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Some Stuff Ahead of CES 2020
Here's What to Expect From CES 2020
The 8 Things We Expect to See at CES 2020 (archive)
5G... AI... MicroLED... AirPod clones... "micromobility" e-scooters/bikes... foldables... privacy, and...
By now you might have heard the story: At last year’s CES, a robotic vibrator called the Ose was initially awarded an innovation prize, then was disqualified once the Consumer Technology Association (which puts on the big show) deemed the product “immoral” and “obscene.” Backlash followed, and last summer the CTA released a statement summarizing some policy changes, which included—surprise!—a trial run for sex toys at CES 2020.
All of that buzz (pun absolutely intended) seems to have generated momentum for the woman-led team behind the Ose vibrator. The company says it made more than $1 million within an hour of listing the product for pre-sale in November of 2019. But it also opened the doors for more sex toy and sexual health companies to exhibit at CES this year, whether those are bendable bullet vibrators, kegel exercisers, or “rear gear.” The caveat is that the products have to be “innovative and include new or emerging tech” to qualify. So, OK, we’re looking forward to seeing sex toys served up with AI smarts and a side of blockchain—but really, we mostly look forward to the erosion of taboos around sexual health and sexual pleasure, particularly for women.
CES 2020: Preview of tomorrow's tech on show in Las Vegas
Artificial intelligence, 5G, foldables, surveillance tech, 8K and robotics are set to be among this year's buzzwords.
But also expect Trump to feature. The President's clashes with China have led some of the communist country's biggest tech firms to cancel or reduce their involvement in the Las Vegas event. But the prospect of an imminent trade deal points towards tensions easing and greater access to Chinese consumers.
Ivanka Trump - the US leader's daughter - is also attending to give a "keynote" interview to CES chief Gary Shapiro.
He once called on Americans to oppose her father because of "his racism and inanity".
Now Mr Shapiro faces criticism himself for inviting Ivanka to discuss "the future of work". Critics claim she is benefiting from nepotism while better-qualified female tech champions are overlooked.
Personally, I'll be looking for AMD's announcements, which will include Zen 2 "Renoir" laptop APUs and likely a 64-core Threadripper (48-core for plebs?). AMD will have a streamed keynote on Monday, Jan. 6 at 2:00 p.m. PST. I'll also look at the 8K TVs and related junk. It looks like AV1 hardware decode will be featured in many devices this year.
Note: It looks like the VCN in Renoir will not support AV1 hardware decode. Also, "Dali" is likely going to be the Zen-based upgrade to last year's ultra low power Excavator APUs.
Did we just start a war with Iran?
Senior Iranian, Iraqi commanders killed in Baghdad airstrike - Iraqi state TV
An air strike has killed Iranian Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani and another senior Iranian-linked figure in Baghdad, Iraqi state television reported on Thursday.
No one claimed immediately responsibility for the strike, which Iraqi television also said killed Abu Mehdi al-Muhandas, an Iraqi militia commander, near the Iraqi capital’s airport, but the death of Iran’s most revered military leader appeared likely to send tensions soaring between the United States and Iran.Soleimani, who has long been Iran’s most prominent military figure and is closely linked to the country’s foreign proxy groups, has taken on an enhanced role in Iraq as the country’s Shiite militia groups have gained new clout in recent years.
Pentagon officials declined comment on the strike.
Hearing rumors it was a US strike, nothing confirmed yet though. If true, seems like bombing one of their most prominent generals means war.
Changes Afoot (The Pain of the Liberal Elite)
This has been quite a year. I have successfully avoided any C++ for about six months, which is a big win since it makes me want to puke. I have settled into the relaxed world of Java while keeping my hand in at C. In my copious spare time, I'm working through my Clojure book. I also need to do some more work on my Secret Plan for World Domination(TM).
However, I am very angry and hurting.
I find myself far less engaged in matters of technology since my country is going down the toilet. I want a boat. I want to live by the sea and go sailing and to do a bit of fishing. I wish I had my own company. I'm tired of working for people with no vision who are still trying to figure out whether to adopt ideas that were demonstrated to be successful two decades ago. We are leaving the European Union, the world's most successful and advanced trading bloc, for no discernible reason, on 31st January. Remain has lost the battle.
Now the focus is on Scottish Independence to escape the Alt-Wrong Brexit which will turn us into some kind of backward Dickensian sweatshop. This member of the Liberal Elite is hurting now, and that's all that matters apparently. I definitely have work until about April.
For the record, my ancestors were poor Scottish subsistence farmers, but thanks to the post-WWII Welfare State and universal free education, my family pulled itself up into central heating and double glazing. We also benefited from the free-at-the-point-of-use National Health Service, for which I pay many hundreds of pounds per month in Income Tax and National Insurance. Apparently this qualifies me as a member of the Liberal Metropolitan Elite, despite the fact that I do not and have never lived in London, and I have a modest education and a reasonable job. I'm a very modest man with much to be modest about.
The plan is to relocate "home" to Scotland as and when independence happens. Hopefully the 2020 vote will be positive. In the meantime, I can try to get sent abroad to work. We're running out of good things to do here thanks to Brexit, and the future "opportunities" are both unpleasant and subject to funding from unreliable sources. And I might be getting my first ever pay cut, which will hurt my extended family because I spend about 500 pounds per month helping them out.
In other parts of the UK, many people don't appreciate the difference between the political consensus in Scotland and eg. England. For example, in Scotland, people voted to have higher Income Tax (1%) to have better public services. England just voted by a landslide for massive deregulation (workers' rights, environmental protection, food standards, NHS/USA trade deal).
Regarding the US takeover of our NHS, there is a petition. In "trade deals" everything is on the table,
We've had nearly a decade of Austerity: cuts to the Welfare State, Education, National Health Service, Police, Armed Forces, Social Care, the legal system etc. and yet the Great British Public (actually the English public) voted for this on steroids by a landslide for at least another five years, including a hard Brexit. The re-elected people such as Iain Duncan Smith, a very wealthy man (thanks to his wife) who is getting a knighthood for his reforms to the welfare state (harsh cutbacks and draconian medical tests) which have brought misery to hundreds of thousands of people.
They also re-elected disgraced MP and Home Secretary Priti Patel, a proponent of the Death Penalty amongst other things, and who has a very hard-line attitude to immigrants and refugees, despite being the daughter of refugees to the UK herself.
Of course, we must not forget, the Prime Minister himself, Boris Johnson, twice sacked from his day job (with right-wing newspapers) for lying who is also a brazen racist and homophobic bigot, amongst other things.
Apparently I do not understand why this has happened. I do not understand why my own behaviour has made this happen. Apparently, despite my attempts to help the less fortunate that myself, I "sneer" and "show contempt" for them. Apparently paying tax to fund a civilised society is not appreciated.
Other than sneering, whinging and generally being a pining Remoaner, what have I done?
First of all, I have been making donations to my local food bank and other food charities, and to obviously distressed people begging in the street After the Second World War, my grandparents' generation voted, by a landslide, to establish a comprehensive Welfare State, from cradle to the grave, to ensure that there was a basic safety net for their fellow human beings such that this sort of suffering would not have to be endured, and they (and I) were happy to pay for it. We're all in this life thing together, after all, and we never know when our luck might change.
I have also made several donations to Hope Not Hate in order to fund campaigns against fascist bullies and bigots such as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) and Nigel Farage.
I have continued to support The People's Challenge and to Gina Miller's various causes.
We lost. It's now time to start "getting over it." I'm bitter, angry, tired and despondent but it's time to plan for the future and to move on.
England has chosen the far-right USA model of extreme deregulation and pursuit of profit. Scotland has aligned itself politically and economically with countries such as Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. I prefer the Scottish model.
There is one fly in the ointment: the UK Parliament (Westminster), currently dominated by the English far-right, has to "approve" a Scottish Independence referendum (Section 30) to make it legally binding. They say they'll deny it. Why? They say Scotland is a drain on UK finances. You'd think that this brave new patriotic England would be delighted to be relieved of yet another burden?
2020 looks to be a very interesting year politically, particularly for the UK. Happy new year.
What Texans are good for
Shit exactly like this.
The Silicon Anti-Lottery
The Worst CPU & GPU Purchases of 2019
Intel Core i9-9900KF / i9-9900KS
Essentially what Intel has done here is create hype around a new product that’s not new at all. They’re charging users more money to cherry pick the best silicon, while reducing the overall quality of the 9900K range by limiting it to parts that can’t easily run at 5 GHz or beyond.
As a result, a few months out from the 9900KS release people started to notice how poorly new 9900K processors were overclocking and binning specialist ‘Silicon Lottery,’ had to drop the 9900K altogether. Typically as a CPU ages the manufacturing process that it’s based on will mature and this leads to a higher chance of ending up with better quality silicon, so typically you’d see parts like the 9900K that usually overclocked to 5 GHz, start to do it more frequently as times goes by.
Our concern with the 9900KS is that Intel now has the option to release a new CPU series and send reviewers the best silicon available at the time while also selling it to early adopters initially. After which point they activate an aggressive binning process, saving top tier silicon for an upcoming special edition series and sell it at a premium.
The chance of purchasing a lower quality silicon chip is always a possibility, but with this change your chance of winning the silicon lottery goes from say ~30%, to zero.
While we’re not wrapped with the idea of the 9900KS, there is also the 9900KF model. What we have here is a 9900K that overclocks no better, the integrated graphics are disabled, and it costs no less. Asking to pay full price for a defective 9900K is no joke.
Intel is so tight on 14nm supply right now that they’re selling everything, parts once destined for the bin are now binned as special versions without iGPUs. In our opinion, they’d be better off selling them to overclockers without the [integrated heat spreader], Intel could save a few bucks there, and overclockers would appreciate having to avoid the delidding step.
When you look at benchmarks for CPUs on sites like cpubenchmark.net, you're hopefully seeing an average score based on hundreds of tested samples, with the score fairly representing expected performance. But cooling and thermal differences, RAM speed, the number of RAM channels in use, and other factors could create large performance variations between the same chips. For example, the Intel Celeron N4000 in some 13-inch laptop should perform significantly better than in a thermally constrained device such as Walmart's landfill quality 10-inch EVOO tablet.
Now, not only do you have to be wary of benchmark conditions and reviewers getting sent excellently binned chips, but you should also keep in mind that early benchmarks could be artificially higher if a company's binning shenanigans includes selling lower quality chips with the same name later.
Related: That's Ryzen AF: Some Old AMD Chips Might Be Getting a 12nm Makeover
Zen 3: +17% IPC?
It is pointed out that in mixed operations that leverage both integer and floating-point units of the Zen architecture, Zen 3 could deliver a 17% IPC gain on average. It is also stated that the integer ops are getting a 10-12% increase on average while the floating-point operations could feature up to a 50% increase in performance. Integer operations are what most general consumer apps use but in floating-point heavy applications, Zen 3 has the potential to be a big game-changer for the industry and especially the server market (HPC/Datacenters).
Big if true. Looks like a worthwhile upgrade to Zen/Zen+ systems if your motherboard is compatible. Otherwise, it might be better to wait it out until Zen 4 on a new AM5 socket, likely allowing upgrades to future Zen 5 and Zen 6 CPUs.
End of Year Stats
JMH requested some site data and I haven't done one of these up in a while, so here goes.
Top 20 viewed stories of 2019 as of NOW()
+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------+-------+
| Story | Submitter | Hits |
+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------+-------+
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/06/24/1233205 | martyb | 36429 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/08/23/0136213 | Anonymous Coward | 14008 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/03/26/0356205 | Anonymous Coward | 13165 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/01/25/0435205 | martyb | 12502 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/04/11/1029234 | Anonymous Coward | 12021 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/04/15/2012241 | Freeman | 10861 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/01/20/192257 | aristarchus | 9113 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/03/21/0256218 | martyb | 9083 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/01/03/1431210 | aristarchus | 8672 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/01/27/1941254 | martyb | 8612 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/04/18/1615204 | martyb | 8555 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/05/01/1713236 | AnonTechie | 8528 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/04/17/0824259 | aristarchus | 7718 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/01/13/1816246 | takyon | 7396 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/02/22/0241259 | aristarchus | 7272 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/03/17/1114248 | Anonymous Coward | 7226 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/02/15/0416210 | martyb | 7190 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/11/01/1146203 | Anonymous Coward | 7135 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/02/12/2347255 | takyon | 6730 |
| https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/03/11/0256224 | RandomFactor | 6525 |
+---------------------------------------------------------+------------------+-------+
Most mods for ... in 2019 (in order of the db id of the reason)
Offtopic
+----------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+----------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 1007 |
| realDonaldTrump | 221 |
| Runaway1956 | 186 |
| aristarchus | 138 |
| khallow | 51 |
| Ethanol-fueled | 47 |
| Azuma Hazuki | 28 |
| jmichaelhudsondotnet | 28 |
| fustakrakich | 26 |
| c0lo | 25 |
+----------------------+------+
Flamebait
+--------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 1817 |
| Runaway1956 | 194 |
| aristarchus | 155 |
| Ethanol-fueled | 139 |
| Azuma Hazuki | 121 |
| realDonaldTrump | 86 |
| khallow | 83 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 76 |
| ikanreed | 63 |
| Bot | 40 |
+--------------------+------+
Troll
+--------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 4490 |
| Runaway1956 | 470 |
| realDonaldTrump | 431 |
| Ethanol-fueled | 307 |
| khallow | 278 |
| aristarchus | 242 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 178 |
| Azuma Hazuki | 177 |
| jmorris | 117 |
| VLM | 101 |
+--------------------+------+
Redundant
+--------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 466 |
| aristarchus | 54 |
| khallow | 50 |
| realDonaldTrump | 46 |
| Runaway1956 | 45 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 26 |
| fustakrakich | 19 |
| DeathMonkey | 19 |
| c0lo | 15 |
| Bot | 11 |
+--------------------+------+
Insightful
+--------------------+-------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+-------+
| Anonymous Coward | 11091 |
| Runaway1956 | 900 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 650 |
| Azuma Hazuki | 612 |
| JoeMerchant | 512 |
| DannyB | 468 |
| Thexalon | 465 |
| c0lo | 441 |
| DeathMonkey | 410 |
| ikanreed | 405 |
+--------------------+-------+
Interesting
+--------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 6465 |
| JoeMerchant | 536 |
| takyon | 516 |
| Runaway1956 | 495 |
| DannyB | 307 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 279 |
| bzipitidoo | 265 |
| c0lo | 257 |
| Azuma Hazuki | 256 |
| Thexalon | 232 |
+--------------------+------+
Informative
+--------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 6776 |
| takyon | 589 |
| DeathMonkey | 531 |
| c0lo | 420 |
| Azuma Hazuki | 366 |
| Runaway1956 | 354 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 337 |
| NotSanguine | 227 |
| JoeMerchant | 219 |
| ikanreed | 217 |
+--------------------+------+
Funny
+--------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 5100 |
| DannyB | 422 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 319 |
| Runaway1956 | 276 |
| c0lo | 245 |
| Bot | 242 |
| takyon | 235 |
| aristarchus | 234 |
| realDonaldTrump | 214 |
| Gaaark | 199 |
+--------------------+------+
Overrated
+--------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 497 |
| Runaway1956 | 63 |
| Azuma Hazuki | 51 |
| DeathMonkey | 27 |
| ikanreed | 27 |
| aristarchus | 26 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 25 |
| c0lo | 24 |
| realDonaldTrump | 22 |
| The Shire | 19 |
+--------------------+------+
Underrated
+--------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 610 |
| Runaway1956 | 73 |
| realDonaldTrump | 36 |
| Ethanol-fueled | 34 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 26 |
| Azuma Hazuki | 22 |
| khallow | 20 |
| VLM | 18 |
| Arik | 16 |
| aristarchus | 16 |
+--------------------+------+
Spam (including moderations that were reversed)
+--------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 321 |
| DeathMonkey | 8 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 5 |
| aristarchus | 4 |
| NPC-131072 | 2 |
| mars90 | 2 |
| mrpg | 1 |
| edIII | 1 |
| sigterm | 1 |
| stretch611 | 1 |
+--------------------+------+
Disagree
+--------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 677 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 93 |
| Runaway1956 | 75 |
| khallow | 54 |
| fustakrakich | 34 |
| Azuma Hazuki | 30 |
| Arik | 24 |
| janrinok | 21 |
| c0lo | 20 |
| The Shire | 19 |
+--------------------+------+
Touché
+--------------------+------+
| Nick | Mods |
+--------------------+------+
| Anonymous Coward | 2758 |
| DeathMonkey | 234 |
| The Mighty Buzzard | 192 |
| Runaway1956 | 161 |
| c0lo | 157 |
| takyon | 138 |
| Azuma Hazuki | 131 |
| DannyB | 128 |
| khallow | 96 |
| fustakrakich | 95 |
+--------------------+------+
HA! The only moderation list I didn't make was Offtopic!
NVIDIA, CUDA, and F@H on Linux
Ohhhh-kay - video cards on Linux have always been a hassle. Nothing works right, right? Except, when it does work right, it's really right!
I've finally figured out how to make NVIDIA GPU's work right, and I'm documenting it here, for myself and anyone else who can use the information.
First, you download the SGFXI script from https://smxi.org/site/install.htm
After a new install of your OS, run the script. It takes all the headache out of blacklisting Nouveau etc. It's all in the script, you need not even think about it. By default, the script will install the latest current NVIDIA driver. Using the switch -o when you invoke it, you can choose which driver to install. But, the choices are limited, it doesn't support all available NVIDIA drivers. It's probably best to just go with the default, which is currently 440.40.
That latest, greatest, shiny new 440.40 should be your choice of driver anyways, right? Nope. It doesn't crunch very well, if it crunches at all.
The script runs, and announces that the driver is installed, asks if you want to restart your desktop. I always just reboot the computer.
So, the computer boots to your desktop, with 440.40, it's time to install the good, working CUDA driver. Grab the CUDA toolkit from https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads
I boot into single user before running it, but that isn't strictly necessary. Navigate to wherever you downloaded it to, and invoke it with './cuda_10.2.89_440.33.01_linux.run' or similar, as Super User. Some of the NVIDIA installers balk at SUDO, so you probably need to be SU instead of SUDO.
It's a very large download, 2.5 gig if I recall correctly. Just wait for it to extract itself, and you'll get a menu, giving you options of features to install. For our purposes here, we ONLY NEED the driver. I'm not a programmer, and I'm not going to learn how to make CUDA jump through hoops. F@H has already figured that out, they just need the proper driver to make the hoops with. Unselect everything but the driver, and tell it to run.
When the driver is installed, reboot, and install F@H, or whatever programs you might be running that require CUDA.
IF you had your card working with any other driver, this 440.33 driver will make your GPU look like an upgraded video card!
And, no, the sgfxi script will not install this driver. If you extract it, and put it into the sgfxi/downloads folder, the script will simply tell you that the driver is unsupported.
For science, I should repeat the process a couple dozen times. I'm lazy though - 4 runs is more than enough!
I hope someone finds that useful! Enjoy.
Merry Christmas
You're all getting ten extra mod points courtesy of the goofy staff here at SN. Let us know if they don't fit and we can exchange them.
Baba Ram Dass Dies at Age 88
Baba Ram Dass, Proponent of LSD and New Age Enlightenment, Dies at 88
Baba Ram Dass, who epitomized the 1960s of legend by popularizing psychedelic drugs with Timothy Leary, a fellow Harvard academic, before finding spiritual inspiration in India, died on Sunday at his home on Maui, Hawaii. He was 88.
His death was announced on his official Instagram account.
Having returned from India as a bushy-bearded, barefoot, white-robed guru, Ram Dass, who was born Richard Alpert, became a peripatetic lecturer on New Age possibilities and a popular author of more than a dozen inspirational books.
The first of his books, “Be Here Now” (1971), sold more than two million copies and established him as an exuberant exponent of finding salvation through helping others.
He started a foundation to combat blindness in India and Nepal, supported reforestation in Latin America, and developed health education programs for American Indians in South Dakota.
