Daily Tech News 8 April 2023

Top Story

Arkansas wants to force people to provide ID before they can use social media. (Arkansas Times)

The Arkansas House argued that this will not violate privacy because the social networks have already violated privacy so badly that no new information will be shared which yeeees, that's true, but it's still a bad idea to enshrine an awful situation in law.

Tech News

I haven't bought any new computers since... Wait. I've only bought one laptop, two tablets, and a Kindle Paperwhite since the beginning of last year, but I've now bought six PC cases.

The two Hyte Y60 Hololive special editions, the two discontinued Silverstone mini NAS cases before the last of them disappeared (the few remaining units of the black version now cost more than three times what I paid), and now the two limited edition NZXT H510i My Hero Academia models.

Which listed for a crazy A$369 - each - but I paid that in total for both with free shipping. Which Amazon seems to have fixed since yesterday.

I had the idea that I could then get the regular H510i in various colours to build more matching systems - not that I need more more matching systems, since between the cases I have and the two good laptops I now have a computer for every room that needs a computer - but in any case the H510i has been discontinued and the only model available is the black/red one which actually matches the special editions best and is discounted oh wait the H510 which is basically the same is available in the other two colours and also discounted.

Not with free shipping but the discount is more than the shipping cost and the three regular colours combined, with shipping, cost less than the list price of one special edition without shipping.

Looks like (a) I'll be good for PC cases for a while and (b) I'll be assembling the systems myself rather than getting them prebuilt.
Designing for colour blindness. (The Verge)

Green for good / red for bad make great status indicators - for 96% of people and just 92% of men. Even if you make those colours your default, take the extra time to provide an option for colour blind users, like making the fault indicator blink.
Lenovo's Slim 7i laptop has a great 2880x1800 120Hz OLED display paired with a bundle of meh. (Liliputing)

Last year's HP Pavilion Plus 14 has basically the same screen (90Hz rather than 120Hz) but is otherwise superior.
TSMC is gearing up to launch its 2nm process... In 2025. (WCCFTech)

3nm will ship this year, with Apple being the first customer as usual. Apple's overpriced toys paid for TSMC's massive expansion which made advanced fabrication available to everyone - a year behind Apple, most of the time, but that means Apple gets to work the bugs out.

AMD's Zen 5 chips, due next year, will use TSMC's 3nm process node.
Team has launched 48GB DDR5-8000 and 96GB DDR5-6800 memory kits. (Tom's Hardware)

Good like getting your system to run stably at that speed though. Overclockers do not have high opinions of Intel's memory controller at speeds like that (and I don't think AMD's memory controller goes that high at all).

You're better off getting the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, turning on PBO (automatic overclocking), and leaving it alone. With 96MB of L3 cache it's less sensitive to memory speeds, runs faster than the best Intel chips, and uses one third the power.

Disclaimer: So that's four 7900 non-X, two i5-13500, one 7800X3D, and two 7700 non-X. Would you like fries with that?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Mornin', all

Posted by: My Life is Insanity at April 08, 2023 04:03 AM (8Omm4)

2 Gotta work today.

Posted by: My Life is Insanity at April 08, 2023 04:08 AM (8Omm4)

3
I was in need of some good photo editing software. I just installed Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, from 2002 under Win 10 x64, 22H2.

It works fine. If you install it on a partition with more than 1TB of free space, it will fail due to some overflow. If you don't, it seems to run fine.

I save everything, ever piece of software I've ever had since the beginning with me.

Posted by: publius, Rascally Mr. Miley (Mzdiz) at April 08, 2023 04:14 AM (Mzdiz)

4 Long time no see, MLiI, I think? Welcome back!

Posted by: m at April 08, 2023 04:21 AM (kSmii)

5 Plus you snagged a FIRST.

Posted by: m at April 08, 2023 04:22 AM (kSmii)

6 349 https://tinyurl.com/mtakbxy7
20 Tweets from Bad Blue
Posted by: Skip at April 08, 2023 02:51 AM (xhxe

Posted by: m at April 08, 2023 04:23 AM (kSmii)

7 That's why Adobe went to a subscription model. CS2 was good enough, no need for anyone to upgrade (and in fact they subsequently removed Fireworks which was the application I used most).

I recommend the Affinity suite for people looking to get away from subscription models. Not quite as cheap as it used to be but still great value.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 08, 2023 04:23 AM (BLOW1)

8 Those tweets are from April 5th, Skip.

Posted by: m at April 08, 2023 04:24 AM (kSmii)

9 Here's the April 7th tweets:

https://tinyurl.com/y2vxbh5r

Posted by: m at April 08, 2023 04:25 AM (kSmii)

10
Alvin Bragg is really fat.
But fat shaming is wrong.
They have enough on their plate already.

Posted by: Divide by Zero at April 08, 2023 04:33 AM (enJYY)

11 Hey, m ! I don't get many 1sts

I've mostly just been lurking of late. Been super busy and distracted.

Hope all is well

Posted by: My Life is Insanity at April 08, 2023 04:35 AM (8Omm4)

12
Photoshop Elements 2.0 reports that is running under Windows NT 6.2 (that would be Windows 8.1). 10 should be NT 6.3, I think.

I suspect that the dreaded AppCompat feature is kicking in, and am looking to see if that's the case.

MS put various little "shims" in for compatibility with various application software, so that changes in new versions wouldn't break it.

I didn't try any explicit compatibility mode settings, just let in install directly, but I think that built-in appcompat may be intervening a little.

Posted by: publius, Rascally Mr. Miley (Mzdiz) at April 08, 2023 04:36 AM (Mzdiz)

13 Morning all!

"Good like getting your system to run stably at that speed though"

Stably? Your system is running with a knife?

Posted by: Bruce at April 08, 2023 04:40 AM (vd8XM)

14
Nope, not AppCompat. I see that the "GetVersion" function of the Win32 API will always return NT 6.2 as the last version since Windows 8.1.

To get the real version, you've got to use other tricks. Apparently MS decided programs shouldn't be able to get the real version of Windows some time ago.

Posted by: publius, Rascally Mr. Miley (Mzdiz) at April 08, 2023 04:41 AM (Mzdiz)

15 G'Day everyone

Posted by: Skip at April 08, 2023 04:47 AM (xhxe8)

16 Mornin'

Posted by: Puddleglum at work at April 08, 2023 04:51 AM (fWTJL)

17 I have a 7950x. Love it. But. I have 128GB of DDR5 RAM in it, and it simply can't handle that much at any speed greater than 3600. They actually tell you that running 4 channels of any density is going to max out around that, so I can't complain, but still hoping that that'll get fixed in a BIOS update - seem to recall same thing happened to DDR4 when it was new.

With the new 48GB sticks, looks like you could get up to 192GB total on the 4 channels, but unfortunately, that doesn't help me... I do have applications that work ok with 128GB and awesome with 256GB, but 192GB doesn't really get you any more than 128GB does. I'll probably be the idiot who tries 4 sticks of 64GB when that comes out, and it'll probably run at 2400 speed.

Posted by: Qwinn at April 08, 2023 04:51 AM (xu9tO)

18
I run Office 2010. Really, Office "XP" or even Office 97 would be fine for me. It's easier to install 2010 of late, but I hate the featuritis there.

The word processor matured before 2000. Any new features since then are just crap.

Posted by: publius, Rascally Mr. Miley (Mzdiz) at April 08, 2023 04:54 AM (Mzdiz)

19 There was a new Bad Blue

Posted by: Skip at April 08, 2023 04:54 AM (xhxe8)

20 Should clear my clipboard, it gets filled up.
Tablet use to paste the last item copied, but often ,now from a update have to go to the clipboard and select what I want.

Posted by: Skip at April 08, 2023 04:58 AM (xhxe8)

21 I can tell it's chilly out

Posted by: Skip at April 08, 2023 05:00 AM (xhxe8)

22
Here in the Greenville, SC area, we're having a little cold snap. It's funny. My memory is that it's "always cold on Easter", whether Easter comes early or late, and once again, that's the case.

I was discussing this with my retired meteorologist cousin. He agreed, and said it's statistical thing. He went through the records here for over 100 years. I think he found a couple examples of warm Easters, but agrees that Easter is usually cold.

Posted by: publius, Rascally Mr. Miley (Mzdiz) at April 08, 2023 05:04 AM (Mzdiz)

23 RE: Cold Easters, I remember a few winters ago being totally freaked out when it was something like 70 degrees on Christmas Day in New Jersey. I called it "Puerto Rican Christmas."

Now I live in Florida, and 70 on Christmas is the norm. Still acclimating. Spent $22k on a full home propane generator cause we lost power for 3 days during Hurricane Ian and I ain't going that long without A/C in still-too-damn-hot September EVER again. If that'd happened in July or August, if I weren't dead, I woulda wished I was.

Posted by: Qwinn at April 08, 2023 05:10 AM (xu9tO)

24 I didn't go out yet, but the weather station is saying just above freezing.

Posted by: Skip at April 08, 2023 05:16 AM (xhxe8)

25 Good morning morons

One of the expelled Tennessee lawmakers is from Oakland.

Tennessee people, what were you thinking??

Posted by: San Franpsycho at April 08, 2023 05:19 AM (EZebt)

26 One of the expelled Tennessee lawmakers is from Oakland.

That's a long drive to get to work, isn't it?

Posted by: Bruce at April 08, 2023 05:20 AM (vd8XM)

27 Local TV news reports a champion cyclist was killed by a car in the Presidio on Thursday, despite new slow streets markings that make things safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at April 08, 2023 05:24 AM (EZebt)

28 Morning, 'rons and 'ettes.

Posted by: olddog in mo at April 08, 2023 05:25 AM (ju2Fy)

29 26 One of the expelled Tennessee lawmakers is from Oakland.

That's a long drive to get to work, isn't it?
Posted by: Bruce at April 08, 2023 05:20 AM (vd8XM)

LOL Bruce

Posted by: m at April 08, 2023 05:35 AM (kSmii)

30 Grown men in Easter Bunny costumes are much scarier than grown men in Santa costumes. Not sure why they gotta make all the Easter Bunnies look like Pennywise the clown with long ears.

Posted by: JuJuBee, fact checker hammered by events at April 08, 2023 05:36 AM (tM5h4)

31 G'morning, folken! And evening to our esteemed guide Pixy!

After yesterday's savage trek through the wilds of Buying a New Phone and Getting Furious at Tracfone, I have a new Galaxy and (unfortunately) a new phone number. They *say* they are working on carrying over the minutes from the old number now. The phone itself looks as if it will be easier to use in a lot of ways than the 3-year-old one. But I'll have to update my number with more than a few people, including at work.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 08, 2023 05:39 AM (omVj0)

32 Hiya

Posted by: JT at April 08, 2023 05:41 AM (T4tVD)

33 Wolfus my phone is a Galaxy and love it

Posted by: Skip at April 08, 2023 05:41 AM (xhxe8)

34 17 I have a 7950x. Love it. But. I have 128GB of DDR5 RAM in it, and it simply can't handle that much at any speed greater than 3600. They actually tell you that running 4 channels of any density is going to max out around that, so I can't complain, but still hoping that that'll get fixed in a BIOS update - seem to recall same thing happened to DDR4 when it was new.

Yes, that's a problem with DDR5. I think Intel can do a bit better, something like 4200 MHz with all four DIMMs, but AMD drops to 3600 as you say.

Since my main need for extra RAM is running Linux virtual servers, I'm planning to put 64GB of DDR5 in my main system and 128GB of cheap DDR4 in a second system (either an Intel 13500 or a 5000 series AMD).

Intel's new HEDT systems come in four and eight channel models, so they'll go up to 384GB at least... But the launch date has passed and I haven't seen any sign of chips or motherboards.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 08, 2023 05:42 AM (BLOW1)

35 Grown men in Easter Bunny costumes are much scarier than grown men in Santa costumes. Not sure why they gotta make all the Easter Bunnies look like Pennywise the clown with long ears.
Posted by: JuJuBee, fact checker hammered by events at April 08, 2023

***
Among all the great content Dave brought to the ONT yesterday, the Ether Bunny was a standout.

Maybe it's a matter of size. Santa is depicted as a grown if overweight man, so adult men in the costume are not disturbing. But even the largest real rabbits are not 5.5 to 6 feet tall -- so it's like a '50s SF/horror movie where the ants or a grasshopper has grown to gigantic size.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 08, 2023 05:43 AM (omVj0)

36 Nice First , MLii !

Posted by: JT at April 08, 2023 05:43 AM (T4tVD)

37 Thanks Skip and m !

Posted by: JT at April 08, 2023 05:43 AM (T4tVD)

38 But I want to see Sundowner's handler in a Bunny suit.

Posted by: Skip at April 08, 2023 05:46 AM (xhxe8)

39 Wolfus my phone is a Galaxy and love it
Posted by: Skip at April 08, 2023

***
It was just the struggle. I wanted to port over my old number and minutes. But Old Phone didn't accept their validating texts -- so they said they could not do it. I had to create a new account, buy some new minutes, and get a new number for the new phone. Then, after a reboot, Old Phone began to work. So I spent an hour on chat with Tracfone's tech service people. I could keep the old number and old minutes, they said, but lose the new minutes; or keep the new minutes and the new number, and they could port over the old minutes. But somehow they couldn't manage that and scheduled me for a call back. It hasn't happened.

I spent over four hours of my life yesterday involved with this crap. My two days off from work were more stressful than work.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 08, 2023 05:48 AM (omVj0)

40 Skip, my Galaxy is an AO3s (almost AoS, ha!). It looks as though, fully charged, it will take a while to need a recharge. With the old phone I've taken to leaving it plugged in at work and at home. Is that necessary with the Galaxy?

As long as Old Phone works, I can take it with me to work and use it for the 2-factor authentication my employer requires for certain platforms until I can get my new number in with them. But I don't want to plug in two phones.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 08, 2023 05:54 AM (omVj0)

41 I never see anyone mention Jack Daniels when discussing drinks here, but here is another reason not to.
https://tinyurl.com/5xz54mzs

Matt Walsh twatter link

Posted by: Fool Otto at April 08, 2023 05:57 AM (DB16e)

42 KRAK OF DAWN HAS ARRIVED
grab a coffee and head upstairs

Posted by: Skip at April 08, 2023 06:01 AM (xhxe8)

43 3
I save everything, ever piece of software I've ever had since the beginning with me.

Posted by: publius, Rascally Mr. Miley (Mzdiz) at April 08, 2023 04:14 AM (Mzdiz)
----
Do you still have a copy of Man 1.0 or Planet 1.1 ?
I think I need to start again with a clean slate, no democraps or communists.

Posted by: Ciampino - God loves us all but those commies do impose a strain at April 08, 2023 07:21 AM (qfLjt)

44 My 7800X3D arrives today so I'll finally make that stack of parts that have been sitting in my living room for months into a 'puter. Since I've got money in the bank that is rapidly becoming worthless, I said, "Fuck it," and picked up a 7900 XTX video card while I was at it. I've always targeted just barely into the "performance" side of the price/performance curve for my builds but decided to splurge and go top-of-the-line for once.

I'm mulling a 7900X server build. I figure one of those running in the lower power profile would be an excellent upgrade for the homelab.

Posted by: antisocial justice beatnik at April 08, 2023 07:57 AM (DTX3h)

45 I stick with Fractal Design mid towers, as they are cheap and easy to build in. Been using them for about a decade now.

Posted by: Jeritme at April 08, 2023 11:04 AM (zYCZt)

46 Scuttlebut is that Intel is doing a Raptor Lake Refresh, that's expected to actually be able to use those DDR5-8000 chips, and run all cores without being quite as much of a toaster.

I expect Zen 4 and Zen 4X3D to be more cost and power effective, but Raptor Lake 2.0 should give them a run for their money, at least until Zen 5 shows up.

What will get very interesting is nVidia's 3nm GPU. They're focusing on monolithic designs, so the expectation is that Blackwell is going to be both massive, very high performance and eye-wateringly expensive.

Meanwhile AMD is trying to fully solve chiplettes, which would let them sell performance by the pound.

Meanwhile, MSFS and DCS both now support dynamic foveated rendering, which means both of them are about to hit the render resolution of the human eye, so we may well hit demand peak soon too.

It will be fascinating to see how this all plays out.

Posted by: Voyager at April 08, 2023 06:09 PM (u5PZm)

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