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Tech News and Miscellany

#1

PatrThom

PatrThom

We have a "random crap" thread for tech, but nothing specifically for "news" stuff.
Well, now we do.

Since the subject has been a hot one here lately, gonna start off with this, Techspot's Ultimate Guide to Buying a Used* Graphics Card.

They rank all the cards worth having (and many that aren't) and give you a breakdown of availability and fps per dollar. Worth a read even if you're not in the market for a new card, as it's also an indication of what cards have had good staying power.
The data below is arranged by the average frame rate, with the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti offering the fastest performance so it's shown at the top of the chart. Next to the GPU model name we have the average selling price in December [...] For models that come with various VRAM capacities, such as the RX 570, pay attention to that and if the 8GB models in this example are only slightly more than the 4GB cards then consider investing a little more to get the extra memory. At this point we recommend avoiding cards with only 2GB of VRAM.
Agreed on the VRAM. I actually think the 6GB limit on the newly-announced RTX 2060 cards is going to come back and bite them in the butt in the future**, so however you narrow your choice, if it comes down to two similarly-priced and similarly-performing models, get whichever one has the most VRAM, with preference give to those cards which have 8GB or more.

--Patrick
*The data also apply to cards bought new, of course. Not every used card is "used," per se.
**I foresee some point in the future where the RTX2060 6GB cards get bottlenecked while previous-generation GTX1070 8GB cards are still viable JUST due to that extra 2GB.


#2

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Probably want to avoid those 1070ti cards on ebay for hundreds of dollars off from sellers who just joined today.


#3

PatrThom

PatrThom

If you're curious about how different choices in CPU/GPU/RAM might perform, here's a very informative YouTube channel.
As an example:



There's also a 1070ti v. 2060 (DX11) comparison which I found enlightening. (tl;dr: they're within 0-5fps of each other*).

I don't know if I'm more impressed with the variety of hardware tested or by the clean presentation, uncomplicated by narration/opinion/promotion. It's just facts-in-your-face, draw-your-own-conclusion-type stuff, and I really appreciate that.

--Patrick
*but none of the games tested exhaust the 2GB smaller VRAM of the 2060 (though Far Cry 5 comes close). I still want to know how it handles running out of VRAM.


#4

GasBandit

GasBandit

Google has proposed changes to the chromium engine that would make ad blockers like uBlock Origin and uMatrix no longer work on Chrome.



#5

PatrThom

PatrThom

Internet has been pretty hot about that today. I’m interested to see how Opera reacts (since they also use the Blink engine found in Chrome(-ium) but are not Google).

—Patrick


#6

GasBandit

GasBandit

Internet has been pretty hot about that today. I’m interested to see how Opera reacts (since they also use the Blink engine found in Chrome(-ium) but are not Google).

—Patrick
I've been hearing a lot of rumbling about a browser called "Brave."


#7

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

I've been hearing a lot of rumbling about a browser called "Brave."
The rumbling I heard wasn't good at all.




#10

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Oh, yeah. Brave is that browser that replaces ads with their own. I can see why some might get up in arms about that.




#13

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Google has proposed changes to the chromium engine that would make ad blockers like uBlock Origin and uMatrix no longer work on Chrome.

While the new Firefox release gives users *more* privacy options.


#14

PatrThom

PatrThom

For anyone looking for an awesome new build, Intel has just released the 28-core Xeon W-3175X, which they bill as the most powerful CPU available for the consumer market, capable of supporting up to 768GB RAM spread across 6 channels.

...of course, it's $3000 just for the CPU.
...and you need a cooler capable of taming the 255W of heat it makes (or up to 1225W of heat if you really push it)
...there are only 2 companies making the LGA3647-socket motherboards for it, with extremely limited availability and a $1500 $1800* price.
...and even buying a modest 192GB RAM (6x32GB) for it will set you back ~$2000
...and it really needs a 1600W power supply.

That said, the performance is impressive (and it had better be for that asking price!).


So yes, for about $7000 you can get yourself the biggest, baddest system that Intel has to offer.
...but I'm thinking the real lesson here is that yes, AMD has succeeded in making Intel nervous.

--Patrick
*Updated price now that the ASUS boards are in the retail channel.


#15

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

...of course, it's $3000 just for the CPU.
Linus drops it in 3... 2... 1...



#17

PatrThom

PatrThom

Now if only SMS/3G/etc would get strengthened to match.
I've already had to deal with a mom whose son popped out her SIM while she wasn't looking and put it in his phone. This let him snowball ownership of damn near EVERYTHING she had claim to before she realized what was going on.

--Patrick


#18

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Now if only SMS/3G/etc would get strengthened to match.
I've already had to deal with a mom whose son popped out her SIM while she wasn't looking and put it in his phone. This let him snowball ownership of damn near EVERYTHING she had claim to before she realized what was going on.

--Patrick
What a shitstain of a son...


#19

PatrThom

PatrThom

What a shitstain of a son...
She kept her phone in a case, and she was only there because "my son must've somehow messed up my login." He had coincidentally just run off with his girlfriend a day or two ago. It wasn't until she took it out of the case that I noticed the SIM door was damaged. I put two and two together and realized what that probably meant and so started her on a tour of her other online stuff, looking for tampering and with her getting more upset as we kept discovering new things (Facebook, credit cards, etc). We sat together for a while and with some patience (and a few phone calls) managed to undo quite a bit of his shenanigans. I made sure to set her on the path to reclaiming control over the rest of her assets, and she left shaken but most appreciative after the emotional roller coaster. I'm just glad she fated up with me as opposed to Motivated Sales Guy at Generic Wireless someplace, cuz at least I have some idea what to do when this kind of stuff happens.

White-hatting that kid off all her accounts and stuff made my whole day.

--Patrick


#20

PatrThom

PatrThom

Reviews are coming in for the Radeon VII.

tl;dr: Its gaming performance across several games is roughly equivalent to NVIDIA's GTX1080ti or GTX2070, it delivers render/compute performance 20-30% higher than the Vega 64 for about 25% less average power, and it has twice the memory bandwidth (1GB/s!) of any other card on the market today (as well as twice the VRAM of most gaming cards). That said, it runs just about as hot as a Vega 64, and it'll still cost ~US$700 to get one. On the plus side, AMD is selling them directly at MSRP, so retail prices should be more stable, though since the almost always higher-performing RTX 2080 sells for almost that same price, it's probably not going to be the NVIDIA slayer AMD was hoping for...unless it turns out the VII absolutely smokes NVIDIA's cards in Adobe Premiere or something. The few early creative tests I've seen show the VII meeting or beating the RTX2080, but as I said above, if you can afford a VII, then you can afford a 2080, and unless your rig is used exclusively for editing/rendering, the 2080 is probably the more versatile choice unless you NEED the full 16GB the VII has to offer (8K editing, maybe?).

Now comes the wait to see if they extract any additional performance via future driver tweaks, or how much headroom there is for overclocking the card for speed or undervolting it to further cut power draw/heat while keeping performance. The Vega architecture itself has a LOT of room for performance, though pushing it that hard results in grossly impractical levels of heat and power draw.

--Patrick


#21

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Russia plans to completely disconnect from the internet to see what happens.

What happens is a whole lot of businesses go dead in the water because their mission critical software that depends on connecting to the internet is suddenly cut off. Certain hotel chains can't do *anything* if their internet is down. This won't end well.


#22

PatrThom

PatrThom

Sure hope nobody in Russia needs to fly a plane more than 3-4 days after the disconnect.

—Patrick


#23

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Vox Media apparently doesn't know about the Streisand Effect. They're filing takedowns on those who went after them for that awful Verge "Build a PC" video. The community is striking back.


#24

PatrThom

PatrThom

No kidding. A reshoot or even just taking it down would have been the better option.

—Patrick


#25

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

No kidding. A reshoot or even just taking it down would have been the better option.

—Patrick
The Verge pulled the original video after all the abuse it got. This is just bullying now.


#26

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Steve goes off...


He mentions the Streisand Effect, and how Vox invoked it *themselves* when the Sunday Times filed a takedown on THEM.


#27

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Apple's insider trading lawyer has been charged with, you guessed it, insider trading. :rofl:


#28

PatrThom

PatrThom

Apple's insider trading lawyer has been charged with, you guessed it, insider trading.
Former insider trading lawyer. They forced him out on leave last Summer and then fired him in the Fall after an independent investigation.
More details here.

As someone who used to be in the field, securities fraud is no joke. There is so much paper trail these days, if it even smells like you're acting on inside information, you're going to have the SEC up your butt soooo fast.

--Patrick


#29

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Google backtracks on Chrome changes that would've killed off 3rd party ad blockers.

Turns out they were... less than truthful about the performance hit. Apparently they had their own blocker in the works that (of course) wouldn't have been affected by the changes.


#30

PatrThom

PatrThom

Leaked benchmarks of NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti are trickling out. It is essentially the same hardware as an RTX 2060 but without the fancy new raytracing and with 20% of its cores disabled.
At 1440p, it appears to perform the same as a GTX 980 Ti, GTX 1070 (non-Ti version), or RX Vega (assumption is Vega 64 not 56), and is about 95% the speed of AMD's newest, the ~$700 Radeon VII.
But the GTX 1660 Ti is expected to have an MSRP of just $299. Or less.

Undisputed king of >=60FPS is still RTX 2080/2080 Ti, but those cost ~$800/$1200, so expect GTX 1660 Ti demand to be high...and previous gen GPU prices to fall (more?).

--Patrick


#31

Dave

Dave

If it performs the same as a GTX 980 Ti, why not just buy that?


#32

PatrThom

PatrThom

If it performs the same as a GTX 980 Ti, why not just buy that?
Because even used 980Ti's cost $400-500 and use ~50% more power?

--Patrick


#33

PatrThom

PatrThom

the GTX 1660 Ti is expected to have an MSRP of just $299. Or less.
*$279, actually.

Reviews are out. If you are looking for a new graphics card, and you don’t ALREADY have at least a GTX 1070 or higher/newer OR an AMD Vega/VII card, then the only reason NOT to get the GTX 1660 Ti is because you plan to get an RTX 20x0/Radeon VII instead, or else because you found a spectacular deal on a (probably used) 1070ti, 1080, or 1080ti.

The only people who really need need to sit down and think carefully before buying one fall into one of two three groups:

GTX 1060 owners - the performance of the 1660 Ti is better than the 3yr-old 1060 in every way, your dilemma is solely about whether a ~40% performance improvement is worth spending ~$300 on a new card IF you’re just months away from contemplating a complete new build anyway.
Computational/Scientific users - research your workload, because there are cheaper cards that absolutely crush the 1660 at some tasks, and there are more expensive cards that crush it at others by enough of a margin that the extra price would be worth it.
EDIT: People who want to take advantage of raytracing - The raytracing hardware is only available on the RTX line of cards, so you will have to get at least an RTX 2060 to do raytracing.

—Patrick


#34

GasBandit

GasBandit

Figures.


#35

PatrThom

PatrThom

Hey I posted that knowing that my ~$200 RX 580 was delivered to my house just 3hrs prior.
But like I said elsewhere, I got that for reasons beyond stuff like just trying to increase my gaming FPS.

—Patrick


#36

PatrThom

PatrThom

The new Bigscreen update uses new drivers for audio streaming that only work with windows 10, so those of us on windows 7 can no longer host movie nights and stuff in BigScreen.

Welp.
There's a ray of hope, though it's just a single ray.
WoW now coming with DX12 support for Win7

No standalone runtime, though. It's only bundled with the game. And there are these 2 FAQs:
Any other DirectX 12 game coming to Windows 7?
We are currently working with a few other game developers to port their D3D12 games to Windows 7. Please watch out for further announcement.

How are DirectX 12 games different between Windows 10 and Windows 7?
Windows 10 has critical OS improvements which make modern low-level graphics APIs (including DirectX 12) run more efficiently. If you enjoy your favorite games running with DirectX 12 on Windows 7, you should check how those games run even better on Windows 10!
--Patrick


#37

jwhouk

jwhouk

Now I just need to get a graphics card that supports DX12...


#38

PatrThom

PatrThom

Now I just need to get a graphics card that supports DX12...
Radeon 2xx/GeForce 5xx or newer, for the curious.
There are some other, older cards which say "DX12 support" but they support DX12 at "Feature level 11_1" which is not the same.

--Patrick


#39

figmentPez

figmentPez

And, once again, Facebook is being fucking disturbing.

Facebook said it accidentally hid bizarre and "inappropriate" messages inside "tens of thousands" of virtual-reality controllers, including "Big Brother is Watching" and "The Masons Were Here."
Yeah, they've got the quotes around the wrong words. That should read: Facebook said it "accidentally" hid bizarre and inappropriate messages inside tens of thousands of virtual-reality controllers....



#41

figmentPez

figmentPez

Firefox disabled all add-ons because a certificate expired

If your add-ons aren't working, this is probably why.


#42

PatrThom

PatrThom

These days, Safari and Firefox are just about the only browsers not using Blink, so that's kinda important.

--Patrick




#45

PatrThom

PatrThom

RIDL, Fallout, and other MDS attacks also detailed.

Not a good time to be Intel, which is a downright shame, since the conditions that allow these vulnerabilities to exist are also what enables their CPUs to be faster than AMD's CPUs. When everything is finally patched/microcoded out, will they still be able to hold their performance crown?

Even Apple is exposing the controls to deliberately disable hyperthreading/SMT, which will completely disable these kinds of attacks...at the cost of no longer being able to run 2x threads/core, that is, which can translate to about a 20-30% performance hit. PC users who want to similarly harden their systems by disabling hyperthreading have it easier since there's usually just an option to turn HT/HyperThreading/SMT off in the BIOS/EFI settings.

--Patrick


#46

PatrThom

PatrThom

So yeah, about that Adobe thing:

March 2018: Adobe Creative Cloud prices will increase April 16th, Photography Plan will stay the same
the Individual All App plan increasing in price to $53/month (previously $50), Creative Cloud for Individual Single App plans will now cost $21/month (previously $20), and Creative Cloud for Teams All App plans will now cost $80/month (up from $70) [but] the Creative Cloud Photography plan price is not changing. You will still pay $10/month for Photoshop CC, Lightroom Classic CC, and Lightroom CC with 20GB of cloud storage
May 2, 2018: Adobe doubles basic "Photography Bundle" pricing from $10/mo to $20/mo. Syke!
May 13, 2018: Adobe says they never removed the $10/mo plan. Ha ha it was just a test (to see if people would pay it anyway?) we promise.
May 14, 2018: Adobe removes access to older Creative Cloud apps, says anyone who continues to use them is in violation of the end user licensing agreement. Licensing issues mean users who continue to use older versions are potentially opening themselves up to be sued by 3rd-parties.
Well, I'm not exactly sure how continuing to use an unmodified older Adobe product could make ME liable to anyone other than Adobe, but I'm not a lawyer, so what do I know.

In response, people have been putting together lists of alternatives, like this one from Lifehacker, or, if you're a more visual type, there's the following image:
heyheyitsnotadobe.png



Stuff to keep in mind if you use any of these, I guess.

--Patrick


#47

drawn_inward

drawn_inward

Adobe can go draw a beautifully-rendered, awe-inspiring cliff, and jump off it.


#48

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Linus is all aboard the AMD hype train.


#49

PatrThom

PatrThom

Linus is all aboard the AMD hype train.
He's not wrong. I was all set to go Intel for my next build, but since my wallet says that's probably still 6 months out, there's a good chance I'll be sitting and waiting on the very real possibility that it'll end up being a Ryzen3 PCIe 4.0 build, instead.

The tech world is in a huge upheaval right now. AMD's CPUs are becoming competitive on performance, Intel is getting slammed for CPU vulnerabilities and dumped their 5G modem project (Oh, and their mysterious discrete GPU should be showing up soon), Apple's having some quality issues, Qualcomm is still stuck dealing with its legal issues, the whole world has decided to hate on Huawei right now, SSD prices are falling to where they're about to push HDDs off a cliff, and Trump & Co are badmouthing China so hard that tech manufacturers are actually moving entire facilities over to other countries rather than have to deal with the headache.

"Interesting times," indeed.

EDIT: Oh and it seems we now have some preliminary specs on Ryzen 3k to tide us over until the July release. The 3700X looks especially tempting for m-itx builds.

--Patrick


#50

GasBandit

GasBandit

On a related note, How Screwed Is Intel Without Hyperthreading?

TLDR: Very. Performance drops of 25-35% across the board, and those with 4 (or god help you, 2) cores are hit hardest.


#51

PatrThom

PatrThom

Yeah, Hyperthreading adds almost a flat 30% performance overall.

Even Apple is feeling the bite, posting instructions on how to disable Hyperthreading* in order to guard against data leakage BUT with the warning that doing so may impact performance by as much as 40%.

Phoronix (one of the hardcore *nix sites) did a few pieces on how much it'll impact your Linux performance, too. Multicore desktops (-20%), dual-core laptops (-25%), or servers (-15%). But AMD chips? Eh, just ~5% or so. You had better believe that Intel is not happy about all of this. Not happy at all.

--Patrick
*But only for machines using Sandy/Ivy Bridge (i.e., Core ix-2xxx/3xxx) or later, since Intel has decided anything older is not worth their time to release a fix, regardless of whether it's in a Mac, Dell, Gateway, or whatever.


#52

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

NVIDIA working on some high-end notebooks for content creators.


#53

PatrThom

PatrThom

NVIDIA still hasn't forgiven Apple for being snubbed almost the last 10 straight years.
Apple used to go back and forth between NVIDIA and ATI/AMD for their graphics chips every couple of years, keep them competing, but starting in 2011, Apple used Radeons for everything and hasn't looked back, even making NVIDIA have to roll their own drivers every time Apple updates the OS.

--Patrick



#55

PatrThom

PatrThom

We keep telling them, but they don't listen.
Faster speed just means less time to hit the data cap.
The only reason to cap data is to punish cord-cutters. That's it. That's the only reason.

--Patrick


#56

PatrThom

PatrThom

I was all set to go Intel for my next build, but since my wallet says that's probably still 6 months out, there's a good chance I'll be sitting and waiting on the very real possibility that it'll end up being a Ryzen3 PCIe 4.0 build, instead.
Pre X570 AMD Motherboards will not support PCI express 4.0

Well, I guess that settles it.

--Patrick


#57

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Navi pricing is out.

$449 for the RX 5700XT, $379 for the non-XT. Ships July 11.


#58

PatrThom

PatrThom

Navi pricing is out.

$449 for the RX 5700XT, $379 for the non-XT. Ships July 11.
Hey, don’t forget the 3950x. 16C/32T for $750, and what is probably Intel’s closest competitor runs 60W hotter and has a (launch) sticker price almost $1000 higher.

—Patrick


#59

PatrThom

PatrThom

Looks like it overclocks pretty well, too.

—Patrick


#60

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

AMD price list for the Navi GPUs. Reviews should be available Sunday morning.


#61

PatrThom

PatrThom

What that picture doesn't show is that those prices are all after being reduced $50 yesterday after NVIDIA announced their "Super" lineup of cards. Scott Herkelman, AMDs VP/GM of Radeon, famously tweeted "Jebaited" right when the price dropped, suggesting this price drop was their plan all along.

Testing shows them performing close to the 1070Ti/RTX 2060 Super/RTX 2070 (non-Ti/non-Super) if you're comparing.

--Patrick


#62

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

What that picture doesn't show is that those prices are all after being reduced $50 yesterday after NVIDIA announced their "Super" lineup of cards. Scott Herkelman, AMDs VP/GM of Radeon, famously tweeted "Jebaited" right when the price dropped, suggesting this price drop was their plan all along.

Testing shows them performing close to the 1070Ti/RTX 2060 Super/RTX 2070 (non-Ti/non-Super) if you're comparing.

--Patrick
I saw the Gamers Nexus news video a couple hours later and had to double-check what I'd posted.


#63

PatrThom

PatrThom

Apparently some issues running NVIDIA cards with new Ryzen 3xxx series, looks like it might just be a bug with NVIDIA drivers or with AMD's new PCIe drivers. It's fouling reviews, but does not appear to be an actual hardware problem. Let's hope it's just growing pains.

--Patrick



#65

PatrThom

PatrThom

Read that article this morning. Thought about posting it, but figured Gas had already chased off all the Mac users but me.

Security through obscurity at its finest, by which I mean at its worst.
tl;dr: If you install Zoom on a Mac, visiting a website with a "join this call" URL embedded within it allows that page to activate your camera (and mic?) without your consent and/or knowledge, and uninstalling the Zoom app doesn't help because it actually leaves behind a running process that will "helpfully" reinstall the app again and open it right up without your intervention if an embedded URL (such as the above "join this call") requests it.

--Patrick


#66

MindDetective

MindDetective

I'm a Mac user


#67

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe



#68

PatrThom

PatrThom

Zoom has issued the following statement:

backtomyroom.png


"We thought it more convenient to leave security holes open than to make our users have to click a box, but since this story is now becoming uncomfortably popular we went ahead and implemented these changes even though we didn't lift a finger over the whole 90-day window the security researcher originally gave us."

Please.

--Patrick


#69

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Zoom has issued the following statement:

View attachment 31825

"We thought it more convenient to leave security holes open than to make our users have to click a box, but since this story is now becoming uncomfortably popular we went ahead and implemented these changes even though we didn't lift a finger over the whole 90-day window the security researcher originally gave us."

Please.

--Patrick
A more honest read would be:

"We felt it far more beneficial to us not to allow users to uninstall our software, because fuck 'em, that's why."


#70

MindDetective

MindDetective

Read that article this morning. Thought about posting it, but figured Gas had already chased off all the Mac users but me.

Security through obscurity at its finest, by which I mean at its worst.
tl;dr: If you install Zoom on a Mac, visiting a website with a "join this call" URL embedded within it allows that page to activate your camera (and mic?) without your consent and/or knowledge, and uninstalling the Zoom app doesn't help because it actually leaves behind a running process that will "helpfully" reinstall the app again and open it right up without your intervention if an embedded URL (such as the above "join this call") requests it.

--Patrick
I alerted my University and they genuinely did not seem to know. They will be pushing it updates to Zoom now, though.


#71

Shakey

Shakey

I always thought it odd that zoom had the option to turn people’s camera on without a prompt when joining a meeting. You could even hide the video feeds for participants so they wouldn’t even know. It was even the default for us in some cases.

It was comical to be able to watch people do their thing for 15 minutes, and then see their face as they realize their camera is on.


#72

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Before you rush out and grab that shiny new Zen 2 CPU to throw in your old AM4 socket motherboard...

Oops.

And MSI reacts. But you'll need a new motherboard.


#73

PatrThom

PatrThom

I would think the lure of end-to-end PCIe 4.0 would be enough to encourage people to move to X570 when they move to Ryzen 3xxx anyway.
FWIW I don't care how cool/edgy/futuristic my UEFI BIOS screen looks near as much as I want it to not have bugs, expose tweaking settings, etc.

--Patrick


#74

jwhouk

jwhouk



#75

PatrThom

PatrThom

A story that’ll make you think twice before installing any browser extensions...and maybe even take a hard look at any extensions you have installed right now:

My browser, the spy: How extensions slurped up browsing histories from 4M users
(The method has been dubbed “DataSpii.”)

—Patrick


#76

PatrThom

PatrThom

Happy 802.11ax/ay...er, I mean happy WiFi 6 day, everyone! Time to throw away all your obsolete 802.11a/b/g/n/ac gear and buy all new hardware!
...no, really. You won't get all the benefits of WiFi 6 (WPA3 encryption, speeds up to 40Gb/s, etc.) unless most/all devices within range (even your neighbors' devices!) are WiFi 6-compatible.

--Patrick


#77

PatrThom

PatrThom

Adobe canceling/deactivating ALL accounts and services for people in Venezuela due to Executive Order 13884.
the practical effect of [the Order] is to prohibit almost all transactions and services between U.S. companies, entities, and individuals in Venezuela. To remain compliant with this order, Adobe is deactivating all accounts in Venezuela. [...] We are unable to issue refunds. Executive order 13884 orders the cessation of all activity with the entities including no sales, service, support, refunds, credits, etc. You have until October 28, 2019 to download any content that you have stored in your Adobe account. After this date your account will be deactivated. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Or, as boingboing puts it, since everything is going "cloud as a service" now:
If you live in Venezuela and rely on Adobe products to do your job -- whether that's publishing a newspaper, running an NGO, or doing design work, Adobe has a very special message for you: GO FUCK YOURSELF.
--Patrick


#78

GasBandit

GasBandit

Hope you pirated Adobe CS 8, like.. some of us did..


#79

PatrThom

PatrThom

Hope you pirated Adobe CS 8, like.. some of us did..
I haven't used any of the Adobe suite since...Photoshop 5.5? 7.0, maybe? All pre-CS.

--Patrick


#80

GasBandit

GasBandit

I haven't used any of the Adobe suite since...Photoshop 5.5? 7.0, maybe? All pre-CS.

--Patrick
CS8 was the last one before they switched to the subscription model. You miss out on some of the neater bells and whistles, like content-aware filling, but it still feels better to tell Adobe to go get fucked.


#81

Frank

Frank

No refunds either for the same reason.

We're TOTALLY REGRETFULLY (gleefully) unable to refund you. Soooooorrryyyy.

Fuck the cloud.


#82

PatrThom

PatrThom

No refunds either for the same reason.

We're TOTALLY REGRETFULLY (gleefully) unable to refund you. Soooooorrryyyy.

Fuck the cloud.
This just in: Adobe has decided, through the kindness (public backlash) of their hearts, to process refunds for the affected users and to keep their Behance service accessible. The deactivations and all the rest stay, though.

--Patrick


#83

PatrThom

PatrThom

Hey, @Terrik

Intel Releases Advisory: Update X299 for Cascade-X, and [potentially] Lose Kaby-X [7xxx-series] Support
I don't know if anyone else is using a 7xxx-based system, but looks like it's worth reading the release notes before updating your BIOS/EFI.

--Patrick


#84

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

SPQR


#85

PatrThom

PatrThom

Heh. I sent that to a friend of mine who is always going on about Linus and who just build an 8xxx-series machine a couple years ago.
The comments: "When will he drop it?" :D

The most impressive part of the video, I think, is where they use it to play Crysis.
"Big deal," you may think. "It has 64 cores, it had better be able to play Crysis."
You don't understand. He's using it to render the graphics. He's using it as an x86 software GPU.

--Patrick


#86

PatrThom

PatrThom

Yahoo! is deleting all content ever posted to Yahoo! Groups

I mean, yes it has become something of a cesspool thanks to all the abandoned zombie groups, but this still seems...extreme.
Anyway, if you want to preserve any content you ever bookmarked (or that you might still subscribe to) on Y!G, you have until Dec 14 to download it locally. Guess I'd better get to archiving all the stuff from the Kryptos group if I ever want to see it again.

--Patrick


#87

PatrThom

PatrThom

Does this mean I'll finally stop getting email reminders about gaming sessions for groups I haven't been involved with in a decade and a half?
If you're lucky.

--Patrick


#88

PatrThom

PatrThom

As most many of you know, single-thread performance is usually the most influential factor in determining how well any given processor will game. Well, if the most current Passmark data are to be believed, that means the absolute best gaming processor right now is... the business-oriented Ryzen 7 3700 PRO? Huh? They run at a lower clock speed and 40W lower TDP than the 3900X, but there are over 13 samples, so that result is not likely to be a fluke.

It’s even ~2% faster in single-thread performance than Intel’s new brand-spanking new i9-9900KS (which comes in at #3, right after a 3900 (PRO?) which does have only one sample and is more likely to be a fluke.

—Patrick


#89

GasBandit

GasBandit

Whoa... an AMD processor beating Intel for single thread performance is an earthshaking development.

And looking at the performance difference between that and my current CPU... it's getting to be close to time to finally build a new rig, I think.


#90

PatrThom

PatrThom

Whoa... an AMD processor beating Intel for single thread performance is an earthshaking development.
I know! It’s the first time since what, mid-2006?
looking at the performance difference between that and my current CPU... it's getting to be close to time to finally build a new rig, I think.
The 4770k is a very nice processor for daily driving even today, but you're absolutely right that it's not the gaming monster it used to be*...six-and-a-half years ago.

I was all set and started speccing out a system to finally upgrade, too...until I saw that Ryzen 4000 series (Zen 2's "tock refresh" iteration) could be out as early as Q2 '20, and I'm perfectly fine waiting another 3-6 months before I finally take the plunge (which would put it after tax refund time anyway).

--Patrick
*This is a comparison of the 4770k against that #1 Ryzen 3700 PRO, plus I threw in the CPU I'm still using so you can see just how far behind *I* am.


#91

Frank

Frank

The next gen consoles are going to push multi-thread performance in games in a big way, with both the Playstation and the Xbox's having 8-core processors in them. About fucking time.


#92

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

the absolute best gaming processor right now is... the business-oriented Ryzen 7 3700 PRO?
Not any more?


#93

PatrThom

PatrThom

Not any more?
Well sure, but the 3950X wasn’t out yet when I posted (and therefore Passmark didn’t have any data).
For single-threaded workloads, one Zen 2 is much like any other, depending on clock speed (with another slight variance for 1- v. 2-chiplet configs due to the memory write bandwidth thing), and the 3950X is the one that’s supposed to be rated for the highest clockspeed (assuming you have adequate cooling, that is). I assume the reason the “PRO” CPUs hold the single-thread lead is because they are tuned for business app usage, meaning they have lower 65W TDPs and are tuned to leave enough thermal headroom to perpetually keep one or two cores at full turbo (for max responsiveness in Word/Excel), while the consumer chips are allowed to turbo across all cores even if that means they can’t turbo as high due to generating more overall heat.

—Patrick


#94

figmentPez

figmentPez



#95

PatrThom

PatrThom

Yeah. Slashdot and others have been bellyaching about this for days. Especially this part:
“This is an important and exciting development for both the Internet Society and Public Interest Registry,” said Andrew Sullivan, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Society, the organization that established Public Interest Registry. “This transaction will provide the Internet Society with an endowment of sustainable funding and the resources to advance our mission on a broader scale as we continue our work to make the Internet more open, accessible and secure – for everyone. It also aligns Public Interest Registry with Ethos Capital, a strong strategic partner that understands the intricacies of the domain industry and has the expertise, experience and shared values to further advance the goals of .ORG into the future.”
“We here at PIR are happy to have negotiated a price that will allow us to retire and guarantee the future of the .org domain for only 10 more years, after which it’s not our problem any more. Peace out!”
EDIT: Also, this.
1574544931925.png


“Eh, let’s do it anyway.”
It’s like the Net Neutrality thing all over again.

—Patrick


#96

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Part 1 from today's CPU launch day.


AMD's side of the story coming soon.


#97

PatrThom

PatrThom

Oh man, those graphs and their mysterious colored smears. :D:p:D
Intel's focus right now is probably on their Xe GPU anyway, I'm sure they've already written off this generation of CPUs.

--Patrick


#98

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

New gen Threadrippers are here...


#99

PatrThom

PatrThom

anewone.png


--Patrick


#100

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

"AMD called shotgun. We respect shotgun..."


#101

PatrThom

PatrThom

“KS = Keep Spending.” :D

—Patrick


#102

PatrThom

PatrThom

The AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT reviews are in.
Its performance is essentially identical to the good ol’ Radeon RX 580, but it runs about 30W lower.
So the only real reason to replace a 580 with a 5500XT is to save 30W. That’s it.

—Patrick


#103

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

The thumbnail and title basically say it all...


tl;dw not a BAD CPU, just... pointless. Whatever this CPU does, someone else is already doing it better, cheaper, or both.

The tl;dw version of the LTT holiday CPU buyers guide: just get an R5 3600.


#104

PatrThom

PatrThom

The tl;dw version of the LTT holiday CPU buyers guide: just get an R5 3600.
I’ve sent a request to both LTT and GN asking them if they could compare the performance of a 3700X against a 3900X that’s had 4 cores disabled via Ryzen Master in order to test whether there’s a performance difference that’s directly attributable to 1 chiplet v. 2 chiplets with all else being identical, but haven’t seen anything nor gotten a reply. There are rumors of a potential 3750X release, and my guess is that’s what one would be.

—Patrick


#105

PatrThom

PatrThom

Some updates on this:
Here's what's happened: first, ICANN [...] approved a change in pricing for .ORG domains, run by the nonprofit Internet Society (ISOC) through its Public Interest Registry (PIR), allowing the registry to raise prices. The change was done entirely by staff, without board approval.
Next, several of the people involved in that decision migrate from ICANN to ISOC or to a brand-new private equity fund called Ethos Capital [...] Ethos then buys the Public Interest Registry from ISOC for a little over a billion dollars -- about a billion dollars less than it's likely worth -- and makes a nonbinding pledge to limit its price increases to 10%, compounded annually (!!) and starts a PR campaign to argue that this is very reasonable.
[...]
Dec 9, ICANN announced that it would be hitting pause on its approval of the .ORG sale for 30 days, while it requests "additional information about the proposed transaction including information about the party acquiring control, its ultimate parent entity, and whether they meet the ICANN-adopted registry operator criteria (as well as financial resources, and operational and technical capabilities)." ICANN warns that it can only block the sale on terms that rise to "a standard of reasonableness."
source

--Patrick


#106

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Color me about 29 shades of not surprised. I had their DSL when it was still Verizon. Good riddance.


#107

PatrThom

PatrThom

Saw that earlier today. I thought they had already declared bankruptcy.
Ah well. Probably upset they won't be able to charge you for using your own modem after June 20 of this year.
I mean, you would expect they wouldn't need to explicitly make this illegal, but... here we are.

--Patrick


#108

PatrThom

PatrThom

Well, Cortana is about to change:
The new version of Cortana will debut with the next major update to Windows 10, expected to roll out in April.
[N]o more Cortana use for anyone only using local accounts. Cortana access will only be available to those logged in with school work domain accounts or Microsoft online accounts
"Some consumer skills including music, connected home, and third-party skills will no longer be available in the updated Cortana experience in Windows 10"
Cortana apps on iOS and Android will still be able to control home devices and smart speakers. This may not be too helpful, though, since the Android and iOS Cortana apps themselves are being rapidly deprecated.


#109

Frank

Frank

Does anyone use Cortana? I went through the hustle and bustle to deactivate it immediately.


#110

PatrThom

PatrThom

Does anyone use Cortana?
Yes, though most people just use it as a way to find/launch apps by typing into the search bar.

--Patrick


#111

Bubble181

Bubble181

Oh no! No more helpful Cortana with my local account?! Nooo! :aaah:
(So why are the rewarding the people with only local accounts? :awesome:)


#112

PatrThom

PatrThom

I’ve sent a request to both LTT and GN asking them if they could compare the performance of a 3700X against a 3900X that’s had 4 cores disabled via Ryzen Master in order to test whether there’s a performance difference that’s directly attributable to 1 chiplet v. 2 chiplets with all else being identical, but haven’t seen anything nor gotten a reply. There are rumors of a potential 3750X release, and my guess is that’s what one would be.
My prayers have been answered!
...by TechSpot.
tl:dr; Architecturally, i9-9900k is still the best at games (probably because it's the one with the lowest memory latency), and the difference between 1x8c (3700X) v. 2x4c (3900X w/ 4 cores disabled) is maaaaybe about 5%.

--Patrick


#113

PatrThom

PatrThom

Apparently not. Researchers Find "Unfixable" Vulnerability Inside Intel CPUs
Yes, another one has come to light, and this one targets every Intel CPU that is Skylake (series 6xxx) or newer.
Starting to think jumping into those Broadwell (5xxx-series) CPUs for Cranky and the wife was a really good idea.

--Patrick


#114

PatrThom

PatrThom

To continue the above, this is especially annoying for me since there was that point where Microsoft said, “We are no longer going to release updates to older OSes if you are running a newer processor, you must upgrade to WinX.”
And which processors are the ones affected? Basically all the ones Microsoft just forced you to use!

This rash of vulnerabilities probably explains why some mfrs are coming out with brand new motherboards supporting Sandy/Ivy Bridge (2xxx/3xxx) CPUs — enough people have apparently decided they’re never going to trust the newer CPUs and are just gonna stick with the older processors for as long as they possibly can. And for stuff like Microsoft Office, they‘re probably going to be just fine.

—Patrick


#115

GasBandit

GasBandit

My next PC is definitely gonna be an AMD CPU. When that happens, I'm not exactly sure yet.


#116

Bubble181

Bubble181

I've long been aan Intel fan, but the last 5 years or so they've really been...not what they should've been


#117

PatrThom

PatrThom

My next PC is definitely gonna be an AMD CPU. When that happens, I'm not exactly sure yet.
At this point, I’m putting my 3950X plans on hold until “Late 2020” when the Ryzen 4xxx chips are set to drop. Every indication is that Zen 3 is going to be the pinnacle (and final!) revision of what can fit into an AM4 socket, so either that’ll be the one to go for...or else they’ll bring down the price of the 3950X. :)

—Patrick


#118

drifter

drifter

The good thing, however, is that to exploit a system, an attacker must have physical access to the hardware in question, as remote exploitation is not possible.
Ehh, don't really care then.


#119

PatrThom

PatrThom

Physical access is required for the current exploit.
The experts involved believe remote exploits could be possible with more research, or when coupled with other vulnerabilities.
Also there's this:
"A single [hardware] key is used for an entire generation of Intel chipsets," the Positive Technologies researchers said. "And since the ROM vulnerability allows seizing control of code execution before the hardware key generation mechanism in the SKS is locked, and the ROM vulnerability cannot be fixed, we believe that extracting this key is only a matter of time. When this happens, utter chaos will reign. Hardware IDs will be forged, digital content will be extracted, and data from encrypted hard disks will be decrypted."
DOGS AND CATS LIVING TOGETHER

--Patrick


#120

drifter

drifter



#121

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler



#122

PatrThom

PatrThom

My next PC is definitely gonna be an AMD CPU. When that happens, I'm not exactly sure yet.
Oh look, now it’s AMD’s turn!
New AMD Side Channel Attacks Discovered, Impacts Zen Architecture
...also affects everything from “Bulldozer“ on, not just Zen, so that means my K10-based Phenom II is still safe (yay?). Can be run from within JavaScript, so it‘s not one of those “requires physical access to the machine” sort of vulnerabilities.

The article does mention that every modern processor has some kind of vulnerability (even ARM!), but this should cool down a lot of the recent “InTeL sUx AmD rUlEz“ stuff.

—Patrick


#123

GasBandit

GasBandit

Bout that time again.



#124

PatrThom

PatrThom

Bout that time again.

This is getting to be almost a monthly thing.
[April] Windows 10 update deleting files and causing BSD errors

========

In other news, Intel has more to worry about these days than just AMD:
Apple Aims to Sell Macs With Its Own Chips Starting in 2021
Apple will launch several MacBooks and Macs based on its own custom ARM chips in 2021, a trusted insider says. The A-series chips that power the iPhone and iPad are already more powerful than Intel’s chips in tests, a detail that prompted many people to speculate that Apple would use similar chips inside its computers.
Arm Development For The Office: Unboxing an Ampere eMag Workstation
Avantek, one of the Arm server retailers, [has] built an Ampere eMag workstation out of a server board, with some interesting trickery to get it to fit [in a standard ATX PC case...]. Inside the system is a [125W] 32-core Ampere eMag server with 256 GB of eight-channel DDR-2666 memory, a 500GB WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD, a 960 GB Micron 5300 Pro SATA SSD in the rear, a Corsair VS 650W power supply, and an AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 graphics accelerator [starting at around US$3000].
Huh, so it looks like this whole ARM architecture/ISA might be catching on. Who knows if it can displace the mighty x86 ISA monolith that's been the dominant market force since Apple abandoned PowerPC in favor of Intel back in 2006. Might want to look into maybe making some Wall Street bets with ARM Holdings since ARMH holds the IP rights and is the one licensing their CPU technology to all these people HA HAA TOO LATE looks like Japan-based SoftBank Group bought them up and took them private back in 2016. Better luck next time!

--Patrick


#125

PatrThom

PatrThom

Something that could be really useful for people with older servers (people like myself and @GasBandit, especially) which still have open PCIe slots, especially if those servers' internal ports are still limited to only SATA-II:

MB839spb.jpg


MB839SP-B rugged removable drive bay for 2.5” SATA hard drives and SSDs (9.5mm height). Utilizing the standard PCIe 2.0 interface and taking only a single PCIe expansion slot, the MB839SP-B gives you an additional hot-swappable drive bay for hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) even when your computer does not have an open SATA port or empty drive bay.
(Link to product page)
In other words, it lets you use 2.5in SSDs at their full SATA-III speed as if they were ginormous floppies, or build yourself different boot "cartridges" based on what you want to use the machine for at any given time.

Handy, and I might get one (or more) for my older PCIe v2.0 machines, BUT that's not really what I'm here to talk about. Turns out they also just released an NVMe version of the same thing, which gives you all the benefits I mention above BUT with the ability to mount it in a half-height server chassis with NVMe speed and convenience:

MB840m2pb.png


Put these under "Things I didn't know I wanted until I saw them and then I wanted them A LOT."

--Patrick


#126

PatrThom

PatrThom

Another (possibly final) update to the .ORG sale saga:
ICANN has blocked sale of the ORG tld to a private equity firm
It's a serious—quite possibly fatal—blow to a proposal that had few supporters besides the organizations that proposed it. [...] The group would eventually receive letters from at least 30 groups opposing the deal, as well as numerous negative comments during public hearings. Meanwhile, ICANN says, the deal has received "virtually no counterbalancing support except from the parties involved in the transaction and their advisors."
Good.

--Patrick


#127

PatrThom

PatrThom

Facebook just bought GIPHY for $400mil?
They are promising that this will mean better Giphy integration with Instagram (also owned by Facebook).
Facebook says that Giphy's tools will be integrated into Instagram's Stories and direct messages, as well as the company's other apps, to "make it easier for anyone to create and share their work with the world."
<Cookie Monster noises>

--Patrick


#128

blotsfan

blotsfan

Great.


#129

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

"Ludicrous speed is for pussies."


#130

PatrThom

PatrThom

I honestly did not recognize him with the beard.

--Patrick


#131

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Steve's not disappointed, he's mad.


#132

PatrThom

PatrThom

Anandtech is thinking about trying something... ambitious.

The #CPUOverload Project: Testing Every x86 Desktop Processor since 2010
For the #CPUOverload project, we are testing under Windows 10, with a variety of new tests, including AI and SPEC, with new gaming tests on the latest GPUs, and more relevant real world benchmarks. But the heart of CPU Overload is this:
We want to have every desktop CPU since 2010 tested on our new benchmarks. By my count, there are over 900.
--Patrick


#133

PatrThom

PatrThom

Might want to look into maybe making some Wall Street bets with ARM Holdings since ARMH holds the IP rights and is the one licensing their CPU technology to all these people HA HAA TOO LATE looks like Japan-based SoftBank Group bought them up and took them private back in 2016. Better luck next time!
It's for sale!
SoftBank May Be Selling Arm, But Apple Isn't Interested

You can buy them for yourself and influence the development of pretty much every mobile platform out there right now, IF you have a few dozen billion dollars lying around, that is.

--Patrick


#134

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

It's for sale!
SoftBank May Be Selling Arm, But Apple Isn't Interested

You can buy them for yourself and influence the development of pretty much every mobile platform out there right now, IF you have a few dozen billion dollars lying around, that is.

--Patrick
Jeff Bezos makes that in a DAY.


#135

PatrThom

PatrThom

Jeff Bezos makes that in a DAY.
Amazon web services IS a heavy server system, so I guess it's a possibility. But the current though is that nobody who would actually use ARM chips will probably end up as the buyer, since the world's regulatory agencies will immediately crawl deep up their butt if there's any thought of using ARMH ownership to stifle competition.

--Patrick


#136

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Amazon web services IS a heavy server system, so I guess it's a possibility. But the current though is that nobody who would actually use ARM chips will probably end up as the buyer, since the world's regulatory agencies will immediately crawl deep up their butt if there's any thought of using ARMH ownership to stifle competition.

--Patrick
Bezos'll just buy them. :(


#137

PatrThom

PatrThom

Jeff Bezos makes that in a DAY.
Turns out you're not that far off: Jeff Bezos [...] added $13 billion to his net worth in one day.

He's up over 74 billion since Jan 1st. That's one entire Elon Musk's worth!

--Patrick


#138

drifter

drifter

Damn. Creeping up on Mansa Musa


#139

Tress

Tress

Damn. Creeping up on Mansa Musa
Adjusted for inflation, Mansa Musa’s estimated wealth was approximately $440 BILLION... so he’s still got a long way to go.


#140

drifter

drifter

Granted, he's less than halfway there, but 178B is absolutely staggering and I think merits "creeping up" status. And that's after the divorce settlement!


#141

PatrThom

PatrThom

Congress grills (some) tech CEOs for FIVE AND A HALF HOURS in order to try to decide whether or not tech companies wield too much power.



...look, it's like 330 minutes long. No, I haven't watched it, but it certainly qualifies as big tech news, so I'm dropping it here.

--Patrick


#142

GasBandit

GasBandit

I read a summary on APNews that said Dems were insterested in trustbusting and unsavory business practices, and Reps wanted to harp on bias against conservatism. Tim Cook came out unscathed, but Jeff Bezos apparently had something more of a hard time.




#143

PatrThom

PatrThom

I get the feeling the whole thing was so that Congress could point to it and say they were indeed Doing Something.
No representative from Microsoft, NVIDIA, Intel, AT&T, Cisco, or Oracle? C'mon, guys.

--Patrick


#144

Bubble181

Bubble181

Looking for suggestions. As you know, my wedding will be livestreamed. It's over YouTube. I'd like to record the stream with sound and all, for posterity. However, everyone I know who's a bit tech savvy, will be in the room or unavailable.
What software or way would be the absolute dead easiest to explain to a 60 year old to record the stream in a somewhat probably OK way?
I mean, yes, some sort of FRAPS setup, maybe, but I've never used those before so I couldn't even explain it. Any good/easy options?


#145

GasBandit

GasBandit

Looking for suggestions. As you know, my wedding will be livestreamed. It's over YouTube. I'd like to record the stream with sound and all, for posterity. However, everyone I know who's a bit tech savvy, will be in the room or unavailable.
What software or way would be the absolute dead easiest to explain to a 60 year old to record the stream in a somewhat probably OK way?
I mean, yes, some sort of FRAPS setup, maybe, but I've never used those before so I couldn't even explain it. Any good/easy options?
OBS is your best bet. Run it on the computer transmitting the stream, and just use it to record. You can then upload the recording separately later.


#146

Bubble181

Bubble181

OBS is your best bet. Run it on the computer transmitting the stream, and just use it to record. You can then upload the recording separately later.
I sadly don't have any control over the pc broadcasting, as that's done by City Hall.


#147

Dei

Dei

I sadly don't have any control over the pc broadcasting, as that's done by City Hall.
OBS is still your best bet. Does Fraps even still exist? >.>

If you can tune into the live feed before it begins, you can just set up OBS to record your screen and just let it run, and edit it later.


#148

GasBandit

GasBandit

OBS is still your best bet. Does Fraps even still exist? >.>

If you can tune into the live feed before it begins, you can just set up OBS to record your screen and just let it run, and edit it later.
Dei is right. It's just a shame you can't record before it's sent... because recording what you receive means it's going to compress the compressed image. It's the modern equivalent of dubbing a dub.


#149

PatrThom

PatrThom

Intel hacked, 20GB dump of stolen confidential chip data released, more believed coming.

Intel is just not having a good couple of years.
Prepare yourselves for a slew of security advisories, folks.

--Patrick


#150

PatrThom

PatrThom

heirarchy.jpg


...wut?
<Does the Google>

$300, all sold out.

...huh.

--Patrick


#151

PatrThom

PatrThom

Oh, and then there's this:

NewJourney_678x452.jpg


So I guess we hear about AMD's answer to Intel's Gen11 on Oct 8th, and their answer to NVIDIA's Ampere on Oct 28th.
AMD's cards have usually been more computation-friendly than NVIDIA's (excepting CUDA workloads, of course), so we will see what it might do to shake up the Ethereum mining sector's demand.

--Patrick


#152

PatrThom

PatrThom

Zen3 announced a little over half an hour ago.
  • Will be called “Ryzen 5000-series”
  • ~20% IPC increase.
  • ~25% more energy-efficient than Ryzen 3000
  • Unified caches (no more split cache)
  • Overall ~25% increase in gaming performance
  • Launch pricing seems to be $50 over whatever the equivalent Ryzen 3000 model was at launch
  • Available Nov 5th
Now just need to wait three weeks for the “Big Navi” GPU announcements.



Gamers Nexus is Jesus-on-the-spot with their own video, too.




—Patrick


#153

Dave

Dave

I knew they were going to announce something soon, but I thought it was GPU, not CPU. Oh well. I still like my Ryzen 9 3900X.


#154

PatrThom

PatrThom

I knew they were going to announce something soon, but I thought it was GPU, not CPU. Oh well. I still like my Ryzen 9 3900X.
It’s not a bad processor, really. Still one of the top ten consumer processors of all time, and even when games move too far ahead for it, the twelve cores mean it’ll still be a productivity beast for quite a while after.

—Patrick


#155

figmentPez

figmentPez

An MSI factory in China seems to have caught fire

And you thought PC parts were already in short supply...


#156

PatrThom

PatrThom

MSI seems to have been having quite a number of "accidents" lately.

--Patrick


#157

DarkAudit

DarkAudit



#158

PatrThom

PatrThom

Yeah it seems NVIDIA wants the story to be about how awesome their DLSS and ray-tracing features are, and not about how when you turn them off they're only 3-10% better than AMD's cards, FPS-wise.

--Patrick


#159

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

UPDATE: Nvidia has walked back their decision and apologized.


Whatcha wanna bet this was that one PR hack overstepping his bounds?


#160

PatrThom

PatrThom

"We here at NVIDIA are sorry that our supposedly private communication with HUB were made public. We pledge such a thing will never happen again...because we're going to include friendly NDAs in our future communication with HUB."

--Patrick


#161

bhamv3

bhamv3

I've been a Nvidia user since I got my first gaming PC. I don't know enough about hardware or specs or the nitty gritty to really explain why I buy their stuff, I've just had good experiences with their hardware so I prefer to continue with that. But now with this stunt, I'm going to be looking at all of their future video cards with a fry_squinting.jpg.exe expression.

I mean, now I'm going to have to actually learn the differences between AMD and Nvidia cards.


#162

GasBandit

GasBandit

I've been a Nvidia user since I got my first gaming PC. I don't know enough about hardware or specs or the nitty gritty to really explain why I buy their stuff, I've just had good experiences with their hardware so I prefer to continue with that. But now with this stunt, I'm going to be looking at all of their future video cards with a fry_squinting.jpg.exe expression.

I mean, now I'm going to have to actually learn the differences between AMD and Nvidia cards.
I've run AMD in the past. Often they're just as good for less money. Really, right now, the only reason to go NVidia is if you HAVE to have raytracing, or need NVENC for streaming (it can really take a load off your CPU in those cases).


#163

Dei

Dei

I constantly hear about driver issues with AMD, which makes me more leary of them.


#164

GasBandit

GasBandit

I constantly hear about driver issues with AMD, which makes me more leary of them.
That was definitely a thing 15 or so years ago. I've gone back and forth between AMD and NVidia several times. But the most recent AMD card I had (which I bought in 2013), I didn't have any driver problems with. I used it until the NVidia 10 series came out in 2016. And when I upgraded to a GTX 1060, I gave my AMD to a friend who used it for a couple more years without problems.

The 1060 was just too good a deal to pass up, bang-for-the-buck wise. But that hasn't been the case with the 2060 and 3060 from what I've seen, so I'm probably going to make my next card an AMD. Probably my next processor, too.


#165

Frank

Frank

I've flip flopped back and forth throughout the years and I also feel like the driver concerns with AMD have been overblown.

Raytracing kicks ass and is here to stay so right now the card choice is a no brainer.


#166

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Whatcha wanna bet this was that one PR hack overstepping his bounds?
It WAS one PR hack overstepping his bounds.


#167

figmentPez

figmentPez

Eh, could still be a scapegoat, and the only bounds that were overstepped was stating Nvidia's company line explicitly to a reviewer.


#168

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Eh, could still be a scapegoat, and the only bounds that were overstepped was stating Nvidia's company line explicitly to a reviewer.
Until proven otherwise, I'll stick with Hanlon's Razor.


#169

PatrThom

PatrThom

Facebook: Takes out full-page ads in newspapers/creates website/posts to blogs to sound the alarm that Apple's new privacy disclosure policy "...threatens the personalized ads that millions of small businesses rely on to find and reach customers," [direct quote] because we know how Facebook is the tireless champion of small businesses everywhere.

Meanwhile, on the app store entry for Facebook's iOS app:




...look, Facebook. You know you aggregate data, WE know you aggregate data, and both of us together know you ain't doin' it "for small businesses," you're doing it for you. So if the idea is worrying to you that the public may learn just how much of their lives you vacuum up, process, package, and then put up for sale, maybe that's not something you should really be blaming the whistleblower for? I mean, if sales of your new deep-fried TastyNugs™ tank because an investigative reporter exposes that the "secret ingredient" is ground-up puppies (chopped and formed), is it really the reporter's fault the public gets mad at you for doing so?

--Patrick


#170

PatrThom

PatrThom

Looks like LMG/LTT has had their first NorthRanger moment (though the exact details have not been made public).

lttloss.png


--Patrick


#171

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

The reviews are in, and they're savage. The 11th gen Intel CPUs have no valid reason to exist. Especially the 11900K


#172

PatrThom

PatrThom

The 11th gen Intel CPUs have no valid reason to exist.
I've seen some of these reviews and I agree. There are some feature enhancements (PCIe 4.0, ABT, Xe iGPU, AVX512 support) and they can overclock to 7GHz under hyper-exotic cooling methods, but any improvements to their real-world performance are definitely in the why-did-they-bother-doing-this category, since even though the core performance is ~13% faster than the 10th gen model it replaces, it has two fewer cores (8c v. 10c).

Smart money right now in that price range is still on Ryzen 5800X/5900X unless your workload is one that benefits greatly from the AVX512 support.

--Patrick


#173

PatrThom

PatrThom

Oh and there's this, too:


--Patrick


#174

figmentPez

figmentPez

Oh, fuck no.



#175

PatrThom

PatrThom

Utterly useless since it can be defeated by a sheer black cloth, but you gotta admire how they're willing to hang their massive greed out where everyone can see it.

--Patrick


#176

figmentPez

figmentPez

Utterly useless since it can be defeated by a sheer black cloth, but you gotta admire how they're willing to hang their massive greed out where everyone can see it.
Would that stop IR LIDAR and/or thermal cameras? Because I'm assuming that they've got something akin to what the latest iPhones have in that regards, since they'll want to be able to monitor people in a dark room.

Still, the better answer is to not buy that piece of shit in the first place. Because I wouldn't want to subject even one person it it's invasive monitoring. I'm assuming that whatever camera tech they're using is not just going to monitor the number of people in the room, but also viewer engagement, heart rate, estimated emotional response, etc.


#177

PatrThom

PatrThom

Would that stop IR LIDAR and/or thermal cameras?
Thermal cameras? No. IR LIDAR? Maybe, depending on material. Either option would inflate the unit cost, of course, as well as the chance for false positives. Dog on the couch, coat tree, ficus...teaching it what is and is not a person is going to be difficult and expensive.

--Patrick


#178

GasBandit

GasBandit

In Soviet Russia Modern America, Television watches YOU!

1617678601237.png


#179

Bubble181

Bubble181

Thermal cameras? No. IR LIDAR? Maybe, depending on material. Either option would inflate the unit cost, of course, as well as the chance for false positives. Dog on the couch, coat tree, ficus...teaching it what is and is not a person is going to be difficult and expensive.

--Patrick
And practically no matter what, a thin sheet of lead will defeat it. Then you add a small heat signature to make it seem like there's always just one person in the room, and... Ugh. Why would anyone ever even consider this?
I already hate Siri style always-listening tech, I definitely don't need always-watching next.


#180

PatrThom

PatrThom

Why would anyone ever even consider this?
I'm sure it's very appealing to the people who supply the content, as opposed to those who consume it.

I want to see if the opposite is true, if someone has, say, a big Where's Waldo? mural painted on their wall, will VENUE panic and attempt to bill them for a couple thousand or so perceived spectators?
I already hate Siri style always-listening tech
Of the big three digital assistants, Siri has actually evolved now to where it is the least invasive, and it only sends what it hears after it detects the "Hey, Siri" keyphrase.

--Patrick


#181

mikerc

mikerc

I want to see if the opposite is true, if someone has, say, a big Where's Waldo? mural painted on their wall, will VENUE panic and attempt to bill them for a couple thousand or so perceived spectators?
Apparently it works by you buying X amount of tickets & if it detects more than X amount of people in the room it pauses the video until you kick the extra people out. It also pauses if it detects a recording device so better hope no-one needs to check their phone / look something up on their iPad.


#182

GasBandit

GasBandit

Still seems like something that could be easily defeated by a single ceramic bathroom tile placed in the right position.


#183

PatrThom

PatrThom

Still seems like something that could be easily defeated by a single ceramic bathroom tile placed in the right position.
It is a product of the dumb, by the dumb, and for the dumb, and the sooner it perishes from this earth, the better.
The only way this catches on is for EVERY other alternative to dry up, and I just don't see that happening unless all content holders band together and make everything exclusive. And even that probably won't be enough.

--Patrick


#184

figmentPez

figmentPez

Still seems like something that could be easily defeated by a single ceramic bathroom tile placed in the right position.
More likely it's something that could be easily convinced to stop working by any small obstruction of the camera. This thing is likely to pause playback until it's demands are met at the drop of a hat, possibly literal hats.

Ceramic tile? Camera obscured, please reposition camera. Lead sheet? Camera obscured, please reposition camera. Direct sunlight impeding the sensors? Camera obscured, please reposition camera. Diorama of a living room? Camera obscured, please reposition camera. Camera aimed at a completely different room? <Error code that means "glow from the TV not detected>, please reposition camera.

Like DIVX and DVD-D, this "format" isn't at all focused on consumer satisfaction, so I would expect it to be extremely obnoxious in it's refusal to work under anything but the most pristine conditions.


#185

GasBandit

GasBandit

More likely it's something that could be easily convinced to stop working by any small obstruction of the camera. This thing is likely to pause playback until it's demands are met at the drop of a hat, possibly literal hats.

Ceramic tile? Camera obscured, please reposition camera. Lead sheet? Camera obscured, please reposition camera. Direct sunlight impeding the sensors? Camera obscured, please reposition camera. Diorama of a living room? Camera obscured, please reposition camera. Camera aimed at a completely different room? <Error code that means "glow from the TV not detected>, please reposition camera.

Like DIVX and DVD-D, this "format" isn't at all focused on consumer satisfaction, so I would expect it to be extremely obnoxious in it's refusal to work under anything but the most pristine conditions.
Then I'll change my assertion...

This seems like something that could be easily defeated by piracy and a plex server.

Media companies just don't seem to understand that the barrier to entry to piracy is the lowest it's ever been, and keeps getting lower, and the only way anyone is going to pay them is if they make their customers appreciate them instead of despise them.

But then they still think they can have 15 separate exclusive subscription-based content providers, soooo...


#186

PatrThom

PatrThom

This seems like something that could be easily defeated by piracy and a plex server.
Kinda what I was getting at, yeah.
I know I've said it before... studios won't be happy until the only way you can enjoy content is to enter a soundproof booth where they pat you down before and after, and then neuralyze you when you leave.

--Patrick


#187

Shakey

Shakey

I have a feeling it’s not really meant for broad consumer release, but more for early screenings or awards screenings. I can’t imagine they would think this could do well in the consumer market where the price of the device is everything. They would have to eat the price of the hardware to make it work.


#188

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Slightly relevant. The DVD that had a limited number of viewings before it destroyed itself. Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it.


#189

PatrThom

PatrThom

I remember when they were pitched.
They had a habit of self-destructing early, if I recall.

--Patrick


#190

Shakey

Shakey

So, the same as online rentals now?


#191

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Anyone else remember the DIVX format? The DVD player that phoned home, literally?


#192

figmentPez

figmentPez

Anyone else remember the DIVX format? The DVD player that phoned home, literally?
Like DIVX and DVD-D, this "format" isn't at all focused on consumer satisfaction, so I would expect it to be extremely obnoxious in it's refusal to work under anything but the most pristine conditions.
Nope, no idea what you're talking about.

On a similar note, I remember back when my family had DirectTV, relatively early in the days of small dish satellite television. The set-top boxes had to communicate via telephone line to negotiate pay-per-view, but our boxes didn't understand ten digit dialing, IIRC. Ours expected phone numbers to be 7 digits, and thus we couldn't get ours to dial up and confirm charges. There was no solution, just "sorry, guess you can't order movies".

I have a feeling it’s not really meant for broad consumer release, but more for early screenings or awards screenings. I can’t imagine they would think this could do well in the consumer market where the price of the device is everything. They would have to eat the price of the hardware to make it work.
I suspect that they're planning for the future, with the expectation that all the hardware they're using is going to become standard on even the cheapest of cellphones within a decade. The cellphone market is a big reason why all the existing streaming sticks are a small and powerful as they are.

Also, I think that media companies would gladly subsidize the cost of one of these machines if it gave them all the feedback they're hoping for. If one of these things has sensors and processing on par with a mid-range smartphone, they'll be able to track the heart rate of everyone watching (and more advanced emotional state detection is being worked on). If they've got sensors on par with a Kinect, they'll be able to track head movement. I'm pretty sure that most media companies would jump at the chance to pay to put a device like that watching their audience and tracking how they respond to every program they watch.

Similar to subscription services cracking down on password sharing, I don't think this is primarily about getting money. Does Netflix really care if the half-dozen people sharing a password really live in the same house? I sincerely doubt it. They care that a dozen people sharing four profiles are ruining their data collection. Information is the currency they're after, and it's worth as much as any subscription or ticket fees they'll get. I can only hope that their greed to have it all will make the system so restrictive that people won't put up with it, because I'm more than a little scared of the future we'll face if they go all in on asking people to sell their privacy for "cheap" first-run movie tickets.

How cheap would the system have to be before people ignored the privacy concerns? How well do you think the device would sell if it cost $100 for the 4K model and let people rent first-run movies for $5 a head? What if it were $4 a ticket? $3? How cheap do you think they could get the price down if they had some pre-roll ads they got to monitor your emotional response to? How many kick-backs do you think they could get in 5 to 10 years when one of these things can do eye-tracking to see if people notice the product placement? Do you think they could subsidize an entire subscription service by selling the biofeedback that tells marketers when bi-polar customers are hitting a manic phase and will be more likely to make impulse buys?

If the hardware is just being used for DRM, then yeah, I can see it being too expensive and too finicky to squeeze a few extra bucks out of people. I'd be shocked if all that monitoring capability were only going to be used for DRM, though.


#193

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Nope, no idea what you're talking about.
Oops. :)


#194

PatrThom

PatrThom

How cheap would the system have to be before people ignored the privacy concerns?
People already allow their auto insurance carrier to mount a camera and OBD reader in their cars to tattle on how they drive in order to save a buck or two sooooo...

—Patrick


#195

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Slightly relevant. The DVD that had a limited number of viewings before it destroyed itself. Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it.
OMG, I spent hours yesterday googling for that, and couldn't find it. I knew I wasn't crazy.


#196

PatrThom

PatrThom

"Because it was there."

my main computer, a Thinkpad T410 with a 1st generation Intel Core i5 and 8 GB of RAM. It runs Arch Linux with Xfce. The macOS Mojave [...] VM works surprisingly well with 3GB RAM, but [...] the Windows VM [...] was very sluggish.
@DarkAudit

--Patrick


#197

PatrThom

PatrThom

The GPU situation is getting so bad now that scammers in China are sending fake recall letters to RX580[X] owners in the hopes of acquiring additional GPUs for mining.

If there was any doubt before as to whether things have gotten out of hand, I hope this has helped lay that doubt to rest.

--Patrick


#198

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

MOTHERFUCKER.


All cryptocurrency can just DIAF.


#199

PatrThom

PatrThom

MOTHERFUCKER.
All cryptocurrency can just DIAF.
Yeah, they did a video about this sort of thing a while ago, and I know I posted about it in the BYOC thread*.
For one reason or another, the price of every single significant component in a DIY CPU build seems to be going up RIGHT when I need to start building a new system, and it SUUUXXXX.

--Patrick
*it was even post #420 on 4/20 hurr hurrr



#201

PatrThom

PatrThom

This is huge. HUGE.
I cannot stress enough how huge this is, especially as regards every one of the illicit er, "accidentally hasty" device searches being performed these days.

How huge is it, exactly?
by including a specially formatted but otherwise innocuous file in an app on a device that is then scanned by Cellebrite, it’s possible to execute code that modifies not just the Cellebrite report being created in that scan, but also all previous and future generated Cellebrite reports from all previously scanned devices and all future scanned devices in any arbitrary way (inserting or removing text, email, photos, contacts, files, or any other data), with no detectable timestamp changes or checksum failures. This could even be done at random, and would seriously call the data integrity of Cellebrite’s reports into question.
And why is this so important, you ask?
In completely unrelated news, upcoming versions of Signal will be periodically fetching files to place in app storage. These files are never used for anything inside Signal and never interact with Signal software or data, but they look nice, and aesthetics are important in software. Files will only be returned for accounts that have been active installs for some time already, and only probabilistically in low percentages based on phone number sharding. We have a few different versions of files that we think are aesthetically pleasing, and will iterate through those slowly over time. There is no other significance to these files.
HUGE.

--Patrick


#202

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

In which Steve goes off on a few things we've talked about recently...


#203

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Well, crap.


#204

Shakey

Shakey

Signal is on a roll.


#205

bhamv3

bhamv3

Signal is on a roll.
Pity it's banned, I'm rather curious what it would've given me.


#206

PatrThom

PatrThom

Pity it's banned, I'm rather curious what it would've given me.
This is the most common reaction I've seen.
...
hmm...

Credit reporting has the ability to pull a report and correct or contest any misleading or incorrect information.
Should Facebook/Google/Apple/your ISP/etc's algorithm(s) be required to offer the same for the profile(s) they build?

--Patrick


#207

Shakey

Shakey

This is the most common reaction I've seen.
...
hmm...

Credit reporting has the ability to pull a report and correct or contest any misleading or incorrect information.
Should Facebook/Google/Apple/your ISP/etc's algorithm(s) be required to offer the same for the profile(s) they build?

--Patrick
Yes, but they also need to have an option to make your information private.
If they were just forced to disclose the data they have, it would be useless other than being able to see the scope of how much they track. Could you imagine trying to sift through all of that?


#208

PatrThom

PatrThom

Could you imagine trying to sift through all of that?
...yes? And I would enjoy doing so.

--Patrick


#209

Shakey

Shakey

...yes? And I would enjoy doing so.

--Patrick
Well, yeah. I’m sure it would be interesting, and someone will make tools to sift through it better, but it doesn’t change much. We need better control over how and when our information is used.


#210

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

"What the actual fuck!?" - Tech Jesus.


#211

PatrThom

PatrThom

“This is not BIY elitism” then starts ripping into Dell’s “Let zem eat cake” build decisions.

—Patrick


#212

blotsfan

blotsfan

@GasBandit thought of you.



#213

GasBandit

GasBandit

@GasBandit thought of you.

That sounds neat. Too bad it:
  1. Is on chrome
  2. Is mobile only
  3. Is done by Google, so I expect them to abandon it in 2 years when a suit up the chain realizes it isn't directly monetizable.


... Yes I'm still bitter about google reader.


#214

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

The FOSS community still uses IRC, and there is drama in FOSS IRC-land today. Groups are abandoning Freenode after a private takeover.



#215

PatrThom

PatrThom

The FOSS community still uses IRC, and there is drama in FOSS IRC-land today. Groups are abandoning Freenode after a private takeover.

I was reading about this and wondered if you'd heard (since our IRC thread is long expired).
Guess I shouldn't have worried. Looks like the drama a few years ago was just a rehersal.

--Patrick


#216

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

I was reading about this and wondered if you'd heard (since our IRC thread is long expired).
Guess I shouldn't have worried. Looks like the drama a few years ago was just a rehersal.

--Patrick
It's all over the various linux-related subreddits. Some have moved to Libera, some to other platforms, and some are still debating what to do next.


#217

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

So the performance is just as bad as the build...


#218

PatrThom

PatrThom

"What the actual fuck!?" - Tech Jesus.
eyokmh8eb3071.jpg


--Patrick


#219

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Gentoo officially joins the exodus from Freenode IRC.


#220

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

And so has Wikimedia.


#221

PatrThom

PatrThom

I expect [Google] to abandon it in 2 years when a suit up the chain realizes it isn't directly monetizable.
I admit I was kinda shocked when they announced they're killing (free) Google Photos next week.

--Patrick


#222

MindDetective

MindDetective

I admit I was kinda shocked when they announced they're killing (free) Google Photos next week.

--Patrick
You got me worried but it isn't as bad as I thought. https://support.google.com/photos/answer/10100180?hl=en


#223

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

TOTALLY not a hostile takeover.

If you mention the new location of a channel, freenode bot-police will take over your channel and declare you in violation.


#224

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Gamers Nexus: there is no bottom.



#225

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Light at the end of the tunnel... that *isn't* an oncoming train.


#226

PatrThom

PatrThom


I guess this will also be bad news for the Coke/Pepsi, Vegemite/Marmite, Kraft/Sargento, Unilever/P&G, Nestlé/Hershey, Intel/AMD, Campbell's/Progresso, Heinz/Hunt's, French's/Plochman, etc. duopolies as well.
C'mon, C&MA. You know market forces will tend to end up elevating two dominant players, this should not come as any surprise. Just admit you're angry about Brexit and want to take it out on somebody and move on.

--Patrick


#227

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

LG is mad at LG over LG's interference with product reviews, so LG has essentially fired LG.



#228

PatrThom

PatrThom

LG is mad at LG over LG's interference with product reviews, so LG has essentially fired LG.

Here is the relevant video:




--Patrick


#229

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Um... that's not good.


Glad I don't have one, then.


#230

PatrThom

PatrThom

Um... that's not good.
"Analysis of WD’s firmware suggests code meant to prevent the issue had been commented out, preventing it from running, by WD itself, and an authentication type was not added to component_config.php which results in the drives not asking for authentication before performing the factory reset."
There is also another newly discovered exploit where hackers can get unrestricted root access to the drives.
So yeah, probably a good idea to unplug them from the Internet. Forever.

Also even though this line of drives was discontinued in 2015(?), there's still plenty out there being sold new, so make sure all your parents/friends know to just avoid them entirely.

--Patrick


#231

figmentPez

figmentPez

Anyone want to give me a TL;DR on what is going on with Audacity?

Audacity Controversy continues with newly published Privacy Notice


#232

GasBandit

GasBandit

Anyone want to give me a TL;DR on what is going on with Audacity?

Audacity Controversy continues with newly published Privacy Notice
Somebody "bought" it.

Now it collects data from your computer. For vaguely defined "law enforcement" purposes.

So, once again, it is shown that piracy (in this case, of Adobe Audition 3.0) is internet-era self defense.


#233

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

thankfully, I haven't updated audacity in years. Once I get a version of something I like that doesn't have any issues and does everything I want, I pretty much stop updating it.


#234

GasBandit

GasBandit

thankfully, I haven't updated audacity in years. Once I get a version of something I like that doesn't have any issues and does everything I want, I pretty much stop updating it.
Same here. Which is why I have both an old copy of Audacity, and Audition 3.0 :D

And windows 7, no matter how much grief I get for that. It works fine.


#235

figmentPez

figmentPez

So, once again, it is shown that piracy (in this case, of Adobe Audition 3.0) is internet-era self defense.
There are going to be forks as well. Like LibreOffice from OpenOffice.


#236

Bubble181

Bubble181

Tuttut. You're not allowed to do that. Please surrender full control of your appliances and applications to the Corporate Overlords. They know much better than you what is good for you.


#237

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Tuttut. You're not allowed to do that. Please surrender full control of your appliances and applications to the Corporate Overlords. They know much better than you what is good for you.
Which reminds me, I have a lot less sympathy for the people complaining about the new $40/month subscription fee to Peloton when I remember they bought a $4000 treadmill.


#238

Dave

Dave



#239

PatrThom

PatrThom

I would really like to see their rationalization for why they are even doing it in the first place. Did the RIAA put them up to this? The KGB? What could they possibly be looking for that would use a DAW as a vector?

—Patrick


#240

GasBandit

GasBandit

I would really like to see their rationalization for why they are even doing it in the first place. Did the RIAA put them up to this? The KGB? What could they possibly be looking for that would use a DAW as a vector?

—Patrick
Nothing.

They just want your personal info. The reason is whatever fiction will get you to let them do it.


#241

Eriol

Eriol

First, on the Audacity stuff: At least the first fork. Long term, I agree that it will likely turn into a mirror of the OpenOffice/LibreOffice situation. At least I hope so.

Second, I think that this is one of the better articles about Machine Learning and "helping" coders that I've seen: A Brillant Copilot (that's not my typo, and it's about GitHub's "Copilot"... thing (product?)). The quote that really sells it though is this:
It's ironic that the biggest obstacle to automating programmers out of a job is that we are terrible at our jobs.
I think @Tinwhistler at a minimum will agree with that sentiment. Not sure whom else here codes for a living, but I'm sure you've all seen it too. Hopefully not too often while in front of a mirror. ;)


#242

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

I think @Tinwhistler at a minimum will agree with that sentiment. Not sure whom else here codes for a living, but I'm sure you've all seen it too. Hopefully not too often while in front of a mirror. ;)
Other programmers are terrible. I'm amazing :unibrow:


#243

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

"Lazy or malicious?" It's hard to tell...


#244

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Laughs in OpenRC...



#245

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Guy who uploaded youtube video 'fixing' the Mandalorian using DeepFake technology gets a job from LucasFilm


#246

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

TIL "oopsie-doopsie" is a technical term.



#247

PatrThom

PatrThom

Can't blame THIS on New World.

--Patrick


#248

PatrThom

PatrThom

TIL "oopsie-doopsie" is a technical term.


--Patrick


#249

DarkAudit

DarkAudit


--Patrick
Steve's response to the "response"... :popcorn:


#250

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Gigglebit. The saga continues.


#251

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

What a non-explodey PSU is supposed to look like.



#252

PatrThom

PatrThom

Sooo...looks like imgur got bought.

No idea what this is going to mean for its content. Or anything else that's ever been posted on their site.
Dare I hope that the plug-in starts working better?

--Patrick


#253

bhamv3

bhamv3

Imgur allows NSFW content to be posted and I don't want that to change now that they've been acquired by a big media company.


#254

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Imgur allows NSFW content to be posted and I don't want that to change now that they've been acquired by a big media company.
Every other image hosting service has managed to publicly slit their own throat in pursuit of "growth" *cough*Photobucket*cough*. Imgur's time will come soon enough.


#255

GasBandit

GasBandit

Imgur allows NSFW content to be posted and I don't want that to change now that they've been acquired by a big media company.
They "allow" it but have been cracking down on it more and more over the last couple years ever since they realized they like advertiser money.

Remember when Imgur was just a pet project to make it easier to post pictures on reddit, and not a BUSINESS?

It's the same cycle as always. Bout time for the new homegrown solution to pop up, I think.



#256

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

So, apparently Facebook isn't just experiencing the usual "downtime."

Also awfully convenient this happened right after last night's 60 Minutes expose with a whisteblower who used to work at Facebook.



#257

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

So, apparently Facebook isn't just experiencing the usual "downtime."

Also awfully convenient this happened right after last night's 60 Minutes expose with a whisteblower who used to work at Facebook.

This is a huge blow to independent vaccine research (I stole this joke, sorrynotsorry)


#258

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

So, uh, this might be bad.



#259

Far

Far

1633382352824.png



#261

GasBandit

GasBandit

If it puts an end to Sword Art Online sequels, I'm all for it!


#262

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

That IS a good joke, but I really sucks that I can't use my new Oculus.

Gee, if only there wasn't A MANDATORY FACEBOOK LOGIN.


#263

PatrThom

PatrThom

So, uh, this might be bad.

I mean, if the user was silly enough to actually give them to Facebook in the first place, that is.

--Patrick


#264

MindDetective

MindDetective

So, uh, this might be bad.

Word is that it is scraped data and not a data breach


#265

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

First Facebook, now Twitch. It's recommended you update your passwords and use a non-SMS authenticator like Google Authenticator.

EDIT: Just in case someone wants to play semantics, obviously not the exact same situation as Facebook.



#266

GasBandit

GasBandit

I already had 2FA enabled on my account, but I changed my password anyway, and recommend any of the rest of you with accounts do the same.


#267

PatrThom

PatrThom

Aww, I liked my password there.

Welp, at this rate it won’t be long before we start seeing HIPAA-style laws enacted regarding sites that demand you give them PIA…right?

—Patrick


#268

GasBandit

GasBandit

Aww, I liked my password there.
If your password isn't 15+ characters of upper/lower/numeric/special, and unique to that site, you are doing it wrong.


#269

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

If your password isn't 15+ characters of upper/lower/numeric/special, and unique to that site, you are doing it wrong.
1633538052821.png


#270

GasBandit

GasBandit

The lastpass browser plugin also has a flyout control panel that lets you generate these passwords on the fly, and save/autofill them.

1633538312539.png


#271

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

The lastpass browser plugin also has a flyout control panel that lets you generate these passwords on the fly, and save/autofill them.
Yup, 1password (or at least my old non-SAAS version) does something similar. I click the plug-in icon and choose generate password, and the pop-up window I shared shows up. If I "hit" ok, it'll autofill and choose to save.

Quite a while back, 1password switched to software as a service, where you pay a monthly fee, and so I can no longer really recommend them. Because fuck that. I store the password master file encrypted on my own dropbox. I don't need to reduce my security by having them store my passwords on their servers and pay them monthly for the privilege.


#272

PatrThom

PatrThom

If your password isn't 15+ characters of upper/lower/numeric/special, and unique to that site, you are doing it wrong.
It was (only) 12 of mixed-case + numeric and unique to that site. All my passwords are unique.
Also, I have never repeated my work password even once over 14 years, and I have to change it at least every 90 days, sometimes sooner. I don’t even reuse parts (e.g., passwordJan, passwordFeb, etc). Do not quote the deep magics to me, etc.

…though yes, as often as this seems to be happening lately, it’s probably time to revise the methods I use to generate my passwords going forward. Sigh. It was a good 20+ yr run, I suppose.

—Patrick


#273

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

The biggest problem I have with my auto-generated passwords is piss poor programming on some sites. I've had sites fail to accept passwords if they start with stuff like a curley brace. That's not a big deal. Generate another password. But I've had some sites totally accept a password when creating an account, but then not save it correctly in the site's database due to some unknown special character. So, later, when you try to log in, you can't.


#274

Bubble181

Bubble181

I know it's old fashioned, but I still stick to one "main" password part, with some special symbols but easy to remember, and with some variation determined by the site's address added on to it.
Every site is unique, the whole password is usually 10 symbols, and they're not stored anywhere. Unlike with a password manager, I can log in from anywhere I care to without compromising my total security, just remember them all by heart, and not worry about a data breach or targeted attack by someone on a central server.
I mean, yes, someone specifically trying to get into my accounts probably can (except for the ones with money tied to them), but I doubt anyone is going to bother trying to hack my log in for the local newspaper.


#275

GasBandit

GasBandit

I know it's old fashioned, but I still stick to one "main" password part, with some special symbols but easy to remember, and with some variation determined by the site's address added on to it.
Every site is unique, the whole password is usually 10 symbols, and they're not stored anywhere. Unlike with a password manager, I can log in from anywhere I care to without compromising my total security, just remember them all by heart, and not worry about a data breach or targeted attack by someone on a central server.
I mean, yes, someone specifically trying to get into my accounts probably can (except for the ones with money tied to them), but I doubt anyone is going to bother trying to hack my log in for the local newspaper.
I have 239 logins in my lastpass vault. There is absolutely no way I would remember that many variations on a single password theme, especially as often as there are breaches and passwords need to be changed.

I mean, if what you have works for you, then great... but for me, I've got a ridiculous number of websites I need to log into, and I want them all to have unique passwords.


#276

Bubble181

Bubble181

I have 239 logins in my lastpass vault. There is absolutely no way I would remember that many variations on a single password theme, especially as often as there are breaches and passwords need to be changed.

I mean, if what you have works for you, then great... but for me, I've got a ridiculous number of websites I need to log into, and I want them all to have unique passwords.
I'm pretty sure I have a bit less, but still easily over a hundred. Com1A2bc3456?!orumshalf, Co.uk1A2bc3456?!dianguar, etc are perfectly fine easy to remember passwords for individual sites :p it does become a bit more problematic when sites need regular changing, but honestly, that mostly applies to work stuff (for which I use another system anyway, ever since I found out the admins at my previous place of employment could enter my mails without my knowledge), and rare important stuff like my bank, for which I use fingerprint ID. Yeah, it works for me, it's not perfect, I'm aware
And obviously, that's not actually the random bit of placement I use for my passwords.


#277

bhamv3

bhamv3

I, like Bubble, have a "standard" password that I'll morph as necessary based on a site's password rules. I mainly use it for relatively unimportant sites though, like Reddit, HF, etc.

For my more important passwords, the ones that could have financial consequences, such as email, banking, Steam, etc., I created more complicated passwords, which I then wrote down on a piece of paper and hid in my drawer at home.


#278

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

I trust Tom Scott, so I went with Dashlane. Spent the better part of a week changing all my duplicated passwords to what are essentially facerolls behind one main login to the Dashlane vault.


#279

ncts_dodge_man

ncts_dodge_man

I currently use BitWarden for password management, but I don't keep all of my passwords in there - I also have a KeePass database for my work passwords.

I used to use LastPass until LogMeIn bought them 6 years ago and the final straw was when they killed off XMarks. I loved the feature of having all my bookmarks in one spot but have profiles for what I wanted to sync (work/home/etc)

For bookmark sync, I've gone with EverSync - doesn't have profiles, but it at least syncs across browsers with not a lot of headaches... I get enough of those from my day job.


#280

PatrThom

PatrThom

Probably going to be some sweeeeet deals pretty soon on discontinued SteelSeries peripherals:


--Patrick


#281

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Clean the cruft left behind by your driver updates with DDU. Jay shows you how.



#282

PatrThom

PatrThom

Someone seriously fell down on their security job over in Argentina.


--Patrick


#283

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

This new 3070 card is a real hoot...


#284

Bubble181

Bubble181

This new 3070 card is a real hoot...
Want!


#285

PatrThom

PatrThom




I guess they got scared by The Mandalorian.

--Patrick


#286

PatrThom

PatrThom

SO big day for yerfukt news:


--Patrick


#287

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Ouch. Just ouch.


#288

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Wow, Nvidia can get...

Nah. Not gonna do it again. But the 12GB 2060 is certainly a big ol' "fuck you" to regular consumers, innit?


#289

Bubble181

Bubble181

Haven't watched the video, but honestly, I've given up for now as far as GFX cards are concerned. New releases are either re-releases of older cards with a bit of tocuh-up, but at high MSRP and even so they sell for even more - and why would I want to pay over full MSRP for a card with thechnology from 2019? - or they're completely out of the realm of normal purchasing - double or triple the MSRP- or they're hobled versions deliberately made to not be useful.


#290

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

If you have a Z690 Hero motherboard, shut it down and inspect it immediately.


#291

PatrThom

PatrThom

Nah. Not gonna do it again.
Liar.

...but yeah, a lot of the "new" cards either feel like, "We're out of ideas and don't know where to go from here" or else "We made changes that would probably benefit miners IF we ever intended to sell them to miners, which we of course don't WINK WINK."

--Patrick


#292

GasBandit

GasBandit

Man, sure wish this blockchain fad would fuckin die off already.

Not that I need a new video card though I guess. My 1060 may be from 2016, but then again the majority of games I play are at least that old as well. These days everybody's all Tarkov this and Squad that and I have SO little interest in them.


#293

PatrThom

PatrThom

It used to be that there would be a game, and people would buy a new card to play the game, and then new games would come out that used the new card for cool stuff (hardware T&L, FSAA, RTX, whatever), and people would buy a new (better) card to play THAT game, and then newer games would get made, and so on. But yeah now it's like there's just a big pit swallowing up any new cards the instant they come out, and so the gamers are all just sitting there, frozen in 2018 because every GPU since then might as well have been vaporware.

--Patrick


#294

GasBandit

GasBandit

It used to be that there would be a game, and people would buy a new card to play the game, and then new games would come out that used the new card for cool stuff (hardware T&L, FSAA, RTX, whatever), and people would buy a new (better) card to play THAT game, and then newer games would get made, and so on. But yeah now it's like there's just a big pit swallowing up any new cards the instant they come out, and so the gamers are all just sitting there, frozen in 2018 because every GPU since then might as well have been vaporware.

--Patrick
And every game since then was just the same console-friendly FPS shovelware.


#295

PatrThom

PatrThom

I think if I had to pick and could only end one, I would still choose to kill off KOTH/BR-type games over killing off blockchains.

--Patrick


#296

Bubble181

Bubble181

I think if I had to pick and could only end one, I would still choose to kill off KOTH/BR-type games over killing off blockchains.

--Patrick
One is strangling a hobby, the other is a very active part in our literal destruction of the earth. I'd kill blockchain, or at the very least its use for currencies, in a heartbeat.


#297

PatrThom

PatrThom

The rational part of my brain completely agrees with you and for almost exactly the reasons you mention, but the emotional part still wants to drag the KOTH fad back and forth through a volcano a few dozen times.

—Patrick


#298

GasBandit

GasBandit

Eh, KOTH will die off of its own accord eventually. Remember when everything was a cinematic WW2 shooter? But blockchain is screwing up more than just gaming, as Bubble says.


#299

GasBandit

GasBandit

My 1060 may be from 2016, but then again the majority of games I play are at least that old as well.


#300

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Newegg messed with the wrong guy when they decided to try and screw over Tech Jesus. Thread.


#301

figmentPez

figmentPez

Newegg has been going downhill for a while. Sad to see that it's gotten this bad.


#302

MindDetective

MindDetective

Newegg messed with the wrong guy when they decided to try and screw over Tech Jesus. Thread.
That was a bit anti-climactic. A story without an ending.


#303

figmentPez

figmentPez

Due to chip shortages, Canon is producing printer ink cartridges without the DRM chip, and having to tell it's customers how to bypass the resulting error message:



#304

PatrThom

PatrThom

I saw that, but could only find it in German.
Irony? Karma? Whatever, it is delicious.

--Patrick


#305

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

The intel fanbois got triggered when I countered Hardware Unboxed's declaring the 12400 a "value" with "not so much when the price of admission to Alder Lake is also a new motherboard." Especially for upgraders. Two q1 '19 mid-range systems. One red, one blue. Want to upgrade TODAY? Red just needs to update the BIOS and drop the new CPU in. Blue has a new socket. Gotta drop an extra hundred or two on top of the new CPU.


#306

PatrThom

PatrThom

Figured out why 5800X‘s have been going on sale. It’s because they’re making room on the shelves for 5800X3D.

—Patrick


#307

PatrThom

PatrThom

Oh hey, looks like PCIe v6.0 has finally been finalized.
Poor PCIe v5.0, we hardly knew ye.

--Patrick


#308

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

The results are in. The 6500XT is pure garbage.


#309

Bubble181

Bubble181

Man, I know it was never entirely exact, but the time back when at least per manufacturer you could sort-of assume bigger numbers were better and newer was better, at least kept things somewhat understandable.

The fact that some of the most expensive GFX cards are two years old, and that some of the best bang-for-buck are ven older than that, and that perhaps even the actual best cards are old while newer stuff is deliberately hobbled beyond repair.... I honestly can't properly tell which variation are or aren't worth it.

I mean, if or when I get around to it I'll make a full new build from scratch because this one's long past upgradeable, but....Ugh.


#310

PatrThom

PatrThom

The 6500XT is pure garbage.
spoileralert.png

source

Who knew that making a card bad for mining would also make it bad at games?

--Patrick


#311

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Multiple sources reporting on falling GPU prices as crypto craters.


#312

PatrThom

PatrThom

Down 10% so far.
"A good start."
Here's a link to one of the relevant stories.

--Patrick


#313

Bubble181

Bubble181

Can you imagine buying a GPU for MSRP? Oh man, what a nineties idea.


#314

PatrThom

PatrThom

So most of the Internet's bandwidth was used up talking about the following two events:
-Sony pulls a Microsoft and buys Bungie for 3+ billion dollars.
-The New York Times purchases lockdown darling Wordle for somewhere between 1 and 4 million dollars.

...but there were two other purchases that I think need to be talked about, too:
-Citrix to be acquired by TIBCO, which is itself owned by private equity firm(s?) Vista Equity Partners (and Evergreen Coast Capital?), taking Citrix private. Ok whatever a tech company ate another tech company it happens all the time. But what concerns me is that it was a deal where they paid a 30% premium in cash over the going stock price. THIS is what concerns me. Why do they want to buy Citrix SO MUCH that they paid the kind of premium you usually associate with the current home-buying climate for that privilege?
-Blackberry sells its patents for $600 million to "Catapult Innovations, Inc." Just the patents. To a company that didn't really even exist until they showed up to buy the patents. And as someone else so aptly put it:
If the name "Catapult IP Innovations" didn't give it away, weaponizing BlackBerry's patents is the most obvious outcome of this deal. According to the press release, Catapult's funding for the $600 million deal is just a $450 million loan, which will immediately be given to BlackBerry in cash. The remaining $150 million is a promissory note with the first payment due in three years. That means Catapult is now a new company with a huge amount of debt, no products, and no cash flow. Assuming the plan isn't to instantly go bankrupt, Catapult needs to start monetizing BlackBerry's patents somehow, which presumably means suing everyone it believes is in violation of its newly acquired assets.
I can't wait until patent trolling is declared illegal, by which I mean if the patent isn't protecting something your company actually does, then you simply shouldn't be allowed to have it.

--Patrick


#315

Bubble181

Bubble181

Good lord, who in their right mind would want to buy Shitrix? I have worked in and with plenty of companies who use it, and have never encountered a single case where it worked well.


#316

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Good lord, who in their right mind would want to buy Shitrix? I have worked in and with plenty of companies who use it, and have never encountered a single case where it worked well.
Whether or not it works well is beside the point....
1643753557889.png


#317

Bubble181

Bubble181

Well, obviously, as stated a lot of big companies use it, I suppose it makes money and has some interesting patents.
I can understand someone buying Activision while also making fun of how horrible their games are.


#318

Bubble181

Bubble181

Couldn't find an English-language news item about it, but the Belgian Authority for Data Protection has ruled that the whole Transparency and Consent Framework is against the GDPR.
For those who are now going "uh-huh, lots of letters don't like other letters" or "sure, and who cares about some Belgian institute saying something about something I've never used":

the BADP got to make this call in name of all European privacy/data protection agencies (since the company behind TCF is based in Belgium), so this is valid for all of the EU. TCF, then, is the basis for the whole "please accept cookies/give consent" thing you see when going to pretty much any website.
In its decision, the BAPD pretty much says that any of those "accept all" or even the separate "accept for advertising/necessary/UI/etc" tick boxes aren't valid, and any use of third party cookies for advertising is likely to be a violation of the customer's rights to data protection as an average user does not fully understand and, therefore, cannot legally consent.
Like the roll-out of GDPR, this is likely to have a big influence on how the internet and online advertising works (after it's been contested and fought for a few more years, most probably)


#319

PatrThom

PatrThom

The last English-language story I saw was this:
when the plaintiff visited the website, the page made the user's browser fetch a font from Google Fonts to use for some text, and this disclosed the netizen's IP address to the US internet giant. This kind of hot-linking is normal with Google Fonts; the issue here is that the visitor apparently didn't give permission for their IP address to be shared.
--Patrick


#320

chris

chris

Tesla will stop selling electric cars by the end of 2022.


#321

chris

chris

I got the news from a german tech site.
Apparently Elon Musk has explained in more detail what he means. Starting next year, Tesla will no longer sell cars at consumer prices as soon full self-driving is solved. The main focus will be a robot rental car market.

He already announced that years ago:

https://electrek.co/2019/07/08/tesla-will-stop-selling-cars-full-self-driving-elon-musk/amp/

And here is an english article from last day:

https://ploonge.com/elon-musk-will-tesla-stop-selling-cars-soon/


#322

Bubble181

Bubble181

Oh, like that. Well, yeah, of course Tesla wants to move to a mobility-as-a-service model. If it's up to companies, literally everything should be treated as a service with permanent recurring costs and one-sided possibility to remove options, change options, etc. Much easier to maintain, much cheaper, far more money to be made. This part of Cyberpunk is coming, and sooner than people may think. Thanks to the gaming/software industry proving that people are willing to put up with paying nearly full price yearly for a license instead of ownership.


#323

PatrThom

PatrThom

of course Tesla wants to move to a mobility-as-a-service model.
Would this just be the public transportation model, except privatized?

--Patrick


#324

Bubble181

Bubble181

Would this just be the public transportation model, except privatized?

--Patrick
Nah, much closer to current car sharing systems. In the long term, I can definitely see them try to combine systems - take a car like a regular car share today, indicate if you're willing to pay a premium to sit alone and go straight to your destination or go cheaper and accept other passengers, etc. Move to higher-occupancy vehicles on busy trajectories, allow people to try and find cheaper time slots to take a route...
I think it'll end up as a half-bus, half-taxi system that's more annoying to use (I can drive to my work at 8am for €5, or at 9am for €8 but more comfortable,... Huh, guess the guy from down the street is on vacation today, the 7am car costs more today!), but I'm sure we'll see them invent ways to nickel and dime us for more money and crappie service, somehow.


#325

PatrThom

PatrThom

Just an advisory that there may be an upcoming v0.1K problem for some major browsers:
Savvy users can maybe edit the version string manually in settings as a stopgap, but ugh who knew their overly enthusiastic version numbering systems were going to bite them later?

--Patrick


#326

figmentPez

figmentPez

who knew their overly enthusiastic version numbering systems were going to bite them later?
*raises hand*

Ooooh, me, me! I knew! I figured this would be a problem. Like, if Windows 10 was a problem, then surely going through dozens of versions a year for web browsers was going to be an issue. Heck, User Agent identification is just a problem, period.


#327

mikerc

mikerc

Just an advisory that there may be an upcoming v0.1K problem for some major browsers:
Savvy users can maybe edit the version string manually in settings as a stopgap, but ugh who knew their overly enthusiastic version numbering systems were going to bite them later?

--Patrick
Hmm, setting Chrome to report the major version as 100 doesn't seem to break anything here. So that's probably good news (for @GasBandit anyway).


#328

GasBandit

GasBandit

Hmm, setting Chrome to report the major version as 100 doesn't seem to break anything here. So that's probably good news (for @GasBandit anyway).
Nothing I could have done about it anyway. If it had been a problem, it'd have been either one for Chrome or Firefox to fix, or Xenforo - and we're not getting Xenforo updates anymore.


#329

GasBandit

GasBandit

Did you know Tumblr is still a thing? I know, I was surprised too. Anyway, remember when they banned all adult content in 2018 to avoid getting kicked off IOS?

It's happening again. But this time it's even more ridiculous. Tags like "sad" and "anime girl" and "submission" (as in, you know, those things artists make) are now all banned on the platform.

Because the Apple Gods demand it.



#330

Frank

Frank

Did you know Tumblr is still a thing?
This can't be true.


#331

PatrThom

PatrThom

Tags like "sad" and "anime girl" and "submission" (as in, you know, those things artists make) are now all banned on the platform.
Because you can't search for "boobies" as a tag any more, so now they're like "For boobies, search for 'orange juice'" and then they ban "Orange juice," so then boobies moves to "rebar" and then they ban "rebar," etc.

--Patrick


#332

PatrThom

PatrThom

we're not getting Xenforo updates anymore.
Huh? What? Why?

--Patrick


#333

GasBandit

GasBandit

Huh? What? Why?

--Patrick
Because it's a subscription service now.


#334

ncts_dodge_man

ncts_dodge_man

Because it's a subscription service now.
Because what seemingly isn't anymore...


#335

PatrThom

PatrThom

So I sure hope nobody here ever checked that box that tells Windows it's perfectly fine to always trust and install software signed by NVIDIA Corp:
It IS possible to tell your computer to "un-trust" source, but it is also convoluted and annoying.

--Patrick


#336

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

So I sure hope nobody here ever checked that box that tells Windows it's perfectly fine to always trust and install software signed by NVIDIA Corp:
It IS possible to tell your computer to "un-trust" source, but it is also convoluted and annoying.

--Patrick
Luckily I have my windows set to be paranoid and lazy unless I say otherwise


#337

GasBandit

GasBandit

I don't even update video drivers!


#338

PatrThom

PatrThom

Luckily I have my windows set to be paranoid and lazy unless I say otherwise
I remember someone who had an install guide for something that, when it got to the point where it gave the "Always trust software from xxx?" the caption they had under it was just HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA NO!

--Patrick


#339

figmentPez

figmentPez

So I sure hope nobody here ever checked that box that tells Windows it's perfectly fine to always trust and install software signed by NVIDIA Corp:
It IS possible to tell your computer to "un-trust" source, but it is also convoluted and annoying.
Does this have anything to do with the hackers trying to force Nvidia to make their drivers open source?


#340

PatrThom

PatrThom

Does this have anything to do with the hackers trying to force Nvidia to make their drivers open source?
It has to do with the hackers that broke into NVIDIA using the signing certificates they stole to digitally sign their malware with NVIDIA's signing certificate so that it can pose as genuine NVIDIA software. It's the software equivalent of the T-1000 stealing the police car so it can sneak around without anyone being suspicious. The first time you install any software signed this way, you get a pop-up asking whether you want to trust all future software signed by the same publisher and automatically install it without the pop-up. I know it's inconvenient, but this is exactly the reason why I never check that "always trust" box.

--Patrick


#341

figmentPez

figmentPez

It has to do with the hackers that broke into NVIDIA using the signing certificates they stole to digitally sign their malware with NVIDIA's signing certificate so that it can pose as genuine NVIDIA software. It's the software equivalent of the T-1000 stealing the police car so it can sneak around without anyone being suspicious. The first time you install any software signed this way, you get a pop-up asking whether you want to trust all future software signed by the same publisher and automatically install it without the pop-up. I know it's inconvenient, but this is exactly the reason why I never check that "always trust" box.
Not sure if I'm not being clear, or you're misunderstanding me, but there are hackers who are threatening to release Nvidia employees passwords and other personal data if Nvidia doesn't open-source their drivers. I'm asking if the the stolen code signing certificates are related to that incident, or if it's merely a coincidence that Nvidia is dealing with two different types of hacks at the same time.


#342

PatrThom

PatrThom

I'm asking if the the stolen code signing certificates are related to that incident, or if it's merely a coincidence that Nvidia is dealing with two different types of hacks at the same time.
Hackers broke into NVIDIA and stole a LOT of stuff. Among the stuff that was stolen were (some of? all of?) NVIDIA's signing certificates. So...yes they were related to that incident because they were obtained during that incident, I guess? There are also many other demands being made of NVIDIA--to open-source their drivers, to remove the Ethereum mining blockers from their cards' drivers, and probably other things, and the threat is that if these demands are not met, the hackers will release all that data they stole to the public. Seeing as how the certificates have been leaked, the drivers have been leaked, and employee passwords and suchlike have also already been leaked, I feel like NVIDIA would be completely justified in ignoring all their demands, since it looks like the hackers have gone ahead and already done all the stuff they were threatening to do, regardless of what NVIDIA does/will do. It's a little bit like the Lindbergh kidnapping in that the hackers are making all these demands, but they've already killed the baby, so to speak.

--Patrick


#343

mikerc

mikerc

AAUTMX6.png


I should probably update some of my older passwords for some sites I've used for years. They may have been reasonably secure at the time, but now they're in the red, if not purple.


#344

MindDetective

MindDetective

I've started using password phrases just to have longer passwords
password_strength.png


#345

PatrThom

PatrThom

Figured this might be of interest to some people around here.



--Patrick


#346

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

I use Twitter more than any other social media platform. And this feels like a bad sign of things to come.



#347

GasBandit

GasBandit

Firefox to become most popular browser in 2023, it seems



#348

Bubble181

Bubble181

Yeah, the moment Chrome doesn't support AdBlock anymore I'm using something else.
I'm still mourning Youtube Vanced but still haven't found any alternative.


#349

PatrThom

PatrThom

Firefox to become most popular browser in 2023, it seems
They'd better hurry. They haven't been doing very well, of late. FF is fairly good in the privacy department IF you know what settings to tweak once it's installed, but the Chromium juggernaut will be hard to topple.
Full disclosure: Firefox is my privacy browser of choice on both macOS and Windows, mainly because once you tune the security settings, it just stays that way.

--Patrick


#350

bhamv3

bhamv3

I've used Firefox for the last two decades or so. Not because of any specific privacy concerns or features, but because one day I wanted an alternative to IE and Firefox was the "other" browser at the time, so I got it and then never stopped using it.

I should probably look into these privacy thingamajiggers in this browser.


#351

Bubble181

Bubble181

I've used Firefox for the last two decades or so. Not because of any specific privacy concerns or features, but because one day I wanted an alternative to IE and Firefox was the "other" browser at the time, so I got it and then never stopped using it.

I should probably look into these privacy thingamajiggers in this browser.
In your case, the FBI and NSA have long ago given up reading along over your shoulder.


#352

drifter

drifter

Yeah, the moment Chrome doesn't support AdBlock anymore I'm using something else.
I'm still mourning Youtube Vanced but still haven't found any alternative.
ReVanced? Or does it suck?


#353

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I wonder what Opera is up to these days? It used to be my preferred browser like 15 years ago...

*checks*

Oh god... why is it all RGB?


#354

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

I wonder what Opera is up to these days? It used to be my preferred browser like 15 years ago...

*checks*

Oh god... why is it all RGB?
I was helping one of the crafty ladies get some nasty extensions off her browser that popped up adds over websites she was visiting.

She was using Opera. It took me a full 5 minutes just to figure out what browser it was. My brain just seized up.


#355

PatrThom

PatrThom

I wonder what Opera is up to these days? It used to be my preferred browser like 15 years ago...
*checks*
Oh god... why is it all RGB?
Opera got bought. Opera also decided to switch their back-end rendering engine over to Chromium. These two things may be related.
I was helping one of the crafty ladies get some nasty extensions off her browser that popped up adds over websites she was visiting.
She was using Opera. It took me a full 5 minutes just to figure out what browser it was. My brain just seized up.
Some forms of malware actually download/install Opera (and/or the base Chromium) on the client's machine just so the software can dress it up and try to pass it off as Chrome (and because that way they install their preferred attack path) and hopefully the client won't notice. Because most clients won't.

--Patrick


#356

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Some forms of malware actually download/install Opera (and/or the base Chromium) on the client's machine just so the software can dress it up and try to pass it off as Chrome (and because that way they install their preferred attack path) and hopefully the client won't notice. Because most clients won't.

--Patrick
That wasn't the case here...she just preferred Opera.


#357

PatrThom

PatrThom

That wasn't the case here...she just preferred Opera.
I used to, too. Until they caved and switched to Chromium. Not so much because I hate Chromium, but because I don't want to have duplicate rendering engines. If I flip from BrowserA to BrowserB because of some website error or security concern with BrowserA, I don't want BroswerB to do the exact same thing because it's essentially the same browser but with different branding.

--Patrick


#358

figmentPez

figmentPez



Adobe is fucking evil.


#359

MindDetective

MindDetective

I think Pantone should get some of the blame as well, here. I don't say that to absolve Adobe, by any means.


#360

PatrThom

PatrThom



I think ScytheRexx may have put it best:
How do we expect anything to get better when investors' profit requirements are more important than human lives?
--Patrick


#361

GasBandit

GasBandit

Look, I know it's a pain in the ass because I'm doing it myself right now... but... it's time to ditch lastpass and change all your passwords.


TLDR - the latest (second this year) breach in August was way worse than initially reported, encrypted contents of entire vaults are now in enemy hands, and they can now brute force your master password at their leisure, and they have unencrypted URLs and Usernames for all your vaulted logins, so they can start trying to crack those as well (assuming they don't just get the password from your vault when they crack your master password)

I've moved to BitWarden and am in the process of changing alllll my passwords. At least those that point to anything I care about, like ones that directly involve finances or go to websites with stored payment methods.


#362

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Look, I know it's a pain in the ass because I'm doing it myself right now... but... it's time to ditch lastpass and change all your passwords.


TLDR - the latest (second this year) breach in August was way worse than initially reported, encrypted contents of entire vaults are now in enemy hands, and they can now brute force your master password at their leisure, and they have unencrypted URLs and Usernames for all your vaulted logins, so they can start trying to crack those as well (assuming they don't just get the password from your vault when they crack your master password)

I've moved to BitWarden and am in the process of changing alllll my passwords. At least those that point to anything I care about, like ones that directly involve finances or go to websites with stored payment methods.
About a month ago, my company was recommending password managers, and LastPass was on the approved list. I spoke up in a zoom meeting of like 130 people and pointed out this very breach as a reason why I'll never use a password manager where your passwords are stored in the cloud in a central repository with a million other people's passwords. That's a mighty tempting target, yo.


#363

bhamv3

bhamv3

I've never used a password manager, mostly due to laziness, but also because I thought there had to be something I was missing about them. Surely storing all your passwords in one centralized cloud service or database would create a single point of vulnerability? What was I missing? Why do so many people use them?

So anyway, for decades now my strategy has been "remember only the password to my email account, and for everything else, if I don't remember the password then just go through their 'forgot my password' procedures". I've reset so many passwords over the years.


#364

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

I've never used a password manager, mostly due to laziness, but also because I thought there had to be something I was missing about them. Surely storing all your passwords in one centralized cloud service or database would create a single point of vulnerability? What was I missing? Why do so many people use them?

So anyway, for decades now my strategy has been "remember only the password to my email account, and for everything else, if I don't remember the password then just go through their 'forgot my password' procedures". I've reset so many passwords over the years.
I'm using an older version of 1password that does not store my passwords in the cloud. It stores the file 'locally'. In this case, 'locally' can also mean a cloud drive of some type: Google drive, Microsoft Drive, Dropbox, Mega, etc. Sure, my file is still in the cloud, but it's more of an obscure target than all of the millions of passwords sitting over there at LastPass (or the newer version of 1password). I imagine someone would have to target me specifically before I was vulnerable. And that file is still encrypted. But being on one of my own bought and paid for cloud services means I can access it with my phone, laptop, or other devices at need. And if you don't need that functionality? Keep the file local and don't worry about a cloud breach anywhere.

Keypass is another, open source, password manager that stores your encrypted file locally, and not in their own cloud.

I like password managers, because, like most people, my passwords were not too difficult, and shared across sites. I ended up being exposed in a breach ( https://haveibeenpwned.com/ ) which then saw many of my other sites I used start falling. In less than a day, I had a password manager, and all of the sites where I had accounts had unique 16-digit passwords (where allowed..I still don't get sites that only let you use 8 or 12) with case scrambling, numbers, and symbols. Too much for me to remember, naturally, and a pain to type in, but that's where the password manager shines.


#365

GasBandit

GasBandit

I'm using an older version of 1password that does not store my passwords in the cloud. It stores the file 'locally'. In this case, 'locally' can also mean a cloud drive of some type: Google drive, Microsoft Drive, Dropbox, Mega, etc. Sure, my file is still in the cloud, but it's more of an obscure target than all of the millions of passwords sitting over there at LastPass (or the newer version of 1password). I imagine someone would have to target me specifically before I was vulnerable. And that file is still encrypted. But being on one of my own bought and paid for cloud services means I can access it with my phone, laptop, or other devices at need. And if you don't need that functionality? Keep the file local and don't worry about a cloud breach anywhere.

Keypass is another, open source, password manager that stores your encrypted file locally, and not in their own cloud.

I like password managers, because, like most people, my passwords were not too difficult, and shared across sites. I ended up being exposed in a breach ( https://haveibeenpwned.com/ ) which then saw many of my other sites I used start falling. In less than I day, I had a password manager, and all of the sites where I had accounts had unique 16-digit passwords (were allowed..I still don't get sites that only let you use 8 or 12) with case scrambling, numbers, and symbols. Too much for me to remember, naturally, and a pain to type in, but that's where the password manager shines.
Same story as me, mostly. I got pwned in a breach and decided I needed to have unique passwords on every site. But that's 200 sites. So I used lastpass to keep track of them.

To lastpass's credit, the stolen data IS encrypted. But the problem is, with a local copy of that data, they can then try to brute force crack it without running afoul of things like IP blocking safeguards. Bitwarden's a bit better because it's open source and professionally audited, has a bug bounty program, etc etc etc. And unlike Lastpass, "employee accounts" don't have access to your encrypted vault data (which is why Lastpass is now in the shit).


#366

Bubble181

Bubble181

Eh. For some specific sites I have a completely unique password; for some where I think, I'll use this once and never again I just let Google choose a hard PW for me and when I do need it again I just do the Bhamv. For most sites I use the same base pasword and add a bit specific to the site name.
Yes, a human being can probably guess 90% of my passwords if I tell them my Halforums password is "567dfg!HalF" and my facebook pasword is "567dfg!FacE"....but if a human is specifically targetting me, I assume they'll get in one way or another. It's enoguh to keep me from giving access to everything if they breach the DB for one site and just auto-fill that PW across a gazillion sites.


#367

Eriol

Eriol

KeepassXC for me. For around 10 years actually. Originally just Keepass normal, but it's "not really" open source.

As others have said, you control where the encrypted archive lives. Or doesn't. But just "remembering" is not a real solution. And having everything subject to your email provider makes you SUPER screwed if that goes wrong.

And, correct horse battery staple.



#369

evilmike

evilmike



#370

GasBandit

GasBandit


Dina Srinivasan, a Yale University fellow and adtech expert, said the lawsuit is “huge” because it aligns the entire nation — state and federal governments — in a bipartisan legal offensive against Google.

This is the latest legal action taken against Google by either the Justice Department or local state governments. In October 2020, for instance, the Trump administration and eleven state attorneys general sued Google for violating antitrust laws, alleging anticompetitive practices in the search and search advertising markets.

The lawsuit in essence aligns the Biden administration and new states with the 35 states and District of Colombia that sued Google in December 2020 over the exact same issues.

The states taking part in the suit include California, Virginia, Connecticut, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Tennessee.


#371

MindDetective

MindDetective

Cory Doctorow brings the heat to social media about the enshittification stage of their platforms' life cycles. He puts into words well what we all know and have seen on social media.



#372

Bubble181

Bubble181

I don't know enough about Cory Doctorow to say if he's worth listening to, but this, at least, is right on the money. Of course, it's also fairly obvious, no? I can name a dozen more platforms where the same process either has happened, is happening, or will probably start soon.


#373

PatrThom

PatrThom

I don't know enough about Cory Doctorow to say if he's worth listening to
He is.

--Patrick


#374

evilmike

evilmike

I really enjoyed Down and Out in The Magic Kingdom. The story really captured how messy and difficult working in a group of fan / volunteers can be.

The book can be downloaded for from from his website.


#375

evilmike

evilmike

A Larson scanner spotted in the wild:



#376

figmentPez

figmentPez

Sometimes I forget that industrial 3D printing tech has continued to advance ahead of consumer models.



#377

PatrThom

PatrThom

Would have also accepted this in the Warhammer miniatures thread.

--Patrick



#379

figmentPez

figmentPez

This is an interesting trick for obscuring file extensions that I was not aware of:



EDIT: The TL;DW is that you can use a Unicode character that reverses text direction (U+202E override, right-to-left) to cause the file extension to show up in the middle of the file name. e.g. it could look like SuspiciousFilexe.jpg by naming it SuspicousFil<U+202E>gpj.exe


#380

PatrThom

PatrThom


AM radio celebrated its 100th anniversary only a couple of years ago. And now it looks like they're starting to plan its retirement party.

--Patrick


#381

blotsfan

blotsfan

That seems like insanity to me.


#382

Bubble181

Bubble181

I dunno. I barely listen to FM radio anymore, I wouldn't miss it (AM doesn't exist here anymore, really. But that's just Europe vs America).


#383

GasBandit

GasBandit

Speaking as someone only recently removed from the radio industry, there's nothing on AM radio anymore other than snake oil advertisements and right wing hatespeech.


#384

GasBandit

GasBandit

Now that I'm driving an EV, I get all the EV-centric news and stuff. So here's an interesting one that came across my feed-



#385

PatrThom

PatrThom

here's an interesting one that came across my feed
I'm sorry, but all these stories ever do for me is make me unreasonably angry at the human race, because as I've said before, we are at a point where, in 10 years' time, everyone everywhere could have access to transportation that was FREE (aside from the vehicle maintenance expenses, of course) to operate. Local, intrastate, interstate, all of it, FREE. The only reason we don't is because the people with enough money/influence to do so just don't want to. We could literally have free electricity worldwide (from a kW/h standpoint, that is. I fully realize the generation and transmission infrastructure will need to be maintained), we just...don't.

Yay for more convenient access to charging stations, but I fully expect there will be a squabble over the rates, which company gets the contract to build/own the chargers, compatibility between EV charging standards, etc., and none of that should matter.

--Patrick


#386

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I'm sorry, but all these stories ever do for me is make me unreasonably angry at the human race, because as I've said before, we are at a point where, in 10 years' time, everyone everywhere could have access to transportation that was FREE (aside from the vehicle maintenance expenses, of course) to operate. Local, intrastate, interstate, all of it, FREE. The only reason we don't is because the people with enough money/influence to do so just don't want to. We could literally have free electricity worldwide (from a kW/h standpoint, that is. I fully realize the generation and transmission infrastructure will need to be maintained), we just...don't.

Yay for more convenient access to charging stations, but I fully expect there will be a squabble over the rates, which company gets the contract to build/own the chargers, compatibility between EV charging standards, etc., and none of that should matter.

--Patrick
As a pinko commie anarchist, trust me when I say I understand your frustration.


#387

GasBandit

GasBandit

We hate China so much we're trying to be exactly like them.



#388

PatrThom

PatrThom

Here's your chance to get a modernized model F, if you're willing:



--Patrick


#389

figmentPez

figmentPez

The latest patch to Windows Defender fixes performance issues with Firefox.

For at least the last 5 years Windows Defender has been causing higher CPU usage with Firefox than other web browsers because of a bug that was causing it to make calls more often than it should. The fix is now going out in a patch.


#390

GasBandit

GasBandit

I've found a way to get around Reuters and AP discontinuing their RSS feeds. Thanks to google news, you can get them back. Add the following "feeds" to your RSS reader:

Code:
Associated Press
https://news.google.com/rss/search?q=when:24h+allinurl:apnews.com&ceid=US:en&hl=en-US&gl=US

Reuters
https://news.google.com/rss/search?q=when:24h+allinurl:reuters.com&ceid=US:en&hl=en-US&gl=US
Google creates the XML on the fly, and they ingest nicely into The Old Reader (and probably do for Feedly and other RSS concatenators)

Ostensibly this could be used for any news source, just replace the allinurl: argument with the domain.com of the news site in question.


#391

figmentPez

figmentPez

Mercedes-Benz is going to offer extra horsepower on a subscription model in their electric vehicles

60 extra horsepower for $60 a month, and 80 extra horsepower for $90.

I hate this world.


#392

GasBandit

GasBandit

Mark my words, applications to "root" and "unlock" your car are coming. Custom OS images too, I'd bet.


#393

figmentPez

figmentPez

I'm wondering how far this subscription model for electronics is going to go. Will we see washing machines that lock out the delicate cycle if you don't pay a monthly fee? Dryers that require a subscription in order for the sensor drying to go all the way to extra dry? (It's an environmentally conscious choice, we swear. 0.1% of net profits go to buying carbon offsets because our end users are so wasteful to be fully drying their clothes.) Refrigerators that charge a monthly fee to enable the ice maker? Ovens with a special, high heat, pizza mode that costs $2 per hour to use? Smoke detectors that charge you $100 every time you want to shut them off after you burn dinner?


#394

Bubble181

Bubble181

That last one would be "automatically report it going off to your insurance this raising your monthly fee", probably


#395

PatrThom

PatrThom

That last one would be "automatically report it going off to your insurance this raising your monthly fee", probably
You’re probably not that far off. How long until all the automobile dealers are run by the insurance agencies?

—Patrick


#396

MindDetective

MindDetective

I'm wondering how far this subscription model for electronics is going to go. Will we see washing machines that lock out the delicate cycle if you don't pay a monthly fee? Dryers that require a subscription in order for the sensor drying to go all the way to extra dry? (It's an environmentally conscious choice, we swear. 0.1% of net profits go to buying carbon offsets because our end users are so wasteful to be fully drying their clothes.) Refrigerators that charge a monthly fee to enable the ice maker? Ovens with a special, high heat, pizza mode that costs $2 per hour to use? Smoke detectors that charge you $100 every time you want to shut them off after you burn dinner?
Capitalism can only survive via gatekeeping.


#397

GasBandit

GasBandit

Rivian's circling the drain with a 1.3 billion net revenue loss for the quarter



#398

PatrThom

PatrThom

That's unfortunate. I like choice.

--Patrick


#399

GasBandit

GasBandit

The Bolt EUV (the kind of EV I own) just set a record - 560 miles on a single charge (it is rated for 248 miles, and that is about what I get in the real world)


The catch is you have to stay at 21mph and not use the heater, heated seats, or A/C. But it's possible!


#400

figmentPez

figmentPez

Has anyone posted about how AMD chips are just exploding, especially on Asus motherboards?






I'm still watching videos, and I haven't been able to concentrate well enough to understand all the details, but basically shit is bad, and Asus is handling it horribly. The worst move being releasing a beta BIOS for the affected motherboard that voids your warranty if you use it, even though it's meant to fix an issue that could cause your PC to catch on fire!

It's a shame, I've had quite a few Asus products that I've liked over the years, but I won't be trusting them in the future.


#401

GasBandit

GasBandit

Oh man that sucks. I've been an ASUS adherent for years and years


#402

PatrThom

PatrThom

ASUS has a track record of "juicing" (slight overvolt, slight overclock, whatever) so their boards perform better than others, and they also have a history of proprietary/encrypted BIOS so you can't tune them (or see what their baked-in tunings settings are). I think this is mostly a case of their performance enhancement strategy backfiring on them and rather than just admit that they've been doing this sort of thing for decades now, they're trying to frame this as a one-off. Any punishment they get should probably be based on how they're handling this situation (poorly) rather than the products themselves. Their products have historically been high-quality, it's just their customer service that sucks.

--Patrick


#403

figmentPez

figmentPez

Has anyone posted about how AMD chips are just exploding, especially on Asus motherboards?






I'm still watching videos, and I haven't been able to concentrate well enough to understand all the details, but basically shit is bad, and Asus is handling it horribly. The worst move being releasing a beta BIOS for the affected motherboard that voids your warranty if you use it, even though it's meant to fix an issue that could cause your PC to catch on fire!

It's a shame, I've had quite a few Asus products that I've liked over the years, but I won't be trusting them in the future.
Update:


TL;DW Asus has been shamed into honoring warranties better (at least on the model in question) and is reaching out to anyone who might have a motherboard that needs a firmware update. So they're reluctantly doing the right thing now.

There's also a segment talking with a lawyer about how vague and self-contradictory Asus's terms of service / EULA is, but I was distracted during that, so I'm not sure what all was covered.

If anyone wants to give a better summary, please do.


#404

Frank

Frank

Has anyone posted about how AMD chips are just exploding, especially on Asus motherboards?






I'm still watching videos, and I haven't been able to concentrate well enough to understand all the details, but basically shit is bad, and Asus is handling it horribly. The worst move being releasing a beta BIOS for the affected motherboard that voids your warranty if you use it, even though it's meant to fix an issue that could cause your PC to catch on fire!

It's a shame, I've had quite a few Asus products that I've liked over the years, but I won't be trusting them in the future.
MSI! MSI! MSI!


#405

PatrThom

PatrThom

I did not even realize this was a thing.
Some sites use similar tactics in an attempt to fingerprint visitors so they can be re-identified each time they return, even if they delete browser cookies. By running scripts that access local resources on the visiting devices, the sites can detect unique patterns in a visiting browser.
I’ve heard of building plug-in and font lists, but port-scanning? Really?

—Patrick


#406

PatrThom

PatrThom

I find it hilarious that there are people whose business model is to build websites which are essentially inverse spam designed to attract advertisers who then pay to place ads on these bogus websites, and that the advent of AI text generation has added yet another layer of BS on top of that idea.

--Patrick


#407

mikerc

mikerc

... Yes I'm still bitter about google reader.
Not to poke at old wounds 10 years on but Google was always going to kill reader.


#408

GasBandit

GasBandit

Not to poke at old wounds 10 years on but Google was always going to kill reader.
Killed it for Google Plus. Talk about twisting the knife.

Well, at least The Old Reader is serving well enough for now, for my purposes. The big blows have come as news services started getting rid of their RSS feeds and we had to find creative ways around that.


#409

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

This thread is talking about some big deal new tech and I...honestly don't understand what he's talking about.

I'm gonna need a dumbed down explanation. Like, on par with Portal's explanation of momentum with "Speedy thing goes in, speedy things goes out."



#410

GasBandit

GasBandit

This thread is talking about some big deal new tech and I...honestly don't understand what he's talking about.

I'm gonna need a dumbed down explanation. Like, on par with Portal's explanation of momentum with "Speedy thing goes in, speedy things goes out."

I can't read the thread because I don't have a twitter/x account, but if what he's saying is implying that we have achieved a superconductive material that operates at room temperature and 1 atmosphere of pressure, that is HUGE.

A conductor is any material that can pass electricity. The copper part of a wire is the conductor. The gold runs on a motherboard are conductors. All conductors have inherent impedence - that is, electricity flowing through them is not 100% efficient. Usually some is lost in the form of heat (hence why a lot of electronics get so hot - that's wasted energy from conductors).

A "superconductor" is a material that conducts electricity without this inherent impedance. We've had materials do this previously, but we had to chill them to STUPIDLY low temperatures to achieve it - like negative 135 C or (usually much) lower. This makes it impractical for every day/consumer use.

A superconductor that can operate as such at room temperature would revolutionize everything from power transmission (where currently you can just assume you're going to lose 8-15% of the electricity between the generator and your outlet) to computers and consumer electronics, allowing for them to be smaller, more power efficient, and brings quantum computing that much closer.

A room-temperature superconductor has been one of the big holy grails of science, like the cure for cancer, cold fusion, or discovering intelligent extraterrestrial life.


#411

MindDetective

MindDetective

This thread is talking about some big deal new tech and I...honestly don't understand what he's talking about.

I'm gonna need a dumbed down explanation. Like, on par with Portal's explanation of momentum with "Speedy thing goes in, speedy things goes out."

Electricity going through a wire loses some electricity to heat. If you bend the wire a lot, you make the heating element in a toaster, for example. A superconductor is a wire that conducts all or almost all of the electricity and loses almost none of it to heat. Previously, this could only happen at very, very, very low temperatures. If the report is true, then it can become a commonplace part of electronics, making everything MUCH more efficient and improving a lot of other up and coming technologies.

In short, superconductors do not translate electricity I to heat, wasting a lot of the electricity in the process. Fixing this would be a big deal.


#412

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

I'd like to stress that this is not the first time someone's claimed to have an ambient-temperature superconductor. Skepticism and patience with the peer review process are warranted.


#413

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy



#414

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

yup...and now that it's out there, hopefully people knowledgeable in the field will take a look at it and it doesn't end up like https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02401-2


#415

PatrThom

PatrThom

To give you some idea how long people have been mainstream musing about this sort of thing, a room-temperature superconductor is a central plot point of the 1971 juvenile science fiction novel Danny Dunn And The Swamp Monster. The book does a pretty good job of describing the significance to their intended 8-18yr old audience, and it was my first introduction to the concept back in grade school or whenever it was that I read it.

—Patrick


#416

bhamv3

bhamv3

I recall that Unobtanium in the Avatar universe is valuable precisely because it's a room-temperature superconductor. Basically, room-temperature superconductors are considered so valuable that in sci-fi, humanity is willing to travel to another planet just to get it.


#417

figmentPez

figmentPez

A "superconductor" is a material that conducts electricity without this inherent impedance. We've had materials do this previously, but we had to chill them to STUPIDLY low temperatures to achieve it - like negative 135 C or (usually much) lower. This makes it impractical for every day/consumer use.
Low temperature or extremely high pressure. Not that long ago I heard about progress developing a room temperature superconductor that required extreme pressure, millions of PSI I think. I can't remember exactly how much, but basically a giant hydraulic press was necessary to get the material to have superconducting properties. The scientists were trying to figure out how to build a composite material that would have the superconductor encased in a shell, so that a tiny amount would be kept under pressure inside.


#418

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Low temperature or extremely high pressure. Not that long ago I heard about progress developing a room temperature superconductor that required extreme pressure, millions of PSI I think. I can't remember exactly how much, but basically a giant hydraulic press was necessary to get the material to have superconducting properties. The scientists were trying to figure out how to build a composite material that would have the superconductor encased in a shell, so that a tiny amount would be kept under pressure inside.
That high-pressure ambient-temperature one sounds like the paper I linked above that got retracted due to accusations of data fabrication


#419

MindDetective

MindDetective

That high-pressure ambient-temperature one sounds like the paper I linked above that got retracted due to accusations of data fabrication
It is at least theoretically possible, I believe. IANAP, so I don't know of any demonstrations of superconductivity under high pressure.


#420

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

For those not continuing to follow this LK-99 saga, The Verge has some updates on where things currently stand



#421

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

For those not continuing to follow this LK-99 saga, The Verge has some updates on where things currently stand

So, sadly, it's another example of something being too good to be true. I should've seen that coming.


#422

GasBandit

GasBandit



#423

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Looks like the nail is in the coffin


#424

MindDetective

MindDetective

Looks like the nail is in the coffin
Failure to replicate is not a "nail in the coffin". That's...not really how science works. Some people have definitely observed some odd characteristics of LK-99 that we don't have a good explanation for yet. That said, I suspect that LK-99 is not a superconductor but it may pave the way for something that people haven't thought of before with new theoretical models that stem from playing around with LK-99.


#425

PatrThom

PatrThom

I suspect that LK-99 is not a superconductor but it may pave the way for something that people haven't thought of before with new theoretical models that stem from playing around with LK-99.
See also: gasoline, microwave ovens, aspartame, hardened rubber, Botox, etc.

--Patrick


#426

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Failure to replicate is not a "nail in the coffin". That's...not really how science works. Some people have definitely observed some odd characteristics of LK-99 that we don't have a good explanation for yet. That said, I suspect that LK-99 is not a superconductor but it may pave the way for something that people haven't thought of before with new theoretical models that stem from playing around with LK-99.
Well, for those labs that have re-created LK-99, none of them have observed superconductivity. There was a claim, it was tested and found wanting. I think that's pretty much exactly how science works.

1691612885352.png


(Though *technically* we're at the report results phase after rejection.)

None of that is to say LK-99 is useless. Of course, as you mention, there could be other uses found for it. But that's far afield of our current discussion about LK-99 being a possible ambient temperature superconductor.


#427

MindDetective

MindDetective

Well, for those labs that have re-created LK-99, none of them have observed superconductivity. There was a claim, it was tested and found wanting. I think that's pretty much exactly how science works.

View attachment 45775

(Though *technically* we're at the report results phase after rejection.)

None of that is to say LK-99 is useless. Of course, as you mention, there could be other uses found for it. But that's far afield of our current discussion about LK-99 being a possible ambient temperature superconductor.
The certainty of "nail in the coffin" is what I am refuting. Not everyone may be mixing or preparing the LK-99 in the same way, for example. A failed replication means that SOMEONE is wrong but it doesn't say who. So no, failure to replicate is NOT a nail in the coffin because science doesn't produce nails in coffins.


#428

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

The certainty of "nail in the coffin" is what I am refuting. Not everyone may be mixing or preparing the LK-99 in the same way, for example. A failed replication means that SOMEONE is wrong but it doesn't say who. So no, failure to replicate is NOT a nail in the coffin because science doesn't produce nails in coffins.
I get that you don't like the absolute. Sure, the theory of gravity *may* be wrong, because there's no absolutes. We just haven't found the exception yet. But from where I sit, for all practical purposes, LK-99's superconducting future is over. Maybe a decade from now I'll look back on this post and feel silly as all of humankind's technology is transformed by it when someone finally "mixes it up right". But somehow, I don't think so.


#429

MindDetective

MindDetective

I get that you don't like the absolute. Sure, the theory of gravity *may* be wrong, because there's no absolutes. We just haven't found the exception yet. But from where I sit, for all practical purposes, LK-99's superconducting future is over. Maybe a decade from now I'll look back on this post and feel silly as all of humankind's technology is transformed by it when someone finally "mixes it up right". But somehow, I don't think so.
There is no way two weeks of research provides that degree of certainty, not at the level of gravity and not far below that level of certainty either.


#430

Dave

Dave

SCIENCE FIGHT!!


#431

GasBandit

GasBandit

Boy, Zoom sure seems to be circling the drain



#432

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

They're also forcing their workers back into offices. Which is just...you're Zoom! You basically helped everyone work from home during the lockdowns. Working from home should be a goddamn default for such a company.


#433

GasBandit

GasBandit

They're also forcing their workers back into offices. Which is just...you're Zoom! You basically helped everyone work from home during the lockdowns. Working from home should be a goddamn default for such a company.
Quite so. Methinks the HIPPA problems and the mass professional move to Teams seems to be having them in panic mode.


#434

MindDetective

MindDetective

I get that you don't like the absolute. Sure, the theory of gravity *may* be wrong, because there's no absolutes. We just haven't found the exception yet. But from where I sit, for all practical purposes, LK-99's superconducting future is over. Maybe a decade from now I'll look back on this post and feel silly as all of humankind's technology is transformed by it when someone finally "mixes it up right". But somehow, I don't think so.
Tom's Hardware sums up my reservations about early conclusions better than it am able.



#435

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Tom's Hardware sums up my reservations about early conclusions better than it am able.

That article reads a lot more pessimistic to me than it seems to for you.

1691704046145.png


1691703990881.png


#436

MindDetective

MindDetective

That article reads a lot more pessimistic to me than it seems to for you.

View attachment 45781

View attachment 45780
I suspect that LK-99 is not a superconductor but it may pave the way for something that people haven't thought of before with new theoretical models that stem from playing around with LK-99.


#437

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Oh..I figured you were still talking about the superconducting stuff.
I completely have no dog in the "this may be an interesting material" fight, and stated as much above. It might be. But my primary interest is in the superconducting angle.


#438

figmentPez

figmentPez

Can anyone give me a TL;DR on why Linus Media Group is getting roasted on Twitter right now?


#439

mikerc

mikerc

Can anyone give me a TL;DR on why Linus Media Group is getting roasted on Twitter right now?
Gamers Nexus put out a 44 min video criticising LMG for having a lot of inaccuracies in their reviews lately & suggesting it's because they're more concerned with putting out lots of videos than putting out accurate videos. They also said that products made by companies that have a business relationship with Linus have any flaws with their products glossed over in reviews.

Linus also made a rather tone deaf post on his forums basically saying, yes they've been sloppy but no-one wants to see them re-review products more accurately, & saying that GN should have made their criticisms privately to him rather than gone public.


#440

Dave

Dave

They also sold something on auction that didn’t belong to them and didn’t reimburse the people who made/owned it until called out by another tech company. I have no idea who all is involved or what was sold but that’s happening right now.


#441

PatrThom

PatrThom

It was a prototype cooler, that much I know.
I won't get a chance to watch the whole video shebang until tonight at the earliest, but that all jibes with what I've been hearing.
I think, if anything, GN is roasting LTT because LTT is "too casual" in creating their content, instead of being rigorous and methodical and scientific and purist "Truth-seeking" like GN tries to be.

--Patrick


#442

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

They also sold something on auction that didn’t belong to them and didn’t reimburse the people who made/owned it until called out by another tech company. I have no idea who all is involved or what was sold but that’s happening right now.
It was a company called Billet, they sent LMD a prototype waterblock that was designed for a specific graphics card. They tested it using the wrong card and put out a video saying it sucks. The writer of said video even told Linus they had used the wrong card and asked for half a day of filming to fix it, but Linus said no, it was more important to get the video out than to get the facts right.

They then auctioned it off when it was supposed to be sent back to the company. Linus did reimburse the company after a fuss was made about it, but having the prototype to send out to other media sources that would test it hopefully correctly and publish their own results was much more important.


#443

drifter

drifter

Never trust a dude who wears hoop earrings in both ears.


#444

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Aaaaaand now we're hitting Channel Awesome levels of awful. I've never even heard of this channel or company until this all started.


Full thread here:



#445

figmentPez

figmentPez

I'm not at all surprised to find out that LMG is a stressful place to work with loads of misogyny. They're handling this in an exceptionally bad manner, though.



#446

PatrThom

PatrThom


This is becoming a Thing.

--Patrick


#447

LordRendar

LordRendar

Jeez. Linus always was a tone deaf jerk. His followers arent any better. They harassed a Kid who got his hands on the YouTube plaque from NICX and he commited suicide because of it. Shortly after the mother followed suit.
During the harassment, Linus posted on his forum that he was disappointed in the harassment and that it should stop, but didnt take down the video linking to the kids YouTube channel nor did he post his message to YouTube. Hate that guy.


#448

PatrThom

PatrThom

If you, like me, hate hate the .WEBP format, well, now you have one more reason.
Basically, any application – such as Chrome, Edge, or Firefox – that utilizes this library to display WebP images can be potentially hijacked by a carefully crafted picture.
It‘s a pretty long list of apps and OSes, btw. So be on the lookout for just about everything to come out with an update soon, assuming it hasn’t already.

—Patrick


#449

GasBandit

GasBandit



#450

Bubble181

Bubble181

... $470? I mean, even by "Lol I'm a normal person so I knew this would fail as anything but a tax scheme" measures that sounds way too low


#451

GasBandit

GasBandit

This could really be interesting if it pans out... A $3,200 kit that turns any normal gas vehicle into a plug-in hybrid electric.



#452

GasBandit

GasBandit



#453

PatrThom

PatrThom

The sooner Tesla can autotomize Musk, the better.

—Patrick


#454

figmentPez

figmentPez

The sooner Tesla can autotomize Musk, the better.
I'm not familiar with that word, does it mean run him over with a car?


#455

Frank

Frank



#456

PatrThom

PatrThom

I'm not familiar with that word, does it mean run him over with a car?
I mean, if that's their chosen method of execution, then yes?

--Patrick


#457

PatrThom

PatrThom

tl:dr; People 13yrs and older who do NOT have some kind of hook-up-your-phone system (CarPlay, Android Auto) in their car spend about 2/3 of their time listening to good ol’ AM/FM radio. But people who do? Incredibly, these people still spend almost HALF their time listening to AM/FM radio.

—Patrick


#458

GasBandit

GasBandit

tl:dr; People 13yrs and older who do NOT have some kind of hook-up-your-phone system (CarPlay, Android Auto) in their car spend about 2/3 of their time listening to good ol’ AM/FM radio. But people who do? Incredibly, these people still spend almost half their time listening to AM/FM radio.

—Patrick
I must be a statistical outlier, but I haven't voluntarily listened to the radio for recreation in 20 years.


#459

PatrThom

PatrThom

It’s only been about 10 for me. But yeah.

—Patrick


#460

Dei

Dei

I can't stand radio anymore, but mostly because the ad content has reached ridiculous levels


#461

PatrThom

PatrThom

That’s not confined to radio, though.

—Patrick


#462

Dave

Dave

I listen almost exclusively to SiriusXM. The exception is when some morning radio buddies are on and I’m in a position to listen.


#463

GasBandit

GasBandit

[Brazleton] Mint, the free online budget tracking software



#464

PatrThom

PatrThom

At first I thought you meant the distro.
I thought the whole reason Intuit bought Mint in the first place was as a gateway to Quicken, guess I was wrong.

--Patrick


#465

GasBandit

GasBandit

Yeah. Migrating will be a pain in the ass, but I'm looking at Nerdwallet to replace it.


#466

PatrThom

PatrThom

Hey @GasBandit might want to jump on this one:
--Patrick


#467

Sara_2814

Sara_2814

The Rise of Technoauthoritarianism

I will now be referring to social media as "algorithmic feedbags".


#468

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

The Rise of Technoauthoritarianism

I will now be referring to social media as "algorithmic feedbags".
Looks like an interesting read, is there a non-paywalled version?


#469

Sara_2814

Sara_2814

Looks like an interesting read, is there a non-paywalled version?
Well, crap, I was hoping they had the "one free article" thing. It's from the newest print issue (March 2024).


#470

Bubble181

Bubble181

Looks like an interesting read, is there a non-paywalled version?
The Atlantic has not yet adapted to 12ft ladders to get over 10ft pay walls, if you know what I mean.


#471

drifter

drifter

To be less circumspect about it, http://12ft.io for all your paywall-bypassing needs.


#472

Bubble181

Bubble181

To be less circumspect about it, http://12ft.io for all your paywall-bypassing needs.
More and more websites have had it disabled or rendered useless, sadly.
And I said it like that because it wouldn't let me post the link :(


#473

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

To be less circumspect about it, http://12ft.io for all your paywall-bypassing needs.
Yeah, I just tested it out on this article that I've been wanting to read, but it didn't work. The result says "you must enable Javascript to view this content."


#474

PatrThom

PatrThom

Canada-based University of Waterloo is racing to remove M&M-branded smart vending machines from campus after outraged students discovered the machines were covertly collecting facial-recognition data without their consent.
I've heard of vending machines that adjust prices based on time of day and temperature/humidity, but this is new (though not unexpected).

--Patrick


#475

Bubble181

Bubble181

If you believe what they claim (that is of course a big if), I don't see how this would be a GDPR problem.
Collecting identifiable information without consent is bad.
Lighting up when a face is detected and registering "apparent male, 30-35" but otherwise not keeping or using facial data is fine (legally).


#476

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

If you believe what they claim (that is of course a big if), I don't see how this would be a GDPR problem.
Collecting identifiable information without consent is bad.
Lighting up when a face is detected and registering "apparent male, 30-35" but otherwise not keeping or using facial data is fine (legally).
Here's what we've learned from cell phones: gdpr doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if the data they collect "is non-identifiable" because the truth is: it actually is. If it wasn't they wouldn't do it. Even if they don't store a picture of your face and all they know is male roughly this age etc, they still have so much cross data that they know it's you. Of course, the fact that they have so much cross data means there's very little chance to fight it, we've lost that particular battle unless something very drastic happens


#477

PatrThom

PatrThom

It doesn't matter if the data they collect "is non-identifiable" because the truth is: it actually is.
It always is. AOL already taught us that.
Add cellphone logs in with the proliferation of license plate readers and even plane/drone surveillance and there really are no secrets left to keep without significant effort to conceal them.
according to this study, just knowing the zip code [...] of where you work, and where you live, will uniquely identify 5% of the population, and for half of Americans will place them in a group of 21 people or fewer. If you know the “census blocks” where somebody works and lives (an area roughly the size of a block in a city, but much larger in rural areas), the accuracy is much higher, with at least half the population being uniquely identified.
--Patrick


#478

GasBandit

GasBandit

I can personally vouch that Youtube is intentionally slowing down content on firefox. I was having buffering problems this morning. I ran a speedtest from fast and speedof.me to make sure that yep, my fiber connection is still awesome. So I opened chrome to the same video, and BOOM, instant, full buffer with no lag.

So I installed the firefox user agent switcher addon to make firefox lie to websites that it is Chrome, and magically the problem went away.


#479

PatrThom

PatrThom

I installed the firefox user agent switcher addon to make firefox lie to websites that it is Chrome, and magically the problem went away.
For funsies, I will sometimes manually edit the user agent string and insert non-existent or invalid strings, version numbers, or whatever JUST to see if it breaks certain websites.

--Patrick


#480

figmentPez

figmentPez

Vibrator from Spencer's Gifts carries risk of infection

Malware infection on your PC if you connect it to your USB ports to charge. (Though I've also heard that Spencer's has some pretty awful policies about putting returned merchandise back on the shelf, so maybe don't buy your vibrator from them.)


#481

PatrThom

PatrThom

eSTDs?

--Patrick



#483

PatrThom

PatrThom

I saw that yesterday and I just don't get it.
I assume that, like the article suggests, this is someone's attempt to avoid a situation where the MPAA and similar organizations come down on HDMI Forum for "allowing/aiding" the creation of a tool whose only POSSIBLE purpose would be to enable the wholesale ripping/copying of commercial 4K content.

--Patrick


#484

GasBandit

GasBandit



#485

PatrThom

PatrThom

Am currently debating whether to try and score a 1660-series card or buy a 3060 12GB off a coworker.
Guess I'd better hurry.

--Patrick


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