• Beata Halassy had breast cancer - for the third time, despite chemotherapy and a mastectomy.
  
  She had cancer.
  
  She gave it measles and it died.  (Nature)
  
  Beata is a virologist so she prepared her own virus culture - a mild strain intended for vaccine production - and had a colleague administer it.  She has now been cancer-free for four years.
  
  Naturally she wanted to publish the results of her research - on herself.  That's where the real problems started, because scientific journals didn't want to touch it.
  
  On the upside - apart from the whole thing about being alive - she now has funding to repeat this research to try to cure cancer in pets.
  
  

• You can in fact upgrade the storage in your new M4 Mac Mini.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  All you need is a surface-mount soldering and desoldering station, a set of compatible NAND flash chips - which you can find online but will cost you more than simply buying a complete SSD, and a second set of compatible NAND flash chips for when the first ones don't work. 
  
  And a second Mac to do a forced update to the first Mac now that its storage is blank.
  
  
  
• Google says the enhanced protection feature in Chrome now uses AI.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  I recommend Brave or Vivaldi.
  
  
  
• ChatGPT usage now rivals the Chrome browser.  (Digital Trends)
  
  No it fucking doesn't you fucking morons.  You are comparing actual living human users with the number of individual requests.
  
  
  
• Sega is removing 60 classic games from Steam on December 6.  (Sega)
  
  And when I say classic, some of these games are older than I am, what with me being 29 and all.
  
  If you already own them, or buy them before December 6, you keep them, but there will be no new sales.
  
  
  
• As Firefox turns 20, Mozilla ponders how to restore it to its former glory.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Stop being communists.
  
  
  
• Elon Musk increased his net worth by more in a single day following the election than he spent to buy Twitter.  (The Register)
  
  Feel good story of the day.

• The PlayStation 5 Pro is here and it's eh.  (WCCFTech)
  
  While it is technically a significant upgrade over the base PlayStation 5, with a nearly 50% upgrade to the graphics performance, it still plays PlayStation 5 games, so mostly it doesn't matter.
  
  
  
• Scalpers who snapped up the first shipment are struggling to unload it even below retail price.  (TechSpot)
  
  Tragic.
  
  

• Crucial's 4TB T500 SSD is out and it's fine.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  By which I mean it's reasonably priced and one of the fastest drives around, but does have some performance hiccups under extremely heavy sustained write loads.  So not the best choice for enterprise database servers, but it doesn't claim to be.
  
  
  
• Apple's new M4 Mac Mini has modular storage.  (MacRumors)
  
  It's a little card like an M.2 2230 SSD from a laptop.
  
  Does that mean you can upgrade it?
  
  No.  Don't be silly.
  
  
  
• The CEO of Sony's PlayStation division says that maybe the company should show upcoming games to gamers before it spends $400 million developing them.  (WCCFTech)
  
  What a concept.
  
  
  
• MacOS runs apps inside a sandbox for added security.  Does it add security?  No.  (GitHub)
  
  Oops.
  
  
  
• DNA shows Pompeii's dead weren't who we thought there were.  (Ars Technica)
  
  They had - get this - a mix of European and Eastern Mediterranean genes.
  
  In other words, they were Roman.
  
  
  
• Slate is horrified to learn that tech billionaires care about money.  (Slate)  (archive site)
  
  I am horrified and somewhat bemused to learn that Slate has not yet gone bankrupt.
  
  
  

Tostada Video of the Day

Asmongold is no dummy.  He doesn't always agree with Trump, but he recognises a gravy train when it presents itself.

• We've already seen AMD's latest chip, the Ryzen 9800X3D, demolish the competition (including other AMD chips) for playing games.  But how does it perform for the kind of work I do, like running databases, compiling code, processing mathematical models?  (Phoronix)

  For the geo mean of the more than 300 benchmarks, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D surpassed the Core i9 14900K and landed just behind the prior gen Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 9 7950X3D processors. Compared to the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D delivered 1.34x the performance.

  This is an 8 core CPU competing against Intel chips with 24 cores.  Yes, the huge Phoronix benchmark suite compares both single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads, but then I run a mix of single-threaded and multi-threaded tasks in my daily work.
  
  Its performance here is nothing short of amazing.  35% faster than the preceding generation is huge.  I want one.
  
  
  
• And it's sold out.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Seems there was some pent-up demand out there; supplies are selling out as soon as they arrive in stores.

• The hate for Elon Musk has been put on hold while the crowd gathers to hate Jeff Bezos.  (The Verge)
  
  Bezos has committed the unforgivable crime of being cordial to president-elect Donald Trump.
  
  
  
• Block is scaling back Tidal and shuttering TBD in favour of BTC.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  I'm sure it is.
  
  
  
• A crypto CEO was kidnapped off the street in Toronto and held until a ransom of $1 million was paid.  (CBC)

  Jameson Lopp, the co-founder and chief security officer of Casa, a security firm focused on protecting cryptocurrency users, has been keeping track of physical thefts designed to steal cryptocurrency for around a decade.
  
  He says Skurka's abduction is the 171st instance of suspects using physical violence to steal bitcoins, that he's aware of.

  Yay, Bitcoin is at a record high YOINK.

Posted by: vermindust at Friday, November 08 2024 09:41 PM (2ihj2)

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• Who are you and what have you done with AMD?
  
  AMD promised the new 9800X3D would be 8% faster than the previous generation's 7800X3D and 20% faster than Intel's latest high-end chip, the 285K.  Independent testing said otherwise.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Its 15% faster than the 7800X3D and 35% faster than Intel's 285K.
  
  The consistent theme of the reviews on YouTube is RIP Intel.  Not something the struggling company needs to be hearing right now.
  
  To be fair, until now AMD's Ryzen 9000 chips have also been met with a resounding meh.  But no longer.

• Windows Server 2025 is here.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  It's Windows.  It's a server.  It's Windows Server!
  
  
  
• What does Trump's election mean for EVs, Tesla, and Elon Musk?  (The Verge)
  
  Demented screeching.
  
  Okay then.
  
  
  
• What Trump's win might mean for Elon Musk.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Mostly good things.
  
  
  
• SpaceX is planning another Starship launch in the next two weeks.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Things like that.
  
  
  
• You can build your own gaming PC, faster than the PlayStation 5 Pro, for about the same price.  (PC Guide)
  
  The PS5 Pro may be many things, but cheap is not on the list.
  
  

They Are Becoming Self-Aware Video of the Day

Mint and Dokibird have been playing hardcore Minecraft for nine hours now.  Calli, IRyS, and Biboo have been playing Space Marine 2.  

And Hololive is adding new generations as fast as Nijisanji members can graduate.



hololive DEV_IS FLOW GLOW - the naming scheme is getting out of control - is basically the Gen 8 of the Japanese branch, or in other words, that branch's tenth generation, since the numbering scheme has also gotten out of control.

When I first started watching vtubers, back during the Wuhan Bat Soup Death Plague, there was no Hololive EN, no Nijisanji EN, no Phase Connect or Prism Project.  I watched Hololive JP's Haachama and Coco, who spoke English, and Korone, who didn't really but she has so much energy and enthusiasm that it never mattered.

Now there's hundreds of them.  I even watched the election results being presented by a vtuber named Kirsche.

Posted by: normal at Thursday, November 07 2024 08:05 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, November 08 2024 01:36 AM (rcPLc)

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• The Verge is going through the five stages of election grief.  (The Verge)
  
  Denial.
  Bargaining.
  Blaming crypto.
  Calling for censorship.
  Going home early and getting drunk.
  
  
  
• Slashdot just posted Trump's win and left its commenters to handle the meltdown.  (Slashdot)
  
  Smart.  Efficient.

• If you want a PCIe 5.0 SSD that has high transfer rates and is reasonably cheap, the Corsair MP700 Elite is that.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Pretty much.
  
  
  
• A Samsung 990 Pro is cheaper, better in other respects, and would probably not be noticeably slower.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The Samsung drive has a top speed of 7.5GBps vs. 10GBps for the Corsair model, but it's priced at $149 for 2TB compared to $249.
  
  I know which I would choose.
  
  
  
• Hacking 700 million Electronic Arts accounts.  (BattleDash)
  
  Ethically.
  
  No, really.
  
  
  
• Hundreds of code libraries on NPM try to install malicious code on your computer.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Not as malicious as NPM itself, but still...
  
  
  
• The Ampere One A192-32X is a 192 core 3.2GHz Arm-based server CPU.  (Serve the Home)
  
  I love this line:

  The AmpereOne A192-32X is important to keep in context. It is a 192-core 3.2GHz (hence A192-32X) part, which seems mundane by 2024 standards.

  Pfft.  192 cores?  Hardly worth getting out of bed.
  
  
  
• Sundar Pichai has told Google staff to take their political opinions, fold them until they are all sharp corners, and shove them up their Slack channels.  (Yahoo)
  
  Nature is healing.
  
  
  
• Mozilla (the company behind the Firefox browser) has laid off 30% of its staff and closed down its advocacy division.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Nature is fucking healing.  Trump gets results.
  
  
  
• A ransomware crew that hacked Schneider Electric has demanded payment of $125,000.  (The Register)
  
  Paid in baguettes.
  
  No, really.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, November 06 2024 11:06 AM (bg2DR)

Posted by: cxt217 at Wednesday, November 06 2024 11:33 PM (ZLF73)

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• At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create the Torment Nexus: The first user of the Sarco suicide pod, an American woman suffering from a rare and painful bone infection compounded by an immune disorder, was found alive in the pod with strangulation marks before dying on the scene.  (LBC)
  
  The Swiss police, after warning everybody involved in writing that they would be arrested if they proceeded with their stunt, arrested everybody involved.

  According to the news outlet, the company president, who was standing beside the woman throughout the event, was heard to tell the pod's designer over video call: "She's still alive, Philip".

  Always mount a scratch monkey.

  After being notified of her death by the two lawyers involved in the project and present at the scene, the police swept the forest and arrested everyone near the Sarco, including a photographer for Volkskrant.

  Good call.

  A Forensic doctor present at the scene told the court that the woman had, among other things, severe injuries to her neck.

  This is apparently not supposed to happen.

• Amazon and Facebook's respective nuclear ambitions have been put on hold.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Amazon by the power regulator which believes that the planned deal with the Savannah power plant would unfairly impact other customers.
  
  Facebook by...  Bees.
  
  
  
• Intel is upset that it has received $0 in promised CHIPS Act funding.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Intel has invested $30 billion in US facilities, which should attract $8.5 billion in CHIPS grants.  It hasn't received a penny of that money, though it has received a lot of other government money.
  
  A lot.
  
  
  
• Netflix is focusing its game development efforts on AI after laying off its game developers.  (404 Media)
  
  While the company no longer has any humans working on games, it now boasts a VP, GenAI for Games.
  
  
  
• Perplexity, an AI startup widely reviled for simply stealing content wherever it can find it has offered to replace striking New York Times staff with robots.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  What the hell, I love these guys.
  
  
  
• FFmpeg, a widely-used open-source video encoding framework, runs up to 94 times faster with a new hand-written AVX-512 update.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Except that it doesn't.  The 94x speedup is for a single function and compares AVX-512 to baseline C code with no SIMD at all, not even the MMX instructions that came out in the 90s.
  
  Compared to existing AVX2 instructions it's about 40% faster, again just on that one specific function.
  
  
  
• You can now play Doom on a Nintendo alarm clock.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  It is the 21st century after all.
  
  
  
• Los Angeles county is suing Pepsi and Coca Cola because bottles.  (Yahoo)
  
  It's time to treat California as a smallpox outbreak.  Complete isolation.  Nobody goes in, nobody comes out.
  
  
  

Warning: This video depicts zombies - maybe people too, but definitely zombies - being killed in extremely gruesome ways.

It's basically a Chinese game developer's take on what America might look like if Japan had bought Texas at some time in the 1980s and then everyone got eaten by zombies.

While the recent title from Bioware, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is basically a 50-hour DEI lecture from a blue-haired HR staffer with a sociology degree, this game is insane in a good way.

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, November 05 2024 11:17 PM (pnaK4)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, November 05 2024 11:31 PM (pnaK4)

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• The US government is reportedly considering a merger between Intel and AMD.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Which is odd because neither company has shown the slightest bit of interest in this, and it would clearly be a complete disaster for both.  Well, I guess the complete disaster part is completely in character for the current administration, so maybe no so odd as all that.
  
  
  

Tech News

• The Verge is having a complete meltdown.  I hope to see this continue.
  
  
  
• OpenAI has hired the CEO of Twitter challenger Pebble.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Former Twitter challenger Pebble.
  
  Never heard of Pebble?
  
  Nobody else has either.
  
  
  
• We have solved the problem of every device having its own unique charger.  Now it's all USB-C.  Some idiots still aren't happy.  (MSN)
  
  Don't bother reading the article; the author is an idiot, as I said.
  
  
  
• The PlayStation 5 Pro has an extra 2GB of DDR5 RAM on top of the 16GB of GDDR6 memory it shares with the regular PS5.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Which seems to be a lot of trouble to go to for such a minor improvement.
  
  
  
• SK Hynix has shown off 16-high HBM3E memory.  (WCCFTech)
  
  The memory chips are stacked up so you get 48GB in the space of a single chip, with more than 800GB per second of bandwidth.
  
  That used to be a lot.
  
  
  
• V'Ger phone home.  (Mashable)
  
  NASA lost contact with Voyager 1 - again - and regained it just a few days later - again.
  
  Which is pretty impressive given that it takes about a day for a signal to reach the probe and for us to get a response back, even when the 47 year old spacecraft feels chatty.
  
  Voyager 1 has apparently turned off its main (X-band) transmitter, but was still willing to talk on its backup (S-band) radio.  NASA is working on persuading it to turn on the main transmitter again.

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Tuesday, November 05 2024 04:30 AM (KOtXO)

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• AMD just made choosing a CPU much easier.  Or much harder, depending on your perspective.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The 9000 series CPUs were - at their launch two months ago - overpriced for their performance relative to the existing 7000 series.  They are actually great on some server-oriented tasks, but the improvement since the last generation for desktop tasks and gaming is relatively small.
  
  AMD has adjusted the pricing to match.  the 9900X is 6% faster than the 7900X on PassMark, for example, and now costs 8% more.
  
  For me, good enough.  That will be my next CPU.
  
  If you're more interested in games or have a specific workload that loves large caches, the 9800X3D is due out this week and should also deliver great performance.
  
  
  

Tech News

• SpaceX's HLS - its lunar lander - is forty feet tall with space for twenty astronauts.  (WCCFTech)
  
  The interior is modular and can be re-arranged as the mission demands, but it is vastly, um, vaster than the Apollo lander, something like ten times the size.  It would not be exactly roomy with twenty astronauts packed in, but it has a bathroom which is an automatic win over Apollo.
  
  
  
• Apple's M4 Max performs quite well if your primary workload is GeekBench.  (WCCFTech)
  
  It will almost certainly perform well in real workloads as well, though not quite as well as it does on GeekBench.
  
  Also, the cheapest Mac model with the M4 Max CPU costs as much as a maxed-out PC with a 9950X and an RTX 4090.
  
  
  
• Speaking of maxed-out PCs the Asus ProArt Display 5K is a 5K display aimed at art professionals.  From Asus.  (TweakTown)
  
  For $799.
  
  That's the exciting part.  That's a lot for a monitor these days, but it's not a lot for a professional-class 5K display.  It's close to twice the price of the 4K model, but also has close to twice the number of pixels.
  
  It's taken a very long time for 5K displays to become affordable.  I have the 2015 Retina iMac (which I don't use much anymore) which has an integrated 5K display, but equivalent displays for PCs have been scarce and horribly expensive.
  
  
  
• Twitter isn't a bank yet!  Emmanuel Goldmusk lied again!  (The Verge)
  
  The meltdown continues apace.
  
  
  
• Why did cloud security startup Wiz turn down a $23 billion offer from Google.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Because they already have a billion dollars of investors' money to burn.  If they can wait out another couple of industry implosions like the CrowdStrike fiasco, they could triple the price.
  
  
  

• Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are on track to spend a total of $200 billion on AI this year.  (BNN Bloomberg)
  
  There are worse things they could be doing with their money, I suppose.  De-orbiting the Moon, or promoting polonium as a pizza topping.  Reintroducing rinderpest and smallpox.
  
  Okay, those aren't much worse, but they are worse.

• Intel's Lunar Lake, with its integrated memory, is a one-off.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Future laptop chips will return to having memory on the motherboard, or on modules that connect to the motherboard.
  
  Not because soldering the memory directly to the CPU is an anti-consumer nightmare, but because it eats into Intel's margins.
  
  Apple can get away with 1000% markups on memory, because its customer base likes shiny things.
  
  Intel, since it sells its chips to other manufacturers who then sell computers to you, cannot.
  
  
  
• Speaking of laptop memory, CAMM2 is on its way.  For realsies.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  CAMM2 modules lie flat on a laptop's motherboard rather than slotting into a socket, so the take up less room and can have more pins.  And that lets them support a 128-bit bus with one module rather than the usual 64 bits.
  
  And they also support faster LPDDR5X memory, which usually has to be soldered directly onto the motherboard itself.
  
  Only problem is they are taking a long time to arrive.  There's basically one desktop motherboard from MSI and one laptop from Lenovo using these modules right now.
  
  
  
• Australia's Lord Howe Island shifts by 30 minutes when daylight saving time beings and ends.  (SSO Ready)
  
  Just to annoy everyone.
  
  
  
• Indonesia has banned sales of Google Pixel phones after the company failed to meet a requirement of 40% local content.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  What about Apple, you ask?
  
  They are at least playing fair.  The iPhone 16 was banned there last week.
  
  
  
• GPD's new Pocket 4 is an absurdly tiny and extremely powerful laptop.  (Liliputing)
  
  The existing model of the Pocket 3 has a dual core Intel CPU and 16GB of RAM.
  
  The Pocket 4 replaces the CPU with a twelve core AMD Ryzen 370, and offers options of 32 or 64GB of RAM.
  
  The 8.8" touchscreen is bumped from 1920x1200 at 60Hz to 2560x1600 at 144Hz.
  
  It would be an amazing device for an engineer that needs to go on-site and plug things in, if those people still exist.
  
  
  

Posted by: PatBuckman at Saturday, November 02 2024 11:09 PM (rcPLc)

Posted by: cxt217 at Sunday, November 03 2024 01:28 PM (ZLF73)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, November 03 2024 04:44 PM (PiXy!)

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