Daily Tech News 21 July 2024

• Microsoft: CrowdStrike mishap impacted less than 1 percent of Windows PCs. (Thurrott)
  
  CrowdStrike's faulty update crashed 8.5 million Windows devices, says Microsoft. (The Verge)
  
  It's the same number; there's something like 1.5 billion Windows PCs in use worldwide.
  
  The problem is that the computers running CrowdStrike are the ones used in critical roles by large organisations. The 99% that went right on working weren't embedded in ATMs or airport terminals or healthcare providers.
  
  
  
• So how do we avoid a repeat of this?
  
  Dunno.

• A look at Western Digital's latest SN5000 4TB SSD. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It's another DRAMless QLC model, and... It doesn't suck. It's pretty good actually.
  
  MSRP prices it higher than better drives so only buy it if the price is right.
  
  
  
• Intel says its 13th and 14th generation laptop chips are crashing but not for the same reason as its 13th and 14th generation desktop chips. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Oh. Well, that's alright then.
  
  
  
• Intel has also announced a range of "E" series chips that have no "E" cores. (WCCFTech)
  
  That makes sense.
  
  
  
• Large models of what? (Arxiv.org)
  
  LLMs are bullshit:

  Work within the enactive approach to cognitive science makes clear that, rather than a distinct and complete thing, language is a means or way of acting. Languaging is not the kind of thing that can admit of a complete or comprehensive modelling. From an enactive perspective we identify three key characteristics of enacted language; embodiment, participation, and precariousness, that are absent in LLMs, and likely incompatible in principle with current architectures. We argue that these absences imply that LLMs are not now and cannot in their present form be linguistic agents the way humans are. We illustrate the point in particular through the phenomenon of 'algospeak', a recently described pattern of high stakes human language activity in heavily controlled online environments. On the basis of these points, we conclude that sensational and misleading claims about LLM agency and capabilities emerge from a deep misconception of both what human language is and what LLMs are.

  Verbing weirds language.
  
  
  
• I didn't know I was dead until I saw it on Google. (The Guardian)
  
  Google is worth $2 trillion and has 90% of the global search market. And ever since it started trying to answer questions itself rather than point you to the answers elsewhere, it has been going downhill fast.
  
  
  
• The judge in the SEC's lawsuit against SolarWinds regarding their 2020 security debacle has granted the company's motion to dismiss on most points. (MSN)
  
  It was another massive power grab by a federal agency. The SEC claimed authority to regulate all aspects of how companies manage computer and network security and the judge smacked them across the nose with a newspaper.
  
  The one claim not dismissed is that executives at the company lied about the adequacy of its security controls in public statement, which the SEC claims amounts to securities fraud, something the SEC does have the authority to police, since that's what the S stands for.
  
  
  
• Just a reminder that all the race-baiting and lies you see in the mainstream media infest the tech press as well: Some black startup founders feel betrayed by Ben Horowitz's support for Trump. (Tech Crunch)

  "His reputation will definitely take a hit among well-thinking Black people because it shows that he doesn't actually understand our lived experiences," David Mullings, founder of Blue Mahoe Holdings, told TechCrunch.

  Lived experiences? David Mullings is a Jamaican multi-millionaire.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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