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Yesterday I had my new ophthalmologist and a few others examine my eyes. Rather than wait for the doctors to check out the OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) scan, I asked the tech to let me look at it first. As he scrolled through the images, I spotted holes in the retinas of both eyes (I've seen enough of these scans over the years). On the good side, the retinas themselves were no longer covered in so many cotton wool spots that they looked like the sky in the boot screen from Windows 9x.

Cotton-wool spots are tiny white areas on the retina, the layer of light-sensing cells lining the back of the eye. Caused by a lack of blood flow to the small retinal blood vessels, they usually disappear without treatment and do not threaten vision. However, they can be an indication of a serious medical condition. Diabetes is the most common cause of cotton-wool spots. The presence of more than eight cotton-wool spots has been associated with a higher risk of the more severe form of diabetic retinopathy known as proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR).

I've had PDR all decade, so no surprise there, but there were way more that 8 "spots" in May.

Yesterday, there were none. I suspect their disappearance is connected to my discontinuing a couple of medications (blood pressure and antidepressants) in May. The blood pressure meds were causing severe depression, and the antidepressants weren't working, but they had some really nasty side effects.

So my gamble paid off in that sense.

The doctor pointed out the macular edema in both eyes, which would explain blurriness in excess to the cataracts I've had since my first vitrectomy 5 years ago. (warning - gross. And don't search for videos if you don't like needles in eyeballs. I can't even get people to look at the pic of my last anti-VEGF injection into my right eyeball)

Coming back from the hospital, I couldn't see much of anything - the eyedrops really did a number on my already crappy vision. I told the bus-driver where I was going, and he said he'd drop me off. He did - 5 klicks away from where I wanted to be.

I was left to trusting my instincts, because I had no idea where I was, it was -6 with a windchill of -15, the sun had set more than 5 hours ago, and I couldn't see well enough to even use my phone.

Finally found a gas station, and asked what city I was in. Hooray, it was DDO. Got directions, but all the way back still didn't recognize much of anything.

Another fucking perv in the middle of a snowfall at 10pm

A car stopped and the guy started talking to me. Took me a few moments to figure what was going on. And I was not happy about it.

I can't see straight, I'm struggling to find my way home in the cold and snow, and this perv is looking for sex.

This crap keeps happening several times a year.

It just reinforces the fact that a visually handicapped trans woman cannot hope to have a normal relationship with anyone. Just too many barriers. And "transfans" creep me out - being attracted to someone because they are trans is no more basis for building a real relationship than an fetish for big boobs.

The future

For now, it's wait and see with the eyes. Check back in 6 months, but it's expected that eventually I'll need vitrectomies in both eyes, and cataract surgery in both eyes.

At least the retinas don't look so diseased any more, so cataract surgery risk of tearing the retinas is probably back to normal.

The real concern long-term is the recurring holes and edema. You can only do a vitrectomy and retinal peel 5 or 6 times on each eye, and it's 1-2 months to recover. And holes are repaired by scarring over the tissue with a laser, creating another blind spot. Nobody wants blind spots on the macula

The macula is a small but important area in the center of the retina. You need the macula to clearly see details of objects in front of you, like faces and written text.

This last decade has been the worst. Broken back, broken neck, progressive eye disease, etc. Beats the decade with flesh eating disease, beats the decade with the murder. Every other time I've been able to claw myself back to the middle class. Not this time. Now all I have looking forward to is pervs and vitrectomies.

Merry fucking Christmas.

The UK isn't finished voting, but it's been obvious for a long time that it's going to be a replay of the US 2016 election.

The Tories are running a sexist lying buffoon.

Labour is running the only candidate who cannot beat him - Jeremy Corbin.

It's been obvious for years that Corbin puts his own ambition above that of the country. He tries to position himself on both sides of any problem, being neither fish nor fowl, and rather than being seen as someone willing to work out a compromise, he's seen as neither fish nor fowl, untrustable and vastly more disliked than any other UK politician.

Oh well, one more step towards a united Ireland and an independent Scotland. And one more step towards getting rid of the English monarchy.

Prince Chucklehead as king? Only if he abdicates in favour of Harry. Seems to be the only royal who has any sense left.

Firefox (under linux) automatically checks for updates every time it starts. This is not what I want. I'll update it when I damn well feel like it, when I update the system as a whole.

Try to stop it? This is what you see

Firefox Updates

Keep Firefox up to date for the best performance, stability, and security.

No checkbox to turn it off, unlike all the other options on the general preferences page.

I'll probably have to "fix" this by blackholing mozilla.

This song is about 30 years old, if I can remember through the mist of time. The girl died two days ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCorJG9mubk

President Trump has paid $2 million in court-ordered damages for misusing funds in a tax-exempt charity he controlled, the New York Attorney General said Tuesday.

The payment was ordered last month by a New York state judge, in an extraordinary rebuke to a sitting president. Trump had been sued in 2018 by the New York Attorney General, who alleged that Trump had illegally used funds from the Donald J. Trump Foundation to buy portraits of himself, pay off his businesses’ legal obligations, and help his 2016 campaign.

The money was split among eight charities, according to a statement from New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). The charities were the Army Emergency Relief, the Children’s Aid Society, Citymeals-on-Wheels, Give an Hour, Martha’s Table, the United Negro College Fund, the United Way of National Capital Area, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, according to the statement.

In addition, Trump agreed to distribute the remaining $1.8 million left in the Donald J. Trump Foundation to the same eight charities. In all, each charity received $476,140.41.

“Funds have finally gone where they deserve — to eight credible charities,” James said in the statement. “My office will continue to fight for accountability because no one is above the law — not a businessman, not a candidate for office, and not even the president of the United States.”

Trump pays $2 million in damages ordered by judge over misuse of charity funds, according to NY attorney general

MONTREAL -- On the 30th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, Montreal police have announced that they have arrested an anti-feminist blogger who they allege glorifies the Polytechnique killer Marc Lepine.

Police say Jean-Claude Rochefort, 70, of Montreal, was arrested Thursday for inciting hatred against women, and has been behind bars since Friday. He will remain detained until his next court hearing on Monday, police said.

Publishing under several pseudonyms, Rochefort is accused of running blogs espousing anti-woman and anti-feminist views and advocating for "masculinism."

One blog has a series of posts counting down to "Marc Lepine Day," which is what Rochefort calls Dec. 6, the anniversary of the massacre.

Another recent post on a different blog referred to Lepine as an "incel lord," a reference to the online subculture of "involuntarily celibate" men whose online discussions are characterized by anti-feminism, misogyny and endorsing sexual violence against women. (Lepine has become an icon for incel communities.)

The Montreal police department say investigators from its cyber-crimes division identified Rochefort as the author of several posts and arrested him at his Montreal home, where police say several incriminating computer files and equipment were seized.

In 2009, Rochefort was arrested for making death threats against women on a blog he devoted to Lepine. Prosecutors also wanted to charge him with incitement and wilful promotion of hatred, but a judge refused to accept those charges.

On Dec. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine killed 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnique because he believed they were feminists. He then killed himself.

On Friday, ceremonies were being held in Montreal and across the country to commemorate the victims of what has become known as the Montreal Massacre.

This is a developing story that will be updated.

Stupid is as stupid does. Making death threats against women is not going to get you laid - well, maybe inside prison, but not by women.

He might get community service again, in which case the question is with which community organization? And will they be informed of his crimes, so that they can arrange to protect their volunteer workers?

_<no-sarcasm>
Ordinarily, you keep a salted (and maybe peppered) hash function of a user's password in a database record associated with their name, login ID etc.

I have wondered, mused, whether it might be better to keep more than one hash function of the password. Possibly with different salt and pepper.

Database record fields:
* user ID
* user Name
* salt1
* pepper1
* passwordHash1
* salt2
* pepper2
* passwordHash2

Now here is the conjecture. If the database table could somehow be stolen, the attacker must find some plaintext password that hashes to passwordHash1. The plaintext password is prefixed with salt1, suffixed with pepper1, then hashed to the value passwordHash1.

It becomes infeasible to keep precomputed tables of hashed passwords once salt/pepper is introduced. The password "12345" for Jane would have a different hash than the same "12345" password for Joe, because of their different salt/pepper prefix/suffixes.

If there is a second random salt2/pepper2 and a different hash function of the plaintext password, then the attacker must not only find a plaintext that combined with salt1/pepper1 will hash to passwordHash1; but that same plaintext must also work for salt2/pepper2 for passwordHash2. It is important to point out that passwordHash2 is computed using a different hash function as well as different random prefix/suffix.

Would doing this truly increase the security of passwords if the table is stolen? Or is this just spinning wheels and cpu cycles to accomplish little if anything?

Opinions?
^{</no-sarcasm>}

Obviously using 12345 as a password is a well known best practice, no matter what other measures are taken.

But they still take the opportunity to steal time and money from people that have to work.

I started in 2001 with a contract that allowed me to leave at 50. But like everyone else, I got the reforms which pushed back my early retirement age to 52-and-a-half and then, in reality, 57-and-a-half for full pension. Now they want to make us work even longer.

Buffoon or not, a thief is a thief.

Do your part. Don't vote for thieves

AMD ‘Zen 4’ 5nm Products Will Launch In 2021, 5nm Yield Has Already Crossed 7nm

AMD has been on a red hot streak lately and it looks like it can't get anything wrong. If this report from China Times is to be believed (and this is usually a reliable source) then TSMC's 5nm testing is going very well and the first 3 customers have already been locked in - including AMD. According to the schedule obtained by China Times, AMD's 5nm products will be landing in early 2021 with mass production for 5nm scheduled in 2020.

("5nm" yield "crossing" "7nm" seems to refer to when "7nm" was at the same point in its production, around 2 years ago)

I thought it was possible that Zen 4 would slip into 2022. If it doesn't, that's good news since Intel is supposed to be stepping up its game in 2021 (after preordained failure in 2020).

"Early 2021" (March?) is an aggressive target for a Zen 4 release. However, it might make sense. Features can be moved to Zen 4 instead of debuting with Zen 3, something already indicated by previous rumors. A relatively brief duration between the Zen 3 and Zen 4 releases could work since Zen 3 will be the last generation compatible with the AM4 and SP3 sockets. Some people will upgrade to it on their existing motherboards. Zen 4 is likely to support DDR5, perhaps exclusively. Combine with chip shortages, and there won't be a glut of unsold Zen 3 chips.

1.8x density of TSMC "5nm" is a comparison to "7nm" rather than "7nm+" (source). So the core count could double with a slight increase in the size of or area covered by the chiplets.

My guess is that chiplets will continue to have 8 cores, since that is better for yields/binning. They'll just get smaller and more numerous as needed. I am not sure that core counts are going to increase much for the mainstream Ryzen lineup. 24-32 core "mainstream" Ryzen is possible but seems excessive. I will predict the elimination of desktop 6-core Ryzen CPUs with Zen 4. Just include 2 of the bad chiplets with 4 working cores each, or 1 chiplet with 8 cores, whichever is cheapest. The minimum core count for all new Ryzen chips would match PS5/Xbox core count.

One feature I'm looking out for is L4 cache stacked onto the I/O die. This is an interim step before true monolithic 3D designs, but it could be great for performance. Stacking 4 GB of HBM on the I/O die should cost relatively little. Or if HBM prices are still steep by 2021, 1-2 GB stacks or bigger stacks for the more expensive CPUs.

Zen 4: Even bigger performance leap?

This article is an excellent writeup of what is known or suspected for Zen 3 and Zen 4. I linked directly to the section discussing Zen 4 but you might want to read the whole thing. Some things to note:

* It looks like most Zen 3 CPUs will land just short of that magic (marketing) 5 GHz frequency. Although AMD will probably push to make the 16-core flagship turbo to 5 GHz instead of 4.9 GHz.
* AMD has to improve memory latency to beat Intel's slight lead in games (other areas of improvement include higher frequencies and optimization for AMD CPUs).

Update:

AMD: Expect More Cores on Next-Gen Mainstream Ryzen CPUs, No Saturation Point As Software Just Has To Catch-Up

In an interview with Tom's Hardware, AMD's CTO, Mark Papermaster, has revealed that we can expect even more cores on next-generation Ryzen CPUs. AMD recently launched their Ryzen 9 3950X processor, featuring 16 cores, which became an instant hit with entire inventories being cleared away minutes after availability.

There are a lot of interesting details that Mark has mentioned in the interview in particular to the next-generation technologies that would be featured on their processor lineup ranging from Ryzen and EPYC CPUs. The most significant detail and the one I would start this article is with the fact that AMD isn't stopping at just 16 cores. According to AMD, there are now many applications that can scale across multiple cores and threads. The addition of cores is entirely relative to the number of applications that can take advantage of those cores so as long as this balance exists, there would not be a saturation point of cores on next-generation CPUs, whether these be mainstream or the HPC server parts.

I still don't think they will increase core counts for Zen 3. But it's clear that we will see at least a 24-core Ryzen soon.

It makes sense. If an application or game can utilize 2 or 4 cores, I wouldn't think that it could utilize 16, 32, or 64 cores. But with applications and games using 8 or 16 cores, scaling up to use 32+ cores is less of a stretch because there is already significant parallelism. On the gaming front, no less than 8 "real" cores will be used by the next-gen consoles (possibly with background tasks handled by a separate processor). Open world type games with lots of NPCs could take advantage of high core counts.

16 cores is "mainstream" and will become more common after a year or two of price drops. 8 cores is legitimately mainstream and will be coming to AMD's Zen 2 laptop APUs. 6-core CPUs will start to get pushed out of the lineup or become very cheap (such as an Athlon-branded Zen 2 APU).

I was walking my dogs one Sunday morning a few weeks ago and one of the dogs kept dragging my attention back behind us. There was one police car, and 3 more were quietly pulling up.

Coming back, the next door parking lot had been taken over by 6 police supervisor vans. Other police vehicles were across the street, and in the parking lot of the strip mall at the corner.

Other eyewitnesses said police were in body armour, checking their rifles. About 18 vehicles in total were involved in the operation.

Some would leave and be replaced by others.

Long after sundown there was still a significant police presence.

Turns out that there was a threat against a community centre run by the [I'm omitting the religion] 200 feet down the street.

There still hasn't been word about what it was, the police are not answering questions.

I can sort of understand why - why give white supremists any attention. Why take the risk of protests and counter-protests that could add to the body count in any attack.

We'll probably only hear about it if someone is charged and refuses a plea deal.