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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
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)
Interesting "MOTD" or whatever that quote thing is
"it's amazing how "not-broken" debian is compared to slack and rh"
I can only assume rh is Red Hat in the mentioned quote. I saw it at the bottom of one of the SoylentNews pages.
The question I posit is this. Is Debian still "not-broken" compared to slack and rh? Or has the whole systemd and other recent issues knocked it from it's pedestal?
Okay, maybe that was 2 questions.
On a side note:
I'm still using Windows 10 for my games and VR. Recently my wife's computer decided it was done working and let out it's magic smoke. I mean it's a 10+ year old AMD that's been used near constantly through that time, so it's been a good workhorse. She's currently making do with a Samsung Tablet, a Raspberry Pi 4, and my computer for when she just wants to get away from everyone. The Raspberry Pi 4 is pretty decent, but lacks the DRM voodoo that's needed for Netflix or Disney+ to work. It's easy enough to get Netflix to work on an AMD/Intel platform, but ARM is it's own beast. I've foisted Linux on her a time or two and when I tell her I can build her a sweet $500 Linux computer or a sweet $649 Win 10 computer, she goes, yeah I don't need Windows.
C=64... smartphone??
I just ran across the mega65 project (warning: website is a JS disaster), which appears to be another FPGA-based fantasy remake of an '80s microcomputer (following the previous C=One, One-Chip-MSX, Minimig, and other such doohickies).
There are photos of a portable version which is supposed to have 4G connectivity. What the!?
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.
Replacing disks in FreeBSD w/ ZFS on root, EFI, and GELI
So this is mostly notes for myself if I ever decided to upgrade my hard drives again in my file server. Today I went 4x1TB drives in a Z2 configuration to 4x3TB. Big tip: pay attention to updating the EFI bootloader onto the disk. Otherwise, you'll be kicking your own ass when you replace the last drive and then the system doesn't boot. Kind of why I'm writing this here, I'll have an idea where I should look for documentation when I upgrade the drives again.
In this guide we're replacing drive ada1. The old disk is gone and the new one is already installed. Get a look at how the drive should be setup. This command will show all the partitioned drives, we're going to use ada0 as the template. The first time you do this on the system, you'll likely have to manually remove and recreate partition 4 or figure out how to resize the partition. After that, you can copy the partition scheme as shown below.
# gpart show
40 5860533088 ada0 GPT (2.7T)
40 2008 - free - (1.0M)
2048 1600 1 efi (800K)
3648 448 - free - (224k)
4096 4194304 2 freebsd-zfs (2.0G)
4198400 4194304 3 freebsd-swap (2.0G)
8392704 5852139520 4 freebsd-zfs (2.7T)
5860532224 904 - free - (452K)
The EFI partition is more or less your mbr. Partition 2 is the zfs pool for your /boot directory. Partition 3 is swap space, and Partition 4 is the big zpool for all of the stuff including the root file system. Don't ask me why I did it this way and expect an intelligent answer. That was 4 years ago. This was my first FreeBSD install, first ZFS install, first EFI install, and this is what i cobbled together from all of the guides I was referencing. It works, so I don't touch it. Theoretically, I can survive two failed disks and also can rollback failed release updates and such with ZFS snapshots. In practice, I know I can make snapshots and yank a disk (as long as another disk happens to have the EFI data needed to make the system boot).
Clone the partition table from the good disk (ada0) to new disk (ada1)
# gpart backup ada0 | gpart restore -F ada1
Modify the partitions to have the correct drive labels.
# gpart modify -i1 -l efiboot1 ada1
# gpart modify -i2 -l boot1 ada1
# gpart modify -i3 -l swap1 ada1
# gpart modify -i4 -l zfs1 ada1
Turn on the swap.
# swapon /dev/ada1p3
Check swap status
# swapinfo
Replace bootpool device
# zpool replace bootpool /dev/gpt/boot1
Check zpool status
# zpool status
Encrypt the zfs pool and then attach it.
# geli init -b -e AES-XTS -K /boot/encryption.key -l 256 -s 4096 /dev/ada1p4
# geli attach -k encrypton.key /dev/ada1p4
Replace zroot device
# zpool replace zroot /dev/ada1p4.eli
Check zpool status
# zpool status
Make the new drive bootable
# gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptzfsboot -i 1 ada1 <<<<====DOESN'T DO SHIT, BECAUSE: _EFI_
# /sbin/gpart bootcode -p /boot/boot1.efifat -i 1 ada1
Keep watching the zpool status for the resilvering process to finish before rebooting, shutting down, or off-lining the next disk. The pool size will determine how long that will take. My 1.5TB pool took about 3 hours to resilver each disk.
EDIT:
If you're replacing disks like I did to expand your pool, you are not done yet! Although the larger disks are installed and the system is using larger partitions, your zpool is not setup yet to use the additional space. First you have to enable the autoexpand feature on your storage pool.
To check the autoexpand value:
# zpool get autoexpand zroot
NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE
zroot autoexpand off default
And to change that value to on:
# zpool autoexpand=on zroot
After that we online each partition to automatically grow the pool.
# zpool online -e zroot ada0p4.eli
# zpool online -e zroot ada1p4.eli
# zpool online -e zroot ada2p4.eli
# zpool online -e zroot ada3p4.eli
And now you are done.
East of Eden
I just finished reading John Steinbeck's East of Eden and it is, by far, the best book I've ever read.
Better than the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. Better than To Kill a Mockingbird. Better than Piers Anthony's Battle Circle. Better even than Steinbeck's other acclaimed works like The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men.
I bought East of Eden along w/ two other books from Books a Million a couple of weeks ago. Lately I've been getting into reading the classics, books I wasn't assigned to read in high school and never got around to reading since. Sometimes, when perusing the aisles at BAM, it's difficult to pick out good classics from among all the new literature that overflows the shelves. So I usually take my time, sometimes up to an hour, when selecting something to add to my library.
The other two books I picked up were The Pearl (also by Steinbeck) and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. When I went to visit relatives for a few days over New Year's I took these two, b/c they're much shorter than the 600 page tome Eden. I wasn't sure how much time I'd have available to spend reading while visiting and figured these two would be enough.
I devoured The Pearl in one night, and got about 2/3 of the way through All Quiet before heading back home on New Year's Day. And right now I'm glad I took those two instead of Eden b/c I fear I may have done nothing else but read during my entire visit.
The past three nights I've stayed up very late reading it, so much that I had a headache when I went to sleep. Tonight I needed Visine my eyes were so sore. I just couldn't put it down.
I think what moved me the most was not so much the story itself, but the argument some of the characters had regarding the Bible story of Cain and Able, and how the revelation they had applied to their lives. The applicable verse is:
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
The two words 'thou shalt' from the King James version constitute a promise that Cain would conquer sin. But the passage from the American Standard Bible translates it as:
Do thou rule over him.
This translation represents an order, not a promise. But the Chinese servant arguing in Eden is bothered by this. He enlists the help of Chinese scholars to learn Hebrew and the word 'timshel' is interpreted by them as meaning 'Thou mayest.' The servant posits it may be the most important word in the whole world, and explains:
"...Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, 'Do thou,' and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in 'Thou shalt.' Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But 'Thou mayest'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win."
If you live believing 'thou mayest' then surely if you improve yourself, you will be forgiven. For some time now, I've felt that I accomplished everything I set out to do in life. I own my house and a nice piece of property, am debt free, my kids will be upstanding and productive members of society, and they'll have a nice inheritance when I'm gone. If I die tomorrow I'll die happy and without fear, knowing these truths. Is there another chapter in my life I haven't started living yet, and do I need a new set of goals?
It isn't often I'm moved to the core by a piece of literature. Steinbeck somehow makes prose read like poetry. Maybe my life can be read like that too.
More analysis:
Attack on Iran was predicted in 2011
The president attacking Iran was predicted in 2011.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSrC7-ERrE4
The prediction:
"Our president will start a war with Iran, because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. So the only way he figures he's going to get re-elected, and as sure as you're sitting there, he's going to start a war with Iran. So. I believe that he will attack Iran. Sometime prior to the election. Because he thinks that's the only way he can get elected. Isn't it pathetic."
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
