Daily Tech News 15 October 2022

Top Story

• Everyone going to the World Cup (a soccer thing) needs a burner phone. (NRK)
  
  The apps you are required to install to enter the country and attend soccer games are, well, problematic, in the traditional sense that they have and/or cause problems:

  When you download these two apps, you accept the terms stated in the contract, and those terms are very generous. You essentially hand over all the information in your phone. You give the people who control the apps the ability to read and change things, and tweak it. They also get the opportunity to retrieve information from other apps if they have the capacity to do so, and we believe they do.

  Always carry a burner phone when entering an authoritarian country, which is to say, a country, and always mount a scratch monkey.

Tech News

• Alaska has declared a state of emergency due to the threat of invasion by a billion invisible crabs. (CBS News)
  
  I think that's the story. Too long, didn't read.
  
  
  
• The FDA has declared a shortage of Adderall. (NPR)
  
  Nice work, bozos. Should have mounted a scratch monkey like I told you.
  
  
  
• The White House is forging ahead with a plan to plunge the Earth into perpetual icy darkness. (CNBC)
  
  Will save on my air conditioning bill, I guess.
  
  
  
• The FDA has declared a shortage of Adderall. (NPR)
  
  Bozos. Scratch monkey. Told you.
  
  
  
• Lufthansa has banned/unbanned Apple AirTags in checked luggage. (Ars Technica)
  
  They will/won't cause the plane to crash and kill everyone on board.
  
  Delete where applicable/not applicable.
  
  
  
• Zoetop (who?) the parent company of Shein (who?) and sister brand Romwe (who?) has been fined $1.9 million by New York for failing to properly notify its 39 million users of a data breach. (Tech Crunch)
  
  It's funny that there are companies out there with 39 million users that I've never heard of, but then I've run individual projects with five million users. The internet is a big place. Also stupid.
  
  
  
• Speaking of which, I upgraded my internet (finally) to 250/100 from the default 100/40. I'm getting 150Mbps down and 80Mbps up, but that's on a poky laptop, in a web browser, over wifi. Still double what I got in Sydney, though ping times are slightly worse.
  
  
  
• No Adderall. (NPR)
  
  Scratch me, bozo monkeys.
  
  
  
• Ryzen 7000 mobile is going to be a big pile of monkey dung. (WCCFTech)
  
  The article points out that, for example, the upcoming 7520U will be an 8W Zen 2 part with 4 CPU cores and 2 graphics cores, while the 7530U will be a 15W Zen 3 part with 6 CPU cores and 6 graphics cores.
  
  You won't be able to buy anything without your secret decoder ring.
  
  Although that's already true with Intel, where the 1265U has two P cores and the 1280P has six.
  
  
  
• Abort! Abort! Abort! There will be no 12GB RTX 4080! (AnandTech)
  
  Instead there will probably be a 12GB 4075 or something with exactly the same configuration at exactly the same price.
  
  The problem was the planned 12GB model of the 4080 was about 20% slower than the 16GB model, which again, you had no way of knowing without the magic decoder ring. (Four easy payments of $19.99!)
  
  
  
• Alaskan ghost crabs devour nation's Adderall supply, film at 11. (NPR)
  
  Pope seen ice skating on the Tiber.
  
  
  
• Is a software engineer an engineer? Only if they pay us, says Alberta regulator. (The Globe and Mail)

  "This is not about a money grab," Mr. McDonald said. "Just hand over the cash and nobody gets hurt. Wait, is that a monkey?"