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AMD Hints at More Than 4 GB Graphics Memory As Standard on Next-Gen Radeon RX Graphics Card

In a recent blog post, AMD might have hinted at the end of the 4 GB entry-level graphics cards era as we get closer to the launch of the first RDNA 2 powered Radeon RX graphics cards. The blog post that is cleverly titled 'Game Beyond 4GB' compares AMD's most entry-level Navi based Radeon RX graphics card, the 5500 XT, in both 4 GB and 8 GB flavors and shows how the increased VRAM size not only delivers better performance but has become crucial from a support point of view in next-generation AAA titles.

Currently, AMD's entry-level Radeon RX graphics card lineup consists of the Radeon RX 5500 XT which has two variants, one with 4 GB GDDR6 memory and a second variant with 8 GB GDDR6 memory. In addition to its Navi based cards, AMD's older Polaris based options continue to sell large volumes and have several options to select from with the majority being 8 GB variants that we saw become a standard in the last generation of Polaris offerings.

AMD in its own testing reports up to 24% performance improvement in AAA titles using an 8 GB Radeon RX 5500 XT versus a 4 GB variant. Modern titles such as Borderlands 3, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Forza Horizon 4, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Doom Eternal, and Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus were tested, all of which showed marked improvement over the 4 GB option.

Also at Guru3D.

Frankly speaking, neither is 8.

laughs (cries?) in heavily modified 8K textures Skyrim Mods

I see six lights!

NO! You see two lights!

How many lights do you see?

I see twelve lights?!

BZZZT! You see two lights!

There is only one reason for a stock or bond prices to go up. And that’s because of the flow of funds into the stock market. What had been supporting the stock market for the last 12 years was very largely stock buybacks by companies using their revenue to sort of close down their business, disinvest and buy their own stocks to at least keep the prices up. Well, what’s flowing into the market right now? Obviously, it’s not corporate profits buying their own stocks, and it’s certainly not popular money coming into the market by small investors thinking that stocks are going to earn more. All this money is coming into the market from the 10 trillion dollar bailout via the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is going out directly and is buying stocks, bonds, junk bonds, mortgages, junk mortgages, all to prop up the value of assets.

Now, when it’s putting this money into the stock market, it’s buying stocks that are already issued and have long since —the proceeds have been spent on building factories or enterprises or as means of making money. So none of this bailout money, none of this 10 trillion going into the stock market has any effect at all on the real economy of production and consumption. It’s solely to support the assets that are held almost eighty five percent by the wealthiest 10 percent of the economy.
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Let’s, for the sake of arguments, say they [democrats] actually take the White House and both houses of Congress. What should they do?

...I would say now this time when Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo become insolvent, wiping out its net worth as they did in 2008, this time take them into the public sector, make them public banks, and as a public banks, let's not lend for corporate takeover loans. Let’s not lend money to corporate raiders to outsource and downsize companies. Let’s make lend for actual for loans that will actually rebuild the economy with tangible means of production, tangible infrastructure and back to the real economy instead. I think Mr. Biden would say, "Well, how much money did you contribute to my campaign? Oh, I see, well, thank you very much, sir."

Cue the psychos

"George is looking down right now and saying 'this is a great thing happening for our country. It's great day for him, a great day for everybody. This is a great, great day in terms of equality. It’s really what our Constitution requires and what our country is about."

"...And tomorrow... tomorrow's gonna be a... real good day!"

Three far-right extremists arrested by an anti-terror unit at Las Vegas protests over the killing of an African-American man by police were charged Wednesday with inciting violence, officials said.

The men allegedly belong to the "Boogaloo" movement, which has adopted Hawaiian shirts as a uniform and which promotes "a coming civil war and/or collapse of society," said a Nevada federal prosecutor.

Stephen Parshall, 35, Andrew Lynam, 23, and William Loomis, 40, all live in Las Vegas where they were arrested on Saturday by an anti-terror unit headed by the FBI.

They were in possession of a Molotov cocktail when they were detained, Mr Trutanich said.

If convicted on federal charges the men face up to 30 years in prison. They were also indicted on terrorism conspiracy and other charges by state officials.

Far-right extremists charged with inciting violence as US protests enter a ninth straight evening

3 self-proclaimed members of the far-right 'boogaloo' movement were arrested on domestic terrorism charges for trying to spark violence during protests

Would be nice, if a Soylentil submits a submission, that that Soylentil might be credited with that submission, before some boot-licking scum-sucking lime lizard of a bot, that came across the same thing. Unless we (meaning, Eds) were trying to reduce the aristarchus visability on the the SN at large, in a form of passive aggressive censorship? Tell me it ain't so, Joe, tell me it ain't!
(Again, nessesary reference for uneducated non-boomers: Kid said this to "Shoeless Joe Jackson", after it was alleged that the White Sox had thrown the "World Series" in 1919. )

Tell me it ain't so, bytram! And the ball master TMB? Tell me it ain't so! And also tell me the Precedent did not just tear gas Episcopalian priests, holding a vigil for peace?

Soylent News has be infested, for quite some time, by fascists whom I will not name, and fellow travellers, like janrinok. Now is the time when you will burn, because if you dare to use force against innocent people, or attempt to censor aristarchus, it will come back upon you, big time. #Freearistarchus!!

Upstart can go dis-compile itself.
 

James Mattis: Trump's former defence secretary denounces president

Former US Defence Secretary James Mattis has denounced President Donald Trump, accusing him of stoking division and abusing his authority.

In rare public comments, Mr Mattis said the president had sought to "divide" the American people and had failed to provide "mature leadership".

He said he was "angry and appalled" by Mr Trump's handling of recent unrest.

In response, the president described Mr Mattis as an "overrated general" and said he was glad he had left the post.

Pentagon chief [Mark Esper] opposes Trump threat to deploy military at protests

Trump has threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act that would allow him to deploy troops on city streets, against the wishes of state and city authorities. The president said he would use the law if local authorities failed “to defend the life and property of their residents”.

Esper categorically opposed using the act on Wednesday.

“I say this not only as secretary of defence, but also as a former soldier, and a former member of the national guard, the option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations,” the defence secretary said. “We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.”

Esper has been supportive of Trump and has avoided contradicting him until now. But there is reported to be mounting unease about senior officers about the politicisation of the armed forces, and concern over Esper’s own actions.

“Esper has directly challenged Trump,” Thomas Wright, director of the centre on the United States and Europe on the Brookings Institution, said on Twitter. “Trump hates being boxed in. If he fires Esper, it could set in motion a crisis that may lead to a wider revolt within the GOP.”

(most of the dictators were goners once not even the military would support them. Trump may consider himself lucky to not managing yet to evolve into a dictator)

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(edit: June 4, 2020)

Trump’s Bible photo op splits white evangelical loyalists into two camps

On Monday when Donald Trump raised overhead a Bible – the Sword of the Spirit, to believers – he unwittingly cleaved his loyal Christian supporters into two camps.
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The Rev Johnnie Moore, president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, described Trump in shepherd-like terms on Twitter:

“I will never forget seeing @POTUS @realDonaldTrump slowly & in-total-command walk from the @WhiteHouse across Lafayette Square to St. John’s Church defying those who aim to derail our national healing by spreading fear, hate & anarchy. After just saying, ‘I will keep you safe.’”
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“Pelting people with rubber bullets and spraying them with teargas for peacefully protesting is morally wrong,” said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. “What we need right now is moral leadership – from all of us, in the churches, in the police departments, in the courts, and in the White House. The Bible tells us so. So do our own consciences.”
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The staunchest of evangelicals, 90-year-old televangelist Pat Robertson, split from Trump on Tuesday.

He told his television viewers of the president: “He said, ‘I’m ready to send in military troops if the nation’s governors don’t act to quell the violence that has rocked American cities.’ A matter of fact, he spoke of them as being jerks. You just don’t do that, Mr President. It isn’t cool!”

Right. Crackpot sheeple who need authority to feel safe and pastors that play for cool. And... that's the social segment that might determine the political faith of USoA? Because...

Trump can’t afford to lose evangelicals, even by the handful. A record 81% of white evangelicals voted for him in 2016, and he only narrowly won the presidency, sometimes by just a few thousand votes in crucial areas. His gesture with the Bible outside St John’s was meant to shore up that support, reminding his base of a tacit agreement.
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So while evangelicals lifted Trump to power by voting together, they may prove his undoing if a contingent breaks away. In which case his campaign might shudder to hear of evangelical believers like Anthony Kidd in Daphne, Alabama.

During the week Kidd works at a salvage yard, and on weekends he does audio work during church services. He’s conservative.

“The past few years he has done things that are good for Christians, I’ll grant that,” he said. But when he saw Trump lift the Bible outside St John’s, he said, “It made me want to throw up a little bit.”

Visceral reaction, Kidd, also known as "feeling of guts". Good to see propaganda didn't wash common-sense away.

In some funky recent news, Dallas iWatch, a Real Time Crime Center application with which users can upload their photos and records of illegal activities anonymously, was flooded by tsunami of K-pop clips and collapsed.

Well, since K-pop is probably now declared a terrorist activity easily distinguishable by those learned AI magitek cloud-dwellers, let me point you to some J-pop in its stead.

Leo Ieiri: Saburina
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNz7JL9cwrk

As you can notice, the chain is broken. Walk free.

@realDonaldTrump tweets: NYC, CALL UP THE NATIONAL GUARD. The lowlifes and losers are ripping you apart. Act fast! Don’t make the same horrible and deadly mistake you made with the Nursing Homes!!!

1:10 AM · Jun 3, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

Do the Americans like being pissed on by their politiheads?
Enough to follow their example and piss one onto the other?

Trump has reached the 'mad emperor' stage, and it's terrifying to behold

He incites violence from the safety of a bunker, then orders peaceful people tear-gassed for the sake of a surreal photo op

Writing from a Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King Jr famously told his anxious fellow clergymen that his non-violent protests would force those in power to negotiate for racial justice. “The time is always ripe to do right,” he wrote.

On an early summer evening, two generations later, Donald Trump walked out of the White House, where he’d been hiding in a bunker. Military police had just fired teargas and flash grenades at peaceful protesters to clear his path, so that he could wave a bible in front of a boarded church.

For Trump, the time is always ripe to throw kerosene on his own dumpster fire.

'Nixon on steroids': Trump's military move is a high-risk election bid

Washington: St John's Episcopal Church - just a block from the White House - is known as the "church of presidents". Since its first service in 1816, every US president has worshipped there. But never has this sacred place been the site of a presidential visit as shocking and surreal as Donald Trump's on Monday (Tuesday AEST).

At 6.45pm on a balmy evening in Washington, Trump appeared in the Rose Garden of the White House to give his first major statement since angry protests broke out across the country following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. As Trump spoke, military police used tear gas and rubber bullets to forcibly clear hundreds of protesters from nearby Lafayette Square.

It was unclear why the officers took such speedy and confrontational action: the afternoon protests had been peaceful and a curfew ordered by Washington's mayor had not yet come into effect. Then the President strolled out from the White House, crossed the square and stood in front of the church, which had suffered fire damage during the previous night's protests. Posing for cameras, Trump brandished a bible like a victorious sportsman clutching a championship trophy. Then he headed straight back to the White House.

People struggled to believe it. Had the President of the United States really forcibly dispersed a peaceful protest so he could stage a photo op? Yes, he had.

When Police View Citizens as Enemies

The thin blue line looks like it’s ready to invade a foreign nation.
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Militarization can escalate already tense situations. Protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the 2014 killing of Michael Brown escalated dramatically on their second day, when police showed up in Humvees, wearing camouflage, and carrying M4s.
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The state of Minnesota’s “urban warfare” rhetoric is the inevitable consequence of this decades-long militarization of American police departments, Arthur Rizer, a policing expert at the center-right R Street Institute, told me late Saturday.

“You create this world where you’re not just militarizing the police—you equip the police like soldiers, you train the police like soldiers. Why are you surprised when they act like soldiers?” Rizer, a former police officer and soldier, said. “The mission of the police is to protect and serve. But the premise of the soldier is to engage the enemy in close combat and destroy them. When you blur those lines together with statements like that … It’s an absolute breakdown of civil society.”
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But yesterday, as police pepper-sprayed a congresswoman, drove into a crowd, and fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters and journalists alike, it was clear that some police officers were approaching these situations like soldiers, and treating citizens as enemies.

Trump threatens to use military to end riots and lawlessness

'Words of a dictator': Trump's threat to deploy military raises spectre of fascism

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross,” goes an oft-quoted line of uncertain origin.

On Monday evening, Donald Trump, with four US flags behind him, threatened to send in the military against the American people, then crossed the road to pose for a photo outside a historic church while clutching an upside-down Bible.

Several interesting links here.

1. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/9243/what-computer-and-software-is-used-by-the-falcon-9/

2. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1853ap/we_are_spacex_software_engineers_we_launch/

3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23368109

There are things you would expect to see, and things you would knot expect.

A few teasers:

SpaceX uses an Actor-Judge system to provide triple redundancy to its rockets and spacecraft. The Falcon 9 has 3 dual core x86 processors running an instance of linux on each core. The flight software is written in C/C++ and runs in the x86 environment. For each calculation/decision [ . . . . ]

I would like to know: tabs or spaces?

They do use some interesting software on Dragon 2. They use Chromium and JavaScript for the Dragon 2 flight interface. The actual flight computers still run on C++.

Source: Discussion with various SpaceX engineers at GDC 2015/2016

NASA finally managed to get their worm logo back after aliens had found it insensitive and pejorative.