Sunday, November 22

Geek

Daily News Stuff 22 November 2020

Publication Order Edition

Tech News

  • Asus has not announced their new Tinkerboard 2 and 2S. (Tom's Hardware)

    These are similar to the Raspberry Pi, albeit slower because they only have two A72 cores rather than four.


  • I thought the Tinkerboard had a dedicated AI core but I had it confused with another news item: SolidRun has launched their new Arm developer board for low-end AI vision projects. (ZDNet)

    These use an NXP i.MX 8M Plus (originally Motorola, then Freescale) which is slower than the Raspberry Pi because it has zero A72 cores rather than four - just the slower A53 core - but it does have a dedicated neural processing unit running at up to 2.3 trillion operations per second.  Boards start at $75.


  • Apple says that it's up to Microsoft to make Windows run on Arm Macs. (Tom's Hardware)

    Which implies that Windows can run on Arm Macs, at least in theory.  Which would suggest that Linux could in principle run on Arm Macs.  Which would make them something other than shiny paperweights.

    Still not going to buy one.


  • Twitter seems to have completed its process of wokifying its technical staff. (Tech Crunch)

    The new fleets feature supposedly made tweets disappear after 24 hours. However:

    • Twitter's API includes fleets in the requests, so any app that caches the API data will keep the fleets indefinitely.

    • Each fleet has a canonical URL which still works after the fleet has nominally expired.

    • Twitter doesn't actually delete the content for 30 days or longer anyway. The feature is purely cosmetic even when it works, which it currently does not.


  • Victoria and South Australia are imposing a mileage tax on electric cars to replace the petrol excise.  (The Driven)

    Which means they need to track how far you drive.  

    Wonderful.


  • Angry Haskell noises.  (Is Apple Silicon Ready)

    Well, angry Android Studio and Docker noises too, but Haskell is the only one that gets the double red splat of not working natively at all and also not working under x86 emulation.  At least some parts of Android Studio and Docker sort of work.

    There is only one app I use that I know is written in Haskell, but it's really useful.


  • Ubuntu Web Remix is ChromeOS only Firefox on Ubuntu.  (Ubuntu Forum)

    This isn't being officially announced by Canonical, but the lead developer is an Ubuntu team member.  I can certainly see the value in a ChromeOS-like operating system that isn't controlled by Google's HR department.


Disclaimer: I say we take off and nuke the entire HR department from orbit.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:45 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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1 In the US, beginning with OBD2 circa 1996, your car has the ability to record throttle position and braking.  I don't rememeber what year they started putting OnStar in cars, but even if you don't subscribe, your car is recording a GPS trace and uploading it to OnStar.  Modern airbag systems include weight sensors in all the seats.  This is all to say that private companies already have access to everywhere you've driven since probably 2000 (unless you're a luddite like me who insists on using older vehicles, cycling, or walking), and they know how many people have ridden in your car and how fat you are, too.

Posted by: normal at Monday, November 23 2020 12:40 AM (obo9H)

2 1. It seems to me this "Fleet" thing will probably actually work-as-allegedly-intended only for those who agree with the the twitter approved "meta" and dog whistles like these: 
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/415504/

2. In other news, I talked to a friend of mine who's a long-term cryptocurrency and smart contract expert and asked "what do you suggest for someone moving off of ethereum" and he suggested Liquid which is built on bitcoin. I don't really know what the compatibility options are or if that's any help.
Anyway, I'm interested in seeing what Mana's going to be like. Hopefully better than Parler, which is fine but would be better if it had more people instead of the scattered short list of institutions.

Posted by: Phil Fraering at Monday, November 23 2020 02:08 AM (Clxcy)

3 Electric-vehicle tax:  somehow, just checking the odometer when you renew never occurs to them.  Having said that, I find it hilarious to hear the EV shills whining about paying a tax to replace the gas they're not buying.  You guys are using the roads, right?

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, November 23 2020 04:48 AM (eqaFC)

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Apple pies are delicious. But never mind apple pies. What colour is a green orange?




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