• All the major browsers are set to lose their funding.  (Dan Fabulich)
  
  Google pays 80% of the budget for Safari and Mozilla, Edge is just Chrome, and Chrome actually is Chrome.  So with Google's illegal practices on multiple fronts coming to a head with the company losing two antitrust cases, the whole metastatic structure is set to implode.
  
  More than that, Google's payments to Apple, which are likely to end abruptly, cover 60% of the latter company's total R&D budget.
  
  
  
• Waah says Mozilla.  (The Verge)
  
  And nothing of value was lost.  Mozilla killed itself off as a realistic option years ago.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Nvidia's RTX 5060 Ti 8GB model loses up to 10 percent of performance when running with PCIe 4.0.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  That's accurate in itself, but the main story is don't even think about buying the 8GB model.
  
  For example, playing Dragon Age Veilguard - which nobody does; the game flopped hard - the 16GB card achieves a reasonable 57 fps at 1440p, dropping very slightly to 56.9 fps when using a PCIe 4.0 slot.  Fair enough and in line with other tests.  Even the 5090 only loses a couple of percentage points in performance with a PCIe 4.0 slot.
  
  With the 8GB model, performance drops to just 34 fps.  And with the 8GB model in a PCIe 4.0 slot, it can't even manage 5 fps.
  
  Most games cope better than that, but some games were even worse.  The new Indiana Jones game would not run at all on the 8GB version with the same settings used on the 16GB card, and Spider-Man 2 ran but crashed often enough on the 8GB card to make it a truly miserable experience.
  
  The two 5060 Ti models share a name, but the 16GB model is adequate, while the 8GB model is simply inadequate.
  
  
  
• How to use RegEdit to totally brick Windows instead of clicking a button when it's slow to reboot.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Do not do this.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

• Apple is teaming up with Anthropic on a new vibe coding platform.  (Bloomberg)  (archive site)
  
  Vibe coding is a term where a developer has no idea how to program - let alone build a complete application - and also no idea about the problems inherent in the application domain.  So someone trying to launch, say, a map to guide mining of rare earth elements when you not only can't program but also have no idea what an element is.
  
  Apple's own vibe coding platform was quietly scuttled last year when it turned out to be completely worthless, so they're doing it again.

• Grand Theft Auto VI, the latest iteration in the Grand Theft Auto series, logically enough, in which the character does stuff - GTA 5 is actually quite fun in multiplayer because you can get up to all sorts of shenanigans - has had its release delayed to May 26.  (MSN)
  
  Of next year.
  
  13 years after GTA 5.
  
  
  
• Thunderbolts is Marvel's latest attempt at clawing its way into an existential void.  (The Verge)  (archive site)
  
  Exactly why they wish to that that is unclear, but they do.
  
  Marvel movies used to be dependably fun popcorn flicks.
  
  This has now been corrected.
  
  
  
• And nothing of value was lost: Firefox could die if funding from Google is cut off due to antitrust proceedings.  (The Verge)
  
  Okay.
  
  
  
• Eric Schmidt - former CEO of Google - bought Relativity Space to put datacenters into orbit.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Does any of this make sense?  No.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Frank at Saturday, May 03 2025 07:01 PM (+i6Xr)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Sunday, May 04 2025 01:13 AM (rcPLc)

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• After years of ripping off developers by taking a cut of off-platform payments for transactions they had no part in, and then when courts ruled against them, more years of making things deliberately and systematically worse for everyone, a federal judge finally had enough and nuked Apple.  (The Verge)  (archive site)
  
  The ruling is crystal clear: Apple can not demand any cut of off-platform payments, nor can they add roadblocks for developers or for end users.
  
  That was just yesterday.  Spotify is already moving its payment processing away from Apple, and Patreon plans to do the same.

• Redis is open source again.  (Antirez)
  
  Redis tried shifting to a have-your-eat-and-cake-it-too license that nobody liked, and spawned a veritable forest of forks.
  
  It's back under AGPL now, which is fine for most uses.
  
  
  
• The House of Representatives has voted to nuke California.  (CBS)
  
  Starting with California's plan to ban new gas-powered vehicles starting in 2035, and proceeding until California stops being stupid.
  
  
  
• Microsoft is making accounts passwordless by default going forward, moving to newer and less secure methods.  (Microsoft)
  
  Like locally caching the passwords of remote machines and letting you log in if the local copy is right even if the remote one has changed.
  
  
  
• Polygon, a gaming news website that everyone forgot within a year of its creation, has been sold off to a content farm upstate.  (Kotaku)
  
  Polygon was bad from the beginning, and has been insufferable for years.  Pretty much everyone was laid off.
  
  Kotaku is next.
  
  
  
• Meta's Reality Labs lost $4.2 billion in its first quarter.  (CNBC)
  
  Doing what?!
  
  Reality Labs doesn't seem to do anything except bleed cache cash.
  
  
  
• Phase Connect has gathered in Clio Aite, Marimari_EN, and Sleepy into a new Invaders generation starting this weekend.
  
  Pippa can't stop winning.
  
  
  
• Also, ENReco stage 2 starts this weekend.
  
  Play

Posted by: nomal at Friday, May 02 2025 06:51 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: nomal at Friday, May 02 2025 06:55 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, May 03 2025 09:30 AM (1zWbY)

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• AMD is reportedly preparing Ryzen 9000G desktop processors.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  These will be repurposed laptop chips just like previous G-series CPUs.  The difference is that these will offer up to twelve Zen 5 cores (or more specifically four Zen 5 cores and eight of the slower Zen 5c cores) plus up to 16 GPU cores.
  
  And up to 256GB of RAM, since they are after all desktop chips and that's how much you can put in a regular desktop system these days.
  
  Judging by the prices of the laptops though I expect the top models to be expensive.

• Samsung plans to enter full production with its own 2nm process node in the second half of this year.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Now they just need to find customers.
  
  
  
• Microsoft's profits grew by 18% in the latest quarter, buoyed by rising sales of its key product, Slurm.  (AP News)
  
  It has electrolytes.
  
  
  
• Google is spending $10 million to train 100,000 new electricians.  (Yahoo)
  
  Yeah, I don't think that's quite enough, guys.
  
  
  
• The Minisforum N5 Pro is a NAS.  (Liliputing)
  
  It has the familiar twelve core Ryzen 370 and supports five SATA drives and three NVMe drives.
  
  And OCuLink, without which it would be able to support five NVMe drives, and which is kind of useless in a device like this.
  
  
  
• Moved my Minecraft server from a VirtualBox VM on my laptop to an LXC container on my server.  I expected to see some improvement: They're both Zen 3 cores, but the server is a full desktop system rather than a low-power laptop.
  
  It's four times as fast, which I was not expecting.
  
  I'm not sure why it is so fast, or more accurately, why my laptop is so slow.  I'll play around and see if I can work out what is going on there but I am not unhappy with the outcome.

Posted by: cxt217 at Friday, May 02 2025 08:16 AM (ZLF73)

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• Google Play has lost nearly half of its apps in the past year.  Here's why that's a good thing.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Developers aren't leaving Android.  Much.  Rather, Google is belatedly taking steps to weed out the tsunami of crap that has been infesting the plague store for years.
  
  Not sure how you weed a tsunami.  Which might be why it has taken them so long.
  
  In addition to removing 1.6 million garbage apps, Google rejected 2.3 million new apps before they could ever reach the app store, and banned 158,000 developer accounts that were attempting various kinds of nefariousness.

• Reddit is issuing firmly-worded letters against researchers who exposed their users as gullible morons.  (404 Media)
  
  The researchers at the University of Zurich used an AI chatbot to argue with Reddit users, and succeeded at winning the arguments more often than nominal humans.
  
  
  
• It costs more than one Bitcoin to mine one Bitcoin.  (PC Gamer)
  
  That'll slow the fish down.
  
  
  
• If you are still using an LG phone, update it now.  (9to5Google)
  
  Not because it's been hacked, but because the update servers will shut down at the end of June.
  
  LG shut down its phone division four years ago, but has kept the software updated since then.
  
  
  
• If you are running Kali Linux, you'll need to add a new update key.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Because they lost the old one.  They weren't hacked; it wasn't compromised.  It just fell down the back of the sofa.
  
  
  
• One word: Trees.  (WSJ)  (archive site)
  
  Carbon sequestration is potentially a $250 billion market - says the article - but what do you do when the forest you are paying for you carbon credits...  Burns down?
  
  Better call the Lorax.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: cxt217 at Thursday, May 01 2025 09:04 AM (ZLF73)

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• We didn't get hacked or hit by ransomware.  We didn't need to.  We run Oracle.  (CNBC)
  
  45 hospitals belonging to Tennessee-based Community Health Systems lost access to all their electronic records for five days because...  Oracle accidentally deleted them.

• The Radeon 9070 GRE is up for pre-order in China with cards shipping May 8.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  At a price that will excite no-one since this 12GB card costs more than the MSRP of the 16GB 9070.
  
  
  
• PyXL is a chip that runs Python.  (RunPyXL)
  
  In hardware.  Albeit at 100MHz on an FPGA.
  
  How fast it is really is unclear but it achieves a 30x reduction in latency for simple I/O tasks common on embedded systems.
  
  Though it's not clear how directly it runs the Python bytecode, since the notes mention that it compiled into PyXL assembly before running.
  
  
  
• Moving away from Rust.  (Dead Money)
  
  Not because the language is bad, necessarily.  If I were writing a new operating system kernel it would be a strong contender.
  
  But most people are not writing new operating system kernels.
  
  
  
• Writing a computer game without a game engine.  (Karl Zylinski)
  
  Caught between Unreal Engine and its problems, Unity and its license, and Godot and its absolute barking insanity?  Why not try none of them!
  
  
  
• How to soft-brick an iPhone in a perpetual boot loop and collect a $17,500 bug bounty from Apple.  (rambo.codes)
  
  Though this specific instance has been fixed - probably - and you'll need to find your own.
  
  
  
• The Boox Mira Pro Color is a 3200x1800 25-inch e-ink colour display.  (Notebook Check)
  
  And it costs just $1899.
  
  No, I didn't add a digit at the end there.  Or at the beginning.  Or in the middle.

• Google's DeepMind team in the UK is reportedly seeking to unionise, upset by Google dropping the "don't be evil" motto about seventeen years ago.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  We regret to inform you that Google's DeepMind team in the UK has been replaced by DeepMind.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile Microsoft's massive AI efforts have come to a screeching halt.  (XDA Developers)
  
  People are willing to dabble with AI, but far fewer are willing to have it infect their own devices.  Copilot has one twentieth the userbase of ChatGPT and is only falling further behind.

• The Lenovo Legion Tab 3 is pretty good if you're looking for a small, fast Android tablet with a high resolution screen.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Which is a good thing since it is the only small Android tablet with a high resolution screen, apart from Aliexpress deals.
  
  Also good because I just bought one.
  
  However, the Lenovo Legion Tab 4 has already been leaked, so you might not want to buy this one unless you see it on sale.  Which I did.
  
  It's comparable to Apple's latest iPad Mini - in fact, the review scores of the two devices were only 0.1% apart.
  
  
  
• Minisforum has a new mini-PC that is not quite so mini.  (Liliputing)
  
  It has a 16 core Ryzen 9 9955HX laptop CPU, up to 96GB of RAM (or 128GB if you can find the modules), three M.2 slots, a PCIe slot (for very small PCIe cards), two 2.5Gb Ethernet ports, and two 10Gb Ethernet ports, which is a bit unusual in this class of device.  They're SFP rather than RJ45, though, so you'll need transceivers or fancy cables.
  
  Prices start at $839.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, April 29 2025 05:11 AM (LBTSR)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, April 29 2025 05:13 AM (LBTSR)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, April 29 2025 05:15 AM (LBTSR)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Tuesday, April 29 2025 12:17 PM (rcPLc)

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• 4chan is back.  (Slashdot)
  
  This will annoy the terminally-online haters and delight the...  Also terminally-online haters.
  
  I don't think I've ever visited 4chan, but as a natural-born archivist I'm glad that it's not lost.

• Hyte - maker of the Hololive limited edition computer cases and apparently other stuff as well - has suspended shipments of certain products to the US due to tariff uncertainties.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Maybe they could try shipping them to Australia instead, because it cost me as much in shipping as the case itself to get the Calliope Mori model.
  
  
  
• Blue Shield California shared personal information of 4.7 million members with Google Ads.  (CSO Online)
  
  The outsourced site analytics to Google and then shared the Google Analytics data with Google Ads, because...  Because they're dumbfucks, basically.
  
  
  
• Do not buy GMKtec's mini-NAS.  (Jeff Geerling)
  
  This device offers four M.2 SSD slots and an Intel N150 CPU in a compact device, just a little larger than a regular mini-PC.
  
  It also overheats.
  
  Badly.  The low-power CPU hits 85C under load and the SSDs hit 70C at idle.
  
  If you throttle the CPU to just 800MHz, and throttle the M.2 bays to PCIE 1.0 speeds  - still fast enough to flood 2.5Gb Ethernet - and also attach heatsinks to two of the I/O chips, and attach high-end heatsinks to the SSDs, then you can get those temperatures under control.
  
  And somewhere along the way it stopped crashing.
  
  But at that point it was twice the size it originally shipped at and ran slower than a Raspberry Pi.

• What this country needs is a really good $20,000 electric truck.  Apparently.  (The Verge)  (archive site)
  
  I mean, given what vehicles cost these days, it's worth a shot.
  
  There are a few corners cut, to be sure.  The Slate Truck is available in one colour - slate grey, has no sound system, and only does 150 miles on a charge.  And the body panels are plastic, not metal, though that's not a first even on much more expensive models.
  
  And it's designed to be repairable by the owner, though how far that goes is something that we'll have to see when it comes out next year.

• Netflix now has dialogue-only subtitles because of the current trend for actors to mumble incoherently through their lines.  (Ars Technica)
  
  No, it's not your hearing going.  I mean, that might also be true, but the younger generations also watch TV with subtitles on because they can't tell what the hell the actors are saying.
  
  
  
• Microsoft's Recall spyware is here.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Also Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC is cheap (if a little fiddly to install) and receives security updates through January 2027 - and no new features at all.
  
  Just saying.
  
  If you can find the IoT edition that's supported through 2032 but I don't know where to get that.
  
  
  
• If you mention the /etc/hosts file - found on all modern operating systems - Substack sends etheric ninjas down the wire to terminate you.  (Substack)
  
  Or more specifically it raises a 403 error when the editor attempts to automatically save your post.
  
  Potato, potahto.
  
  
  
• This mini-ITX NAS motherboard has 10Gb Ethernet.  (Liliputing)
  
  And costs $139 if you can find someone who will ship it to you, given current tariff uncertainties.
  
  There are many such boards on sites like Aliexpress, but most of the cheap ones don't have 10GbE.
  
  
  
• Why are companies lining up to buy Chrome?  (The Verge)
  
  Perplexity, OpenAI, and Yahoo are all among the bidders should the government force Google to divest its browser.
  
  But you can already get Chrome-based browsers like Brave and Vivaldi for free.
  
  These companies aren't looking to buy Chrome.  They're looking to buy you.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: PatBuckman at Sunday, April 27 2025 02:51 PM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Sailorcurt at Wednesday, April 30 2025 01:41 AM (iIviZ)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, April 30 2025 06:55 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, April 30 2025 07:45 AM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, April 30 2025 12:41 PM (1zWbY)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Thursday, May 01 2025 02:20 AM (rcPLc)

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• Intel has officially announced its plans to fire all the useless freeloaders and force employees to actually show up at the office and do their jobs.  (Tom's Hardware)|
  
  Employees will be required to be in the office four days a week starting in September, a goal likely easier to achieve when the company is also expected to be firing 20% of its workforce.
  
  

• Meanwhile Intel's current-generation and AI-focused chips just aren't selling.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  But cheaper, previous generation chips are selling, particularly the 14th-generation parts.
  
  
  
• AMD reportedly has a 12GB cut-down model of the Radeon 9070 ready to go.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This will deliver three quarters of everything on the 9070, and neatly plug the gap between the regular 9070 and the upcoming 9060, which will only have half the performance of the 9070.
  
  
  
• Employee monitoring app WorkComposer leaked 21 million screenshots of monitored employees.  (CyberNews)
  
  How could this happen?
  
  
  
• Why US men think college isn't worth it anymore.  (Bloomberg)  (archive site)
  
  Mostly because it's not.

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, April 25 2025 11:10 PM (1zWbY)

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