Friday, September 24
Daily News Stuff 24 September 2021
Circling The Drain Edition
Circling The Drain Edition
Top Story
- I got to load 1595 web pages last night and manually click a button on each because a certain company's API no longer works.
- Meanwhile not only is Melbourne sending the stormtroopers after anyone in a high-vis jacket, they are sending the brownshirts after Twitch livestreams of said stormtroopers to prevent the government propaganda efforts being punctured.
Time for an intervention, if not a visitation.
- Facebook allegedly volunteered to pay a $5 billion FTC fine as a payoff to keep the agency quiet. (Ars Technica)
A shareholder lawsuit says that the maximum fine was a little over $100 million - which would put a dent in your pocketbook or mine but would be insignificant to Big Tech, and Facebook accepted a much larger fine just to hush it all up.
Seems plausible. They suck.
Tech News
- What is the point of a 200MP camera sensor when the red pixels are smaller than the wavelength of red light? Not much. (AnandTech)
The physics are a bit more complicated than that, and the layout means that you can easily get 50MP or 12.5MP images out of it, but 200MP isn't really going to work even for a sensor that is quite large for a phone camera.
- The EU is pushing the enforce USB-C as a standard phone connector. (Tom's Hardware)
Well, it's better than mini-USB, which was large and clunky, or micro-USB, which was fragile and clunky.
At the high end the list of features a USB-C port might support is incomprehensibly complicated, but if you just want 10W or 20W of power and USB 2.0 data rates you shouldn't have any problems.
- There's another three vulnerabilities in iOS. (Habr)
Data at risk includes:
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medical information (heart rate, count of detected atrial fibrillation and irregular heart rhythm events)
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menstrual cycle length, biological sex and age, whether user is logging sexual activity, cervical mucus quality, etc.
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- Minecraft Dungeons is now on Steam. (Thurrott.com)
Unfortunately it doesn't involve mining or crafting, it's just a blocky version of Diablo.
- Twitter is adding Bitcoin tipping to its authoritarian digital hellscape. (Bloomberg)
There is nothing on Twitter that is worth a Bitcoin transaction fee, much less the tip. Unless they let you bid to have other people's accounts suspended. They could make billions that way.
- California just signed their Fuck you Amazon bill into law. (The Verge)
It targets Amazon's abusive working conditions and obsessive control. Very much a let's you and him fight situation.
- Now that I have a new computer - still in its box, but I have it - the monitor I wanted is out of stock again. The LG 27UP850-W, which is a 27" 4K model with USB-C input for my laptop, DisplayPort, HDMI, a 95% DCI-P3 colour gamut, HDR, speakers, a USB hub, Freesync, and a tilt/pivot/height adjustable stand without being horribly overpriced.
Just can't actually get it.
Disclaimer: There's always a catch.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:43 PM
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1
Can anyone explain the reasoning behind "let's use 16 sensors to make one pixel because the sensors are individually too small to record useful information", assuming there's anything beyond "MOAAAAR PIXELS"?
Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, September 25 2021 04:57 AM (Z0GF0)
2
I feel like this EU thing is an indicator that a new USB D connector is going to be announced next year.
Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, September 25 2021 05:02 AM (Z0GF0)
3
Minecraft Dungeons is kinda fun. Fortunately it's cheap.
Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, September 25 2021 05:04 AM (Z0GF0)
4
"Unless they let you bid to have other people's accounts suspended. They could make billions that way."
You've hit upon a way for them to finally make a profit!
You've hit upon a way for them to finally make a profit!
Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, September 25 2021 05:05 AM (Z0GF0)
5
Rick, there is at least one real benefit to using 9 or 16 sensors to make one output pixel: each sensor cell is masked to only record R, G, or B. If you use them 1:1, the full RGB color information has to be interpolated from neighboring pixels, which introduces artifacts (most visible along edges). If you combine 9/16 sensors, each output pixel has a full set of RGB data.
-j
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Saturday, September 25 2021 06:02 AM (ZlYZd)
6
J--ah, cool. The article mentioned Bayer filters but--as happens more and more with Anandtech--didn't bother explaining any of the terms they used.
Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, September 25 2021 06:21 AM (Z0GF0)
7
Since Minecraft came up...Anyone remember which version for the PC does not require Java?
Posted by: cxt217 at Saturday, September 25 2021 03:43 PM (MuaLM)
8
Bedrock doesn't need Java, but Bedrock and Java versions are incompatible and you can't build complicated devices in Bedrock.
But you don't need a separate global Java install, Minecraft bundles its own Java that nothing else can use.
But you don't need a separate global Java install, Minecraft bundles its own Java that nothing else can use.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, September 25 2021 04:02 PM (PiXy!)
9
Ah, okay. I did remember seeing a version of Minecraft that came with Java built in, with another link next to it of a Minecraft that required Java be pre-installed, so maybe that was the difference I was thinking of.
Either way, I am not at all fond of Java, and it has not been on any rigs I had in years.
Either way, I am not at all fond of Java, and it has not been on any rigs I had in years.
Posted by: cxt217 at Sunday, September 26 2021 11:15 AM (MuaLM)
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