Daily Tech News 22 October 2022

• The usual suspects can't work out whether a hypothetical US government intervention into Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter is a dream or a nightmare. (Ars Technica)
  
  First, we should note, that this is an alleged "national security" issue - regarding a web forum where lunatics scream at each other all day - when Twitter is known to already be overrun with foreign spies. (Washington Times)
  
  Not the site; the company itself. They're on the payroll, and Twitter knows this.
  
  Second, of course, Twitter is likely to collapse entirely without a buyer. Shares dropped 16% just on rumours that the government might be considering looking into it.
  
  Third, the reasons given are, basically, that the Biden Administration are fascist warmongers who will destroy anyone who disagrees with them:

  According to Bloomberg's interviews with "people familiar with the matter," US officials were not comfortable with Musk's tweets that threatened to stop funding Starlink service in Ukraine and discussed solutions to the war that would be favorable to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Concerns about Musk drawing Twitter finances from foreign investors reportedly began escalating within the Biden administration, which is trying to avoid national security threats surrounding Musk deals.

  Note also that before Musk, Twitter's largest shareholder was from Saudi Arabia, yet another country hostile to the Biden Administration.
  
  
  
• As I mentioned in a late update on my own blog, I ordered an HP Pavilion Plus 14 to replace my Dell Inspiron 14 7000 from last year, which is slowly breaking down from being my primary computer throughout the house move.
  
  The new system has the Four Essential Keys in their proper place, a 2880x1800 90Hz OLED display at 100% DCI-P3 instead of a 2560x1600 60Hz IPS display at 100% sRGB*, and a drastically faster CPU - up from 4 cores / 8 threads to 14 cores / 20 threads. If it had 32GB of RAM and a Ryzen 6800U it would be perfect, but there are no laptops with that configuration anywhere in the world.
  
  The one downside all the reviews mention is battery life - the high-end CPU and OLED display are pretty power hungry. But again, my current laptop no longer has great battery life anyway. Or reliable video out on the USB-C port. Or a properly working trackpad.
  
  * Or was once 100% sRGB. Was a great screen for the first nine months. Something happened on the first flight back down from New House City and it's now kind of bleh.
  
  

• Stop fetishising pyschosis.
  
  Shot:
  
  

  Proudly presenting: THE ULTRA PRIDE FLAG!
  
  After seeing all the recent design revisions, I wondered what the LGBTBBQIA+ Flag may look like in 50 years time if it were continuously edited to be more inclusive. So I created it! If this doesn't achieve world peace then nothing will! pic.twitter.com/UG3mfhrHqV

  — 🎃【 𝓓𝖗. 𝓥𝖔𝐱 𝓞𝖈𝖚𝖑𝖎 】🎃 (@Vox_Oculi) May 27, 2022

  
  
  Chaser:
  
  

  Inspired by the public's response to our 2022 Pride flag, we’re expanding our design to represent 40 LGBTQIA+ communities—and making it available for everyone to use and build on: https://t.co/YugwQGp7b6 pic.twitter.com/BfQbSmkkzP

  — Micros🎃ft (@Microsoft) October 20, 2022

  
  
  
  
• The CEO of Mailchimp was apparently ousted for daring to suggest that not everyone needs to be forced to state their pronouns before each meeting. (Platformer)
  
  Mailchimp is a censorious woke shithole that he created, so no tears for him, doubly so because he just sold the company to Intuit for $12 billion.
  
  Which used to be a lot of money.
  
  
  
• A VMWare bug with a rating of 9.8 on the open ended fuck me scale has been exploited to do exploity things by exploiters. (Ars Technica)
  
  A patch has been out since April, so we can't really lay all the blame on VMWare for this one.
  
  
  
• Oh, they're different speakers. I'm not going mad. Well, I am, but for different reasons.
  
  The Monoprice DT 3BT is a pretty good pair of computer speakers for just shy of a hundred bucks. (WCCFTech)
  
  Connect via Bluetooth or good old 1/8" audio jack, and enjoy. It sounds like there were some corners cut, but not in ways that immediately affect the performance:

  I do have to say, though, that there are a few things that irk me about the way these speakers are designed. Maybe it's because Monoprice decided to shift their resources toward making the speakers sound good or something, but the covering material is a bit off-putting. Not to mention, the cables that connect the speakers to each other are way too thin, I feel like I could snap them in half if I stared at them hard enough.

  A few caveats aside:

  Not to mention, the device doesn't even have a subwoofer. It's literally just the two speakers. I am floored at how well these speakers performed better than my own home theater in specific scenarios. As such, I think the device will perform just fine for people looking for a great audio experience on a budget.

  Since I'm planning to rig seven* rooms of my house with computers and audio over the next year, I'm taking notes.
  
  * At least seven.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile, also from Monoprice the MTM 100 offers all that and more. (PC Perspective)
  
  These add RCA, USB-C, and optical inputs, a second woofer in each speaker housing, output for a subwoofer, and a remote control. But they do cost $499.
  
  I recently picked up this Panasonic shelf stereo - this is the one that took a five-day tour of the countryside that Amazon thinks I've bought twice. It has a similar feature set to those Monoprice speakers (including being able to act as a USB sound card), plus a CD player and digital radio, and delivers 60W RMS per channel instead of 50W, and cost about half as much.
  
  I plan to get a couple of other shelf hifi systems for other rooms, while they still make them. Right now there are three good shelf hifi systems on the market in Australia - that one, a similarly priced Yamaha, and a Denon system that's about the price of these speakers. Within ten years there'll be nothing between home theatre soundbars and $20k audiophile systems.
  
  
  
• Russia's Institute of Applied Physics plans to have 7nm chip fabrication working by 2028. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Money quote, such as it is:

  The main objective of ASML in this case was to maintain the extremely high productivity that is needed only at the world's largest factories. In Russia, no one needs such high productivity. In our work, we start from the needs and tasks faced by domestic microelectronics – and this is not so much about quantity, but about quality.

  In other words, this isn't about commercial production, but limited quantities for the military as the economy gurgles steadily down the drain. Again.
  
  And without commercial production, they simply won't be able to keep up. TSMC's first 7nm sample chips appeared in 2016 - and those weren't trivial devices, but already had 1.5 billion transistors.
  
  Intel is planning commercial production on their 18A node - 1.8nm - by late 2024. TSMC and Samsung expect 2nm in 2025.
  
  
  
• The company that makes the rent-hiking software YieldStar has been sued for organising an illegal cartel. (Pro Publica)
  
  Oh no. Anyway...
  
  
  
• Yes, West Virginia, there really are mosquito magnets. (The Guardian)
  
  Probably not fair to pick on West Virginia like that, given that there are about twenty other states that show up in search results for "mosquito state bird" ahead of it, but the joke doesn't work if I pick, say, Minnesota.
  
  Anyway, scientists testing natural human scents in mosquito traps found that some people are consistently one hundred times better at attracting mosquitoes than others.
  
  A word of advice: Stay indoors, and away from me.
  
  
  
• Ethics, like rules, are for the little people. (WSJ / Slashdot)

  Mark Wu held more than $1 million of Amazon.com stock when President Biden tapped him to help craft a trade policy that would benefit U.S. technology companies and online retailers. Ethics officials at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said they gave Mr. Wu two options: Get rid of the stock or recuse himself from digital trade issues. He did neither.
  
  The U.S. has a law aimed at preventing the nation's thousands of obscure but powerful federal officials from using their influence on regulations, policies and investigations to benefit themselves. With penalties up to $50,000 and five years in prison, the law is supposed to ensure that officials in the executive branch don't work on any matter that could affect their personal finances. It doesn't.

  Never mind the legislative branch, who literally make their own rules, and don't even follow those.
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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