Daily Tech News 18 May 2022

• More running around in outside land today. Now I have matching blisters on both heels because my comfy shoes had a sudden total existence failure and I had to grab the last spare pair that I never wore because they don't fit.
  
  Ouch.
  
  Had to get one more document certified for the new house before settlement which is fine except that -
  
  
  
• My mobile phone was set to be cancelled on the day of settlement for the new house - tomorrow - because my provider is changing networks and hates having customers, and I couldn't log in to the portal to activate the new SIM because the SMS confirmation was disappearing into the ether and they have no way to confirm anything except sending you an SMS.
  
  So that was fun.
  
  
  
• Also still working 14 hours a day.
  
  
  
• And while I was out in the outside without a laptop one of my servers fell over.
  
  
  
• While I was out I passed two random guys in the street discussing the Luna / Terra collapse - and actually getting the facts right.
  
  
  
• Twitter's unspoken corporate motto: Commie as fuck. (Daily Mail)
  
  Project Veritas doing the dirty work of actually reporting the news again.

  'You know, our jobs are at stake,' he said. 'He's a capitalist and we weren't really operating as capitalists, more like very socialist. Like we're all commie as f***.'

  Yes, we know.

• Need a desktop cluster of ARM compute modules? Yes? Why?
  
  Anyway, here you go. (Kickstarter)
  
  You can plug in a variety of modules via adaptors, including the Raspberry Pi 4 Compute Module and Nvidia's Jetson AI boards, and you get shared HDMI, USB, Ethernet, SATA, USB, and two mini PCIe slots.
  
  Obviously someone wants this thing because the project funded in three minutes.
  
  
  
• Which Linux desktop is the easiest for new users? (ZDNet)
  
  It doesn't matter because there's 21 to choose from and they're all the same. (The Register)
  
  Actually not quite; the first article talks about desktop distributions - they recommend Mint and Kubuntu - and the second is talking about individual desktop environments.
  
  Just use Mint, probably.
  
  
  
• Hong Kong is planning to block messaging app Telegram as part of a broader plan to block messenger app Telegram. (IBTimes)
  
  I guess if you want to block messenger app Telegram, that's the way to go about it.
  
  
  
• Demand has dropped like a rock says Chinese chipmaker SMIC. (Nikkei)

  "Many smartphone, PC and home appliance companies had exposure in Russia and Ukraine, and their revenues [from those markets> are now gone. Sales in their home market [of China] have also fallen due to the COVID situation domestically," Zhao said.
  
  Demand for consumer electronics "dropped like a rock, very seriously," the executive said. "Some of our customers are holding more than five months of that type of inventory."

  SMIC's own factories are still running at 100%, producing chips for other markets that are still in short supply - unglamorous but essential stuff like power management chips and embedded microcontrollers.
  
  The cause of the sudden market collapse is easy to identify, and since the CCP isn't going anywhere, is only likely to get worse for China.
  
  
  
• The Pentagon has vowed to get to the bottom of UFO sightings. (Reuters)
  
  That's actually pretty simple. They're not real.

  UAPs are unexplained, it's true. But they are real.

  Horseshit.
  
  
  
• Small Android phone. (SmallAndroidPhone)
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 05:55 AM

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