• Intel looks set for another meh year in 2020.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Comet Lake will still be 14nm, and will max out at 10 cores.  And it will require a new socket.  And it will use more power than a 16 core Ryzen.  And it will have less than half the PCIe bandwidth.
  
  
• AMD's RX 5500 looks set to replace the existing RX 570, 580, and 590 cards unless it doesn't.  (WCCFTech)
  
  It replaces the existing cards' 256-bit GDDR5 memory with 128-bit GDDR6, so almost the same speed but cheaper to manufacture.  It's aimed squarely at Nvidia's GTX 1650 - but Nvidia are about to launch their 1650 Super as a counterattack.
  
  
• Secrets of the Hitachi 6309  (WikiChip)
  
  The 6309 was a clone of the 6809 (as found in the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer and the Hitachi Peach) but had a few hidden features.  The 6809 was notable compared to other 8 bit CPUs for having a multiply instruction; the 6309 added division.
  
  It also provided block transfer instructions like the Z80 and a 32-bit accumulator.  No other 8 bit CPU - as far as I am aware - had that.
  
  
• All six major browser vendors are rolling out DNS-over-HTTPS in a big middle finger to ISPs and governments.  (ZDNet)
  
  Also, six?  Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, Apple...  Their list includes Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi, so they don't count one of the seven as "major".
  
  
• Microsoft clarifies its strategy for Windows application developers.  (Thurrott.com)
  
  
  
  Actual quote:

  Moving forward, we’re looking forward to being able to continue to evolve the app model space to make it less of a hard left-right decision for you but something that is a choice you can make as a developer later on, and not as an initial change.

• Disney is planning to airbrush its own content on its own streaming service.  (One Angry Gamer - do not read the comments)
  
  Anyone familiar with the story of Song of the South - it has never been released on home video in the US - will be completely unsurprised at this move.
  
  
• The Chrome spell checker does not believe unsurprised is a word.
  
  
• Diablo IV won't be out for years but Blizzard is already planning microtransactions, seasonal content, and expansion packs on top of the full-priced game.  (One Angry Gamer - do not read the comments)
  
  
• No, an AI hasn't solved the Three-Body Problem you idiots because we already have a proof that there is no general solution for the Three-Body Problem.  (LiveScience)
  
  The comments at Slashdot (unlike certain other sites) are actually informative on the subject.  (Slashdot)
  
  
• Instagram is hiding likes, which are kind of the entire and only purpose of Instagram.
  
  
  
  
• Julia has threads.  (Julia)
  
  It's had sort-of threads for a while, but with 1.3 - which isn't out yet - they are officially in beta.
  
  That's because it does some complicated and clever stuff with them.  You can fire up as many threads as you like - including having nested loops that each spawn threads all over the place - and it will make sure that the end result all makes sense and doesn't kill your computer.
  

Video of the Day

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, November 11 2019 03:16 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, November 11 2019 03:30 AM (Iwkd4)

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