Daily Tech News 18 February 2022

• So as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted... No, never mind, can't remember.
  
  I have a sneaking suspicion my wired internet might be down for a few days.
  
  

  Close to 150,000 lightning strikes were detected between #Newcastle and #Wollongong on Thursday night as #storms put on a show above Australia�s most populated stretch of coastline. ⚡️
  
  More at https://t.co/b1ieDHkusY
  
  Photo: #Lightning over Sydney by @ihaig72/IG pic.twitter.com/sEl0j67AW4

  — Weatherzone (@weatherzone) February 18, 2022

  
  
  
  
• When I got my current phone - an Oppo A91 - I just went for something inexpensive, with decent specs and a great screen, and critically a headphone jack and microSD slot. It's not 5G because I don't need 5G; I have high-speed internet and I'm not utterly dependent on my phone to get my job done...
  
  Well, crap.
  
  Ordered a Samsung A52s (5G model) today. I can probably expense it because my 4G speeds won't even support a Zoom meeting. Also a new SIM on a 120GB data plan for a surprisingly reasonable price.
  
  Phone arrives tomorrow, SIM card probably Monday. Don't even have a response about internet repairs much less an ETA.

• Despite all that I am online and none of my computers or appliances seem to have died.
  
  I was in the middle of a Zoom meeting with a dozen other people - and just about to deploy a critical patch that would allow a project to roll out to customers - when the lightning hit. I had to SMS instructions for deployment and testing to the team because I couldn't even make a phone call right then.
  
  
  
• How it started:
  
  

  Wordle Is Watching You https://t.co/h3mI80p4QX pic.twitter.com/VB8bk8NSUO

  — Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) February 17, 2022

  
  
  How it's going:
  
  

  so is Gizmodo
  
  Adserver Requests: 552
  Tracking Requests: 407
  Other Requests: 211https://t.co/dBoWfbkPQt pic.twitter.com/xvrrDqjbGB

  — Dr. Augustine Fou Independent Ad Fraud Researcher (@acfou) February 17, 2022

  
  
  
  
• Speaking of watching you do not trust otters. (Politico)
  
  Otter.ai is a service for journalists that assists in transcribing interviews, stealing all your data, and selling it to the highest bidder.
  
  
  
• All of Canada's major banks experienced unspecified technical issues just hours after the Nazi takeover. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Curiouser and curiouser.
  
  
  
• S3 (and compatible services) are a great solution for storage if you don't care about your data and/or want to create a mess so bad that you'll happily spend $100,000 to click a button that makes it all go away. (Cyclic)
  
  To use S3 effectively you have to maintain your own database of all the objects, and manage keeping the two in sync. S3 does nothing to help you there. Less than nothing, in fact, because it will simply lie about your metadata.
  
  
  
• The Asus Zephyrus G14 gets several things right. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It has AMD's brand new Ryzen 6900HS CPU and Radeon 6800S graphics, with 32GB DDR5 RAM and 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, a 2560x1600 14" 120Hz display, 1TB of PCIe 4 SSD, two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, HDMI, microSD, and a headphone jack.
  
  It has a massive 240W power brick, but on the other hand lasts over 10 hours of constant use on battery power, so you might not need to lug that everywhere (maybe take a smaller USB-C charger to extend battery life).
  
  Unfortunately the Four Essential Keys are a no-show on this one. Asus is hit-and-miss on the FEK.
  
  
  
• Slow down to speed up: Intel is planning server CPUs with only slow cores. (AnandTech)
  
  Intel's 12th generation Alder Lake desktop and laptop chips have a mix of fast and slow cores. The slow ones are about half the speed of the fast cores - but one quarter the size.
  
  Desktop apps can't generally make use of a ton of slow cores (though you're going to get that anyway) but servers can, and if you have four times as many cores at half the speed, that means you double your throughput.
  
  Expected in 2024.
  
  AMD is doing something similar with their Zen 4c Bergamo chips, but that will be out a year before Intel.
  
  
  
• Intel's Sapphire Rapids chips are twice as fast as AMD's Milan-X, says Intel. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Not only is that true only of a very specific subset of benchmarks, you can't and won't be able to buy Sapphire Rapids. It's for supercomputers, and you don't count.
  
  Also by the time it arrives it will be competing with AMD's next-generation Genoa, which will truly be twice as fast as Milan.
  
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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