• Small is the new Large: Microsoft has announced Phi-2, which it terms a "small language model".  (VentureBeat)
  
  With 2.7 billion parameters it generally outperforms Llama-2 and Mistral with 7 billion parameters, while being small enough to run happily on graphics cards with just 4GB of RAM.
  
  It's comparable to Mistral on language tests, but significantly better on mathematics and programming.
  
  If that's too big for you, Microsoft recently released Phi-1 and Phi-1.5 which will run on any reasonably specced potato.
  
  I'm happy to see this progress in making improvements to small models you can run yourself, that have potential to do some limited set of things well.  The push to ever larger models at astronomical expense is going to fail unless fundamental changes are made to the designs - and  to the culture of the companies building them.
  
  
  
• Mistral also announced what they call Mixtral last week.  (Mistral)
  
  This a similar idea.  Rather than building one huge model that tries to handle everything, Mixtral uses eight small (7 billion term) models, each able to fit on a commodity graphics card, and each tuned to a specific kind of task.
  
  It outperforms the largest version of Llama-2 (70 billion terms) while being 30% smaller overall (for all eight models combined) and working on hardware at one twentieth the price.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Speaking of commodity graphics cards Nvidia is expected to launch "new" models in January.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The models we're looking at are the 4070 Super, 4070 Ti Super, and 4080 Ti.
  
  The only one of interest is the 4070 Ti Super, which is a cut-down 4080 and lowers the price point for a good 16GB Nvidia card.  I mean, there is the 4060 Ti, but it's kind of crap.
  
  
  
• MongoDB got hacked.  (MongoDB)
  
  They believe this is limited to the corporate systems and does not extend to their cloud offerings.  If it turns out it does extend to their cloud offerings, that would be catastrophic.
  
  I run MongoDB at my day job - just finished migrating a huge cluster from one cloud to another - but that's using regular cloud servers rather than cloud databases.
  
  
  
• All these worlds are yours, except Europa.  And Enceladus.  (NASA)
  
  In fact, all these worlds are ours.  Piss off back where you came from.
  
  
  
• Intel, Samsung, and TSMC have now all shown off working CFETs - CMOS transistors with the n-type and p-type transistors stacked on top of each other, rather than adjacent.  (IEEE Spectrum)
  
  This is not as profound a change as stacked flash cells, which changed the entire storage industry, but is equivalent to a free process node advance.
  
  Given that process nodes are going to run out of room for improvement in ten years, that's a good thing.
  
  
  
• Hasbro is continuing layoffs at Wizards of the Coast, makers of Magic the Gathering and owners of the Dungeons and Dragons franchise.  (Geekwire)
  
  Despite Wizards of the Coast repeatedly fucking over its own customers with woke bullshit, those two product lines are major money earners for Hasbro.  It makes little sense for the company to fire core staff working on both products, and yet the announcements from those affected are all over Twitter.
  
  Okay, maybe it does make some sense.  (Twitter)
  
  If your team's major accomplishment after a year of work is agreeing not to use AI-generated art, you should expect to be fired.  At a minimum.
  
  
  
• Apple's M3 Max is faster than an RTX 4090 in AI-based transcription tasks if you use an utterly broken benchmark.  (WCCFTech)
  
  If you use the correct benchmark, the 4090 is twelve times faster.
  
  
  
• If you need to run AI models on the go, here's a laptop with a 64-core CPU and a desktop RTX 4080.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  You may need a bigger lap though.  This beast is not small.
  
  
  

VTuber News

• Life hack: You can get Japanese products sooner (often by months) and cheaper by simply ordering them from Amazon Japan.
  
  The Pop Up Parade figures for Kiara and Ayame which I had on pre-order through Amazon US, with estimated shipping dates in March and February respectively, are in stock at Amazon Japan right now.
  
  
  
• The Telescreen (Amazon $499) was in front of the painting (Etsy $299).  Marketing companies aren't actually listening in on your private conversations.  Probably.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Even if they say they are.
  
  A marketing team within Cox Media Group claimed it had a tool it called Active Listening, which involved, not to put too fine a point on it, illegally spying on other companies' customers, with the tag line "It's true.  Your devices are listening to you."
  
  If it were actually true, the resulting lawsuits would burn the entire company to the ground.  Fortunately it seems to be marketing, or in other words, a complete lie.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Regular desktop motherboards now support 256GB of RAM.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  You can't get the necessary 64GB memory modules yet, but those are coming next year.
  
  Which is not very far away.
  
  
  
• The updates from Asus and ASRock for 256GB memory support also leaked details of AMD's upcoming Ryzen 8000G chips.  (Notebook Check)
  
  These are laptop chips retargeted for desktop use.  That means they have much better onboard graphics - up to six times faster than the existing desktop chips from AMD - but are limited to eight cores and probably have fewer PCIe lanes.
  
  These will probably be legitimately announced at CES.
  
  
  
• Nvidia has a "Super Hot Run" of chips in the ovens at TSMC for new AI cards to be delivered to China.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The urgency is because (a) Nvidia's mainstream AI cards have been banned from export to China, including cards that were previously assembled in China, and (b) if they don't get the new, legal cards shipped and fulfil orders quickly, they will likely get banned too.
  
  
  
• The Utah Supreme Court has ruled that police cannot force you to provide the unlock code for your phone.  (Ars Technica)
  
  This is pretty obviously protected under the Fifth Amendment, but even so some state courts have ruled otherwise (looking at you, New Jersey) so it is likely to head to SCOTUS.
  
  
  
• Twitch has cleared up its confusing content guidelines, and allows some nudity and sexual content so long as it is clearly labeled as adult material.  (Engadget)
  
  Okay.  Good for them I guess.
  
  

• The square ones in the middle always get me.  (XKCD)
  
  I only managed 57.
  
  
  
•  That lasted two whole days.  (Engadget)
  
  "We didn't realise that if we said you could post porn, you would actually post porn.  That is not okay, even if we said it was okay."
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Saturday, December 16 2023 09:11 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: wheels at Sunday, December 17 2023 11:11 AM (DTsuO)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, December 17 2023 11:38 AM (PiXy!)

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• Finished up a major project at work that had taken over my life recently - a cloud migration from one crappy provider to another slightly less crappy one - involving dozens of applications, multiple database types, and over 100TB of data.
  
  Celebrated by ordering the latest edition of The Art of Computer Programming from Amazon.  I already have volumes 1-3 - somewhere - but it didn't cost much more for the now five-volume full set than for just the two new volumes.
  
  Not from Amazon, anyway.  A lot more elsewhere.
  
  
  
• Intel's Meteor Lake laptop chips - the real 14th generation - are out.  (AnandTech)
  
  14th generation desktop chips are already here, but those are just relabeled 13th generation parts, just as some 13th generation desktop chips were relabeled 12th generation parts.
  
  How's the performance?
  
  We don't know.  Intel didn't provide any review models, not to anyone.
  
  
  
• Samsung's Galaxy Book 4 range has the new Meteor Lake CPUs.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It will be available in South Korea next month, and in the rest of the world...  Eventually.

• Intel has some new server CPUs as well.  (Serve the Home)
  
  These do have benchmark results, and they perform well enough to make it into fourth or fifth place on some tests.
  
  Intel also has some other server CPUs but without benchmarks.
  
  And some desktop CPUs rebadged for servers also without benchmarks but we know how these ones will perform because we've had the desktop models for a couple of years now.  They're...  Meh.
  
  
  
• Voyager 1 has stopped talking to us.  (CNN)
  
  I guess maintaining a long-distance relationship at the age of 46 might seem more effort than it is worth.
  
  Voyager 1 was last heard from on November 14, 15 billion miles from Earth.
  
  
  
• The EU Commission has filed a GDPR complaint against Twitter over microtargeting of political advertising by the EU Commission.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Yes, you read that right, the EU is claiming Twitter broke the law for running the EU's own advertising.
  
  
  
• Thinks are not looking good for The Verge.  (The Verge)
  
  Seriously, these people are not well.
  
  
  
• a16z - Andreeesen Horowitz - will contribute to the campaigns of any politicians willing to fight the over-regulation of the tech industry.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Fortunately Tech Crunch is here to explain that this is what the Nazis would do.

Posted by: normal at Friday, December 15 2023 10:06 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: normal at Saturday, December 16 2023 01:38 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: benzeen at Saturday, December 16 2023 03:17 AM (P9n0+)

Posted by: normal at Saturday, December 16 2023 04:18 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: familiar at Wednesday, August 28 2024 01:09 PM (gw7qH)

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• ChatGPT creator OpenAI has signed an "unprecedented" deal to provide live news in response to user queries.  (CNBC)
  
  The deal is with publishing group Axel Springer, provider of virtual birdcage liners such as Politico and Business Insider.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile Dropbox has signed a deal with OpenAI to...  Bring AI to your Dropbox.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Details are not so much vague, exactly, ads entirely absent.  
  
  There is a button to turn it off (it is on by default).
  
  Do that.
  
  

• TSMC's 1.4nm process is expected to come online sometime in 2027.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Which is somehow not the far future anymore, but practically next week.
  
  
  
• AMD's new Threadripper 7000 range will blow a fuse if you overclock them.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  They won't stop working; it's not that kind of fuse.  Rather it's a permanent record that you did in fact overclock your $10,000 CPU.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Thursday, December 14 2023 09:54 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: normal at Friday, December 15 2023 12:35 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, December 15 2023 03:15 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: normal at Saturday, December 16 2023 12:32 AM (LADmw)

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• How are things going with our friends at The Verge oh God.  (The Verge)
  
  Did you know chlorpromazine comes in tanker cars now?
  
  I think two or three should do the job.
  
  For today.
  
  
  
  

Tech News

• Google Fiber is now rolling out its 20 gigabit internet service, for $250 per month.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  For $250 per month I can get 250 megabits.  While that's A$250 - about US$150 - 250 megabits is a lot less than 20 gigabits.
  
  
  
• TSMC is ramping up to ship 2nm chips in volume in 2025.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Apple will be the first major customer, as has become the norm.  But the iPhone has paid for TSMC's massive technical advances over the past decade, so I don't begrudge Apple its typical 12-month exclusivity period.
  
  
  
• Huawei meanwhile is working on 5nm chips.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  China is currently stuck at 14nm because they can't buy the EUV optical tools needed for finer process nodes due to sanctions, and can't make their own because they're decades behind in that particular part of the tech sector.
  
  So what they're doing is something called multi-patterning: By running a chip through the process multiple times, very very carefully, you can end up with finer details than you can by just doing it once.
  
  Problem is each pass through the machine increases the cost and increases the failure rate, so cost goes up exponentially.  It's very much a stopgap approach, and unlikely to see adoption in any mainstream devices.
  
  
  
• After acquiring VMWare, Broadcom is on a newfound mission to fuck both its customers and its staff.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Perpetual licenses are out; all products will now be subscription-only.
  
  Also out are nearly 3000 employees.

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, December 13 2023 08:10 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: madrocketsci at Wednesday, December 13 2023 10:56 PM (hRoyQ)

Posted by: madrocketsci at Wednesday, December 13 2023 11:01 PM (hRoyQ)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, December 14 2023 12:44 AM (BMUHC)

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• In the lawsuit brought by Epic Games, a San Francisco jury has unanimously found that Google's Play Store violated antitrust law in control both access to content and payment options.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Which is great news for Epic Games - and other mobile content creators - except that two years after Epic won a similar but narrower victory against Apple, that decision is still going through the appeals process.

• Speaking of mobile content and antitrust violations Beeper Mini, the iMessage app for Android, is back again, just days after Apple killed it.  (Beeper)
  
  You need to use it with an Apple ID for now (a registered email address) rather than directly with your phone number, but they're working on restoring that functionality.
  
  Since Apple is likely to try to break it again, they've made the app free as well.
  
  
  
• Looking to spend over $4000 for a four-port 100Mb Ethernet switch this Christmas?  Yes?  Stop that right now.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  You can get a five-port gigabit switch for under $10 these days, and this thing is worse in every possible way.
  
  
  
• The Aurga Viewer is a remote control device for anything with an HDMI port and USB.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  That could be a PC, a games console, an AV transceiver, or even a toaster.
  
  It doesn't require any software to be installed on the device you are controlling, just plug it in and wreak havoc.
  
  
  

• CAMM2 is now an official JEDEC standard.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Originally invented by Dell, this is a replacement for the SODIMM laptop memory modules that have been around for 25 years.
  
  While not smaller in area - it still needs to accommodate the same memory chips - it is a lot thinner, and one module can fit 128GB of memory on a 128-bit bus.
  
  It also supports faster LPDDR5 memory - the stuff that is normally soldered directly onto the motherboard - and optionally even GDDR6 graphics memory.
  
  I really hope this sees market acceptance.

• World of Warcraft is powered by invisible bunnies.  (Kotaku)
  
  This article from six years ago is almost interesting; it's a peek into an era when game journalism was just lazy, corrupt, and incompetent, before the writers actively hated their own readers.
  
  
  
• Want a 27" 8k monitor?  TCL will be shipping one next year.  (WCCFTech)
  
  I'm waiting for 8k prices to crash the way 4k prices did.  I want one - several, really - but they're not justifiable right now.
  
  There will be a 16k standard after this, but you won't ever need that.  Unless you're particularly fussy about display details - and either have very good eyesight or prescription computer glasses - you don't need 8k either.
  
  
  
• The first tomato ever grown in space has been found.  (CBS)
  
  It was at the back of the fridge, on the bottom shelf, behind that jar of plum jam that nobody liked.

Posted by: normal at Monday, December 11 2023 10:26 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, December 12 2023 12:25 AM (BMUHC)

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• EU member states - led by Bookburner General Thierry Breton - have agreed to landmark AI regulations that fine foreign companies 7% of annual revenues.  (Ars Technica)
  
  So nothing has changed in the EU.
  
  

• The story of how Qantas flight 32 from London to Sydney did not end in a fiery crash and the deaths of all 469 passengers and crew.  (Medium)
  
  Though it came uncomfortable close to that.  What started with an oil leak escalated in the course of a single minute to an engine exploding with such violence that a piece of the turbine demolished a brick wall on the ground 7000 feet below.
  
  I deal with failure cascades like this at my day job, but the worst I have to worry about is angry customers, not dead ones.
  
  
  
• A Harvard "disinformation researcher", and one of the lead "journalists" covering the "Facebook Papers" "leaked" by "whistleblower" Frances Haugen has accused the university of buckling to Facebook's half a billion dollar donation and canning her ugly, worthless, XXXXL arse.  (Columbia Journalism Review)
  
  To unpack that a little:
  
  Disinformation researchers are book burners.
  Journalists are increasingly also book burners.
  The Facebook Papers were a political hit job.
  Frances Haugen was a paid assassin who wasn't very good at her work.
  
  So all in all it's a feel good story except for the bit where Harvard got to keep the money.
  
  
  
• The number of "significant" air traffic control incidents in the US fiscal 2023 increased by 65% over the same period on 2022.  (New York Times)  (archive site)
  
  That's probably not good.

• The duck has been cooked.
  
  Came out great.  Could have used a little more seasoning perhaps, but the skin crisped up just right and the meat wasn't dry at all.
  
  I have acquired a chicken to try out the new slow cooker, but not today, because today I am full of duck.
  
  
  
• Beeper Mini is an Android iMessage client from the team behind Beeper, an Android everything-but-iMessage client.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Through a clever bit of reverse engineering it is able to talk directly to Apple's messaging servers and interoperate with MacOS and iOS devices.
  
  
  
• Beeper Mini is dead, killed by Apple.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  It was three days old.

• Phison is set to unveil new consumer SSD controllers that can hit 14.7GBps.  (AnandTech)
  
  That's pretty much the speed limit of a PCIe 5.0 x4 connection, so don't expect any advances on that until PCIe 6.0 comes out.
  
  Which won't be until...  Next year.
  
  Right now, SSDs are the only consumer devices using PCIe 5.0; even Nvidia's RTX 4090 is still built on 4.0.
  
  
  
• If you want as much PCIe 5.0 as you can get you can't go far wrong with the Asus Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It has seven PCIe slots, six of then PCIe 5.0 x16, and the seventh PCIe 5.0 x8, plus four M.2 slots, all PCIe 5.0 x4.
  
  Cheap at $1299.  Then you'll need to spend the same again for an entry-level Threadripper Pro 7000 CPU.  Oh, and eight sticks of DDR5 ECC registered memory.
  
  
  
• New benchmarks have leaked for Intel's Meteor Lake laptop chips, and once again they are slower than current AMD chips while consuming more power.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Not a great combination.
  
  
  
• The Biden Administration is threatening to revoke patents of high-priced drugs developed using taxpayer money.  (Associated Press)
  
  That's...  Actually not entirely without merit.
  
  Just mostly.
  
  

Posted by: normal at Saturday, December 09 2023 10:21 PM (bg2DR)

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• The FTC has filed a lawsuit to prevent Microsoft from buying Activision.  (Reuters)
  
  The only problem is Microsoft has already bought Activision.
  
  The only other problem is that the FTC is making the same argument that was already thrown out by a district court back in July.
  
  So good luck with that.

• How many people lived in Middle Earth?  (Medium)
  
  7.6 million.
  
  There.  Now you know.
  
  That's a lot less than lived in Medieval Europe, but as we see in the movies, large parts of Middle Earth were depopulated by the time of the War of the Ring.
  
  
  
• The latest update to Systemd brings the Blue Screen of Death to Linux.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Great.  Thanks guys.  Possibly your crowning achievement.
  
  
  
• The first benchmark results for Intel's new 144 core Sierra Forest server CPUs are here.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  They suck.  The single-threaded score is only a little more than half that of AMD's 128 core Bergamo chip, and the multi-threaded score is less than half.
  
  Ignoring the fact that they used two 144 core chips to get that result, because the benchmark result barely shifted when the second chip was added.
  
  Sierra Forest uses only the low-power Efficiency cores.  So does Bergamo, but AMD's equivalent to Intel's E cores - Zen 4C - is superior in every way.