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https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1354880986866208769

Elon Musk is apparently working the phones with the FAA right now to try and secure approval for the 10km attempt.

I have no idea what happens next, but they're preparing to load propellant into Starship SN9.

Elon Musk Lashes Out at FAA for Scrubbing Starship Launch

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1354888136376070147

In its policy paper for the Biden administration the Coalition for Deep Space, which is funded largely by legacy aerospace firms, appears to not believe that Starship exists.

Methane vent at 20:32 UTC.
Engine chill at 20:40 UTC. Launch possible within 12 minutes?
Condensation on SN9 at 20:46 UTC.
Depressurization at 20:51 UTC.
21:53 UTC: NO launch today.

Many articles are mentioning the current set of screensaver flaws but wrongly framing them as if they are something either new or surprising. Developer Jamie Zawinski, of Netscape fame, points out, that writing security-critical code is difficult and most people can't do it. However, given the history of what has gone on with screensavers and the number of reminders they have gotten, both gentle and forceful, it is more likely that they could design properly, they just don't want to. Specifically, he has been warning of why Xscreensaver is written the way it is for many years and the design considerations that other screensavers must keep in mind.

That comes up yet again in a recent post, where Jamie blogs about ongoing design flaws being implemented repeatedly in the custom screen savers [jwz.org] for various distros. In short, probably only XScreenSaver locks properly. That is because proper design considerations are intentionally absent from most other screen savers.

Making matters worse, in addition to perpetually creating the same design mistakes, it seems that at least three of the other screensavers have ripped off his Xscreensaver code in direct violation of copyright:

And in not-at-all-unrelated news:

Just to add insult to injury, it has recently come to my attention that not only are Gnome-screensaver, Mint-screensaver and Cinnamon-screensaver buggy and insecure dumpster fires, but they are also in violation of my license and infringing my copyright.

XScreenSaver was released under the BSD license, one of the oldest and most permissive of the free software licenses. It turns out, the Gnome-screensaver authors copied large parts of XScreenSaver into their program, removed the BSD license and slapped a GPL license on my code instead -- and also removed my name. Rude.

If they had asked me, "can you dual-license this code", I might have said yes. If they had asked, "can we strip your name off and credit your work as (C) William Jon McCann instead"... probably not.

Mint-screensaver and Cinnamon-screensaver, being forks and descendants of Gnome-screensaver, have inherited this license violation and continue to perpetuate it. Every Linux distro is shipping this copyright- and license-infringing code.

I eagerly await hearing how they're going to make this right.

Previously [jwz.org], previously [jwz.org], previously [jwz.org], previously [jwz.org], previously [jwz.org].

He has been blogging about preventing these specific flaws since at least 2011. The copyright violations just rub salt in that wound. The late Steve Jobs once commented that a particular group could not even copy well. Has that group's way of thinking spread too far now? It appears to have infected more than a few projects.

Alexei Navalny: Millions watch jailed critic's 'Putin palace' film

A video investigation by Russia's leading opposition figure that claims President Vladimir Putin spent illicit funds on an extravagant Black Sea palace has reached more than 20 million people within a day of publication.

Alexei Navalny's team released it after he was jailed on his return to Moscow.

The investigation alleges the property cost £1bn ($1.37bn) and was paid for "with the largest bribe in history".

The Kremlin denies the property belongs to the president.

Claims that federal officials were guarding a vast palace complex on the Black Sea coast were "pure nonsense", spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The Navalny investigation describes the property as 39 times the size of Monaco.

Russia detains Navalny aides as protests go viral

For a long time the Russian authorities made out that Alexei Navalny was irrelevant. Just a blogger. With a tiny following. No threat whatsoever.

Recent events suggest the opposite. First Mr Navalny was targeted with a nerve agent, allegedly by a secret group of FSB state security hitmen. Instead of investigating the poisoning, Russia is investigating him: on his return from Germany the Kremlin critic was arrested.

Having put Mr Navalny behind bars, the authorities are putting pressure on his supporters. The Kremlin's greatest fear is of a Ukraine-style revolution in Russia that would sweep away those in power.

There's no indication that such a scenario is imminent. But with economic problems growing, the Kremlin will worry that Mr Navalny could act as a lightning rod for protest sentiment. That explains the police crackdown on Navalny allies ahead of Saturday's potential protests.

Plus, this is getting personal. Mr Navalny's video about "Putin's Palace" on the Black Sea was designed to cause maximum embarrassment to the Russian president.

Thousands of suspicious accounts target Russian opposition figures linked to Alexey Navalny on Instagram

Alexei Navalny exposes Instagram of Putin’s alleged love child

Biden seeks extension of START nuclear treaty with Russia

Looks like his YouTube channel exploded (relatively speaking). Quadrupled subscriber count in under 2 weeks.

Installing Debian Linux 2.1 From 1999 Was A Painful Experience ...

So we all know that HUD has declared that you can't evict anyone for the foreseeable future on account of the whole coronaids thing, yeah? Given that, here's the pitch: The Odd Couple 2. Trump invokes that to stay in the White House and calls in film crews to the residential bits, which he can do as a resident. Be honest with yourself, you'd watch it.

It's a funny old world where the guy who uses the words "peaceful and patriotic" multiple times during his address is Inciting to Riot but the BLM guy in the capitol-raiding mob who says "Let's burn this motherfucker down" is regarded with "He was vocal, but I wouldn’t say he was inciting violence".

And just you try and find information in the MSM, or even on this very site, about how said BLM guy says he knew about the plan to storm the capitol way in advance. You'll have your work cut out for you because that would mean Trump was completely innocent on the impeachment charges, since you cannot incite something long after it's been planned, organized, and is getting ready to be carried out.

ADATA to launch 64 GB DDR5-8400 RAM modules for Intel's upcoming Alder Lake-S CPUs in 2H 2021

Back in 2018, the first generation of DDR5 modules for the consumer PC markets were believed to debut with 5200 MT/s data rates and gradually increase speeds up to 8400 MT/s as the standard matured. However, ADATA is already testing 8400 MT/s modules and we could see these speeds offered with the first gen products in late 2021. Of course, the price points for these high-speed modules would be considerably higher than the current DDR4-3200 or even the DDR4-4800 standards, so most users may settle for the DDR5-5200 modules at first.

Capacities will also be increased, as ADATA is considering including up to 64 GB per single module. The DDR5 increased speeds and capacities should be able to ramp up performance scaling with the number of CPU cores, and thus reduce bandwidth-based performance limitations.

Also at Tom's Hardware and Wccftech.

It seems likely that these would also be compatible with AMD's Zen 4, or Zen 3+ on AM5. But for now, RAM speeds will be improving way past the JEDEC official limit (although latencies could still suck) and capacity will be doubling and probably quadrupling later. The internal ECC features could improve the reliability of consumer devices.

National security law: Hong Kong rounds up 53 pro-democracy activists

More than 50 of Hong Kong's most prominent pro-democracy activists and politicians have been arrested in the biggest crackdown since China imposed a draconian security law last year.

About 1,000 police took part in morning raids on 72 premises across the city.

Those held helped run an unofficial "primary" to pick opposition candidates ahead of postponed 2020 elections.

They are accused of trying to "overthrow" the government. Activists say the new law aims to quash dissent.

China's government imposed the legislation on the semi-autonomous territory in June, saying it was necessary to curb months of sometimes violent pro-democracy protests.

Beijing defended Wednesday's arrests, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying saying they were needed to stop "external forces and individuals [colluding] to undermine China's stability and security".

But the crackdown appeared to confirm the fears of many who warned about the reach of the law, with Amnesty International saying the arrests are "the starkest demonstration yet of how the national security law has been weaponised to punish anyone who dares to challenge the establishment".

Previously: One Million People Protest a Proposed Extradition Law in Hong Kong; Gov't Acquiesces, for Now
Hong Kong Heating Up Again?
Hong Kong Archery
China Passes Hong Kong Security Law
Pro-Democracy Books Pulled in Hong Kong
Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Legislators Resign En Masse

Happy New Year, my fellow Soylentals (lentils?)

At this time of year when everybody puts out year-in-review retrospectives, I wanted to note a couple of science journal podcasts that review the big research stories of 2020.

I enjoy the weekly podcasts from Nature and Science Magazine. If other people know of similar types of podcasts that cover the interesting topics being published in the journals, I would be interested in knowing about them.

Nature non-COVID big stories

Nature's COVID big stories

Science Magazine's big stories (and books)

AMD APU Roadmap For 2021 And 2022 Has Leaked – Zen3+ 6nm Rembrandt Flagship APU With Navi iGPU Landing In 2022

[AMD APUs for 2021] ?

Cezanne-H | 45W | Zen3 | Vega 7 | 7nm
Cezanne-U | 15W | Zen3 | Vega 7 | 7nm
Lucienne-U | 15W | Zen2 | Vega 7 | 7nm
VanGogh | 9W | Zen2 | Navi2 | 7nm | LPDDR5
Pollock | 4.5W | Zen | Vega | 14nm

[AMD APUs for 2022] ?

Rembrandt-H | 45W | Zen3+ | Navi2 | 6nm | LPDDR5/DDR5
Rembrandt-U | 15W | Zen3+ | Navi2 | 6nm | LPDDR5/DDR5
Barcelo-U | 15W | Zen3 | Vega 7 | 7nm
DragonCrest | 9W | Zen2 | Navi2 | 7nm | LPDDR5
Pollock | 4.5W | Zen | Vega | 14nm

(Assuming it's correct)

1. AMD is doing a lot of refreshes, starting with Lucienne as a Renoir replacement. Barcelo-U looks like a refresh of Cezanne-U, and Dragon Crest is a refresh of Van Gogh. They can bump clocks, shift prices around, get rid of old stock, etc.

2. Dragon Crest is a disappointment. I thought it could use Zen 3 and RDNA 2+/3. It will no doubt top out at 4 cores, the same as Van Gogh. Now we'll have to see how good and expensive Van Gogh is.

3. No use of "5nm" anytime soon. There was some speculation that some APU products could use it sooner. TSMC "6nm" is a refined "7nm" with only a somewhat smaller die area.

4. Pollock is probably made due to contractual obligations with GlobalFoundries. It's probably a dual-core. It will be found in dirt cheap devices.

None of the existing Zen/Zen+ APUs target that low of a TDP:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_(first_generation_microarchitecture)#Mobile_APUs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen%2B#Mobile

It should replace the likes of the Excavator-based A6-9220C in $100 laptops. It will outperform that chip while using less power (4.5 Watt vs. 6 Watt TDP).