It[he]#039[/he]s been fun, but Linus Torvalds thinks it[he]#039[/he]s time for 486 Linux to leave computers behind and go to museums.
Source: LXer – Linus Torvalds bids 486 Linux adieu
Monthly Archives: October 2022
Father & 'Adult Son' Found Guilty Over Pokémon Go 'Brawl'
In June 2018 a brawl erupted in a park in St Louis that led to a victim suffering a “traumatic eye injury”. The fight was captured on video and led to two men being arrested on serious assault charges. Those men have finally been tried, with a court finding both guilty of felony third-degree assault.
Source: Kotaku – Father & ‘Adult Son’ Found Guilty Over Pokémon Go ‘Brawl’
Oscar Issac on How Hope Plays into Leo's Arc
Mexico Scraps Daylight Savings Time Except Along Border
Mexico’s Senate approved a bill Wednesday to eliminate daylight saving time, putting an end to the practice of changing clocks twice a year. The Associated Press reports: Some cities and towns along the U.S. border can retain daylight saving time, presumably because they are so linked to U.S. cities. The Senate approved the measure on a 59-25 vote, with 12 abstentions. Those who opposed the measure said that less daylight in the afternoon could affect opportunities for children and adults to get exercise. The bill already passed the lower house of Congress and now goes President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to be signed into law. The law would go into effect Sunday, when Mexico is scheduled to turn clocks back for the last time.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Mexico Scraps Daylight Savings Time Except Along Border
Fedora 37 Release Delayed To Mid-November Over Critical OpenSSL Vulnerability
Fedora Linux 37 has been running behind schedule and today it was decided to push it back now to mid-November over a “critical” openSSL vulnerability yet to be made public…
Source: Phoronix – Fedora 37 Release Delayed To Mid-November Over Critical OpenSSL Vulnerability
A Fedora 37 release-date slip
Fedora releases have traditionally happened later than their target date,
though the project has done better on that score in recent years. Ben
Cotton has announced in
Fedora Magazine that the upcoming Fedora 37 release, initially planned
for October 25, won’t be happening until November 15. The
immediate cause is an
impending OpenSSL update which fixes a vulnerability described as
“critical”.
Ironically, Fedora’s openness means we can’t start preparing ahead
of time. All of our build pipelines and artifacts are open. If we
were to start building updates, this would disclose the
vulnerability before the embargo lifts. As a result, we only know
that OpenSSL considers this the highest level of severity and Red
Hat’s Product Security team strongly recommended we wait for a fix
before releasing Fedora Linux 37.
Source: LWN.net – A Fedora 37 release-date slip
Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi: 6 Things We Liked (and 4 We Didn't)
Modern Star Wars can often rely too much on answering questions we may or may not need answers to. Sometimes that can be amazing. Other times, it is not, and the latest Disney+ animated series, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, is the perfect example of both.
Source: Gizmodo – Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi: 6 Things We Liked (and 4 We Didn’t)
Oops: Gotham Knights Briefly Ditched Its Anti-Piracy Protection
Gotham Knights got its first significant post-launch patch on PC yesterday. The update was aimed at fixing online multiplayer errors and squashing some bugs. Unfortunately, it also temporarily squashed the Batman game’s Denuvo DRM protections, seemingly leaving it vulnerable to pirates. That’s one way to take them by…
Source: Kotaku – Oops: Gotham Knights Briefly Ditched Its Anti-Piracy Protection
Uganda Ebola outbreak tops 100 cases, 30 deaths; cases growing in capital
Enlarge / Red Cross workers don PPE prior to burying a 3-year-old boy suspected of dying from Ebola in 2022 in Mubende, Uganda. (credit: Getty | Luke Dray)
Concern is rising over the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Uganda that is now swiftly spreading in the densely populated capital city of Kampala. The outbreak is caused by a lesser-seen species of Ebolavirus, the Sudan virus, for which there is no proven vaccine or treatment.
Uganda’s Ministry of Health declared an outbreak on September 20, a day after a 24-year-old man from a rural area in central Uganda died of the disease. Since then, the virus has spread to seven districts in the country, with the ministry reporting a total of 109 confirmed cases and 30 deaths. Health workers accounted for 15 of the confirmed cases and six of the confirmed deaths. There are also unofficial reports of probable cases and deaths.
Health experts are particularly concerned about the spread into Kampala, which government officials reported only Sunday. As of Wednesday, the city of more than 1.6 million has seen at least 15 confirmed cases. Of the 15 cases, six are school-aged children from the same family.
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Source: Ars Technica – Uganda Ebola outbreak tops 100 cases, 30 deaths; cases growing in capital
How to Password Protect Files Using Vim Editor in Ubuntu
Vim is one of the most powerful and popular open-source command-line text editors. It is highly extensible and offers a lot of features that make it the top choice for most Linux users. Among many other useful features, Vim has the ability to encrypt files with a password.
The post How to Password Protect Files Using Vim Editor in Ubuntu appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – How to Password Protect Files Using Vim Editor in Ubuntu
12 Things You Didn't Know About Halloween
I am a Halloween-scholar with a PhD. in witchology from Virginia Tech*, and I want to share my knowledge with you.
These 12 Halloween facts and “didya knows?” cover everything you ever wanted to know about the holiday: pumpkins, black cats, and novelty music. Isn’t that what Halloween is all about?
Source: LifeHacker – 12 Things You Didn’t Know About Halloween
Intel Reports Q3 2022 Earnings: Back To Profitability, But Still Painful
While always an interesting topic by default, corporate earnings reports in the tech industry have become especially important in the last few months, as the industry prepares to weather what’s expected to be the biggest downturn in demand in the last several years. Intel’s brutal Q2’22 report, which found the company losing money on a GAAP basis for the first time in 5 years, seems to have been a herald of things to come for the largest industry, with AMD and other companies since issuing earnings warnings ahead of their own Q3 reports. So as the first major tech company to publish their complete Q3’22 earnings report, Intel is once again likely to be a barometer of the tech industry’s performance over the past three months.
For the third quarter of 2022, Intel reported $15.3B in revenue, a $3.9B decline versus the year-ago quarter. Compared to Intel’s hash Q2 report, the company has returned to profitability, booking a cool billion dollars in net income, though this is still well below their historical norms. In fact, the company is still operating at a (GAAP) loss, booking an operating income of -$175M. For Q3 at least, it would appear that it’s Intel’s tax situation that’s pushing them into the black, with the company recording a $1.2B tax benefit.
Source: AnandTech – Intel Reports Q3 2022 Earnings: Back To Profitability, But Still Painful
Apple turns healthy profit despite weak iPad sales
Apple seems to be weathering the financial storm, albeit with a few hitches. The company reported a record high revenue of $90.1 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter, with a net profit of $20.7 billion. While those were only slight increases versus the same period last year (revenue was up ‘just’ 8 percent), they came despite a rough economic climate and near-flat revenue growth in the previous quarter.
The issues mainly stem from mixed performance across Apple’s lineup. It won’t surprise you to hear that the iPhone 14 debut helped fuel the company’s mobile revenue ($42.6 billion versus last summer’s $38.9 billion), but other segments were volatile. While the MacBook Air M2 helped Mac revenue jump 25 percent to $11.5 billion, iPad sales dropped sharply — they fell to just under $7.2 billion versus nearly $8.3 billion a year earlier. And while services like Apple Music and TV+ set a new record of $19.2 billion, that’s only a mediocre bump versus the $18.3 billion from a year ago. Sales for the Apple Watch and smart home devices grew solidly from $8.8 billion to $9.7 billion.
The customer base appears to be strong, at least. During Apple’s earnings call, CFO Luca Maestri noted that roughly half of Mac and iPad buyers were new to the platform. The company also touted an all-time (but unspecified) high for the number of active devices. CEO Tim Cook added that phone sales were strong despite tight supply constraints for the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max.
The fall (Apple’s first fiscal quarter of 2023) could be rosier. Apple introduced new iPads in October this year where it released updated models in September last year, so we’d expect a bump in sales for the tablet lineup. Cook added that last year was “unusually strong” thanks to the iPad Pro M1 launch. The iPhone 14 family had also been available for just eight days during the fourth quarter, so overall iPhone sales should improve.
Apple isn’t out of trouble yet. It’s still hiring more cautiously, and supply issues (including for the Apple Watch Ultra, Cook says) may dog the company for a while. It’s also unclear how people will take to devices like the iPhone 14 Plus, which didn’t ship until this month. All the same, Apple may be happy. The computer market tanked 19.5 percent during the quarter, according to Gartner estimates, while Canalys believes smartphone shipments dropped 9 percent. If those figures are reasonably accurate, Apple is thriving simply by avoiding sharp declines in most categories.
Source: Engadget – Apple turns healthy profit despite weak iPad sales
Apple's Record Revenues Soured by Worse Than Expected iPhone Sales
In a year that will be remembered as a horror show for many tech companies, Apple has so far managed to weather the storm with record earnings in the third quarter. Lower than expected iPhone sales however, suggest there may be holes in the ship in need of patching.
Source: Gizmodo – Apple’s Record Revenues Soured by Worse Than Expected iPhone Sales
TUXEDO Computers releases InfinityBook Pro 16 Gen7 Laptop
This week, TUXEDO launched two variations of their latest InfinityBook Pro 16 laptop built around the i7-12700H Intel core processor. TUXEDO’s high-end laptop supports up to 64GB RAM, 2x M.2 2280 slots, Wi-Fi 6, 80Wh battery and other optional features. The Max Performance and the Workstation edition feature the same 12th Gen processor from Intel: […]
Source: LXer – TUXEDO Computers releases InfinityBook Pro 16 Gen7 Laptop
The Biblical Mythos That Inspired Oscar Isaac's Head Wounds: Sparrow
What do you think of when you imagine the angels of the Bible? Renaissance paintings of these divine beings pictured beautiful, toga-clad creatures with wings like doves, but those depictions aren’t in line with many Biblical, Hebrew, and Islamic descriptions of Gods’ messengers.
Source: Gizmodo – The Biblical Mythos That Inspired Oscar Isaac’s Head Wounds: Sparrow
Redditor acquires decommissioned Netflix cache server with 262TB of storage
Enlarge / An Open Connect Appliance server from around 2013 that a Redditor acquired. (credit: PoisonWaffle3 / Reddit)
A Reddit user named PoisonWaffe3 recently acquired a 2013-era Netflix cache server that had been pulled from service and wiped for disposal, which marks a rare occasion the public has been able to get a look at the mysterious hardware, Vice reports.
The decommissioned cache server—called an “Open Connect Appliance” (or OCA)—operated as part of Netflix’s Open Connect content delivery network. Open Connect is a network of servers around the world embedded with local ISPs that contain local copies of Netflix video content, accelerating the delivery of that content to Netflix viewers by putting it as close to the viewers as possible (both geographically and from a perspective of network hops).
Netflix provides plenty of high-level documentation about Open Connect on its website, but what isn’t widely known is what specific components make the Open Connect servers tick—especially one that is almost a decade old. After removing three screws, PoisonWaffle3 took a look inside their unit and discovered a “pretty standard” SuperMicro motherboard, an Intel Xeon CPU (E5 2650L v2), 64GB of DDR3 RAM, 36 7.2TB Western Digital hard disks (7,200 RPM), six 500GB Micron SSDs, a pair of 750-watt power supplies, and one quad-port 10-gigabit Ethernet NIC card. In total, the server contains “262TB of raw storage,” according to PoisonWaffle3.
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Source: Ars Technica – Redditor acquires decommissioned Netflix cache server with 262TB of storage
Amazon and Google Make Peace Over Smart TV Competition
An anonymous reader shares a report: Last week, the Competition Commission of India published a damning report, alleging that Google was preventing major TV manufacturers from adopting Amazon’s Fire TV operating system. This Thursday, Amazon announced that TCL, one of the manufacturers at the center of the dispute, is releasing two TV sets running its Fire TV software in Europe this fall. The unveiling of the two TV models is the direct result of a deal Google and Amazon struck in recent months, Protocol has learned from a source close to one of the parties involved in the agreement. As a result of that deal, Amazon has been able to work with a number of consumer electronics companies — including not only TCL, but also Xiaomi and Hisense — to vastly expand the number of available smart TVs running Fire TV OS. All of these companies were previously barred from doing so under licensing terms imposed by Google.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Amazon and Google Make Peace Over Smart TV Competition
InSight and Mars orbiter use impacts to give new info on Mars’ interior
Enlarge / The cracked terrain of Cerberus Fossae appears to be the source of most of the seismic activity on Mars. (credit: Image courtesy of ETH Zurich)
On Thursday, NASA announced that the InSight lander was continually losing power after dust coated its solar panels. The agency expects that it will probably lose contact with the lander within the next two months. But it is going out in style, as its onboard seismometer picked up the largest impacts we’ve observed since we put a high-resolution camera in orbit around the red planet.
Not only does the seismic data tell us a lot about the structure of Mars’ crust, but it has validated a technique used to extract positional information from a single seismometer. That technique indicates that roughly half the seismic energy that InSight has picked up comes from a single location on Mars.
Impactful events
The cameras on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have been observing Mars for 16 years. Before 2021, they had not observed any impacts that formed a crater over 130 meters across. In 2021, it spotted two. One of them was not especially useful. MRO imaging didn’t capture exactly when the impact occurred, and it was far enough from the site of the InSight lander that direct seismic waves ran into the planet’s core, which meant that only indirect seismic energy reached the instruments on InSight.
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Source: Ars Technica – InSight and Mars orbiter use impacts to give new info on Mars’ interior
Improved Big Picture Mode Now Available For Testing In Latest Steam Beta
Valve’s new Steam client beta published today has rolled out an updated Big Picture mode for enjoying the Steam client on TVs and other large format displays while this Big Picture mode was designed and optimized for the Steam Deck…
Source: Phoronix – Improved Big Picture Mode Now Available For Testing In Latest Steam Beta