• 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  We regret to inform you that Google's DeepMind team in the UK has been replaced by DeepMind.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

• 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)

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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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• TSMC's N3P process is now in full production and N3X is set to follow later this year.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  N3P is a slight shrink of N3E which in turn is a small update to N3.  We're only talking about 5% improvements each time, but if you design a chip for N3E you can produced in on N3P and get free performance and power improvements.
  
  
  
• A little further out, TSMC plans to introduce 14A - 1.4nm - production in 2028 and add backside power delivery in 2029.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Many people would benefit from a little backside power delivery.
  
  
  
• Russia is on track to introduce 28nm chips by 2030.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  28nm is actually a very reliable node and a good choice if you're not trying to win Apple as a customer.  Embedded chips are commonly still produced at 40nm.

• Motorola tried to make Perplexity its default AI assistant and Google said no.  (Bloomberg)  (archive site)
  
  Google was just enforcing the terms of its contract with Android phone makers.  But with the recent antitrust decisions on Google's search and advertising divisions, they may no longer be allowed to enforce those terms.
  
  
  
• The EU is fining Apple and Facebook a combined $800 million for not respecting European values.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  Which either means they didn't disappear for an entire month in August, or didn't invade Belgium without leaving a tip.
  
  One of those.
  
  
  
• Cluely is an AI app designed to let you cheat on anything.  It's so bad it's actually easier to just tell the truth.  (The Verge)  (archive site)
  
  Its terms of service also forbid you from using it for its advertised purpose, which is...  Suspect.  They might be high on their own supply over there.
  
  

Posted by: PatBuckman at Thursday, April 24 2025 11:27 PM (rcPLc)

Posted by: normal at Friday, April 25 2025 08:16 AM (bg2DR)

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• Open source database for people who are allergic to even the idea of running their own servers Supabase has raised $200 million at a valuation of $2 billion on the back of the "vibe coding" craze.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Vibe coding is the idea that you don't need to know how to program to build an app.  You don't in fact need to know anything at all to build an app.  You get an AI to do the work based on your cool ideas, and you throw it out there and see what sticks.
  
  Which is great if you value your own time at infinity and your customers' time at zero.  Or if you are just playing around to see if an idea is feasible before implementing it properly - except of course that nothing ever gets implemented properly and you'll soon be stuck with a nightmarish mess that routes your authentication requests via Eswatini in plaintext and is written largely in a programming language that is not only no longer supported but never actually existed in the first place.
  
  Supabase isn't directly pushing this, only enabling the trend, so I won't express a desire for them to be hit by a comet and expire.  For them to quietly go bankrupt and disappear would be sufficient.

• Intel is booking capacity on TSMC's new 2nm process for production of its upcoming Nova Lake CPUs next year.  (WCCFTech)
  
  AMD and Apple are also planning to build their next CPUs on TSMC's 2nm process.  Intel has its own 1.8nm - 18A - process in the works that should enter production within months, and plans to use both.
  
  
  
• Intel is reportedly also planning to lay off 20% of its staff.  (Bloomberg)  (archive site)
  
  That's...  Less good.
  
  
  
• Bethesda's flower-picking simulator, Oblivion, is back, and it's bigger than ever.  (The Verge)
  
  Much bigger.  The new version takes up 125GB of drive space.
  
  Also none of the existing mods are supported.  Oh, and you can't make new mods either.
  
  Owners of the original version (which used less than 5GB) at least get...  You'll get nothing, and you'll like it.
  
  
  

Posted by: PatBuckman at Thursday, April 24 2025 12:17 AM (rcPLc)

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• AMD's 16 core Zen 5c dies have a single shared L3 cache.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  These are used in the largest Epyc server CPUs, with up to 192 cores in total.
  
  This is not a huge deal for Epyc CPUs because you still have twelve CPU dies each with its own cache.  But it is potentially a big deal for desktop CPUs, because the moment you go off-die - even over AMD's high-speed Infinity Fabric that links these chiplets together - you slow down a lot.
  
  And the fact that AMD is already shipping unified 16 core dies makes rumours that Zen 6 will be a unified 12 core die a lot more believable.

• Lenovo's Legion Tab Gen 4 has a TF slot - functionally the same as microSD.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Of course it does, because I got the shipping notification for my Legion Tab Gen 3 only two hours ago, and the Gen 3 does not have a microSD slot.
  
  But it took close to a year for the Gen 3 to become available in Australia, and it was on sale, and it includes 256GB of storage so I'm not likely to run out quickly.
  
  
  
• Python's new t-strings, arriving in 3.14 late this year, provide a safe (or rather, safer) replacement to f-strings, which provided a brain-damaged replacement to existing string interpolation that everyone knew was a bad idea at the time.  (Dave Peck)
  
  We put Perl in your Python because we hate you.
  
  
  
• It kind of looks like a USB dock but it ain't.  (Liliputing)
  
  It's a NAS with two M.2 drive slots, an Intel N150, 12GB of RAM, two HDMI ports, and sadly only gigabit Ethernet.
  
  
  
• Speaking of only gigabit Ethernet, those super-cheap Wavlink USB docks with HDMI and 2.5Gb Ethernet seem to have gone.  They got down to less than $10 before disappearing entirely.
  
  I did buy five of them, so I'm okay on that front.
  
  
  
• Bluesky is outsourcing account verification to reliable third-parties like...  The New York Times.  (The Verge)
  
  Oh, that's going to work out great.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: cxt217 at Wednesday, April 23 2025 12:05 PM (ZLF73)

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• Discord is deploying age verification systems recently made mandatory in fascist dystopias.  (Soap Central)
  
  Like Britain.  And Australia.
  
  Fortunately they're being a lot more sensible about this than the governments that enforced the rules.  The verification pops up - once - when you want to see adult content.
  
  Which is not something I want from Discord, ever, so I don't see this as a huge problem.  And you can pass the verification check with a face scan by the app and not have to upload government ID.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Looks like there will be a 32GB variant of AMD's Radeon 9070 XT after all...  Sort of.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  AMD denied this a bit too strenuously.  Looks like the 32GB model is for the Radeon Pro range, for workstation users and not gamers.  It is the same card otherwise, though the clock speeds and power consumption will likely be trimmed back a little to make it more acceptable in an office environment.
  
  
  
• It's a four-inch cube and it's blue, but it doesn't say Cobalt on it.  (Liliputing)
  
  The Beelink Me Mini supports six M.2 drives, two 2.5Gb Ethernet ports, three USB ports, and one HDMI.  And an internal power supply so you don't have an inconvenient brick hanging off it.
  
  Also available in white and gray.  Or will be available.  Price and shipping date TBA.
  
  CPU is an Intel N200 which is a four core Atom CPU and delivers adequate performance for a NAS and only uses 6W of power.
  
  
  
• Resist eggheads!  (Ars Technica)
  
  Ars Technica has noticed that people have finally woken up to the communist takeover of the education system and is desperate to put them to sleep again, by force if necessary.
  
  
  
• Chinese APT IronHusky deploys updated MysterySnail RAT on Russia.  (HackRead)
  
  The Cold War proceeds apace, just now being fought between the Chinese and the Soviets.

Posted by: cxt217 at Tuesday, April 22 2025 09:44 AM (ZLF73)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Tuesday, April 22 2025 10:07 AM (rcPLc)

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• Vendors have voted to reduce the duration of SSL certificates from one year to 47 days.  (Computerworld)
  
  Fuck vendors.
  
  This is mostly driven by Apple, because...  Because nothing, really.  It's a bad solution to a non-problem.
  
  Apple has been pushing for this for some time.  Previously certificates were valid for up to five years, and then Apple got involved.
  
  And the certificate vendors have just committed suicide, because nobody is going to pay them for a certificate that has to be manually refreshed every few weeks, and if you are deploying an automated solution you might as well go all the way and implement a free automated solution using Let's Encrypt.
  
  So good work, assholes.
  
  
  
• It's true that SSL providers are stupid but you still can't use the certificate without hacking DNS.  (Bugzilla)
  
  And it's true that SSL is intended to be resilient to this sort of attack, but if you care about security you need to care about who is providing your DNS, and if you do then this attack doesn't work anyway.

• Intel says yes, our graphics cards kind of suck when used with older (and slower) CPUs.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Intel's graphics drives are somewhat inefficient.  This doesn't show up on recent CPUs, because they are fast enough to keep up anyway.  But if you pair an Intel graphics card with a CPU from five years ago, the performance bottleneck is now the CPU.
  
  This is a problem because Intel's graphics cards are cheaper than anything current from AMD or Nvidia, making them look like a good option for people with tight budgets...  Who would still be using older CPUs.
  
  
  
• Russia is seeding chatbots with lies.  Any bad actor could do the same, though of course the exercise would be redundant because feeding bullshit into a bullshit factory doesn't really change the output.  (Detroit News)
  
  What it we made it even more stochastic?
  
  
  
• Ordered the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 to replace my dead Tab M8 FHD.  It's more than I wanted to pay, but I need a small tablet with a high-resolution display, and it is the only small Android model available with a resolution better than 1340x800.  Unless I buy from Aliexpress and risk having my Google and Amazon accounts hoovered up in the next OTA update exploit, as happened with Alldocube not long ago.
  
  Compared to the M8 FHD it's three times the price (with the current discount), but has four times the RAM, eight times the storage (no microSD slot, which messes that up, but 256GB is still decent), bumps the resolution up from 1920x1200 to 2560x1600, and is just astronomically faster.  The Cortex X4 is at least nine generations newer than the A53 in the M8 FHD depending on how you count, and on Antutu is ten times faster on multi-threaded tests comparing the two eight-core chips.  (It doesn't have an entry for the P22T, but that had the same cores and clock speed as the P35 which is on the list.)
  
  Which I'd like to say I don't care about but the M8 FHD was kind of a slug.
  
  Hope it's worth it.  Shame I really don't care about graphics performance on this thing, because there it scores 127 times faster than the old model.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, April 21 2025 07:22 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Monday, April 21 2025 08:12 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: David Eastman at Monday, April 21 2025 12:55 PM (aAyxl)

Posted by: bob in houston at Wednesday, April 23 2025 01:49 AM (YBLgY)

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