• The race is on between massive traditional media corporations and massive new media corporations to determine who can run out of friends first.  (Tech Dirt)
  
  It's almost as if none of them ever talk to anyone outside their respective bubbles.
  
  
• Either this guy has a hugely overoptimistic view of AI research, a hugely pessimistic view of humanity, or he is profoundly deaf.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  
  
  The future, ladies and gentlemen.
  
  
• SGopher.  You know it makes sense.
  
  
• The story of a MacBook Pro that had nothing wrong with it.  (ZDNet)
  
  Have you tried not turning it off and back on again?
  
  
• Google is having second thoughts about handing the entire browser market to its competitors overnight.  (ZDNet)
  
  Actually, in this case, it looks like first thoughts.
  
  
• So, does Sydney not suck or does the letter it just signed backing digital rights suck?  (ZDNet)
  
  Hmm.  The letter is not terrible.  I'd have worded it a little differently, but it's arguing for equal access, not equal outcome.
  
  
• The story of a MacBook Air that had everything wrong with it.  (Thurrott.com)
  
  (It's behind a semi-paywall; if you register for free you can read three premium articles a month.)
  
  Short version: He installed the MacOS Catalina beta on a six month old MacBook Air and the magic smoke escaped.  Dead as a doornail.
  
  
• Bored.  It's been days since anyone radically reinvented computer hardware.  Come on, people!

Posted by: Jay at Thursday, June 13 2019 11:30 PM (mrlXS)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, June 13 2019 11:55 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, June 14 2019 02:26 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, June 14 2019 02:29 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, June 14 2019 02:30 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, June 14 2019 02:34 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, June 14 2019 02:40 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, June 14 2019 02:44 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: J Greely at Friday, June 14 2019 04:24 AM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, June 14 2019 05:52 AM (Iwkd4)

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• Possibly the coolest little tech tidbit of the day is from AMD again.
  
  The new Ryzen 3000 family consists of one or two CPU chiplets (up to 8 cores each) and an I/O die handling memory and PCIe 4.0 and some built-in SATA and USB and other functions.  The chiplets are connected to each other using AMD's Infinity Fabric 2 at 50GB/s.  On the 12 and 16 core chips the two CPU chiplets are connected directly to each other, and each is also connected to the I/O die. 
  
  [Update: Apparently, unlike earlier Epyc and Threadripper chips, the CPU chiplets only talk via the I/O die, and that handles all the routing.  That saves a lot of traces on the package, at the expense of latency.  But there's no practical way to route 28 interconnects on a 64 core Epyc anyway, which is what would be required.  First generation Epyc only requires 6 such links.]
  
  The I/O die connects to the X570 chipset over PCIe 4.0.  Like the I/O die, the chipset includes a bunch of PCIe 4.0, SATA, and USB.
  
  Very much like the I/O die, in fact, because it is the I/O die.  The I/O chip on the motherboard is the exact same chip as the one on the CPU.
  
  Which in theory means that both the CPU and the X570 have some tricks up their sleeves that weren't previously discussed.
  
  
  
  
  
• All those messy Star Control lawsuits and countersuits have been settled amicably for a jar of honey and a pint of mead.  (PC Gamer)
  
  As Brickmuppet notes, I am never facetious.  I don't need to be.

  "We added a section in which I'll be working with Paul on beekeeping. He's going to send me some meade, I'm going to send him some honey. I don't think the lawyers were particularly enthusiastic about us incorporating some of this into the agreement. I did a tutorial video on beekeeping I was going to send over but got stung in the video, so thought better than to actually send it."

  
  
  
  
  
• I had to enable notifications on Tohru because we were adding them to our apps at my day job.  Holy crap those are annoying.

Posted by: Mauser at Thursday, June 13 2019 01:52 PM (Ix1l6)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, June 13 2019 02:57 PM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, June 13 2019 04:40 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, June 14 2019 02:21 AM (Iwkd4)

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• AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X features 16 cores / 32 threads, a top clock speed of 4.7GHz, and a 105W TDP.  (AnandTech)
  
  $749, available in September.
  
  That's a lot of money for a mainstream desktop processor, but then, that's a lot of cores for a mainstream desktop processor.
  
  If you want all the technical details, AnandTech has those too.
  
  
• AMD's Ryzen 3200G provides 4 cores / 4 threads at 4GHz for $99.  (AnandTech)
  
  That's a bit more affordable.  Also includes Vega 8 graphics and DDR4 2933 support, with a 65W TDP.
  
  The 3400G has 4 cores / 8 threads, runs at up to 4.2GHz, Vega 11 graphics, $149.
  
  
• AMD's Radeon 5700 XT is the first Navi product to ship.  (AnandTech)
  
  9.75 TFLOPs, 225W, 8GB 14Gbps GDDR6 RAM, $449.  Oh, and it's PCIe 4.0.
  
  The Radeon 5700 non-XT delivers 7.9 TFLOPs at 180W for $379.  Still with 8GB of 14Gbps DDR6 RAM.
  
  The 5700 XT seems to perform better than the RTX 2070 on the whole, but wait a month for third-party benchmarks.
  
  
• Some companies not called AMD probably did something too.

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, June 12 2019 12:03 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, June 12 2019 02:13 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, June 12 2019 05:06 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Mauser at Wednesday, June 12 2019 11:06 AM (Ix1l6)

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• Microsoft's Project Scarlett will become next year's Xbox something something.  (AnandTech)
  
  It will have eight Zen 2 cores, Navi graphics, some amount of GDDR6 RAM - I expect 16GB - and SSD rather than disk storage, and will support 120Hz refresh rates and 8K resolutions though not at the same time.
  
  In other words, it will be almost identical to the Playstation 5.
  
  
• AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X will bring 16 cores and a top clock speed of 4.7GHz while retaining a 105W TDP unless it doesn't.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Price will be north of $499 unless it isn't.
  
  
• Salesforce (which I have heard of) is buying Tableau (which I haven't) for $15.7B.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  In stock, not cash.
  
  
• 100GbE no longer doing it for you?  Here's a new lineup of 400GbE switches!  (Serve the Home)
  
  What, you didn't just win the lottery?  Well, never mind then.
  
  
• European mobile traffic got routed through China for two hours because of YABF.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Yet another BGP fuckup.
  
  Not all the traffic, just 70,000 routes managed by Safe Host.  Misrouted traffic included supposedly secure VPN tunnels.
  
  
• Just buy a Mac Mini.  (ZDNet)
  
  Or an iMac.  The screen is quite good.  It's huge next to my Dell Inspiron 27s, even though the screen dimensions are the same.  The iMac is not actually slim at all, it's just extended out until it can form an acute angle.
  
  
• Google is fucking with Chrome's adblocking.  What does that mean for the 197 other browsers based on Chrome?
  
  Probably not a lot.  (ZDNet)
  
  Opera, Brave, and Vivaldi have said they will undo Google's changes in the source code and reinstate the old APIs if needed.  Microsoft hasn't specifically responded regarding their new Edg browser, but it would be a great way for them to stick a thumb in Google's eye and come out a hero.
  
  
• A surprisingly not insane examination of the bipartisan support for antitrust action against the Bay Area Mafia.  (The Daily Beast)
  
  The author notes what I have also observed: The tech giants have been systematically alienating all their former allies in both industry and politics.
  
  
• Journalists meanwhile continue their policy of personal destruction against anyone who isn't exactly like them.  (Information Liberation)
  
  Can we somehow arrange things so that they all lose?

Video of the Day

Posted by: StargazerA5 at Tuesday, June 11 2019 12:52 AM (jl9eJ)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, June 11 2019 01:19 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, June 11 2019 01:21 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, June 11 2019 01:23 AM (Iwkd4)

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• The traditional news media have declared war on YouTube.  Yesterday it was Vox, and now it's the New York Times, with their dramatic piece on how squishy leftie Philip DeFranco radicalised some random guy.
  
  That's not the story they intended to run, but the incompetence of the New York Times knows no bounds.  DeFranco is unamused.
  
  
  
  
  And the "radicalisation"?  The guy dated a girl who was an evangelical Christian.
  
  The funny thing is that YouTube holds all the cards in this game, but has so far folded on every hand.
  
  The New York Times "fixed" the libellous graphic by removing Jimmy Kimmel.  But not Philip DeFranco.
  
  
  
  
  As I said, no bounds.
  
  
• India is considering jailing cryptocurrency users for 10 years.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Having written apps using the Ethereum blockchain, I wholeheartedly approve of this measure.  As a good start.
  
  
• Google's Stadia will kill your download cap.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Reason #97 not to use it.
  
  
• Apple has announced iPadOS, a fork of iOS that supports modern operating system features.  (ZDNet)
  
  Like files, mice, and expandable storage.
  
  Of course, Apple being Apple, no iPad has ever had a an SD card slot, so the only way you can have expandable storage is by leaving it sticking out of the Lightning or USB port ready to be snapped off in the first minor accident.
  
  
• E3 is on, but it's not a hardware year, and no interesting games so far.  I did mention Baldur's Gate III?  Yes, I did.  So...  Nothing.

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, June 10 2019 12:56 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Monday, June 10 2019 07:54 AM (xOgT9)

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• So, what if you're in Australia and you want more than 100Mbps internet access?
  
  The short answer is tough cookies. The longer answer is that some providers do sort of offer higher end plans. (LifeHacker)
  
  Aussie Broadband has 150/100 starting at $150 per month and 250/100 starting at $170 per month - but only for FTTP and FTTB connections.
  
  If you're on FTTC (which I will be) much less FTTN or HFC, you're completely out of luck.
  
  iiNet (my ISP) offers gigabit symmetric fibre but at $900 per month on a 36 month contract it's not quite what I'm looking for.  (ZDNet)
  
  
• Dropbox increased all its plans by $2 per month ($3 in Australia). (The Verge)
  
  On the other hand, the 1TB plan now provides 2TB, the 2TB plan provides 3TB, and the 3TB plan goes up to 5TB.
  
  I was intending to upgrade from 1TB to 2TB, so this will actually save me money. For more typical customers who use 5% of their storage, not so great.
  
  Dropbox (and my own local backups) reduced my recent drive failure from a disaster into just a darn nuisance.  And a reminder: If you have multiple computers, Dropbox can sync across your local network as well.
  
  
• Long time and abruptly former Ars Technica contributor Peter Bright a.k.a Dr Pizza was reportedly arrested by the FBI in a sting operation. (The Daily Dot)
  
  Do not read the linked article if you have blood pressure problems.
  
  
• 32GB DIMMs are here and not insanely expensive. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Around $156 for regular size and $169 for notebook (SO-DIMM) at 2666MHz. That puts it right at the price of two 16GB modules.
  
  Now I just need to check if they'll work in Tohru and Rally. Though really, since I have two of them, 32GB will be plenty.
  
  
• The organiser of that Google walkout just walked out. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Maybe she can find a job at Vox or BuzzFeed.
  
  
• In sad news that is actually sad Maker Faire has laid off all its staff and is ceasing operations. (Tech Crunch)
  
  
• An NPM package name generator.
  
  
  Your NPM package could be named haemadynameter
  
  Um.  Okay.
  
  
• Graphcore's C2 IPU provides two AI processors, each with 1216 cores, each capable of around 100GFLOPs.  (Serve the Home)
  
  That's over 200TFLOPs per card, and you can link 8 cards together in a single server, for...  A lot.
  
  Each chip has 900GB/s of off-chip bandwidth and 90TB/s of on-chip bandwidth.  Also a lot.
  
  

Video of the Day

Posted by: J Greely at Saturday, June 08 2019 06:00 PM (ZlYZd)

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• In fairness to the calendar, last October seems like three years ago.
  
  
• Millions of Linux servers are exposed to local and potentially remote exploits due to a bug in the Exim mail server.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  I had three servers with Exim installed.  One had quietly installed a patch already, one wasn't actually receiving email anyway and has now been shut down and its duties redistributed, and one can't be updated right away due to configuration problems and has had Exim completely disabled in the meantime.
  
  
• Need a tablet?  Need it cheap?  Walmart's Onn 8" model is just $64 and basically works.  (9to5Google)
  
  Nothing fancy: 2GB RAM (adequate), 16GB flash (inadequate, but it has a microSD slot), 1280x800 screen (less than I'd like, but acceptable), Android 9.  Unspecified 1.33GHz quad-core processor, probably a MediaTek MT8163 which is adequate and certainly faster than the Snapdragon S4 found in the Nexus 7 (which I still use).
  
  A 10" model with the same general specs is available for $79, or $99 including a detachable keyboard which probably isn't very good but also isn't very expensive.
  
  As long as it supports adoptable storage (and I doubt Walmart would have gone to the trouble of breaking it as Sony and Samsung have) you can add 64GB for about twelve bucks.
  
  
• Google doubles down on bad, Firefox doubles up on good.  (TechDirt)
  
  Google is an ad company, not a technology company.
  
  
• A backdoor in Optergy Proton (who what?) allows hackers to shut down entire office buildings.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  With, basically, a mouse click.
  
  
• Joyent is shutting down its public cloud.
  
  Joyent was an early player in the cloud computing game, basing its infrastructure on Solaris, which had much better containerisation at the time than did Linux.
  
  They are also the criminals responsible for Node.js.
  
  
• Crystal 0.29 is out.
  
  Nothing major, but a number of bug fixes and quality-of-life enhancements.  Crystal is like Ruby, only compiled, and without all the weirdness like packages that globally redefine true to false.
  
  
• Nim 0.20 is out.
  
  This is effectively their 1.0 release candidate, so I will be taking a closer look.  Nim is to Python as Crystal is to Ruby, but it compiles via C++ intermediate code rather than LLVM intermediate code.  How much that matters I'm not sure.
  
  
• Lies, damned lies, and benchmarks: Who to believe in the NAMD benchmark result kerfuffle.  (Serve the Home)
  
  Quick answer: Nobody.
  
  
• Why is the base model Mac Pro so expensive?  (ZDNet)
  
  Because (a) Apple can get away with it and (b) no, that's all.
  
  On the other hand, it is unabashedly a Pro machine, unlike most of Apple's other "Pro" products.  (VodkaPundit)
  
  The problem is it is aimed exclusively at video editing.  Nothing else.  You can see this in not just the price and the co-announced 6K monitor, but in the complete absence of storage options.
  
  If you're a developer / designer / engineer or work in some other role where you need a powerful and flexible computer that isn't outrageously expensive, Apple have nothing for you.  They still have nothing for you.  And they have shown that they won't.
  
  
• Streamlab's YouTube channel was terminated.  (One Angry Gamer)
  
  
• CNet's editor-in-chief is working tirelessly to demonetize small independent YouTube channels.  (One Angry Gamer)
  
  There comes a time where journalists might well be considered the enemy of the people.
  
  
• Xurious' electronic music channel was terminated.  (One Angry Gamer)
  
  Instrumental electronic music.
  
  
  
  
  I found this list on Facebook showing the extent of the mess YouTube has created in a single day.
  
  
  Banned
  
  

  Varg (Thulean Perspective)
  YouKipper
  The Great Order
  Cultured Thug
  Xurious
  Mr Allsop History
  Patrick Slattery
  NBU Media
  FBIV
  Cybεr Nazι
  Nordic Frontier
  Alτ-Rιght Tankιe
  Hora Vero's Archive
  Stay Woke

  
  
  Demonetised
  
  

  Steven Crowder
  Iconoclast
  Revenge Of The Cis
  Martin Sellner
  James Allsup
  Red Ice TV
  SinatraSays
  Jesse Lee Peterson
  Tailed Feature
  Ford Fischer
  Dan Dicks
  Luke Ford
  The Golden One
  RetroRobotRadio
  Dr Shaym
  Mad Black
  E. Michael Jones
  Press For Truth
  The Alternative Hypothesis
  Tailed Feature
  Know More News
  Sandman
  The Red Elephants
  Andy Warski
  Deep Fat Fried Podcast
  Nightwave Radio

  
  
  Videos Deleted
  
  

  Owen Benjamin
  Count Dankula
  Milo
  Gavin McInnes
  Red Ice TV
  Black Pigeon Speaks
  American Krogan
  Angelo John Gage
  Drunken Peasants
  Press For Truth
  J.F Gariepy
  Dire Wolf Media
  E;R
  American Renaissance
  Iconoclast
  Ryan Dawson
  E Michael Jones
  The Higherside Chats
  Bre Faucheux
  Mr Allsop History
  NPI/Radix
  TRS Radio
  Semiogogue
  WhiteRabbitRadioTV
  Ryan Dawson
  Zero Schizo
  No Apologies
  Uncle Chang

  
  Some of these people are likely total jerks, but we're talking about YouTube, the original and still the number one don't read the comments! site on the internet.
  
  Meanwhile Bitchute is opening the champagne.  (Brickmuppet)
  
  
• Return of the Return of the Miniature Giant Space Hamster: Baldur's Gate III is on its way.  (Ars Technica)
  
  

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, June 08 2019 12:31 AM (Iwkd4)

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Posted by: Rick C at Friday, June 07 2019 12:56 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Kristophr at Friday, June 07 2019 09:21 AM (sQTrb)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, June 07 2019 01:55 PM (PiXy!)

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Posted by: J Greely at Thursday, June 06 2019 06:56 PM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, June 06 2019 07:56 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Jay at Thursday, June 06 2019 11:53 PM (mrlXS)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, June 07 2019 01:02 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, June 07 2019 01:06 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Kristophr at Friday, June 07 2019 09:26 AM (sQTrb)

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• SEO is mostly nonsense and often a scam.  But when your iOS app disappears from common searches in the App Store and your income is cut in half, it's what you need.
  
  It was a bug in the App Store search engine.  If you had the full 30 characters in your app's subtitle field, the last word didn't get indexed at all.  Oops.
  
  
• Orico has a nice little USB M.2 NVMe enclosure.  (PC Perspective)
  
  Instant external 900MB/s drive for $42.99.  Plus the NVMe drive itself.  Perfect if you plan to upgrade your existing NVMe drive and only have the one slot in your PC.
  
  
•  Intel announced their Cascade Lake Xeon W (workstation) lineup.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  8 cores for $749, 12 cores for $1398, so unless you need 6 channel RAM, stick with Ryzen.
  
  
• YouTube said that hurt feelings don't warrant an account suspension and the relentlessly regressive media are up in arms.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  
• Democrats in the US House of Representatives have launched an antitrust probe into Facebook, Google, and the rest of the Bay Area Mafia.  (CNet)
  
  This will achieve nothing.  Or at least, nothing good.  Not that an investigation isn't warranted, just that these people are idiots.
  
  
• The SEC is suing Kik over its ICO.  (ZDNet)
  
  They would have gotten away with it too, if not for these meddling feds.
  
  
• "Digitalised" is not a word you worm-eating flightless socialists.  (ZDNet)
  
  
• Amazon has a little tool on RAM module pages that tells you if they work in your computer.
  
  
• DigitalOcean supports importing custom images.  So I can pre-build a server under, say, VirtualBox, upload it verrrrryyyy slooooowwwwly  (yeah, still on ADSL here), and spin up instances on demand.
  
  This warrants further examination.  Specifically, it should make it easy for me to configure the main storage as ZFS and not just network volumes.  At the $40 node size that's 160GB of free and very fast storage that I otherwise can't use the way I want.
  
  A working image will probably be around 500MB, which I can upload in about an hour.  I'll try with something very minimal first.
  
  
• ASRock's X570 Creator is their latest Ryzen motherboard with Thunderbolt 3.  (AnandTech)
  
  This looks like the normal retail version of the over-the-top X570 Aqua.  It still has 10Gb Ethernet, dual PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, support for DDR4-4666, and WiFi 6.  Plus DisplayPort input from your graphics card so that it can be routed out via Thunderbolt.
  
  
• CockroachDB says not you Amazon AWS / Microsoft Azure / Google Cloud.
  
  If you open source your database with the plan to make money on services, it doesn't sit well when huge and enormously profitable companies pick up your source code and also all your paying customers.
  
  
• Host your own servers, people.
  
  
  
  
  In fairness to GitHub, they fixed it.
  
  
• Host your own off-site backups people.
  
  In fairness to DigitalOcean, they fixed it.
  
  
• The Australian Federal Police raided the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.  (ABC)
  
  This is the rather more gentile Commonwealth style of police raid where they show up in suit and tie and ask for you at reception.  Still a potentially worrying infringement on freedom of speech, which is not specifically written into our constitution.
  
  On the other hand, our ABC is itself a government entity.  Yes, it's supposed to be editorially independent, but there's a good argument for it to simply cease to exist.
  
  
  

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, June 06 2019 01:10 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, June 06 2019 01:16 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, June 06 2019 01:20 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, June 06 2019 01:21 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, June 06 2019 01:22 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, June 06 2019 01:47 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, June 06 2019 01:57 AM (Iwkd4)

8 Wait....  No, not the same guy at all.  It's late here and I'm the confused one. 

@progmofo is not @russshanahan.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, June 06 2019 02:03 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, June 06 2019 03:10 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Thursday, June 06 2019 09:57 AM (xOgT9)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, June 06 2019 10:34 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, June 06 2019 10:34 AM (Iwkd4)

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