Daily Tech News 27 July 2024

• Journalistic Lysenkoism: What a Kamala Harris presidency would mean for science. (Scientific American)
  
  Starvation, slavery, misery, and death. Possibly not in that order.

  As the daughter of a cancer researcher, Kamala Harris would bring a lifelong familiarity with science to the presidency, experts say.

  The same type of experts caused millions of people to starve to death in the 20th century. Wikipedia:

  Lysenko claimed that the concept of a gene was a "bourgeois invention", and he denied the presence of any "immortal substance of heredity" or "clearly defined species" ... Instead, he proposed a "Marxist genetics" postulating an unlimited possibility of transformation of living organisms through environmental changes in the spirit of Marxian dialectical transformation...

  Sound familiar? Sound like what gets thrown up by the mainstream media every single day?
  
  There's a reason for that.
  
  Back to the article:

  Health and science have been a part of Harris's life since an early age: her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who Harris cites as a major influence, was a leading breast-cancer researcher who died of cancer.

  This is what led to Kamala atttending Stanford Medicine, passing near the top of her class, and becoming a star pharmaceutical researcher with a well-regarded blog spanning more than twenty years.
  
  Oh wait, that's someone else.

  As senator, Harris co-sponsored efforts to improve the diversity of the science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) workforce.

  Nothing to improve science. Everything to improve "diversity".

• A federal judge just ruled that while the US CBP can search your bags and vehicle at the border for contraband and/or Nickelback CDs, it cannot search your electronic devices without probable cause and a warrant. (Reason)
  
  That's a pretty strong ruling, and Reason also italicised the and there. A border officer might just claim probable cause post-facto, but it's a lot harder to claim a warrant where none exists.
  
  This is the fourth such ruling in recent years, all pointing in the same direction, so this is likely headed to the Supreme Court soon.
  
  
  
• There is no fix for Intel's crashing 13th and 14th generation chips - any damage is permanent. (The Verge)
  
  I mentioned this before, but this is a good summary and it's time to throw the poor Verge a bone for getting one right.
  
  If you have one of these chips and it's not dead yet, it's probably a good idea to update the BIOS. Of course, updating your BIOS is not risk-free either, but in this case not updating your BIOS may be worse.
  
  But if you have one of the bad chips suffering from via oxidation (the wires inside the silicon are called "vias" and in some of Intel's chips they are rusting), or if your chip has already started crashing, all you can do is hope it doesn't get worse.
  
  In light of AMD delaying a major launch to run further tests on chips before they are sold to customers, what is Intel doing for chips that have already been sold?

  Intel has not halted sales or clawed back any inventory. It will not do a recall, period. The company is not currently commenting on whether or how it might extend its warranty. It would not share estimates with The Verge of how many chips are likely to be irreversibly impacted, and it did not explain why it's continuing to sell these chips ahead of any fix.
  
  Intel's not yet telling us how warranty replacements will work beyond trying customer support again if you've previously been rejected. It did not explain how it will contact customers with these chips to warn them about the issue.
  
  But Intel does tell us it's "confident" that you don't need to worry about invisible degradation.

  So we've got that going for us, which is nice.
  
  
  
• Boeing's Starliner is still stuck at the ISS. (Ars Technica)
  
  At some point you just gotta jump.
  
  
  
• SpaceX meanwhile is back in operation after a recent failure with a second-stage booster. (Ars Technica)
  
  The failure was as unspectacular as they come, just leaving a group of satellites in too low an orbit. SpaceX engineers identified the problem within hours - a redundant sense line cracked due to engine vibration and a loose clamp - and worked with the FAA to mitigate this in future launches and get approval to restart.
  
  Successfully:

  And by all measures, it performed. The first stage booster, B-1069, made its 17th flight into orbit before landing on the Just Read the Instructions drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Then, a little more than an hour after liftoff, the rocket's second stage released its payload into a good orbit, from which the Starlink spacecraft will use their on-board thrusters to reach operational altitudes in the coming weeks.

  Amazing what you can achieve if you don't hire communists.
  
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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