SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
GAO: Trump Admin broke law freezing Ukraine aid
The White House violated federal law in withholding security assistance to Ukraine, an action at the center of President Donald Trump’s impeachment, a federal watchdog agency said Thursday.
The Government Accountability Office said in a report that the Office of Management and Budget violated the law in holding up the aid, which Congress passed less than a year ago, saying “the President is not vested with the power to ignore or amend any such duly enacted law.”
The aid in question was held up last summer on orders from Trump but was released in September after Congress pushed for its release and a whistleblower’s complaint about Trump’s July call with the Ukrainian leader became public.
Smartphones With 16 GB of RAM Imminent (Eminent)
Black Shark 3 could be the first phone with 16GB of RAM
The most RAM you can get in a smartphone right now is 12GB, but that could soon change, as the Black Shark 3 gaming phone from Xiaomi is rumored to boost that spec to 16GB.
That’s according to Sudhanshu (a leaker on Twitter with a reasonable track record). Of course, whether the Black Shark 3 will be the first phone to arrive with that much RAM depends on when it launches, but with the phone having been rumored for a while – and given that the Black Shark 2 launched in March 2019 – it’s likely that it will arrive soon, possibly at MWC 2020.
Whether or not the Black Shark 3 is first to 16GB, it should make good use of it, as gaming phones need all the power they can get – and with that much RAM, coupled with a top-end chipset (the Snapdragon 865 is likely), it could take us another step closer to console-type power on a phone.
All Galaxy S20 Models Rumored to Feature 12GB LPDDR5 RAM as Part of Their Base Configuration
The tip comes from Ice Universe who claims that the base Galaxy S20 memory configuration will start from 12GB RAM, and it’s not just any other RAM; it’s likely the 12GB LPDDR5 DRAM Samsung announced in July last year. Thanks to a higher data rate, the new mobile memory is 1.5 times faster than LPDDR4x which was featured in previous phones. A new circuit design also makes the new chip more power-efficient as it needs 30 percent less power than its predecessor. With these features, 12GB LPDDR5 RAM will be able to make the best use of the speeds offered by 5G.
Samsung had already announced that the production of 16GB LPDDR5 RAM will begin in 2020, and thus it’s entirely possible that Galaxy S20 memory configuration will go as high as the aforementioned capacity.
This is DOA. I need 1,280 GB of RAM in my next smartphone.
Previously: Samsung Begins Mass Producing 12 GB DRAM Packages for Smartphones
Samsung Mass Producing LPDDR5 DRAM (12 Gb x 8 for 12 GB Packages)
Get Ready for Smartphones with 16 GB of RAM
Trump Campaign Adviser Pleads Guilty to Pizza-gating Kids
Trump Campaign Adviser Pleads Guilty to Child Porn, Sex Trafficking
Nader was first charged in June 2019 with transporting and possessing pornographic images of children including some featuring toddler-age boys, baby goats and other farm animals. A month later in July, prosecutors added a sex-trafficking charge, saying Nader had arranged the transport to his Washington home of a 14-year-old boy from the Czech Republic in February 2000.
Nader allegedly held onto the child’s passport after flying him through Dulles International Airport. Once at his residence, he assaulted him nightly and kept the child silent by threatening him and his mother with imprisonment should they ever attempt to report him, according to the indictment.
The projection is powerful! When Trumpers accuse anybody of anything we should just assume they're already guilty of it.
It's Time to Not Nominate Bernie Again
It’s Bernie’s moment. But it’s Bloomberg’s race. (archive)
If it can be summed up, then, the Democratic “mood” is basically this: “We like Bernie. He’s a warrior. But we’re afraid if we nominate him, he’ll lose in the fall. We need someone to get the job done.”
If the two men who might be that someone — former vice president Joe Biden and former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg — lose to Sanders in Iowa and New Hampshire, that would make their “electability” somewhat less convincing. Defeat can be contagious. There are not many voters who say: “I like him — he loses a lot.”
So it’s Bernie’s moment, which has sent a wave of panic through the Democratic ecosystem. It’s like waking up from a nightmare, only to realize that you’re waking up in a nightmare.
Which helps explain why Democrats across the country will soon find themselves with a newfound appreciation for the virtues of one Mike Bloomberg, former Republican mayor of New York and billionaire founder of a financial data services empire. He might not have been exactly what they had in mind, but by Super Tuesday he’ll look like Brad Pitt.
Two b(m)illionaires competing for the Presidency is the kaiju battle we need right now. So let's repeat the mistake success of 2016 and finally send Bernie to a retirement home.
Worldbuilding (video)
The art of manliness
If you think you're doing it right, I invite you to consider that this thirteen year old girl has bigger balls than you.
Iran fires missiles at multiple US airbases
The Al-Asad base was reportedly hit by multiple rockets. It is unclear if there have been any casualties.
It come after top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani was killed in a drone strike in Baghdad on Friday, on the orders of US President Donald Trump.
Iran has threatened "severe revenge" for Soleimani's death.
US Airbase in Iraq Hit by Rockets
Iran fires missiles at multiple bases housing US troops in Iraq
Iran has launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles against multiple bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq, Pentagon officials said on Tuesday.
(Edited as it's a developing story)
Epstein: Bugs Are No Fun at All
The handwritten note found in Jeffrey Epstein's jail cell
In the course of a five-month investigation, 60 Minutes obtained photos of Epstein's cell after his apparent suicide. Also found was a note, giving the world a look into what Jeffrey Epstein may have been thinking in his final days.
The note was written on yellow lined paper with a blue ballpoint pen and there were complaints about jail conditions.
The note says that one guard "kept me in a locked shower stall for 1 hour." "[Another prison guard] sent me burnt food." "Giant bugs crawling over my hands. No fun!!"
I do not like them on suicide watch.
I do not like them crawling on my crotch.
I do not like them in my cell.
I do not like them down in hell.
I do not like burnt food and bugs.
60 Minutes investigates the death of Jeffrey Epstein (show transcript)
Sharyn Alfonsi: The other thing we just noticed looking at the photos. It appears he had some kind of sleep apnea machine. You can see a long electrical cord.
Dr. Michael Baden: Yes. There were other wires and cords present that it would've been easy to use to hang oneself within a few minutes.
But the key reason Dr. Baden thinks Jeffrey Epstein's death might be a homicide is because of the unusual fractures he saw in Epstein's neck.
Dr. Michael Baden: There were fractures of the left, the right, thyroid cartilage and the left hyoid bone.
This is an autopsy photo of Epstein's broken hyoid bone, a U-shaped bone that sits under the jaw that part of the tongue attaches to. The thyroid cartilage sits at the front of the neck.
Dr. Michael Baden: I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging. Sometimes there's a fracture of the hyoid bone or a fracture of the thyroid cartilage.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But not three?
Dr. Michael Baden: Very unusual to have two and not three. And going over— over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York City state prisons over the past 40-50 years, no one had three fractures.
The New York City Medical Examiner's office disputes Baden's theory, saying that fractures of the hyoid bone and cartilage can be seen in suicides and homicides and they stand "firmly" behind their finding of suicide by hanging.
Then, there's the two nooses. This was the one that was sketched and included in the autopsy by the medical examiner, presumably, because they thought it was used in Epstein's death.
But Dr. Baden says that noose, and the wounds on Jeffrey Epstein's neck, don't appear to match.
5 Takeaways From the 60 Minutes Jeffrey Epstein Report
Ricky Gervais slams Hollywood stars in scathing Golden Globes speech
Ricky Gervais Calls Hollywood Stars Jeffrey Epstein's Friends During Golden Globes Opening Monologue
Regulatory Capture
This one goes out to all the dogmatic "all regulation is bad hurr hurr" types we're infested with.
The single argument I see them falling back on when backed into a corner is something along the lines of "Yeah, well, X Y and Z regulations have been set up and perverted, so regulation itself is a threat and inherently bad!"
This is...I don't think there is a way to express in English how completely, utterly, boneheadedly, cynically, self-servingly, sneeringly, willfully wrong this is. No one with three sparking neurons would say this for its own sake. And what *that* means is that the people who *do* say this are using it as a flimsy dogmatic excuse to push their idiotic economic agendas.
Let me make this absolutely clear: this argument is the precise equivalent of saying "Well, cancer cells can turn off cell-cycle checkpoints like p53, so replication regulation mechanisms are bad for living things!" or "Yeah, well look what happens to human DNA when a retrovirus gets ahold of it. Cell division is anti-life!"
It is *exactly* the same argument, just made in context of the body politic rather than the body simpliciter. Anyone who makes this argument is a fool, a rube, a tool of the elite who no doubt don't even know they exist and would not thank them for their pathetic grovelling bootlicking.
In other words, KHallow (though we have others on this site infected with the disease). And yes, this is a call-out. Suck it up. I will never understand what drives people to kiss the boot that's stomping their skulls into a fine paste...though I fear it may be something as simple as "I suffer but $GROUP_I_HATE suffers more."
8.4 Megabyte Shrek
Entire Shrek movie in just 8MiB with AV1 and opus
128×72 resolution (the elusive "72p"), 4 FPS, 4.6 kbps video, 7.5 kbps audio, 1:30:04 runtime.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you shouldn't.
