Daily Tech News 3 May 2021

• Docker is a free and open source container management system. Want to skip an update because it could interrupt your workflow? That's a paid feature.
  
  

  ...ignoring Docker updates is a paid feature now?? pic.twitter.com/ZxKW3b9LQM

  — Brendan Dolan-Gavitt (@moyix) May 1, 2021

• Trading places: AMD is now the choice for high-end desktops and Intel is the budget gaming pick. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Looking here at the 11400. I'd recommend the 11500 if you want to run without a dedicated graphics card, but either one will work fine. AMD's current desktop parts don't have integrated graphics at all.
  
  
  
• AMD's next-gen graphics processors could have 80 compute units and 5120 shader cores. (WCCFTech)
  
  If you've been following along, you might be saying Wait a minute... Because, yes, their current graphics cards also have 80 CUs and 5120 shaders.
  
  The difference is that the next gen cards will have two of these, bringing chiplets to GPUs.
  
  Intel is working on the same approach, but Intel has never built a high-end graphics card... Well, not since the 82786, 35 years ago, and I think things have changed a little since then.
  
  
  
• Sued for copyright violation over three words: UK company What3Words threatened to sue a security researcher for offering a better alternative. (Tech Crunch)
  
  What3Words divides the world into a 3x3 meter grid and identifies each grid square with three words, so if you trapped by ravaging hyenas in the hinterlands of Mozambique you can tell rescuers you are at ambiguous polygonal calliope instead of, well, just sending them your GPS co-ordinates because obviously this only works if you have a smart phone anyway.
  
  The researcher noted that What3Words can often give similar names to locations relatively close together, so that rescuers might be searching ambivalent polygamous carrion a mile from your actual location while you are being rendered into exactly that, and offered a solution that doesn't do that, and was threatened with a lawsuit.
  
  When reached for comment on the legal basis for such a suit, the company responded, Uh.
  
  
  
• How to stop Window 10's virus scanner from uploading files to Microsoft. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Microsoft might be more trustworthy than Google or Facebook, but that's not saying a lot, and if you work with confidential data you might have a legal obligation to take this sort of measure. At least there is an option to turn off, even if it should properly be off by default.
  
  
  
• Fuck Twitter with a piledriver and fifteen feet of curare-tipped wrought iron fence and no lubricant. (ZDNet)
  
  Australia is considering a blanket ban of terrorist material on social media. Google, Facebook, and Twitter pushed back against this idea.

  Twitter's senior director of public policy and philanthropy in the APAC region Kathleen Reen said it would be incredibly problematic to use a blunt force instrument like a ban.

  Fucking excuse me?

  "If you ban all discussion at all about it ... you may find yourself effectively chasing it off our platforms where the companies are working to address these issues, and pushing it out into other platforms."

  You just fucking came up with that all by your fucking self, did you, Kath?

  "To be clear, stopping the conversation entirely won't address the problem in our view. In fact, it'll make it worse," she said.

  I'd invite you to burn in Hell, Kath, but that would probably violate multiple infernal toxic waste laws.
  
  
  
• To absolutely no-one's surprise, shady companies that offer to repair your reputation for a fee work hand in hand with shady companies that offer to ruin your reputation for a fee. (New York Times)
  
  Also, ruination is much cheaper than repair, but that's just entropy.
  
  
  
• The shutdown of Samsung's foundry in Austin caused by frozen windmills cost at least $268 million. (Austin American-Statesman)
  
  Nuclear reactors don't freeze.
  
  Just sayin'.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:18 AM

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