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What was highest label on your first car speedometer?

  • 80 mph
  • 88 mph
  • 100 mph
  • 120 mph
  • 150 mph
  • it was in kph like civilized countries use you insensitive clod
  • Other (please specify in comments)

[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:46 | Votes:109

posted by janrinok on Thursday January 06 2022, @10:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the real[(ly)|(ity)]? dept.

Report: Meta pulls the plug on its AR/VR operating system ambitions:

Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, has pulled the plug on its current efforts to develop an operating system for AR and VR devices, The Information reported today.

Citing "two people familiar with the decision," the article claims that Meta will return to the status quo of running Oculus devices—and perhaps future mixed reality devices—on a modified version of Google's Android operating system for mobile phones.

The project, which was internally called XROS, had reportedly been underway for years and "involved hundreds of employees." Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was talking up its potential only a few short months ago. The reasons for Meta's decision to pull the plug are not publicly known at this time.

From the outside, the decision appears to be a major setback in a brewing war over mixed reality between Meta, Apple, and potentially other tech giants. Apple's upcoming VR or AR headsets will without a doubt run a custom-made operating system that is designed to leverage tight integration with the hardware for strong performance and a stable experience.

It could be difficult for Facebook to compete with that without its own, ground-up software. That said, Facebook and Apple may end up targeting very different use cases for AR and VR; their ultimate strategies remain a mystery to most.


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posted by janrinok on Thursday January 06 2022, @07:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the what?-you-thought-it-was-over? dept.

Judges to decide whether Assange can appeal against extradition as he reaches 1,000 days in jail:

High Court judges are expected to decide within weeks whether to grant WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leave to appeal to the UK Supreme Court against a decision allowing his extradition to the US.

Ian Duncan Burnett, who is the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and Lord Justice Holroyd are expected to decide whether to grant Assange leave to appeal extradition before the end of January.

The 50 year old today marked his 1,000th day in Belmarsh high security prison in South East London fighting extradition, and faces a maximum of 175 years in jail in the US if the extradition goes ahead – though prosecutors argue that jail time is likely to be lower.

Assange has been charged with 17 counts under the US Espionage Act 1917 for receiving and publishing classified government documents, and one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Assange's defence lawyers and press organisations argue that the case would set a precedent that would have a chilling effect on the freedom of the press if Assange is extradited, exposing journalists to the threat of extradition for publishing government documents.


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posted by martyb on Thursday January 06 2022, @04:25PM   Printer-friendly

Apple Becomes First Company to Reach $3 Trillion Market Value

Apple becomes first company to reach $3 trillion market value:

It's official.

Shares of Apple Inc rose as much as 3 percent on Monday to trade at $182.88 – enough to secure the iPhone maker the coveted crown of becoming the first publically traded company on the planet to cross the $3 trillion market capitalization mark.

To put that into perspective, Apple's value now surpasses the nominal gross domestic products (GDPs) of six of the world's top 10 economies including the United Kingdom, India, France, Italy, Canada and South Korea.

Apple's rise has been relentless in recent years. Back in August 2018, it became the first United States firm to surpass $1 trillion in market value. It blew past the $2 trillion mark only two years later in August 2020. And thanks to the turbo-charged pandemic appetite for tech shares, it took roughly 17 months for Apple to reach the $3 trillion mark.

Apple Becomes World's First $3 Trillion Company

Apple becomes world's first $3 trillion company:

A little over three years ago, Apple investors pushed the value of its shares above $1 trillion, making it the world's most highly valued tech company. Then, two years later, Apple stock rose so high that the company's value passed $2 trillion. Now, it's risen yet again, topping $3 trillion. As in $3,000,000,000,000.

Around 10:45 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 3, Apple stock hit $182.86 per share, which when multiplied by the 16.4 billion shares outstanding, values Apple at about $3 trillion. That's more than the value of AT&T, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Disney, Exxon, Ford, Goldman Sachs, IBM, McDonald's, Morgan Stanley, Netflix, Nike, and Walmart -- combined. The largely symbolic milestone comes as Apple's struggled to keep up with near-record demand for its devices amid the pandemic.

[...] In October, the tech giant warned investors that it was struggling with supply chain disruptions amid the coronavirus pandemic, which at the time amounted to as much as $6 billion in lost revenue. "We are optimistic about the future, especially as we see strong demand for new products," Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts on a conference call back then.

Apple's market value moment marks another reminder of the company's unlikely turnaround from near bankruptcy in 1997 to one of the most influential companies on the planet. Part of how the company did that was by creating mass-market products like the iPod music player, iPhone and iPad, which went on to become leading devices in each of their competing markets.

Also at Ars Technica and Washington Post


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posted by martyb on Thursday January 06 2022, @01:40PM   Printer-friendly
from the wear-a-mask-to-protect-from-both dept.

Do You Have a Cold, the Flu or Covid-19? Experts Explain How to Tell the Difference

Do you have a cold, the flu or Covid-19? Experts explain how to tell the difference:

Do you have a cold, the flu or Covid-19? Experts explain how to tell the difference

[...] Case rates of Covid-19 have been on the rise as the Omicron variant has spread, but hospitalization numbers appear to be staying relatively low. For vaccinated people, evidence suggests that infection with this variant seems less likely to be severe, epidemiologist and former Detroit Health Department executive director, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed said.

[...] "The important thing to remember is a vaccine is like giving a 'be on the lookout' call to your immune system. So its capacity to identify, target and destroy viruses is so much higher every time we take another boost of the vaccine," El-Sayed said. "It makes sense that the symptoms you would experience are milder if you have been vaccinated."

Coronavirus + Flu = 'Flurona': Should You be Worried About It?

Coronavirus + Flu = 'Flurona': Should You Be Worried About It?:

It's been dubbed flurona: when a person is infected with the influenza virus and the Covid-19 coronavirus, either simultaneously or back-to-back. Cases are being reported around the globe, and experts say they are likely to grow as the more contagious omicron variant becomes more prevalent. The phenomenon, however, isn't exactly new. Reports of such "co-infections" go back to early 2020.

1. Why is this getting attention now?[...]

2. Should I be worried? [...]

3. What's the effect of getting two infections at once? [...]

In a meta-analysis of various studies last May, researchers from the University of Wisconsin found that 19% of people who tested positive for Covid simultaneously tested positive for another pathogen (a so-called "co-infection") -- be it viral, bacterial or fungal. They found that 24% of patients diagnosed with Covid afterward tested positive for a different pathogen (a so-called "superinfection"). For both categories, the situation was associated with "poor outcomes, including increased mortality," the authors found. The research underscores the need to test for ailments beyond just Covid so that people can be properly treated, the authors said.

4. Is the flu back in full force? [...]

5. Where is flurona being reported? [...]


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posted by janrinok on Thursday January 06 2022, @10:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the "any-old-iron,-any-old-iron" dept.

Arctic hunter-gatherers were advanced ironworkers more than 2,000 years ago:

Hunter-gatherers who lived more than 2,000 years ago near the top of the world appear to have run ironworking operations as advanced as those of farming societies far to the south.

Excavations in what's now northeastern Sweden uncovered ancient furnaces and fire pits that hunter-gatherers used for metalworking. A mobile lifestyle did not prevent hardy groups based in or near the Arctic Circle from organizing large-scale efforts to produce iron and craft metal objects, say archaeologist Carina Bennerhag of Luleå University of Technology in Sweden and colleagues. In fact, hunter-gatherers who moved for part of the year across cold, forested regions dotted with lakes and swampy patches apparently exchanged resources and knowledge related to metallurgy, the extraction of metals from ores, the researchers report in the December Antiquity.

Ancient hunter-gatherers at two Swedish sites "probably manufactured more iron and steel, and were more socially organized and sedentary than we previously thought," says Luleå archaeologist and coauthor Kristina Söderholm.

[...] The bronze buckle's molding technique and decorative style resemble metal items found at hunter-gatherer sites in northwestern Russia dating to as early as around 2,300 years ago, the researchers say. Knives and other metal objects found at Sangis contained two or more layers that had been expertly welded together and, in some cases, exposed to either of two types of heating processes to enhance their strength.

Excavations at a second site, Vivungi, uncovered the remains of two iron-smelting furnaces that contained iron ore, by-products of iron production and shards of ceramic wall lining. Iron production at Vivungi started around 100 B.C., the scientists say. Vivungi yielded no evidence of fire pits where iron was further purified.

Radiocarbon dating of animal bones found near the Vivungi furnaces indicates that hunter-gatherers repeatedly occupied this location from around 5300 B.C. to A.D. 1600.

Journal Reference:
Carina Bennerhag, Lena Grandin, Eva Hjärtner-Holdar, et al. Hunter-gatherer metallurgy in the Early Iron Age of Northern Fennoscandia [open], Antiquity (DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2020.248)


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posted by janrinok on Thursday January 06 2022, @08:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the pretty! dept.

How to Grow Green Potassium Ferrioxalate Crystals from Iron Rust:

Potassium ferrioxalate[*] produces striking green crystals that are both beautiful and easy to grow.

Potassium ferrioxalate is a chemical that can be made from relatively common materials. You can prepare it by dissolving rust in oxalic acid, which is often used in cleaning, and then neutralizing the brown solution with potash (potassium carbonate).

The resultant solution will look bright green, and when it evaporates, crystals start to grow.

[*] Potassium ferrioxalate on Wikipedia which notes that it is: "Corrosive. Eye, respiratory and skin irritant."

Go on - try something different (carefully!) with the young ones.


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posted by janrinok on Thursday January 06 2022, @05:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the hit-it-on-the-head dept.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/new-solar-roof-can-be-nailed-just-like-old-school-shingles/

A new solar technology introduced yesterday at CES could bring power-producing roofs mainstream by relying on an old building material—nails.

For years, homeowners who wanted solar power have stripped their old roofs of shingles, added new ones, and then slapped large solar panels on top using sturdy frames. It's a model that works well, but it also creates a two-step process that engineers have been striving to simplify.

Plenty of companies have offered their own take on solar roofs, but so far, they've remained niche products. GAF Energy is hoping to change that with the Timberline Solar Energy Shingle that looks strikingly like typical asphalt shingles. But their key feature isn't so much that they emulate the look of asphalt shingles, but that they're installed in nearly the same way. Roofers can slap the flexible sheets down and nail the top strip to the roof, just like they do for traditional roofs.

By relying on the shingle installation process, GAF Energy is counting on the scale of the roofing industry to make solar more accessible. "The roofing ecosystem is 20–30 times larger than solar. In the United States, 200,000–300,000 people get a new solar system each year. Over 5 million get a new roof," Martin DeBono, CEO of GAF Energy, told Ars. "Our innovation is you now have a nailable solar roof, which fits the way that the majority of roofs are installed."

[...] The panels themselves are made out of monocrystalline PERC cells, which stands for "passivated emitter and rear contact," a type of construction that allows some of the photons that pass through the panel to be reflected back to it. That helps boost efficiency to 23 percent per cell, DeBono said. (He wouldn't say who their supplier is but made a point to say that they're not made in China.) The cells are fixed to a flexible substrate and topped with a hardened glass that'll withstand hail. The entire system can withstand hurricane-force winds up to 130 mph, and it's Class A fire rated. UL certified the shingles as both solar panels and roofing materials, a first, and they can be walked on like traditional shingles.


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posted by janrinok on Thursday January 06 2022, @02:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the people-just-don't-learn dept.

Uber lets you send anyone an email claiming to be from Uber.com:

[The] software bug means that pretty much anyone can currently send an email from the Uber.com domain. No, Uber has not intentionally done so. It is, however, choosing to ignore the problem at the moment.

These are the conclusions of multiple security researchers, which blame an exposed endpoint on Uber's servers allowing anyone to use SendGrid, an email marketing and customer communications platform, to send emails on behalf of the taxi ride giant.

The vulnerability is "an HTML injection in one of Uber's email endpoints," security researcher and bug bounty hunter, Seif Elsallamy, told BleepingComputer. These emails can pass both DKIM and DMARC security checks and land safely in people's inboxes, the report adds.

In a demonstration email, Elsallamy crafted a message warning the user that their account is about to be suspended and that they need to re-submit their payment data. Such emails, which could easily be leveraged to obtain sensitive and payment data from millions of paying Uber customers, would be sent from a legitimate Uber domain. This is just an example of the potency of the flaw. Distributing malware, ransomware, or simple spam, are all realistic possibilities.

To fix the issue, Uber needs to "sanitize the users' input in the vulnerable undisclosed form", he explains.


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posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 05 2022, @11:44PM   Printer-friendly

Enceladus' plumes might not come from an underground ocean:

Saturn's icy moon Enceladus sprays water vapor into space. Scientists have thought that the plumes come from a deep subsurface ocean — but that might not be the case, new simulations suggest.

Instead, the water could come from pockets of watery mush in the moon's icy shell, scientists report December 15 at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting.

"Maybe we didn't get the straw all the way through the ice shell to the ocean. Maybe we're just getting this weird pocket," says planetary scientist Jacob Buffo of Dartmouth College.

The finding is "a cautionary tale," Buffo says. The hidden ocean makes Enceladus one of the best places to search for life in the solar system (SN: 4/8/20). Concepts for future missions to Enceladus rely on the idea that taking samples of the plumes would directly test the contents of the ocean, without needing to drill or melt through the ice. "That could be true," Buffo says. But the simulations suggest "you could be sampling this slushy region in the middle of the shell, and that might not be the same chemistry as is down in the ocean."

[...] "If those plumes aren't tapping into the ocean, it will really shift our perspective on what that plume is telling us about the interior of Enceladus,"[planetary scientist Emily] Martin [of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C] says. "And that's a big deal."

Journal Reference:
Colin Meyer, Jacob Buffo, Tara Tomlinson, et al. A mushy source for the geysers of Enceladus, (DOI: https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm21/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/888686)


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Wednesday January 05 2022, @09:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the getting-there dept.

Mobileye Announces EyeQ Ultra: A Level 4 Self-Driving System In A Single SoC

Aimed for a 2025 release, the EyeQ Ultra is Mobileye's most ambitious SoC yet, and not just for performance. In fact, as a site that admittedly rarely covers automotive-related announcements, it's the relative lack of performance that makes today's announcement so interesting to us. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here; so let's start with the basics.

The EyeQ Ultra is Mobileye's seventh generation automotive SoC, and is designed to enable Level 4 autonomous driving – otherwise known as "high automation" level driving. Though not quite the holy grail that is Level 5 (full automation), L4 is the more immediate goal for automotive companies working on self-driving cars, as it a degree of automation that allows for cars to start, and if necessary, safely stop themselves. In practice, level 4 systems are likely to be the basis of robo-taxis and other fixed-location vehicles, where such self-driving cars will only need to operate across a known and well-defined area under limited weather conditions.

Mobileye already has the hardware to do L4 automation today, however that hardware is comprised of six to eight EyeQ chips working together. For the research and development phase that's more than sufficient – just making it all work is quite a big deal, after all – but as L4 is now within Mobileye's grasp, the company is working on the next step of productization of the technology: making it cheap enough and compact enough for mass market vehicles. And that's where the EyeQ Ultra comes in.

At a high level, the EyeQ Ultra is intended to be Mobileye's first mass market autonomous driving SoC, To accomplish this, Mobileye is designing a single-chip L4 driving system – that is, all of the necessary processing hardware is contained within a single high-end SoC. So when attached to the appropriate cameras and sensors, the EyeQ Ultra – and the Ultra alone – would be able to driving a car as per L4 standards.

The EyeQ Ultra includes 12 RISC-V cores and various accelerators. Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017 and is planning an IPO.


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posted by martyb on Wednesday January 05 2022, @06:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-nice-to-be-nice dept.
[UPDATE: 2022-01-05 20:48:08 UTC]
We are aware there are some issues (dead links) where indicated by links to "here" in the story. It seems to be a long-dormant bug in the code. Will address this issue when addressing any other issues raised here. In the meantime, try using the links that appear in the liked-to article, directly, at: ( https://soylentnews.org/faq.pl?op=moderation#spam . Yes, we are aware that those are not the best examples and we are aware that those examples may need to be updated to point to better ones. --martyb

I've been made aware of some discussions about the permitted use of the "Spam" moderation. This has spawned a great deal of discussion among Soylent staff.

What's The Point?
The whole purpose of comment moderation is for an (early) reader of a comment is to provide guidance to later readers. Like "breaking trail" for others when hiking through deep snow. The "Trail breaker" makes it eaier to navigate the path for those who follow. Before we dive into the Spam, it is important to note that it is encouraged to "upmod" more than one "downmods". I receive an e-mail each day that includes the number of each that were performed on the preceding day. I am happy to report that I generally see 2x to 4x more upmods than downmods! YAY!

Where to start?
Start at the at the top of the Left-Hand side of the Main page. There one can find a link to the FAQ. Click that link and scroll down to the link about our Moderation System. Click that link. Located there is a list of items including one on the Spam Mod.

There it states:

Spam Mod

The spam moderation (spam mod) is to be used only on comments that genuinely qualify as spam. Spam is unsolicited advertisement, undesired and offtopic filth, or possibly illegal in general. Spam can come in many forms, but it differs from a troll comment in that it will have absolutely no substance, is completely undesired, is detrimental to the site, or worse.

The spam mod is special in that is removes 10 Karma points from the user that posted the comment. This mod is meant to combat spam and not to be used to punish commenters (when in doubt, don't use this mod). Our goal is to put a spammer in Karma Hell and for them to not be able to get out of it easily. As we do not want this used against non-spamers, we monitor all spam mods to make sure moderators are not abusing the spam mod. If we find a moderator that unfairly applied the spam mod, we remove the mod giving the poster back the Karma points, and the modder is banned from modding for one month. Further bans to the same modder add increasing amounts of ban time. If you inadvertently applied a spam mod, mail the admin and we will remove the spam mod without banning you. Even though we have updated the interface to physically separate the spam mod from the other mods, unintentional modding may still be an unfortunate occurrence.

Examples

If you are unsure of whether a comment is spam or not, don't use the spam mod. Here are some examples of spam:

  • Proper spam. Anything whose primary purpose is advertisement (unless somehow relevant to the discussion/article).
  • HOSTS/GNAA/etc... type posts. Recurring, useless annoyances we're all familiar with.
  • Posts so offtopic and lacking value to even be a troll that they can't be called anything else. See here, here or here for example.
  • Repeating the same thing over and over. This includes blockquoting entire comments without adding anything substantial to them.

These examples cannot cover every type of Spam that you might encounter. Please exercise common sense. We expect all comments to be on-topic or following a clearly defined thread that has developed as part of the discussion. Raising personal complaints or starting completely new discussions unrelated to the main story are certainly off-topic and also possibly trolling. Remember: if in doubt do not use the Spam moderation.

"Sock Mods" and "Mod Bombs":
You may ask: "What's that?". Simply stated, when a logged-in-user, uses one (or more) account(s) to "updmod" other account(s) in unison. This is similar to using other account(s) to "Downmod" one (or more) account(s) in unison. Both practices are Forbidden. As always, when such activity is discovered, Admins notice and discuss it to confirm the observation with other admins. Actions taken can range from a ban on moderations (for increasing durations for repeat offenders) to an outright ban on use of the accounts(s). We have observed such activity happening recently and are preparing to take action. Similarly, when several accounts can be shown to have repeatedly cooperated to prevent someone from expressing their opinion or have given other accounts an unfair advantage then that can also be a form of 'bombing'. My advice is: stop right now. We do not like taking such actions, but it would be unfair to those who DO follow the rules for us to ignore such activities.

Summary:
(1) simply follow Wheaton's Law:

Don't Be a Dick

(2) "Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean."

posted by martyb on Wednesday January 05 2022, @06:15PM   Printer-friendly

AMD Rembrandt Mobile

AMD announced Rembrandt 6000-series mobile processors with Zen 3+ CPU cores and RDNA2 integrated graphics.

The 8-core processors (e.g. 45W Ryzen 7 6800H and 15W Ryzen 7 6800U) all have 12 RDNA2 graphics cores (CUs), up from the previous generation Cezanne's 8 Vega graphics cores. This could mean a doubling of graphics performance. On the other hand, the 6-core processors (e.g. 15W Ryzen 7 6600U) slash this in half to only 6 RDNA2 CUs.

Rembrandt uses DDR5 or LPDDR5 memory and adds support for 40 Gbps USB4 ports, PCIe Gen 4.0 GPUs and storage, HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2, and AV1 hardware decode.

There are also three "Barcelo" models which are refreshes of Cezanne chips (8-core Ryzen 7 5825U, 6-core Ryzen 5 5625U, and 4-core Ryzen 3 5425U).

Rembrandt will be one of the first products to integrate Microsoft's "Pluton" security chip.

Intel Alder Lake Mobile

Intel announced Alder Lake-H (high performance) and Alder Lake-U (low power) mobile processors, with a heterogeneous microarchitecture featuring performance (P) and efficiency (E) cores.

Alder Lake-H has a "base power" of 45 Watts and a "max turbo power" of 115 Watts. The top i9/i7 chips have 14 cores (6P + 8E). In the middle there is an i7-12650H with 10 cores (6P + 4E) and an i5-12600H and i5-12500H with 12 cores (4P + 8E), so that may lead to some confusion. Finally, there is an i5-12450H with 8 cores (4P + 4E).

Alder Lake-U has a "base power" of 15 Watts and a "max turbo power" of 55 Watts. At the top there are a few chips with 10 cores (2P + 8E) and 80 or 96 graphics execution units (EUs). The i3-1215U has 6 cores (2P + 4E) and 64 EUs. Finally there are a Pentium 8505 and Celeron 7305 with 5 cores (1P + 4E) and 48 EUs.

More

* Intel announced cheaper and lower power Alder Lake desktop CPUs, including CPUs made from a smaller die with no efficiency cores, and the world's fastest dual-core CPU (the Pentium G7400).
* AMD announced the Ryzen 7 5800X3D for a Spring 2022 launch. No other Zen 3 CPUs with stacked cache are planned.
* Zen 4 and the AM5 socket will launch sometime during the second half of 2022.
* AMD announced the RX 6500 XT ($200) and various mobile GPUs.
* Nvidia announced its RTX 3050 ($250) and RTX 3090 Ti desktop GPUs

See also: Intel Teases Core i9-12900KS Alder Lake CPU With Up To 5.5 GHz Boost Clock, 5.2 GHz All P-Core Boost


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 05 2022, @03:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-the-thing-to-warm-the-room-on-these-cold-winter-nights dept.

Intel's high-end 12th-generation Core processors use a lot of power and generate a lot of heat, but Asus' ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard takes things to the next level. A "potential reversed memory capacitor" in some boards can cause them to catch on fire.

The problem was initially hunted down by the Actually Hardware Overclocking YouTube channel, which diagnosed the issue using images from Reddit users and posters on Asus' support forums whose boards had failed. The reversed capacitor causes increased current leakage, which generates heat that subsequently burns out the neighboring MOSFET transistors. Users with the flipped capacitors noted that they noticed a burning smell or even fire before their systems shut down. Once the MOSFETs have burned out, the motherboard's built-in status display will show error code 53, indicating that the motherboard doesn't detect any installed RAM.


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 05 2022, @12:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the BIG-oops! dept.

This HPE software update accidentally wiped 77TB of data:

We covered this story here University Loses Valuable Supercomputer Research After Backup Error Wipes 77 Terabytes of Data. I, like some others, suspected finger trouble on the part of those doing the backup, but the company writing the sofware have put their hands up and taken responsibility.

A flawed update sent out by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) resulted in the loss of 77TB of critical research data at Kyoto University, the company has admitted.

HPE recently issued a software update that broke a program deleting old log files, and instead of just deleting those (which would still have a backup copy stored in a high-capacity storage system), it deleted pretty much everything, including files in the backup system, Tom's Hardware reported.

As a result, some 34 million files, generated by 14 different research groups, from December 14 to December 16, were permanently lost.

In a press release, issued in Japanese, HPE took full responsibility for the disastrous mishap.


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 05 2022, @09:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the they-need-someone-like-MartyB-he-breaks-things-early dept.

Microsoft fixes harebrained Y2K22 Exchange bug that disrupted email worldwide:

Microsoft has released a fix for a harebrained Exchange Server bug that shut down on-premises mail delivery around the world just as clocks were chiming in the new year.

The mass disruption stemmed from a date check failure in Exchange Server 2016 and 2019 that made it impossible for servers to accommodate the year 2022, prompting some to call it the Y2K22 bug. The mail programs stored dates and times as signed integers, which max out at 2147483647, or 231 - 1. Microsoft uses the first two numbers of an update version to denote the year it was released. As long as the year was 2021 or earlier, everything worked fine.

When Microsoft released version 2201010001 on New Year's Eve, however, on-premises servers crashed because they were unable to interpret the date. Consequently, messages got stuck in transport queues. Admins around the world were left frantically trying to troubleshoot instead of ringing in the New Year with friends and family. All they had to go on were two cryptic log messages [...]

"What in the absolute hell Microsoft!?" one admin wrote in this Reddit thread, which was one of the first forums to report the mass failure. "On New Year's Eve!? First place I check is Reddit and you guys save my life before we even get an engineer on the phone."


Original Submission