• If you need more faster storage, Asus has a quad PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD adaptor.  (AnandTech)
  
  It only works in AMD systems, but that's not a problem, because it only works in AMD systems.
  
  
  
• If you updated Firefox to 72.0 to get that notification popup blocking, well, update it to 72.0.1.  (PC Perspective)
  
  There was a security flaw, though it's not clear if this is a new bug or an existing one that wasn't fixed in 72.0.
  
  
  
• Party like it's 1975 with your very own Apple I.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  No soldering required - the kit includes all the parts, breadboards to assemble it, and jumper wires, some pre-assembled into a handy system bus.  It will ship later this year for $119.
  
  
  
• The "non-commercial" term in Creative Commons licenses means no direct commercial use, not no commercial involvement of any kind ever.  (TechDirt)
  
  Someone released teaching materials under BY-NC-SA 4.0 - that is, attribution required, no commercial use, and if you update the materials for your own use you have to share your updates too.
  
  They then sued copy shops that were used to copy the materials.
  
  The 9th Circuit told them to take a hike.
  
  
  
• Scalene, Scalene, Scalene, Scaleeeene...  (GitHub)
  
  Is a Python performance profiler.
  
  
  
• Linus: Don't use ZFS.  (Real World Tech)
  
  Everyone: (Uses ZFS.)
  
  
  
• Potato.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Google has removed over 1700 malware-infested apps from the Play Store.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Uh-oh.
  
  Since 2017.
  
  Never mind.
  
  
  
• Cuttlefish get all the fun.  (Popular Science)
  
  Researchers have demonstrated that cuttlefish have 3D vision by fitting them with little cuttlefish 3D glasses and showing them cuttlefish movies.
  
  Click the link.  Really.
  
  
  
• Amazon labelled Honey - a coupon-clipping browser extension now owned by PayPal - a security risk.  (Wired)
  
  Bets on how long before they are proven correct?
  
  
  
• Moderating content for Facebook is only slightly better than clawing out cobalt with your fingernails in an illegal mine in the Central African Republic.  (Vice)
  
  Are there illegal cobalt mines in the Central African Republic?  Is the Central African Republic still a country?*  Anyway, Facebook bad.
  
  
  
• Air filters make students smarter.  (Vox)
  
  Or - something no-one seems to have considered - this is yet another example of the Hawthorne effect, a finding dating back to the earliest scientific productivity studies, that studying people makes them more productive.
  
  At the Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois, they tested to see if better lighting improved productivity.  It did.
  
  They then tested with worse lighting to see if that reduced productivity.  Instead, it improved productivity.
  
  They then set the lighting back to where it had been originally.  That also improved productivity.
  
  It turned out that having someone show an interest in your work and try to improve your working environment in itself makes you more productive.
  
  (I couldn't remember the name of the Hawthorne Effect, but it turns out five minutes of frantic Googling is an adequate substitute for genuine erudition.)
  
  Update: Or the entire notion of the Hawthorne Effect could be experimenter bias.  (Scientific American)

Tech Video of the Day

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Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, January 11 2020 03:40 AM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, January 11 2020 03:52 AM (Iwkd4)

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