are part of a special service we extend to all of our most enthusiastic clients, and the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a courtesy detail.  We look forward to your custom in future lives ... thank you.
  
  
  
• How the former lead of Grand Theft Auto's new studio went through $270 million and produced a game that was variously described as "bad", "unfinished", and "you'll be hearing from our lawyers".  (Hot Hardware)
  
  Hookers and blow, probably, though the article doesn't go into that level of detail.
  
  
  
• Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg calls Tumblr his biggest failure so far.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Don't sell yourself short, Matt.

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, October 22 2025 03:39 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: cxt217 at Wednesday, October 22 2025 10:23 AM (ZLF73)

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• Four words to drive a stake into the heart of Sam Altman: Artificial intelligence is mid.  (Anil Dash)
  
  Put less succinctly:

  Technologies like LLMs have utility, but the absurd way they've been over-hyped, the fact they're being forced on everyone, and the insistence on ignoring the many valid critiques about them make it very difficult to focus on legitimate uses where they might add value.

  But who exactly feels that way?
  
  Turns out, almost everyone in the industry:

  What's amazing is the reality that virtually 100% of tech experts I talk to in the industry feel this way, yet nobody outside of that cohort will mention this reality.

  Can't risk bursting that don't-ever-call-it-a-bubble.
  
  

Tech News

• The modern English translation (and we're talking 16th century as "modern") of the only copy of a 12th century sermon quoting fragments of an otherwise entirely lost medieval saga known as The Song of Wade that was so popular it was referenced in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales knowing that the audience would all catch the meaning...  Contains a typo.  (Smithsonian)
  
  There weren't any elves.
  
  
  
• North Korean hackers have embedded malware into contracts on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain where it can never be removed and poses no threat to anyone.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Because the code is in JavaScript and Ethereum and compatible blockchains use an entirely different programming language called Solidity.
  
  And only idiots would use JavaScript to interact with Ethereum.
  
  
  
• Bitlocker will encrypt your drives without you ever asking it to.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Another reason to avoid Windows 11.
  
  
  
• Windows 11's October update just broke the Recovery Environment.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  USB keyboards and mice no longer work in the Recovery Environment, rendering entirely useless.
  
  Another reason to avoid Windows 11, or alternately to be very glad you've held on to that PS/2 keyboard these last thirty years.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Mauser at Tuesday, October 21 2025 01:19 PM (XWgGM)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, October 21 2025 05:12 PM (PiXy!)

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• Solar car maker Aptera is about to go public and I'm worried.  (Elektrek)
  
  Also, prescient.  This article was posted ten days ago.
  
  Aptera listed on NASDAQ last week with a share price around $20.
  
  Three days later it's trading below $6.
  
  Aptera has spent 19 years and an untold amount of money - something like $150 million - trying to build what has been unkindly but accurately described as an electric tricycle, and all it has to show for its efforts is a handful of shiny prototypes.
  
  Though given how similar the protypes have all appeared over the years it's not unimaginable that they just painted a solar cell pattern over the original diesel/electric model and called it a day.
  
  Production was originally scheduled to start in 2008.

• Scaling Kubernetes to a million nodes.  (GitHub)
  
  Why?
  
  As John F. Kennedy famously said of the Apollo Program: We choose to go the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because we thought they would be easy.
  
  I suspect that applies equally to the engineers at Aptera.  Maybe more than equally.
  
  
  
• People apparently don't want ultra-slim phones.  (Mac Rumours)
  
  Apple has reportedly cut production of the iPhone Air - at the same time it has boosted production of other models - and Samsung has cancelled the follow up to its competing S25 Edge.
  
  I wouldn't mind a slimmer phone, but it's far down the list of problems with current models, most of which were self-inflicted by the companies making them.
  
  
  
• Presenters prevented a tragedy at the Wikipedia conference taking place in New York when they tackled an armed pedophile who threatened to kill himself.  (NBC News)
  
  I fully understand.  The cleaning crews in New York conference spaces are all union and those overtime rates will blow your budget into another dimension.
  
  
  
• Migrating from Amazon to Hetzner Cloud.  (Digital Society)
  
  And getting nearly three times as much (virtual) hardware for a quarter the price.
  
  Wait, didn't an entire Hetzner datacenter burn to the ground not so long ago?
  
  No, that was OVH.
  
  Oh.  Carry on then.
  
  
  
• A big small PC from Minisforum.  (Liliputing)
  
  It measures about 9" x 9" x 4", which is big for a small PC but small for a big PC, and offers four (SODIMM) memory slots, four M.2 slots, and three PCIe slots, and a Core Ultra 9 285HX (8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores).  Plus two USB4v2 ports (80Gbps) and a USB4 port (40Gbps), two 25Gb Ethernet ports, one 10Gb Ethernet port, one 2.5Gb Ethernet port, one HDMI ports, and the usual bunch of USB3 ports.
  
  Given the size and power constraints (it has a 350W power supply) you're not going to fit a high-end graphics card in it, but a low-profile Nvidia 5060 or an Intel Arc Pro B50 should work fine.
  
  
  
• Anbernic is preparing to launch the RG DS, a dual-screen gaming device selling for less than $100.  (Notebook Check)
  
  It's designed to emulate the Nintendo DS and 3DS.  It can play games made for older consoles but it's clearly aimed at those two since it looks exactly like them.
  
  

• Your AI tools run on fracked gas and bulldozed Texas land.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  You had me at fracked gas.
  
  
  
• Amazon has unveiled plans to build up to a dozen modular nuclear reactors in Richland, Washington generating a total of 960 megawatts.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  We can still use the bulldozers, right?

• WebMCP allows you to easily add an API to any website to poison the data of unsuspecting AI users.  (GitHub)
  
  Sounds like fun.  Sign me up.
  
  
  
• Claude Skills are awesome, maybe a bigger deal than MCP.  (Simon Willison)
  
  Claude Skills are subroutines, which have been around longer than electronic computers.
  
  
  
• A tech lobbying firm is suing Texas over the state's age verification law.  (Ars Technica)

  "Our Constitution forbids this," the lawsuit said.  "None of our laws require businesses to 'card' people before they can enter bookstores and shopping malls.  The First Amendment prohibits such oppressive laws as much in cyberspace as it does in the physical world."

  Actually the Constitution is silent on this, and arguing the First Amendment forbids laws protecting children applies equally to the Second Amendment.
  
  
  
• These AI glasses promised to make me smarter, and all I got was Clippy for my face.  (The Verge)  (archive site)
  
  The phrase lipstick on a pig comes to mind here.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Sunday, October 19 2025 01:27 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Mauser at Sunday, October 19 2025 03:47 PM (XWgGM)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, October 19 2025 06:03 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Monday, October 20 2025 06:52 AM (rcPLc)

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• Meta, Snapchat, and TikTok showed what they thought of Australia's scumbag totalitarian lunatics - I mean, government - by not bothering to show up before a senate inquiry into how the companies were planning to implement they government's latest idiotic law banning children under 16 from accessing their sites.  (The Nightly)
  
  If I had been representing any of these companies I would have simply said: We're not.  It's your law.  You enforce it.

• Microsoft wants you to talk to Windows 11.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  I'm with Gigi.
  
  
  
• Why we're leaving serverless.  (Unkey)
  
  There is no "serverless".  You're running on someone else's servers, except they're broken, so you have to run your own servers as well to fill the gaps, and the whole thing ends up far more complicated and expensive - not to mention slower - than just running your own servers in the first place.
  
  Renting a virtual machine rather than a physical one is a viable option in many cases.  Serverless... Not so much.
  
  
  
• If Asus' ProArt 5k and 6k monitors didn't do it for you, the company now offers an 8k model.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Price not announced, but given the prices of the 5k and 6k models ($849 and $1399 respectively), expect it to cost $3000 or so.
  
  
  
• The future of being trans on the internet.  (The Verge)
  
  Before you click, imagine the most annoying article possible on this subject.
  
  It's worse than that.
  
  
  
• A new wave of social media apps provide hope in a doomscrolling world.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  No they don't.  Reddit has left the market open for smaller competitors, but I still don't see anyone taking its place.

  She offers examples like Beli, an app that lets users share their favorite restaurants with friends, or Fizz, which connects people going to the same college.  Others include the  astrology-bonding app Co-Star, or even Partiful, which lets people connect with friends to plan events.

  They'll all be dead inside twelve months, except Co-Star, which will get hit by a comet next Tuesday.

  Terrell said Spill shifted its design from simply feeding users content to matching them with communities that might be of interest to them.

  For example, those who like watching the WNBA can join a group specifically for that.

  Did I say twelve months?  I meant twelve weeks.

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, October 17 2025 10:56 PM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Saturday, October 18 2025 02:59 AM (KOtXO)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Saturday, October 18 2025 08:17 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: cxt217 at Sunday, October 19 2025 11:02 AM (ZLF73)

Posted by: cxt217 at Sunday, October 19 2025 11:09 AM (ZLF73)

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• Apple has announced its new M5 chip - it's one more than the M4 - and new models of the MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Vision Pro?  Really?  They're still trying to push their $3500 paperweight?
  
  Anyway, the M5 has 10 CPU cores - four fast cores and six slower ones - and 10 GPU cores, compared with the M4, which has 10 CPU cores - four fast cores and six slower ones - and 10 GPU cores.
  
  Uh.
  
  It's supposed to be about 15% faster.  So that's exciting.
  
  Also there are no 8GB RAM options or 256GB SSD options in the new MacBook Pro lineup, and about bleedin' time.
  
  Apart from that it's the usual from Apple: Base model is not wildly overpriced, but memory and storage options whack you with a 1000% markup.
  
  
  
• And the charger costs extra.  (Notebook Check)
  
  In the EU, anyway, and they barely have steam over there let alone electricity.

• The Dead Internet Theory turns out not to be just a theory.  (Business Insider)
  
  If you're arguing with someone online who seems to be impenetrably stupid, chances are they're not human.
  
  Though of course there are still plenty of impenetrably stupid humans around.
  
  
  
• Anthropic plans to triple its revenue in 2026.  (Reuters)  (archive site)
  
  Same.
  
  
  
• Fortune 500 security company F5 says hackers stole undisclosed flaws in BIG-IP...  Which is F5's product.  (Bleeping Computers)

  Despite this critical exposure of undisclosed flaws, F5 says there's no evidence that the attackers leveraged the information in actual attacks, such as exploiting the undisclosed flaw against systems. The company also states that it has not seen evidence that the private information has been disclosed.

  I am totally reassured.
  
  

Posted by: J Greely at Thursday, October 16 2025 11:58 PM (oJgNG)

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• Are AI agents compromised by default?  Yes.  (Computer)
  
  
  Well, that's awkward for the brand new multi trillion dollar industry.
  
  
  Also awkward is the web page: You have to load the page and then download the PDF to read it.  You can't statically link to the PDF.
  
  
  
  
• Are the people using AI agents compromised by default?  Apparently also yes.  (404 Media)  (archive site)
  
  
  A lawyer appearing before the New York state supreme court was ordered to show why he shouldn't be sanctioned after presenting multiple AI generated citations of cases that don't exist.
  
  
  His filing in the sanctions hearing...  Contained multiple AI generated citations of cases that don't exist.
  
  
  At least he's consistent.

• The DOJ has recovered $15 billion in Bitcoin from a massive "pig butchering" fraud ring based in Cambodia.  (CNBC)
  
  
  Well, I think this calls for celebrations.  Root beer floats all 'round.
  
  
  
  
• The Nvidia DGX Spark - a competitor to the various AMD Strix Halo mini-PCs that have been surfacing lately - is cool but not quite ready for prime time.  (Serve the Home)
  
  
  And expensive.
  
  
  The 20 core ARM CPU is competitive with the 16 core Zen CPU in the Strix Halo, and the GPU side is basically a laptop 5070 where the Strix Halo performs like a laptop 4070.
  
  
  But it has problems with things like, oh, displaying video, suggesting it needs a couple more months of software updates.
  
  
  Price not announced but expected to be about 50% more than equivalent Strix Halo models, so around $3000.
  
  
  
  
• Intel has announced a new datacenter GPU with 160GB of RAM.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  
  It's for AI, not for you.  But interestingly it uses LPDDR5X memory - just like the Strix Halo and the Nvidia DGX Spark above - to allow huge amounts of fairly fast memory rather than demanding modest amounts of extremely fast memory that uses a ton of power.
  
  
  There are signs that AMD will be releasing similar - but much cheaper - cards in the consumer space next year.
  
  
  
  
• The Orange Pi 4 Pro is another of those Raspberry Pi like single board computers.  (Liliputing)
  
  This one has two A76 cores and six A55 cores, putting it fairly close to the Raspberry Pi 5 in performance, and up to 16GB of RAM.  Plus an M.2 2280 slot built-in.  And a 200MHz RISC-V core in the CPU.  And a Pi-compatible IO header.
  
  Price for the 4GB model is rumoured to be around $30.  The 4GB Radxa Cubie A7A which has the same CPU, sells for around $35, though it's out of stock right now.
  
  
  
• Windows 10 support ends today.  Here's who's affected.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Well, Gigi Murin, the gremlin from Hololive Advent for a start.

Technical Interlude

Musical Interlude

Posted by: cxt217 at Thursday, October 16 2025 07:40 AM (ZLF73)

Posted by: normal at Thursday, October 16 2025 09:53 AM (e0fX0)

Posted by: Mauser at Thursday, October 16 2025 01:23 PM (XWgGM)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, October 17 2025 04:09 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, October 17 2025 09:46 PM (PiXy!)

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• One of the UK's innumerable regulators has fined 4Chan £20,000 for...  Well, basically for telling them to get fucked, which the British didn't take too well in 1776 either.  (The Verge)

  :Today sends a clear message that any service which flagrantly fails to engage with Ofcom and their duties under the Online Safety Act can expect to face robust enforcement action," Ofcom enforcement director, Suzanne Cater, said in a statement.
  
  4Chan has responded by suing Ofcom in federal court...  In the US.
  
  4Chan could be in more trouble still if they don't kiss the ring:

  Starting from tomorrow, 4Chan additionally faces a daily penalty of £100 for either 60 days or until 4Chan complies with the information requests, up to a maximum of £6,000.

  Yes, I'm sure that will do the trick.

• The Dutch government has seized control of technology company Nexperia from its Chinese owner Wingtech.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Nexperia focuses on boring but necessary products like diodes and transistors.  It was spun off from Phillips in 2006 and sold to Chinese interests in two stages in 2017 and 2018.
  
  Seems like they came to regret that.
  
  
  
• The Humbird 3 is a Thunderbolt 5 eGPU dock with a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot for $399.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The numbers.  What do they mean?
  
  It also has three downstream Thunderbolt 5 ports, a DisplayPort port, and a 5Gb Ethernet port.  And up to a 500W power supply though the basic model only comes with 180W.
  
  
  
• Intel Blackout on VROC with Transition to Graid Technology in Another Streamlining Move.  (Serve the Home)
  
  What?
  
  Oh.  Intel sold off its virtual RAID products to a company called Graid.
  
  I guess that makes sense.

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, October 14 2025 10:14 PM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, October 14 2025 10:17 PM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Wednesday, October 15 2025 03:02 AM (KOtXO)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, October 15 2025 05:49 AM (e0fX0)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, October 15 2025 05:57 AM (e0fX0)

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, October 15 2025 08:34 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: normal at Thursday, October 16 2025 09:48 AM (e0fX0)

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• Hackers breached a service used by Discord to verify users' age and identity and leaked 70,000 ID documents.  (BBC)
  
  Money quote:

  Some online commentators have claimed that the data breach was bigger than Discord has revealed.

  That was a week ago.
  
  

• Hackers now claim to have stolen 2.1 million ID documents from Discord in a 1.5TB data breach.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Yes, that is bigger than 70,000.

• TP Link has confirmed successful WiFi 8 trials.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This couldn't possibly end badly.
  
  
  
• Broacom has announced the Tomahawk 6 switch chip, proving 64 ports of 1.6Tb Ethernet.  (Serve the Home)
  
  That's...  Rather a lot.
  
  
  
• The Curl project, which has lately been overwhelmed with garbage bug reports generated by AI, just received another 50 AI-generated reports.  (The Register)
  
  These ones were not garbage, though.
  
  
  
• Can we stop with all this AI bubble talk?  (Yahoo)
  
  No.  I don't think we can.
  
  
  
• The Orange Pi 6 Plus has more than a raspberry.  (Liliputing)
  
  Eight Arm A720 cores, up to 64GB of RAM, dual 5GB Ethernet ports, and two M.2 slots for storage.
  
  That's not a low-end device.