Daily Tech News 9 August 2026

Top Story

Five of America's top tech companies - Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle - are expected to burn through $125 billion in cash this year on their AI rollouts. (Washington Post) (archive site)

Oh no, and here's me all out of popcorn.
Things look even worse for SpaceX. (CNBC)

Well, that sucks.
SpaceX's revenue doubled and losses halved in the recent quarter. (Reuters)

Sucks for CNBC, that is.

Tech News

How does storage speed affect the performance of computer games? (Tom's Hardware)

Short answer: It doesn't.

Long answer: It doesn't unless you're playing Forspoken on a SATA drive, which is easily fixed by not playing Forspoken in the first place.
os8088 is actually an operating system. (os8088 )

And runs on an 8088 with 256k of RAM.

It looks a lot like classic MacOS, but offers modern comforts like pre-emptive scheduling and... That's about it, really.
Online database service Metabase was compromised. (Bleeping Computer)

Not foolish enough to use an online database? No problem, rest assured that you have your personal registered with someone who was foolish enough.

(I have received three emails so far from companies using Metabase in various ways to let me know they had been hacked and my personal data was out in the wild... Again.)
X is replacing its revenue sharing program with payments for original content. (Tech Crunch)

Revenue sharing paid based on engagement, which was obviously a bad idea because proxy measurements invite spam.

Others have also noticed this.

This much-needed change arrived exactly as Nikita Bier stepped down as X'd head of Xing.
Kleenex is investigating making Kleenex not out of trees, but out of a different kind of tree. (Yahoo)

Amazing.

Musical Interlude

Disclaimer: If dying, administer Pocari Sweat.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 BOING!

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at August 09, 2026 04:31 AM (skLNB)

2 w00t

Posted by: m at August 09, 2026 04:31 AM (odBC9)

3 G'Day everyone

Posted by: Skip at August 09, 2026 04:31 AM (Ia/+0)

4 Been fighting off ads for 3 minutes

Posted by: Skip at August 09, 2026 04:32 AM (Ia/+0)

5 Been fighting off ads for 3 minutes

Posted by: Skip at August 09, 2026 04:32 AM (Ia/+0)
-

Use the Force, Skip.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at August 09, 2026 04:35 AM (skLNB)

6 Kleenex article: they tried a bunch of materials for non-tree buttwipe. Including chicken feathers?

Pretty sure the guy who suggested that only did it for the kinky joke potential.

Posted by: mikeski is tickled at August 09, 2026 04:38 AM (VHUov)

7 Howdy, tech peeps!

Yeesh, the ONT was all about physics and I started to get motion sickness just thinking through some of the stuff... ugh.

Publius is highly intelligent, but I can't follow it all! (Especially this late at night.)

Posted by: JQ at August 09, 2026 04:43 AM (rdVOm)

8 Hey, CNBC, when it comes to SpaceX, maybe you look further than the nose on your face:

https://tinyurl.com/mpdmdub3

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at August 09, 2026 04:43 AM (skLNB)

9 Yeesh, the ONT was all about physics and I started to get motion sickness just thinking through some of the stuff... ugh.

Posted by: JQ at August 09, 2026 04:43 AM (rdVOm)
-

You need to stop reading and typing whenever the earth is spinning.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at August 09, 2026 04:45 AM (skLNB)

10 Haha, BD!

No, it's the visualization exercises... and I was always "that kid" when we went on road trips.

Posted by: JQ at August 09, 2026 04:49 AM (rdVOm)

11 Hope Pixy can "poke" the blog, to tone down the pop-up BS!

Posted by: JQ at August 09, 2026 04:53 AM (rdVOm)

12 Mornin'

Posted by: Puddleglum at work at August 09, 2026 04:58 AM (pLaQB)

13 G'night, horde!

Posted by: JQ at August 09, 2026 04:59 AM (rdVOm)

14
I'm going to pack in. Warning, JQ and others, do not get me started on geodesics on ellipsoids (which the earth actually is, well closer to than a perfect sphere).

Those things are generally not even closed paths.... But they exist.

Posted by: publius, Rascally Mr. Miley (w6EFb) at August 09, 2026 04:59 AM (w6EFb)

15
g'mornin', 'rons

Posted by: AltonJackson at August 09, 2026 05:11 AM (AMvSw)

16 It is a bit unsettling I am sitting yet moving thousands of miles a hour

Posted by: Skip at August 09, 2026 05:11 AM (Ia/+0)

17 I have a stupid tech related question. I got a weather alert about flash flooding on the main screen of my cell phone from the National Weather Service. It's been there since last Monday . How do I get rid of it? Thanks

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 09, 2026 05:15 AM (xSAlF)

18 Here's the Kleenex news from the horse's mouth:

KIMBERLY-CLARK UNVEILS PROPRIETARY ALTERNATIVE NATURAL FIBER INNOVATION PROGRAM TO ADVANCE ITS "BETTER CARE FOR A BETTER WORLD" COMMITMENT

https://tinyurl.com/w9zszmye

Posted by: m at August 09, 2026 05:18 AM (odBC9)

19 Morning, Tech Peeps

Posted by: fluffy at August 09, 2026 05:18 AM (V0/Sp)

20 Morning, 'rons and 'ettes.

Posted by: olddog in mo at August 09, 2026 05:20 AM (zJHVr)

21 Yay for them, sounds like:

After evaluating more than 70 fiber candidates across performance, sustainability and cost criteria, Kimberly-Clark research scientists identified a promising solution in hesperaloe, a native, low-water-use plant that thrives in the arid climate of the Southwest United States.

Posted by: m at August 09, 2026 05:21 AM (odBC9)

22 Morning Horde thx Pixy.

Posted by: Smell the Glove at August 09, 2026 05:21 AM (gFr+v)

23 >> It is a bit unsettling I am sitting yet moving thousands of miles a hour

Depends on what that's relative to. Here at 35N, I'm moving at about 850 mph relative to the center of the earth.

The earth's center is moving about 66,000 mph relative to the sun. The Sun is moving about 500,000 mph relative the center of the galaxy.

The Galaxy itself has a certain "peculiar velocity" relative to the "Hubble flow", due to the expansion of space. It's being pulled toward a Heap Big concentration of mass known as the Great Attractor, which is about 10 quadrillion solar masses.

All in all, you're moving about 1.5 million mph relative to the Hubble flow, the "standard of rest" such as can be defined in an expanding spacetime. And that doesn't even mean what you think it means. :-)

Posted by: publius, Rascally Mr. Miley (w6EFb) at August 09, 2026 05:22 AM (w6EFb)

24 >>> I got a weather alert about flash flooding on the main screen of my cell phone from the National Weather Service. It's been there since last Monday . How do I get rid of it?

Might be a question for a search engine.

My alerts hang around but are easily ignored.

Posted by: fluffy at August 09, 2026 05:24 AM (V0/Sp)

25 >>> research scientists identified a promising solution in hesperaloe, a native, low-water-use plant that thrives in the arid climate of the Southwest United States.

Potential downside: If demand explodes they will want to grow a lot of the stuff. A single plant doesn't take much water, but what about 50 square miles of the plant?

Posted by: fluffy at August 09, 2026 05:27 AM (V0/Sp)

26 I have replies I need to get to here from yesterday's Tech News after I took off.

@74(Yesterday)/Wolfus:

{ me } Okay, time for the Saturday morning "feed the cars and us too!" thing.

{ Wolfus } Cars, or cats?

Cars. Fueling of both the vehicles, and then a stop by a local diner my wife and I enjoy on Saturday mornings. (Might as well make it an enjoyable outing, right?)

Also: Glad your water situation sorted itself out!

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at August 09, 2026 05:28 AM (O7YUW)

27 @87(Yesterday)/SpeakingOf:

I suspect that even consumer graphics cards will start using HBM in a few years because there are going to be a lot of leftover chips laying around when around half the data centers that were proposed are actually built.

If the demand shuts off like what happened in the dot.bomb implosion, then yeah, we might well see that.

It's going to be a great joy buying DDR5 in a few years for $50 per 16GB stick, though.

THAT I'm looking forward to, assuming that the parts reseller channels survive this nonsense.

Then they'll bring out DDR6 and the price will double, again.

Yeah, but we'll have bought up a ton of memory and older motherboards that support DDR5 and will be able to build hobby machines again (I hope.)

I wish us luck, we're gonna need it.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at August 09, 2026 05:29 AM (O7YUW)

28 @91(Yesterday)/Accomack:

Grumpy, everything you laid out is why the bubble was created.

Yeah, if they're trying to force us all to use essentially cheap terminals that connect to the actual computing power in their data centers/cloud and rent our computing time, you might be right. I think this plan is doomed to fail because it goes against human nature - people want to own things.

I lived through centralized computing power once already (Mainframes and terminals) and the advent of brand new home computers was such an exciting time (expensive too, at first.) The powers that be may want to try to put that genie back in the bottle. Good luck to them, they'll need it.

Reality is mutable, but they can't shut it up forever. Also, the pendulum swings. It always does.

And people are ANGRY about how many things we used to own they've tried to take away and rent back to us. That's going to go rodeo at some point.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at August 09, 2026 05:30 AM (O7YUW)

29 25 >>> research scientists identified a promising solution in hesperaloe, a native, low-water-use plant that thrives in the arid climate of the Southwest United States.

Potential downside: If demand explodes they will want to grow a lot of the stuff. A single plant doesn't take much water, but what about 50 square miles of the plant?
Posted by: fluffy at August 09, 2026 05:27 AM (V0/Sp)

Compared with trees, I guess:

This breakthrough has the potential to power the Company's future hygiene products with enhanced performance, quality, and sustainability.*

*Based on internal Kimberly-Clark research and development testing of Alternative Natural Fibers compared with traditional forest-based fibers used in the Company's current hygiene products.

Posted by: m at August 09, 2026 05:32 AM (odBC9)

30 @129(Yesterday)/Comrade Flounder:

I build 10 year builds for myself, because I hate setting up PCs, and I am about 5 years into my current one (128GB RAM) with a recent Intel B580 video card refresh.

That's how I do it too, except I missed this cycle's rebuild because Covid screwed everything up for our family regarding income, so I'm still carrying on with what I built in 2012 and I'm playing the waiting game until the prices become sane again.

Looks like you prize reliability in your 10 year builds as well - hard to achieve based on research done before purchase time, but it is possible (needs a little luck too so you don't discover you bought a lemon-part.)

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at August 09, 2026 05:33 AM (O7YUW)

31 In case the New Yorker interview of a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) co-chair has not made it onto your radar. I am delighted to have watched this, and am very glad that it has been recorded for posterity. (29:20 play time; youtube)

How Socialist Is the D.S.A.? Megan Romer Explains | The New Yorker Radio Hour (hosted by David Remnick)

https://tinyurl.com/yjxrhmp2

Posted by: m at August 09, 2026 05:42 AM (odBC9)

32 >>> This breakthrough has the potential to power the Company's future hygiene products with enhanced performance, quality, and sustainability.*

My question wasn't very thorough. This plant thrives in the Southwest. Great. They did their research in Yuma,AZ. Arizona has lots of land, but does this plant grow elsewhere? The Colorado River is already strained past capacity.

Plants are sometimes picky about where they will grow. Clearing out a tree farm in Mississippi will provide space, but will the soil be right? Will it grow in wetter conditions?

Posted by: fluffy at August 09, 2026 05:44 AM (V0/Sp)

33 And, furthermore:

The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States, with over 100,000 members and chapters in all 50 states.

Posted by: m at August 09, 2026 05:44 AM (odBC9)

34 Tjat long march through institutions has finally gotten to the opening

Posted by: Skip at August 09, 2026 05:45 AM (Ia/+0)

35 32 >>> This breakthrough has the potential to power the Company's future hygiene products with enhanced performance, quality, and sustainability.*

My question wasn't very thorough. This plant thrives in the Southwest. Great. They did their research in Yuma,AZ. Arizona has lots of land, but does this plant grow elsewhere? The Colorado River is already strained past capacity.

Plants are sometimes picky about where they will grow. Clearing out a tree farm in Mississippi will provide space, but will the soil be right? Will it grow in wetter conditions?
Posted by: fluffy at August 09, 2026 05:44 AM (V0/Sp)

And my cut-and-paste wasn't very thorough!
Your questions are good.

Posted by: m at August 09, 2026 05:46 AM (odBC9)

36 Okay, on to today's content!

Even if SpaceX's AI/LLM initiative crashes and burns, they're making enough money to cover the losses. Can't say that about all the other AI companies that are burning through investment capital like a forest fire clearing out 40 years of deadwood.

Storage speed and how it affects games. Pixy writes: "Short answer: It doesn't." Unless it's SSD versus spinning rust, but this article was about memory devices exclusively and not hard drives, so... okay.

"os8088 is actually an operating system."

Impressive, but I really don't want to backstep to the 8088 days, unless it's just for DOS based games, and there are good emulators for that.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at August 09, 2026 05:46 AM (O7YUW)

Processing 0.0, elapsed 0.0099 seconds.
15 queries taking 0.0047 seconds, 45 records returned.
Page size 41 kb.
Powered by Minx 0.8 beta.