Daily Tech News 17 December 2021

• So I technically survived the last working day of the year and I'm technically on leave for three weeks. In reality I'll be logging in on Monday to do a few things - but I won't be answering phone calls or attending meetings. Those alone make it a holiday.
  
  
  
• Lumi arrived, or possibly Pomu. Anyway, the second of my Dell Inspiron 16 Plus laptops. I might get a third one of these - I'm using them as compact, portable servers with a built-in UPS, which is why I need more than one of them.
  
  The specific model I've been buying isn't 40% off right now so any potential purchases will wait until that sale comes around again.
  
  
  
• Ethereum costs $250 per second and is 5000 times slower than a Raspberry Pi costing $45. (Usenix)
  
  It has a data transfer rate about as fast as a 19.2k modem and storage costs that would turn a 1960 IBM account manager green with envy.
  
  And it doesn't even work consistently.
  
  
  
  

• Merry Christmas! You've been hacked! Here's a bill for $45,000! (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Just what I wanted! How did you guess?
  
  
  
• I'm not sure who the imagined market is for a $2600 audiophile network switch. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Audiophiles want tube amplifiers and laser turntable pickups. They don't stream from Spotify.
  
  
  
• A reader also forwarded this audiophile SSD. (AudiophileStyle)
  
  This one does have one valid function: 100% of the TLC flash is locked in pseudo-SLC mode, making for more consistent write speeds. Though any SSD these days is a thousand times faster than is needed for audio recording and playback, even if you're using 192kHz and 32 bits.
  
  
  
• Next-level Zenloss: A new strain of ransomware specifically targets Minecraft servers. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Ha. My Minecraft server runs in a container and the host takes a snapshot every twenty minutes.
  
  And keeps it.
  
  Forever.
  
  Thousands of the damn things.
  
  I really should clean that up.
  
  (I think zenloss is a Hololive term, and mostly relates to Minecraft, which is rather nasty about deleting all your items if you die and don't make it back to your place of death in five minutes.)
  
  
  
• Log4j attackers otherwise are switching to mining Monero. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  That's the same thing that happened in that $45,000 AWS account breach above - the hackers used the account to mine Monero, earning themselves $800 at a cost of $45,000. So yes, it's 50 times less painful to just have your wallet stolen.
  
  
  
• Fossil fuels kill a million people a year. (Ars Technica)
  
  Sort of. Shorten lifespans to that effect, anyway.
  
  Mostly coal.
  
  Mostly China.
  
  If you've seen a major Chinese city on a bad air day this is entirely believable.
  
  
  
• So burn wood instead. (New Yorker)
  
  It's technically renewable so the EU will shower you with subsidies even though it makes no fucking sense.
  
  If the system is stupid you might as well take advantage of it.
  
  
  
• At EA it can take a day to change three lines of code. (Neowin)
  
  Or rather - the article is kind of dumb - it takes five minutes to make the change and the rest of the day to test the effects throughout the game.
  
  
  
• Crypto investors were cheated out of $8 billion in 2021. (The Register)
  
  Still less than civil asset forfeiture.
  
  
  
• Is China going backwards to Mao or sideways to Pol Pot? (The Register)
  
  The Chinese government has issued a new list of things you're not allowed to say in video streams, including:
  
  1. Suggesting socialism is anything but perfect.
  2. Suggesting Marxism is anything but perfect.
  3. Suggesting the CCP is anything but perfect.
  4. Suggesting that maybe things are going in the wrong direction.
  5. Suggesting that the CCP has at any time in history been anything but perfect.
  6. Suggesting that shoving people into an unmarked van at 3AM never to be seen again might not be the most perfectly ethical way to behave.
  7. Making jokes about the CCP.
  8. Pointing out that Taiwan is a country that exists.
  9. Mentioning the independence movements in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, or basically anywhere else on the planet the CCP considers their property.
  10. Reporting on any foreign news that reports on any of that or mentions Taiwan as a country that exists.
  11. History.
  12. Making jokes about China.
  13. Making jokes about the Chinese flag.
  14. Making jokes about the Chinese national anthem.
  15. Factual reporting about what Chinese leaders actually said.
  16. Cosplaying as any Chinese leader.
  17. Wearing funny hats.
  18. Pointing out that that Mao guy kinda sucked.
  ...
  100. Anything else the CCP doesn't like.
  
  Yes, the list has exactly 100 rules, and yes, that's the last one.
  
  
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 03:38 AM

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