• What's truly inside that bright red flame retardant used on bright red flames from the fires caused by California's definitely not bright but certainly Red government?  No-one would say so we drank some to find out.  (LAist)
  
  If you scroll way down in the article you'll find a table with the tiny legend:

  Measurements in micrograms per liter.

  Most of the metals mentioned are benign in the quantities found.  Zinc and manganese you will find in dietary supplements because you need them to live.
  
  But what does 591 micrograms per liter mean for arsenic, a well-known poison?
  
  Well, the LD50 for arsenic in humans is somewhere between 1 and 3 mg per kg of bodyweight for adults.  (It's better known for rats because nobody complains if you try it out on them.)
  
  Which means that if you drink twice your bodyweight in flame retardant, you'd likely die.  So don't do that.
  
  To be fair, LAist interviewed scientists who told them exactly that, and they put it in the article:

  That said, multiple health experts told LAist that the risk to members of the public exposed to the retardant when doing activities like hiking, is likely low, given the concentration of contaminants present in our samples.

  "It should not be a reason for panic, but maybe it's a reason for caution," said Dr. Ana Navas-Acien, professor and chair of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, who reviewed the results.

  Also, the stuff hangs around afterwards, and residents and cleanup workers should be careful with it.  You can suffer ill effects from doses far short of lethal.
  
  Fortunately, the stuff is, as we noted, bright red.
  
  

• Reminder: Daylight savings has ended here in Oz, so from tomorrow I'll be posting at 4:30 AM, since otherwise I have 15 minutes tops from the end of my work day to the post needing to go up.

Tech News

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, April 07 2025 01:02 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, April 07 2025 01:05 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Monday, April 07 2025 01:59 AM (rcPLc)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• In a pre-emptive response to the latest reciprocal tariffs, China has banned the sale of terbium, erbium, thulium, and thallium to the United States, so-called "rare earth" elements critical to the production of advanced technology such as Nixie tubes and bubble memory.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  There are a few things to note here:
  
  First, of course, it makes little sense to make a totalitarian fascist dystopia your sole supplier of anything.
  
  Second, rare earth elements are not rare.  What they are is messy and annoying to extract and refine, a fact that China used to take over the market.  Australia, Brazil, Canada, and, yes, the United States all have significant mineral reserves available.  And studies suggest that a square mile of seafloor mud is enough to provide the entire world with these metals for a year.
  
  Third, China of course does this kind of thing all the time, and has restricted or outright banned sales of rare earth elements to other countries before.
  
  Fourth, and perhaps most interesting, China now only produces 10% of its own rare earth resources.  The same problem with them being messy and annoying to extract led it to move production to illegal mining camps operating in Burma, bypassing what passes for the government and working with local militias.
  
  
  

Tech News

• I bought three more of those Wavlink laptop docks.
  
  They're a very minimal laptop dock, offering three USB ports, HDMI, and 2.5Gb Ethernet.  I wanted them mostly for the 2.5Gbit internet, though the HDMI port is also handy.  And they cost me about $16 each a couple of months ago, so it's hard to go wrong when many docks at ten times the price still only provide gigabit Ethernet.
  
  So why did I buy three more?  Three reasons: They support Linux.  They work with the USB-C port on my Beelink SER5s, which only have gigabit Ethernet.
  
  And not only have they come down in price 25% even from the previous discount, if I bought three I got another 20% off that.
  
  Which makes them about $10 each.  Which is absurd.
  
  
  
• Building a computer that runs Linux with just three 8-pin chips.  (Dmitry.gr)
  
  An Arm Cortex M0+, 8MB of serial RAM, and a USB-to-serial adaptor, which also acts as the voltage regulator for the entire system.  It supports a microSD card for storage; the chips are so small that it looks like a full-size SD card in the photo.
  
  It can boot Debian Linux.  Specifically it boots Debian Linux for MIPS using an emulator, but that's a software issue.
  
  
  
• If that's too fancy for you you could build an 8-bit computer using a handful of 74LS chips.  (Ben Eater)
  
  With 16 whole bytes of RAM!
  
  You can even buy a complete kit for $300.  Admittedly half of that cost is the breadboards, since the whole thing is built without a drop of solder.
  
  
  
• AI could affect 40% of jobs and have a market value equivalent to Germany's GDP, a completely meaningless comparison but in any case they mean $4.8 trillion, by 2033, according to the UN.  (CNBC)
  
  I'm not sure whether the CNBC added that nonsense comparing annual productivity to market valuations or if it was in the original report, so I blame both of them.
  
  Anyway, if you look up the combined market cap of publicly-traded companies pursuing AI software or hardware right now it comes to over $12 trillion so the UN may be a little late to the game.
  
  Yes, that includes giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Google, who are very heavily invested in AI but not dedicated to it, as well as Nvidia, which makes most of its revenue from AI hardware but has a much smaller involvement with AI software or services.  But on the other hand it doesn't include OpenAI, xAI, or Anthropic, because none of those are publicly traded.
  
  
  
• An abruptly former Microsoft employee disrupted the company's 50th anniversary and accused the CTO of being a "war profiteer".  (The Verge)

  "Shame on you," said Microsoft employee Ibtihal Aboussad, speaking directly to Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman.  "You are a war profiteer.  Stop using AI for genocide.  Stop using AI for genocide in our region.  You have blood on your hands.  All of Microsoft has blood on its hands.  How dare you all celebrate when Microsoft is killing children.  Shame on you all."

  If you don't uninstall Windows today you are complicit in genocide.
  
  Apparently.
  
  
  
• Speaking of which, with just six months before support for Windows 10 ends how is Microsoft going with its plan to force everyone onto Windows 11?  Badly.  (The Register)
  
  54% of Windows users are still on Windows 10, compared to a little under 43% running Windows 11.  So the good news is that they've finally moved on from Windows 8, which has been unsupported for seven years.
  
  
  
• The EU plans to protect security and privacy by, you guessed it, completely destroying security and privacy.  (The Register)

  Of course, we want to protect the privacy and cyber security at the same time; and that's why we have said here that now we have to prepare a technical roadmap to watch for that, but it's something that we can't tolerate, that we can't take care of the security because we don't have tools to work in this digital world.

  The only reason that's not doublespeak is that it doesn't mean anything at all.
  
  
  
• AMD could be preparing a 9070 GRE which is exactly what the 9060 should will have been once it was.*  (Hot Hardware)
  
  The rumoured specs would give it 48 GPU cores (compared to 64 on the 9070 XT) and 12GB of VRAM on a 192-bit bus (compared to 16GB on a 256-bit bus).
  
  If it's three quarters of the hardware at three quarters of the price - $450 MSRP - it should sell.  Nvidia's 5070, which also has 12GB of VRAM, starts at $550.
  
  * Future-past perfect singular subjunctive.  Time travel weirds language.
  
  
  
• OpenAI's models memorised copyrighted content, new study suggest, except that it suggests nothing of the sort.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  What the study shows is that the training operation made note of memorable word choices, exactly as a human would.
  
  If it runs across the line Double, rubble, foil-wrapped Hubble it is more likely to remember that specific word sequence because that's not something it's ever likely to encounter.
  
  What the study showed was that if you ask it what the next word after Double, rubble, foil-wrapped is, it gets it right, because it's seen that once before.  And if it couldn't do that, it wouldn't work.
  
  
  
• President Trump has extended the deadline for TikTok's exsanguination by another 75 days.  (CNBC)
  
  Just hold a public auction already.
  
  
  
• I make a living on YouTube playing an anime character.  I'm very shy, and it's helped me get out of my comfort zone.  (Business Insider)  (archive site)
  
  Okay, which third-rate vtuber did Business Insider drag into oh my god Minki!
  
  Mint Fantôme a.k.a Maid Mint a.k.a Minto a.k.a Minki, formerly Pomura Inpuff, formerly Mint Fantôme a.k.a well you know that bit is one of my favourite vtubers.  She is quiet and unassuming and very entertaining, with an infectious energy and a delight in all things but mostly Metal Gear Solid.  And also Hamtaro.
  
  (Via Foxu News.  You can see the chat exclaiming "Minto!" when they realise who the article is about.  She's very much loved by the vtuber community.)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, April 06 2025 01:30 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, April 06 2025 01:34 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Sunday, April 06 2025 03:43 AM (KOtXO)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• Oracle got hacked, twice, recently, according to Oracle staff who won't go on the record and are now in fact in hiding in an undisclosed location.  (Yahoo)
  
  Or something.

  Oracle staff informed some clients this week that the attacker gained access to usernames, passkeys and encrypted passwords, according to the people, who spoke on condition that they not be identified because they’re not authorized to discuss the matter.

  Note that this is the same company that very recently proclaimed:

  There has been no breach of Oracle Cloud. The published credentials are not for the Oracle Cloud. No Oracle Cloud customers experienced a breach or lost any data.

  Basically, the data that was stolen in the breach that Oracle so strenuously denied ever happened is real, but old, and likely useless.

• Speaking of Oracle, in MySQL 8.0.17 and later you can create multi-valued indexes on JSON arrays if - and this is important - all the indexed data is in the form of unsigned integers.
  
  This index is automatically used for comparisons like MEMBER OF and JSON_CONTAINS if...  Something.  I don't know what, because in my case it can't see the index at all and the end result is somehow slow than before I did all that.
  
  
  
• Why everything in the universe turns more complex.  (Quanta)
  
  It doesn't.
  
  
  
• Climate change is on track to destroy capitalism says a leading rent-seeker, warning of dire consequences if other people don't spend enormous amounts of money that will benefit him.  (The Guardian)
  
  Right.
  
  
  
• A climate firm supported by Microsoft and Facebook has file for bankruptcy after its co-founder was arrested on fraud charges.  (MSN)
  
  There's a surprise.
  
  
  
• Researchers at Google's DeepMind have listed all the ways AGI could destroy the world.  (Ars Technica)
  
  It can't, and in any case, nobody is working on it.
  
  (OpenAI's Sam Altman redefined AGI - which stands for artificial general intelligence - as "profitable".  Which OpenAI is definitely not.)
  
  
  
• Intel is reportedly launching a joint venture with TSMC.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Involving chips, probably.
  
  
  
• The EFF has vowed to fight site-blocking bills that are being put forward in Congress.  (TorrentFreak)
  
  By Democrats.  The article doesn't mention that.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Saturday, April 05 2025 12:05 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Frank at Sunday, April 06 2025 01:34 AM (+i6Xr)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• While Microsoft really really wants you to use an online account the moment you install Windows, corporate customers really really don't want that, and indeed there is a new way to bypass it during the installation.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Farewell oobe/bypassnro.  Hello start ms-cxh:localonly.

• Microsoft's CTO says that 95% of code will be AI-generated within five years.  (Money Control)
  
  Given the mess his company is making, are we sure this isn't already true?
  
  
  
• RecipeNinja.AI is a new "vibe coded" website that will tell you how to make cyanide ice cream - and even worse things.  (404 Media)
  
  I'm not sure where I'm going to get four cups of platypus milk though.  Woolworths is out of stock.

  Which is how you end up with a Uranium Bomb recipe that calls for 1kg of uranium-235, or a recipe for Actual Cocaine, where the first step is "Acquire coca leaves from South America."

  Woolworths is out of stock of those as well.
  
  
  
• A Russian spy infiltrated ASML and NXP to steal the technical data for building 28nm fabs.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  28nm is a good choice.  Reliable and cost effective.  Of course TSMC is rolling out 2nm right now, and Intel has entered early production on 1.8nm, so it's a bit like stealing the design of the F-4 Phantom - because that's all you have the ability to build.
  
  
  
• The Nintendo Switch 2 arrives on June 5 for $449.  (Liliputing)
  
  Compared to the previous model it has a bigger screen (7.9" vs. 6.2") running at a 1080p instead of 720p, and internal storage has been bumped from 32GB to a more respectable 256GB.
  
  Remove the controllers (which you can still do) and it could make a useful if somewhat chunky tablet.
  
  
  
• Automattic - the company that runs WordPress - continues to circle the drain, laying off another 16% of its staff.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Not much longer before Mad King Matt Mullenweg has no subjects at all.
  
  
  
• My 128GB RAM kit arrived, and I also picked up a couple of XFX RX 580 graphics cards.
  
  These are not recent cards (the chip they use first appeared in 2016) and they're not fast cards (slower than AMD's latest integrated graphics) but they are cheap cards.  You can find no-name Chinese models on Amazon - new - for $85.  I paid about $100 for my name-brand models.
  
  (Yes, they're the slightly cut-down 2048 SP version, but they still have the full 8GB of RAM, and thanks to AMD's OpenGL updates can push Minecraft to 500 fps at 4k.)
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Friday, April 04 2025 03:27 AM (KOtXO)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, April 04 2025 06:49 AM (NfZAu)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• Intel has entered "risk production" on its new 18A process.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  That's 18 angstroms - 1.8 nanometers - in case you were wondering.  Though it's just marketing; nothing about the process measures 18 angstroms.
  
  Risk production is when a new process seems to work, but nobody has used it in volume yet.  Hence the risk.
  
  Intel cancelled its planed 20A process, so this will be the first time we see new features like gate-all-around transistors from them.

• ARM plans to grow its datacenter market share from 15% to 50%.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This year.
  
  Which is comical.
  
  
  
• The 13 laws of software engineering.  (Manager.dev)
  
  Most of them apply to other schools of engineering as well.
  
  
  
• A judge has blocked Arkansas' online age verification law for infringing on free speech and being overbroad.  (Engadget)
  
  Such laws are not intrinsically bad, but in the US they must thread the needle of the Bill of Rights.  So far all have failed.
  
  In Australia we just got a similar law.  Nobody has yet said how it will be enforced.  Obviously it will infringe on free speech, but the government thinks that's just great and the main opposition party doesn't think it goes far enough.

• OpenAI has raised another $40 billion in funding, valuing the company at $300 billion.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  And claims that the service is used by 500 million people each week, which I rather doubt, unless they're counting everyone who uses a service that uses OpenAI in some way.
  
  So I guess we're not going to be rid of them any time soon.

• Micron is planning to increase memory prices, though it's not saying by how much or when.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It's a cyclical business, and the past couple of cycles killed off most of the major manufacturers, so I'm not going to object to them making money while there is money to be made.
  
  
  
• AI copilots are not a silver bullet.  (M Lagerberg)
  
  Though AI translation software seems much closer.  I didn't realise this post was translated from Dutch until I saw the notice at the bottom.
  
  The revolution vs. evolution bit wasn't anything special, though: The words are almost the same in Dutch and the translator only needed to adjust the spelling.
  
  
  
• Intel is planning to spin off its non-core assets.  (Thurrott)
  
  Though precisely what those are varies from day to day.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, April 01 2025 11:35 PM (LADmw)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• The latest Windows 11 development builds disable the time-honoured oobe\bypassnro script that lets you setup a new PC without creating an online Microsoft account.  (The Verge)
  
  Right now you can still enable the script by editing the registry first - which you have to do, perfectly, from the command line, on a PC that isn't working yet - but who knows how long that will last.
  
  The desktop release of SteamOS cannot arrive soon enough.

• If you were interested in getting HP's ZBook Ultra 14 with the new Ryzen 395 CPU I hope you have at least $5660 burning a hole in your pocket.  (WCCFTech)
  
  The fully configured model - Ryzen 395, 128GB of RAM, and a 4TB SSD - will set you back $8250.
  
  
  
• Vibe coding considered suicidal.  (NMN)
  
  "Vibe coding" is a new term meaning "someone else did the work, I don't understand any of it, I just claimed ownership".  Applied specifically to programming, and the the "someone else" being an AI tool.
  
  If you're experimenting with a desktop task before implementing it properly yourself - a quick proof-of-concept - this is not bad.
  
  In server apps, which are shared by any number of users and require strict security measures, it's fatal.
  
  And yes, people are using it for server apps.
  
  
  
• If you want to buy a 16 core VMWare license you can't.  (The Register)
  
  It now starts at 72 cores.  If you're a small customer, you don't exist.
  
  
  
• China Mievelle is an idiot.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  You shouldn't blame science fiction, he says, for people who spend their own money the way they want instead of on what he wants even though he has no idea what he wants.

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, April 01 2025 10:58 AM (bg2DR)

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, April 01 2025 11:52 AM (bg2DR)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• Why do LLMs make stuff up?  (Ars Technica)
  
  Because that's what they're designed to do.
  
  They're language models, not fact models.  Indeed, they don't have fact models.
  
  They're stuffed full of words and the associations between those words, and then told not to use certain of those words, a process called lobotomisation alignment.
  
  And then they go forth and bloviate.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Cracks in container development, or, everything is awful and keeps getting worse.  (Angle Side Angle)
  
  Well, yes.
  
  
  
• Why did the government declare war on my adorable tiny truck?  (Bloomberg)
  
  Because that's what governments do.
  
  Highlight of the article is a picture of a small by modern standards 2009 Honda Kei truck next to a 1960s model, which could practically fit in the newer truck's glove compartment.
  
  
  
• Generation X members who went into creative industries - scriveners, hurdy-gurdy men, garden hermits, and the like - are expressing dismay over their professions evaporating, despite this process having been under way for thirty years at this point.  (New York Times)  (archive site)
  
  The one saving grace of the article is that the people interviewed mostly do not seem to be expressing surprise.
  
  
  
• Boeing Starliner will fly again, probably.  (The Register)
  
  Reportedly 70% of the problems encountered in the last test flight have been fixed, and it will be ready to try again late this year or early next year.
  
  
  
• GMK's EVO X2 maxi-mini-PC goes on sale - for pre-orders, anyway - April 7.  (Notebook Check)
  
  This uses AMD's Strix Halo family of CPUs.
  
  With a Ryzen 395+ - 16 CPU cores and 40 graphics cores - and 128GB of RAM< you can expect it to set you back $2000.

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Monday, March 31 2025 04:01 AM (KOtXO)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• xAI has acquired parent-ish company X in an all-stock transaction that values xAI at $80 billion and X itself at $45 billion less $12 billion in debt.  (Twitter)
  
  What does all this mean?
  
  Well, now xAI officially has access to and is fully integrated with Twitter rather than semi-officially having access to and being fully integrated with Twitter.
  
  Also, xAI was valued at $50 billion just three months ago.

• The 2025 Razer Blade 16 is...  God dammit you guys.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It's a 16" laptop with a 120Hz 2560x1600 OLED display - not astounding but perfectly usable, up to a Ryzen 370 (four Zen 5 cores and eight low-power Zen 5c cores, plus 16 graphics cores), up to an RTX 5090 - laptop edition, meaning a downvolted desktop 5080 with 24GB of RAM rather than 16GB, up to 64GB of soldered RAM, up to 4TB of SSD, and almost but not quite the Four Essential Keys because Razer literally hates you.
  
  I mean, the keys are there, but PgUp is where Home should be and PgDn is where PgUp should be and the other two are weird squiggles that I can't interpret.  (Game Mode and Performance Mode, apparently.)
  
  Windows PowerToys can solve that, except for the labels being wrong.
  
  It lasts over seven hours on battery playing video, which is not all day but blows other gaming laptops out of the water; some don't even manage three hours.
  
  Fortunately, there's the price: Starting at $3000 and going up to $4900, there is no chance that I would ever consider buying one.
  
  
  
• Hynix has paid Intel $1.9 billion to finish acquiring Intel's flash memory division.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The headline is a bit confusing, but this is actually the last phase in the agreement signed in 2020 and not a new deal.
  
  
  
• Nvidia's 5000 series graphics cards are now available at retail.  (WCCFTech)
  
  I mean, not the 5090, and the 5080 and 5070 Ti are selling way above MSRP, and nobody should buy the 5070 at all, but...  Yeah.
  
  
  
• Are the latest AI platforms secure?  No.  (Lupin & Holmes)
  
  The authors hacked the Gemini Python sandbox and downloaded the source code.
  
  
  
• US banks no longer need prior government approval to deal with cryptocurrencies.  (Axios)
  
  This doesn't make it safe, but does make it slightly less irritating.

• Facing the failure of its latest fantastically expensive AAAAA title, Assassin's Creed XIV: The Assassining, floundering French slopmaker Ubisoft has spun off what few series it hasn't completely murdered into a new subsidiary and taken 1.16 billion euros from Tencent for a 25% stake.  (WCCFTech)
  
  What does this deal leave for the parent company?
  
  Basically, nothing.

• Asking good questions is harder than giving great answers.  (Dan Cohen)
  
  Well, not quite.  He's talking about assessing the intelligence of AI, and the point is that asking questions that actually assess that intelligence, rather than creating a thousand page general-knowledge quiz where everything is easily looked up, is harder than answering that poorly designed quiz assuming you are allowed to look things up.
  
  
  
• AMD's new 9600 non-X is about as fast as the 9600X while using the exact same amount of power.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  Okay.  Not entirely sure what the point is, though it may come bundled with a cooler (and AMD's stock coolers are not complete rubbish).
  
  
  
• Amazon has shipped my 128GB memory kit.  It's on sale for $260 if anyone else wants one.
  
  You can see on that page that the equivalent 96GB kit is $230, so bumping it up to the next tier is well worth it.
  
  As I mentioned, I don't need 128GB of RAM, but the point of this build is to go a bit beyond so I can play around with things.  My work laptop has 40GB of RAM and I can hit that mark without trying.
  
  The other factor is that DDR5 runs much slower if you fill up all four slots.  These are pretty standard 5600MHz models, but if you fill all four slots, the memory speed drops to 3600MHz.  The real world effect isn't quite that dramatic ranging from insignificant to quite noticeable, but best to avoid that fuss unless you really need more than a single dual-channel kit can provide.
  
  
  
• Developers are fighting a war with AI web crawlers.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  AI web crawlers are asshoe.
  
  Even more so than regular web crawlers, and I've blocked plenty of those.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Saturday, March 29 2025 12:01 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, March 29 2025 12:22 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Zendo Deb at Sunday, March 30 2025 06:57 AM (Ux1Y0)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, March 30 2025 04:22 PM (PiXy!)

Hide Comments | Add Comment