• Recessions unmask fraud.  (The Economist)
  
  When the economy is bubbling merrily along, you can get away with fudging the books just a little to make it look like things are going better than they are.  At least for a while.
  
  But when the macroeconomic soup turns sour, and your financial papercuts turn into open wounds, it's much harder to hide.
  
  Hence FTX.
  
  
  
• Is Crypto.com next?  (WCCFTech)
  
  Since bank runs on marginal financial schemes are self-fulfilling prophecies, now that you ask the question, the answer is, probably, yes.
  
  
  
• FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried isn't who you think he is.  (CoinGeek)

  As Bankman-Fried seduces more wannabe traders into gambling on so-called digital currencies with the lure of free BTC, it’s worth remembering that all of these people have an agenda, and it usually involves you losing money to line their pockets.

  Okay, we know that.  So what?
  
  So that article is from February.

• Hell hath no fury like a bluecheck scorned.  (The Verge)
  
  Senator Ed Markey (Fascist-MA) got a Washington Post journalist to lie and violate Twitter's Terms of Service and he's mad as hell at, well, what he himself did.
  
  Elon Musk told him he's the punchline of a bad joke, which didn't exactly placate the senator, who is now threatening to Do Stuff.
  
  
  
• Apart from the 3700 full-time employees set adrift on an ice flow with a single axe, and a copy of How to Mince Friends and Rotisserie People, Twitter has cut loose around 4400 contractors.  (The Verge)
  
  Apparently that's 80% of their contract workforce.  Which means that the true total Twitter staff numbers were something like 13,000, and they still took more than a decade to get a beta version of an edit button.
  
  
  
• Crypto exchange Kraken has frozen accounts related to FTX and its evil twin Alameda Research.  (Coin Telegraph)
  
  FTX is registered in the Bahamas.  On the 10th, the Bahamian regulators froze the company's assets in the country.
  
  On the 11th, FTX said it was prioritising withdrawals by Bahamian customers under instructions of those regulators.
  
  On the 12th, the regulators said they had never issued any such instructions.
  
  As of the 13th, FTX is under criminal investigation for fraud, and not just for failing to follow regulations.

Posted by: Starry Knight at Tuesday, November 15 2022 06:30 AM (gXw+B)

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, November 15 2022 10:11 AM (obo9H)

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Posted by: Mauser at Monday, November 14 2022 01:39 PM (BzEjn)

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• The third shoe has dropped at Twitter with more senior staff leaving the company.  (New York Post)
  
  Most notable is Yoel Roth, head of the Censorship and Intimidation department, and Chief Book Burner after the unceremonious departure of the toxic Vijaya Gadde.  Elon Musk had given Roth his support, but evidently the two did not see eye to eye on the mission.  Roth appeared to be a true believer in management by censorship, even if not quite as vapidly doctrinaire as his former boss.
  
  Roth was directly involved in the 2020 censoring of the New York Post's Laptop from Hell story, so they are not sad to see him gone. 
  
  Despite his obvious bias and general ill-intent, he did have some good points:

  In other tweets dating back to 2016 and 2017, Roth dubbed Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell a "personality-free bag of farts".

  Not inaccurate.
  
  Also out are Damien Kieran, the Chief Abusing Users' Personal Data for Fun and Profit Officer, and Lea Kissner, who filled the role of Chief Help Me I'm in Charge of Data Security at a Company Full of Communists Officer.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Bubbles.  (Oimo)
  
  You can move the thingies around.
  
  
  
• How to populate your shiny new Epyc Genoa server with RAM.  (Serve the Home)
  
  This is more subtle than you might think, because a dual-socket Genoa server needs 24 memory modules to run at full speed - at least 384GB - and if you need less than that there are specific patterns that are most efficient at any given capacity.
  
  
  
• DevianTart has its own AI art generator, trained on years of Devians.  (Ars Technica)
  
  It has similar algorithms but a very different training set to Midjourney.  Some of the results I got were mediocre-to-terrible, but one in particular was awesome.
  
  
  
• The Surface Laptop 5 is here.  Grab a Surface Laptop 4 while you can.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This was my immediate thought when the new range was announced, and this review confirms it.  Performance is no better, features are mostly the same, battery life is significantly worse, and the old model is heavily discounted right now.

• Intel has pre-announced its Sapphire Rapids server CPUs with the high-end 56 core models priced at $12,980.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Available some time next year.
  
  
  
• AMD has announced its Epyc Genoa server CPUs with the high-end 96 core models priced at $11,805.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Available now.
  
  
  
• And AMD's new 64 core chip is faster than two of Intel's current top-of-the-line 40 core chips.  (Phoronix)
  
  And 64% faster on average than AMD's own previous 64 core model, which is even more impressive.  A substantial part of that comes from the inclusion of AVX512, so check the individual benchmarks if you're not running number crunchy workloads.

• The Raspberry Pi shortage is coming to an end.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Probably within a year.
  
  
  
• Investors are preparing a $9.4 billion bailout for money pit FTX.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Idiots.
  
  
  
• The FBI pulled a no-knock raid on the operator of an Area 51 conspiracy nut website.
  
  
  
  
  This is totally normal behaviour from a completely trustworthy agency.
  
  
  
• In a shocking turn of events, WeWork is closing 40 unprofitable locations.  (New York Times)
  
  I thought they went belly up last year.
  
  
  
• When Netflix announced four more seasons of Rick and Morty all at once I was - let's just say, dubious.  I had enjoyed it right up until the last episode of season 3, which wasn't a great ending.
  
  But I've been catching up, and they have not ruined it.  Couple of weak episodes, bunch of great ones.  Recommended.

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, November 12 2022 01:09 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: normal at Saturday, November 12 2022 05:33 AM (obo9H)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, November 12 2022 05:42 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: normal at Saturday, November 12 2022 08:18 AM (obo9H)

Posted by: Freedetector at Monday, May 01 2023 04:45 PM (eoAdO)

Posted by: Authur at Monday, May 01 2023 05:47 PM (eoAdO)

Posted by: Urz at Monday, May 01 2023 05:52 PM (eoAdO)

Posted by: Mailly at Monday, May 01 2023 05:58 PM (eoAdO)

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• The FTX crypto derivatives exchange which was valued at $32 billion five minutes ago is now basically fucked.  (MSN)

  "FTX is fine. Assets are fine," said FTX CEO whatsisname just before leaping out of a ground floor window.

  Penthouse apartments in Central Park West are a bit of an ask when your net worth is measured in belly button lint.
  
  Do you people want regulators?   Because that's how you get regulators.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Sequoia Capital wrote down its $210 million investment in FTX to, let's see...  Zero.

  "Fuck this shit, we're out," said a Sequoia executive on conditions of anonymity.

  
  
  

• I mean, they were slightly more verbose in their tweet, but that's the gist.
  
  
  
  
  If only someone had pointed out that this is all basically either (a) a deliberate scam because the people running it are crooks or (b) an inadvertent scam because the people running it are idiots.
  
  Sometimes both at the same time.
  
  
  
• The contagion is spreading to other crypto bullshit, wiping who knows how much value off of totally imaginary nonsense.  (Axios)
  
  Oh no, my ugly monkey JPEGs.
  
  
  
• Crypto exchange Binance which had offered to buy out and salvage the sinking, on fire, plague-riddled, rat infested FTX, has fled for the hills.  (CoinDesk)
  
  They said something that sounded very much like "fuck this shit, we're out" but the line was bad and we couldn't be sure.
  
  
  
• Proving that these crypto boys are pipsqueaks when it comes to fucking shit up Amazon has lost $1 trillion in market cap in less than 12 months.  (Gizmodo)
  
  The top five US companies have lost an aggregate $4 trillion this year.
  
  Which used to be a lot.
  
  
  
• Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070 Ti may arrive on January 5.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  For those of you keeping track, this is the 4080 12GB edition that Nvidia unceremoniously disowner after it peed on the carpet in front of all the guests.
  
  
  
• IBM has announced its new 433 qubit quantum computer codenamed Osprey.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  In theory the capacity of a quantum computer doubles with each additional qubit because it extends into parallel universes like a season opening of Rick & Morty, so that is a lot.  Still.  Or used to be.  Sometimes both at the same time.
  
  
  
• Installing Windows on innocent Android devices that did nothing to deserve this.  (Liliputing)
  
  Today's victims: The Steam Deck and Microsoft's Surface Duo 2.
  
  
  
• In France, all large parking lots must now be covered in solar panels and/or snakes.  (Electrek)
  
  The bill was rushed through voting and there's a smudge so nobody is entirely sure.
  
  
  
• The desk legs I wanted from Ikea are back in stock and it turns out that small items only incur a $29 delivery fee.  Even if you buy like 15 of them.
  
  So while the world disintegrates around me I'll at least have legs for a desk that I won't order until February because I want to get everything at once because shipping furniture is too damn expensive.

Posted by: normal at Thursday, November 10 2022 10:39 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: Starry Knight at Friday, November 11 2022 06:22 AM (gXw+B)

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• The US government's incompetence on crypto finance regulations could drive the industry out of the country to...  Some other even more incompetent country, probably.  (Ars Technica)
  
  What will America do without its ugly monkey JPEGs and "stablecoins" that lose 95% of their value overnight.

• What's more unstable than crypto stablecoins?  Crypto stablecoin derivatives.  (CryptoSlate)
  
  Crypto derivative trading platform FTX's CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, saw 93% of his $16 billion wealth disappear in a single day.
  
  Oops.
  
  Yeah, this industry would totally be a loss if it moved elsewhere.
  
  
  
• Speaking of which, the IRS raided a house in Gainesville last November and found $3.36 billion hidden in a popcorn tin.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  The money was originally stolen from dark web drug bazaar Silk Road ten years ago when Bitcoin was worth about $2, not $20,000 like it is today.  A bit like a petty thief swiping a painting from the local fence only to find out it's an original Rembrandt lost since WWII.
  
  
  
• A California ballot initiative to tax rich tech bros to fund EV chargers that the state doesn't have the grid capacity to power in the first place is somehow failing.  (AP News)
  
  No is currently at 57%.
  
  
  
• Disney+ now has 152 million subscribers.  (Thurrott.com)
  
  It looked like a failure early on, but with 152 million paid subscribers totaling about a billion dollars a month, that's at least a reasonable success.
  
  
  
• Intel's new NUC 13 Extreme has a Core i9 13900K, a 750W power supply, and room for a triple slot graphics card.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Not sure how this is a NUC and not just a prebuilt PC made with nonstandard parts.
  
  
  
• The Dragonfly 44 galaxy is 99.99% dark matter.  (Quanta)
  
  We don't know what dark matter is, but we can tell it's there because we can't see it.

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, November 09 2022 10:05 PM (obo9H)

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• Someone on Gab said something mean about Joe Biden. This is clearly a Russian Plot. (The New York Times / Archive.is)
  
  Yeah, that's it. That's the story.
  
  These people can't lose hard enough today.

• Some guy on Reddit found a PDP-8 and an LGP-30 in his grandparents' basement. (Reddit)
  
  The LGP-30, dating from 1956, is the star in the Story of Mel:

  A recent article devoted to the macho side of programming
made the bald and unvarnished statement:

Real Programmers write in FORTRAN.
Maybe they do now,
in this decadent era of
Lite beer, hand calculators, and "user-friendly” software
but back in the Good Old Days,
when the term "software” sounded funny
and Real Computers were made out of drums and vacuum tubes,
Real Programmers wrote in machine code.
Not FORTRAN. Not RATFOR. Not, even, assembly language.
Machine Code.
Raw, unadorned, inscrutable hexadecimal numbers.
Directly.

  I didn't know any of these very, very early computers still existed in the wild.
  
  
  
• Qualcomm has a new Arm CPU.  (WCCFTech)
  
  
  
• Arm wants to kill it.  (The Register)
  
  Arm's lawsuit against Qualcomm appears self-defeating.  Don't declare war on your own customers unless...  There is no unless.  Don't do that.
  
  
  
• Do you need a PC the size of a box of 3.5" floppies, with three HDMI ports, three USB ports, and dual Ethernet ports?  The Gateway Mini PC T8-Pro is exactly that.  (Liliputing)
  
  Though it has as much in common with the original Gateway computer company as a thing does with another thing that it has nothing in common with except the name licensed out for a bit of extra cash.
  
  
  
• The Overton Window as arbitrage opportunity.  (Under Orion)
  
  Find out what risks people are not permitted to speak of, and hedge against those risks.  If speaking of the looming energy crisis is taboo, buy energy stocks.  And make out like a bandit.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, November 08 2022 10:14 PM (obo9H)

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• Massive tech industry layoffs and the whiny illiterates who report on them.  (Mashable)
  
  Facebook is set to lay off around 12,000 employees.  Peloton has already fired 4000.  Microsoft removed a relatively modest 1000.  Snapchat fired around 1200 - 20% of its total staff.  Shopify is reducing by 10%, around 1000 workers.
  
  Amazon is planning to hire 1500 new employees....  To work in its warehouses over Christmas.
  
  About the only bright point is Australia's largest tech company, Atlassian, which is looking to hire 1000 people.  That's one for every 50 tech workers laid off in the US.
  
  Thunderdome time.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Speaking of Amazon, the company just added 98 million songs to the free music library bundled with your Prime subscription which has to be losing them money in my case now that I've moved to New House City and every single package has to travel hundreds of miles and everyone is angry.  (Inc)
  
  Because they also reduced the free music service to shuffle play only.  Which the announcement said very clearly, but still is a change and also breaks Alexa.
  
  
  
• Twitter has asked 30 of the workers it just fired to come back according to a Bloomberg story based on "two people familiar with the matter".  (Reuters)
  
  They literally know nothing.
  
  
  
• Tired of SSDs that can only transfer 12GB per second?  Samsung's 8th generation 236-layer V-NAND is just what you need.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  In theory PCIe 5 SSDs can reach around 14GB per second, but existing flash memory chips have held them back to just 12GBps, or on some cases a molasses-like 10GBps.
  
  Which used to be a lot.  Like, three months ago.
  
  
  

Posted by: Bob in Houston at Tuesday, November 08 2022 01:41 AM (YBLgY)

Posted by: David Eastman at Tuesday, November 08 2022 04:00 AM (D6Mju)

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Posted by: normal at Monday, November 07 2022 01:14 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: Mauser at Monday, November 07 2022 02:13 PM (BzEjn)

Posted by: Mauser at Monday, November 07 2022 02:15 PM (BzEjn)

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