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Could Earth’s entire population live in one mega-city? (4m38s video)

Liam Young

"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.

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.

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."

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)

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

Maybe we think a president is worth something. But anything is only worth what you can get for it on the market. I remember watching some "Olympus has Fallen" or other really bad movie, where the North Koreans held the POTUS hostage, and through out the movie I kept shouting, "Kill the bastard! We have 300 Million more of them!" If I was an American. But now there is a rather unique situation, where Americans could impeach, remove, and turn over the Donald, and recover some of the taxes he owes. Yes, the Iranians would probably kill him, but given his mental, and moral, state, that is no great injustice.

On the side, how much could we get for John Bolton, on the open market? Rumsfeld? Ouww, I bet Kissinger would go for a pretty penny! And Wolfowitz and his traitor wife. Oh, you didn't know about that one? Khallow, unfortunately, would sell for very little. Poor khallow.

Entire Shrek movie in just 8MiB with AV1 and opus

128×72 resolution (the elusive "72p"), 4 FPS, 4.6 kbps video, 7.5 kbps audio, 1:30:04 runtime.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you shouldn't.

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.

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.

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