• Dell's 2018 Inspiron 27 all-in-one is a disappointment after last year's model. The 8-core Ryzen CPU is replaced with a 6-core low-power Intel chip (not a huge step backwards; the 8700T is still a good chip, and actually offers better single-threaded performance than the Ryzen 1700); the 8GB Radeon RX 580 graphics replaced by a 4GB Nvidia 1050, which is about half the speed on games and a third the speed on compute; and the 4K display replaced with a 1080p touchscreen, which is just.... Why? Why would you do that?
  
  Storage options are the same. And the price is the same.
  
  They're selling off last year's model with about a 30% discount, so I ordered a second one.* They have HDMI in and out, so the plan is to have one running Windows and the other running Linux, and link them with a pair of HDMI cables, so each acts as a second monitor for the other one.
  
  
  
  
  Delivery is expected July 4. To celebrate, I'm naming her Revy.  Or maybe Rally.  Hmm.
  
  Update:  Dang it.  The keyboard is due July 4.  (I got the premium Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, shown above.)  The computer is due July 17.
  
  
• Gigabyte has you covered if you need to pack 256 CPU cores and 4TB RAM into 2U of rack space.
  
  
• Google and Nasdaq are working to update NTP for nanosecond accuracy.  Which is pointless for almost everyone, but the engineering effort is cool.  Scientists and engineers need nanosecond precision, but I can't think of anyone outside of HFT who needs nanosecond accuracy.  Hmm.  Maybe people working with particle accelerators or gravity waves?
  
  
• Samsung announces their 8nm process, offering a 15% density improvement over 10nm, which really makes it more of a 9nm process, but eh, whatever.  This is not the same as their 7nm process.  Different numbers.
  
  
• Microsoft is not killing Snippy...  Yet.
  
  
• To absolutely no-one's surprise, the promised NBN connection here at PixyLab has been delayed.
  
  
• UHD Blu-Ray disks can only be played on PCs with Intel chips with the SGX secure enclave.
  
  In a note of cosmic irony, all Intel chips with the SGX secure enclave have the Spectre security bug so the secure enclave is broken.

Video of the Day

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, July 02 2018 02:02 PM (ITnFO)

2 I can.   That's exactly what I got.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, July 02 2018 02:09 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, July 03 2018 12:18 AM (Q/JG2)

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