• Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cost-cutting and mergers as losses mount in their streaming services.  (Ars Technica)
  
  But not, so far as I can tell, giving much thought to making content people want to watch.
  
  Amazon is propped up by the river of money flowing from AWS - and oh boy di I have a rant there - so they won't feel the same pain until Jeff Bezos decides he wants that money for something else.  When the axe finally swings there, it will be swift and brutal.
  
  Plus they have a wide selection of old content that you can get access to for a few bucks a month.  I think it's A$5 to get MGM's entire back catalogue on Prime Video, which is how I'm watching Stargate.  When I'm done, I just cancel that and pick up a channel with something else.
  
  Or just watch Hololive.
  
  

• How do red flour beetles absorb water through their butts?  (Ars Technica)
  
  On second thought, never mind.
  
  
  
• Can we build solar power satellites?  (CNN)
  
  Maybe.
  
  It used to be completely infeasible due simply to the cost of launching the required material into space.  SpaceX has fixed that, and now it's just a very difficult engineering problem.
  
  It does solve the obvious problems with ground-based solar, at least: Put your satellites in the right orbit and the Sun shines all the time.
  
  
  
• Why I'm skeptical of "low code".  (Scialli)
  
  Because it doesn't work.  Basically.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Monday, January 01 2024 03:37 PM (r9O5h)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, January 01 2024 04:56 PM (PiXy!)

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• SpaceX has rounded out the year with two orbital launches three hours apart - one carrying one of the X37B space planes, and the other 23 Starlink satellites - and a static test fire of the third Starship test vehicle.  (Ars Technica)
  
  That makes 96 commercial launches this year, of which 96 succeeded.  And a couple of test flights which, uh, tested things.

Tech News

Posted by: Davd at Sunday, December 31 2023 04:56 AM (R7Z4D)

Posted by: Davd at Sunday, December 31 2023 04:57 AM (R7Z4D)

Posted by: Davd at Sunday, December 31 2023 05:07 AM (R7Z4D)

Posted by: Mauser at Sunday, December 31 2023 09:08 AM (sZ6tC)

Posted by: normal at Sunday, December 31 2023 01:09 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Davd at Sunday, December 31 2023 07:03 PM (R7Z4D)

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• The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright infringement by ChatGPT and Copilot.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This suit seems more substantive than some earlier ones, with examples showing that ChatGPT will reproduce large chunks of NYT articles word-for-word.
  
  Where the case falls down is the NYT's attempt to paint itself as, if not a paragon of virtue, at least a public good, when the organisation is the editorial equivalent of pancreatic cancer, if pancreatic cancer were communicable.
  
  It's no real surprise that ChatGPT does this, of course.  It's yet another weakness of building a language model rather than a fact model.  Facts cannot be copyrighted.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Quariding Shire has resorted to putting up road signs telling drivers not to trust their GPS.  (ABC)
  
  Though to be precise, your GPS is not the issue; it's the mapping software connected to your GPS unit that is the problem.  It does not distinguish between a dirt road and a sealed one, or in rainy season, a temporary river and a sealed road.
  
  Quariding Shire is only two hours out of Perth so this has thus far merely inconvenienced people and not killed anyone, but further inland things could be worse.  Although further inland there aren't any sealed roads, so it's harder to go wrong.
  
  
  
• PCIe 6.0 is coming next year, just not for you.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Which is absolutely fine, because there are no mainstream PCIe 5.0 cards yet.  As in none.  Zero.  So 6.0 can wait a while.
  
  
  
• Nvidia's newish graphics cards will be here soon.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Depending on pricing, the 4070 Super and 4070 Ti Super might be interesting.  Probably won't, but might be.  The 4080 Super is entirely pointless.
  
  
  
• Minisforum's new MS-01 is touted as a mini-workstation or mini-server, but I'm not sure who would want it.  (WCCFTech)
  
  It has two 2.5GB Ethernet ports, and two 10Gb Ethernet ports - though those are SFP+; two USB4 ports albeit only up to 20Gbps, five regular USB ports, an HDMI port, and an audio jack.  There are three M.2 slots though only one is PCIe 4, and a half-height, half-length, single-width PCIe slot.  Oh, and two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots, all powered by an Intel 13900H.
  
  It's okay, but it doesn't do anything particularly well.
  
  
  
• Inside Apples massive push to make the Mac a gaming paradise, after they completely killed off gaming on the Mac and almost killed off the Mac itself.  (Inverse)
  
  Yeah, good luck with that, idiots.
  
  
  
• UK retailers will be forced to pay for e-waste recycling from 2026.  (The Guardian)
  
  What's that?  Prices on all your electronic gadgets just jumped by 20%?  And it's only 2024?
  
  Inconceivable.

Posted by: normal at Friday, December 29 2023 09:36 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, December 30 2023 12:12 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, December 30 2023 12:25 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, December 30 2023 12:31 AM (BMUHC)

5 Where that Minisforum mini box could be interesting is if you run a PCIe extender out the back and use an eGPU.  Don't have to worry about the machine's power limits, nor heat, nor being limited to USB4/PCIe x4 (the slot is 4.0 x .

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, December 30 2023 12:33 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Zendo Deb at Sunday, December 31 2023 03:07 PM (MfCOS)

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• If you were looking to buy the latest Apple Watch Series 9 or Ultra 2, you can.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Or will be able to shortly.  And perhaps briefly.
  
  Apple has won a temporary stay on the ITC ban from a federal court, while it files its full appeal.  That only applies through to January 10, depending on the outcome of other proceedings.

• Bought a new router.  And 15 bits.  Which came in a box.
  
  
  
• You should use a hair dryer when bending your 12VHPWR cables for your new RTX 4090, says power supply manufacturer Seasonic.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Well, okay.
  
  
  
• You should absolutely not use a hair dryer when bending your 12VHPWR cables for your new RTX 4090, and we never suggested you should, says power supply manufacturer Seasonic.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Well, okay.
  
  
  
• Is-Prime is a library - available in 70 languages - to determine whether any given number is prime, in constant time.  (GitHub)
  
  It's very compact, easily ported, and 95% reliable.
  
  
  
• If you are intrigued by this allow me to present a library that determines whether any given unsigned 32-bit integer is even or odd.  (Blabbin')
  
  Since the C compiler had a limit of 16 million lines of code per file, it's written directly in machine code.  40GB of it.

  As a side note, the program is amazingly performant. For small numbers the results are instantaneous and for the large number close to the 2^32 limit the result is still returned in around 10 seconds. Considering the computer has to read 40 GB of data from disk, map it to physical memory and then let the CPU has a rip of it without many chances of caching is honestly quite mind blowing. For reference, the computer is a Core i5 12600K with 32 GB memory and the files are residing on a M.2 SSD disk. While calculating, the peak read speed I saw from the SSD was around 800 MB/s (which doesn’t really make sense as that should give execution speeds at 40+ seconds, but computers are magical so who knows what is going on).

  Just don't let the smoke out.
  

Posted by: normal at Thursday, December 28 2023 09:25 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, December 29 2023 12:14 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, December 29 2023 12:14 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, December 29 2023 01:55 AM (r9O5h)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, December 29 2023 10:31 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, December 29 2023 03:20 PM (r9O5h)

Posted by: normal at Friday, December 29 2023 09:33 PM (bg2DR)

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• If you were looking to buy the latest Apple Watch Series 9 or Ultra 2, you can't.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  I can.  I don't want to, but I can.  But you can't.
  
  It's been banned from sale in the US (though not Australia) over claimed patent infringement involving the light-based pulse oximetry sensor.  Apple could just take the pulse oximeter out - I'm not sure how many people care about that - but until they do, or until they make headway in their appeal, they can't sell the device in the US.
  
  
  

Tech News

• If you're looking for news on NASA's Artemis program, the plan to send an appropriately diverse crew to the Moon to do appropriately diverse things, using SpaceX as a launch platform because NASA is too diverse to actually do that part, good luck using a search engine.  (TorrentFreak)
  
  Because all the links are getting hit with DMCA takedowns.  Because while it's technically perjury to file a false DMCA takedown request, nobody has ever suffered the consequences.
  
  
  
• Intel is spending $25 billion to build a new chip factory in Israel - less a $3.25 billion grant from the Israeli government.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Intel already operates a 7nm fab in Israel; the new fab will probably produce chips at 1.8nm.
  
  
  
• Windows 11 will soon let you reinstall the operating system without wiping your files.  (XDA Developers)
  
  The only problem is that after reinstalling, you'll still have Windows 11.

Posted by: Frank at Thursday, December 28 2023 04:41 AM (KTyoU)

Posted by: Mauser at Thursday, December 28 2023 01:24 PM (sZ6tC)

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• Today only, The Outer Worlds is free on the Epic Games Store.  (WCCFTech)
  
  I was looking forward to this, and was quite irked when Epic snapped it up as an exclusive title, and never got around to buying it.
  
  And now I don't have to.
  
  This edition includes the two DLC packs, so you get everything.  For free.

• Things to fix when setting up a new Windows PC.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Step One: Remove fucking McAfee.
  
  
  
• Many prehistoric handprints show a missing finger.  What if this was not accidental?  (The Guardian)
  
  On the other hand, what if it was?  Prehistoric circular saws did not have safety guards.
  
  
  
• The life and death of open source.  (Pocoo)
  
  Many 3D printer companied released their software as open source.  This may now be changing, because new competitors are taking those open source programs and using them without giving anything back.
  
  Because you can't beat free.

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, December 26 2023 08:55 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: J Greely at Wednesday, December 27 2023 07:04 AM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Mauser at Wednesday, December 27 2023 03:29 PM (sZ6tC)

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• What kind of bubble is AI?  (Locus)
  
  Obviously it's a bubble, but is it the kind that leaves some value behind after the fires die down, or is it the kind where you just have to eat your losses and maybe your children?
  
  Image-generation AI suggests the former; textual AI suggests the latter.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Benchmarks have leaked for Intel's lower-end 14th generation desktop CPUs.  (WCCFTech)
  
  If these are accurate, the 14100, 14400, and 14600 are quite good performers and worth a look.
  
  There are signs that the scores are not accurate.
  
  
  
• Wow, it is really pissing down out there.
  
  
  
• Ah, yep, hail.
  
  
  
• Speaking of benchmarks, the Cray-1 could reach 27 LINPACK megaFLOPs.  (Roy Longbottom)
  
  Which used to be a lot.
  
  The Raspberry Pi 400 - the model I have, where it is built into the keyboard - can reach 1147.
  
  (A core i5 1135G7 - a laptop chip now three generations old - can achieve 9088.)
  
  

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, December 26 2023 12:59 AM (bg2DR)

Posted by: J Greely at Tuesday, December 26 2023 02:17 AM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, December 26 2023 05:34 AM (BMUHC)

4 Right now AI use appears to be another iteration of the Law of the instrument.  Things will eventually settle out; anyone remember seeing all those strange contraptions from the early days of flight

Posted by: Frank at Tuesday, December 26 2023 08:46 AM (KTyoU)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Tuesday, December 26 2023 12:39 PM (r9O5h)

Posted by: unique gift card at Tuesday, December 26 2023 07:34 PM (hDb6o)

Posted by: shweta at Tuesday, December 26 2023 11:18 PM (P1tOH)

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Posted by: Kaabir Singh at Wednesday, January 24 2024 07:42 PM (qz5MT)

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Posted by: Aanya Patel at Thursday, November 21 2024 10:19 PM (UyO3B)

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• After spending a month fighting with Apple to try to keep its Android iMessage application operational, Beeper is throwing in the towel.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Or at least throwing it in Apple's face.  The company has open-sourced the application, and Apple's repeated efforts to shut it down have attracted the attention of antitrust regulators.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Intel's Meteor Lake laptop chips now suck 10% less.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  A bug in the pre-release version of the BIOS provided to laptop manufacturers reduced performance by about, well, 10%.
  
  It has now been fixed.
  
  None of the laptops have reached regular consumers so far, but if you do end up buying one make sure to update it.
  
  
  
• Five laptop computers we'll still be talking about in 2024.  (Ars Technica)
  
  That's eight days away, guys.
  
  Besides, those all suck.
  
  
  
• Four clowns are suing Clowns.com over inadequate access to custard pies and undersized shoes or something.  (404 Media)
  
  The details are a lot less interesting than the headline.
  
  
  

Star Wars as You've Never Seen It Before Video of the Day

Posted by: connieeeeeeee at Sunday, December 24 2023 06:12 PM (BuMbr)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, December 25 2023 03:09 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, December 25 2023 03:15 AM (BMUHC)

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• Sony has decided it will not be removing Discovery Channel content that its customers had "bought" on the PlayStation Network.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Of course, if they can remove it, you haven't bought it.
  
  Streaming content licenses are rarely perpetual, which means that content "bought" on secondary platforms can vanish at any time.  That's bad enough if the secondary platform offers refunds, but Sony didn't even bother to do that.
  
  This is why the studios want to destroy physical media.  Already Disney has stopped shipping Blu-Rays or DVDs to Australia.
  
  Which is no loss for Disney's current offerings, but their back catalog is a different matter.

• Font sizes make no sense.  Let's make things even worse.  (Tonsky)
  
  Or, you know, we could not do that.
  
  
  
• AMD will start clearly listing which of its consumer chips contain Zen 4c cores.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Zen 4c has all the features of Zen 4, but is designed to be smaller - about half the size - and runs around 20% slower.  It's similar to Intel's Efficiency or E cores, which are a quarter the size of full cores and half the speed, except that the E cores also lack some features of the full cores.
  
  Zen 4c was introduced first on server parts - the 128 core Bergamo range - but things are simpler there because chips in the server lineup contains either only full-size Zen 4 or only smaller Zen 4c.  Some of the latest laptop chips like the 7540U contain a mixture.
  
  
  
• Banks lend the money you deposit to other people, and if you are a demented anarcho-communist Ars reader, you may not like that, so just convert it into gold and bury it in your back yard or something.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Even the comments at Ars point out that this is a stupid article.
  
  
  
• If you want to build your own compact NAS and don't want to worry about the CPU running too hot, SZBox might have the answer.  (Liliputing)
  
  It's a mini-ITX motherboard with an Intel N-series CPU - one that only has the aforementioned E cores.  You can choose from a 4 core N100 or an 8 core N305, which is not hugely powerful but should be fine for a file / media server.
  
  Apart from that it has two M.2 slot, six SATA ports, four 2.5Gb Ethernet ports, HDMI and DisplayPort, four USB ports, and a single memory slot for up to 32GB of RAM.  There's also a PCIe x1 slot, but if you use that one of the M.2 slots stops working because honestly Intel's N-series chips kind of suck.
  
  
  
• So does Google.  (Search Engine Journal)
  
  This is not news.

Posted by: normal at Sunday, December 24 2023 01:42 AM (bg2DR)

Posted by: J Greely at Sunday, December 24 2023 04:38 AM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, December 24 2023 08:49 AM (BMUHC)

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• ASML has shipped the industry's first high numerical aperture scanner to Intel.  (AnandTech)
  
  These machines will be used in future chip production beyond the 3nm node.  The huge metal box in the photo is not the machine itself; it's one component of the machine.  Despite working on structures too small to be seen even under a microscope, it is itself bigger than a house.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Benchmark results have leaked for AMD's upcoming 8700G CPU.  (WCCFTech)
  
  This is the desktop version of the chip currently used in a range of laptop parts like the 7840U, 7940HS, and the Z1 Extreme found in the Asus ROG Ally mobile gaming device.
  
  Juggling some benchmark numbers it looks like this will be 6% slower than the existing Ryzen 7700 - both being 8 core parts - but much faster for integrated graphics, the 8700G having 12 graphics cores against just 2 on the 7700.
  
  Like the 7700 it's a 65W model; there will also be a 35W version, though it's likely you'll be able to manually configure the power consumption up and down just like existing Ryzen 7000 desktop chips.
  
  
  
• Trust no-one.  (SEC Consult)
  
  Did that email really come from Amazon.co.jp?  I mean, yes, in this particular case it did, because they were notifying my that my package had arrived and indeed it was sitting right there at my door.
  
  But they are also one of a vast number of domains that appear to be vulnerable to the latest email address spoofing attack.
  
  SMTP - the protocol that has been used to deliver email for more than forty years, is a very simple text-based standard.  The problem here is that text is itself not simple.  SMTP processes one line of text at a time, but there is no universally accepted way to mark the end of a line of text, and most mail servers accept what are technically invalid lines of text in order to work with broken mail applications.
  
  This new hack exploits that to insert SMTP commands in the middle of an email, in such a way that they are processed as commands instead of just being part of the email body.
  
  Very sneaky.
  
  Time for everyone to switch to JMAP.
  
  
  
• Midjourney has released version 6 of their AI image generation engine.  (Venture Beat)
  
  Last time I played with it, they had just announced version 3.
  
  
  
• Intel is making a lot of noise about the AI hardware on its new Meteor Lake laptop chips, because other than that they kind of suck.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  And in two out of four of Intel's carefully selected benchmarks, the AI hardware does indeed produce worthwhile speed improvements.
  
  On the other two...  AMD wins by a significant margin just using the regular CPU cores.
  
  Oops.
  
  
  
• Should California ban paraquat?  (LA Times)  (archive site)
  
  I don't know.  Maybe.  The link to Parkinson's disease is unproven, but the stuff is toxic as hell, and is presently only made by a single company owned by the CCP.
  
  On the other hand it kills weeds real good and breaks down in the soil so it doesn't accumulate.
  
  Anyway, paraquat sounds like the name of an exotic herbal liqueur only produced in the Canary Islands with the unique property that mixed drinks made from it retain the original 160 proof, no matter what you mix it with.