arthurfm

> If you did plop down ~$2800 today for a CPU or two, you'll have 28+ cores at your disposal.

In just over a weeks time you will be able to get a 32 core / 64 thread AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990X [1] for around $1,500-$1,800 which is pretty amazing.

[1] https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-threadripper-2990x-2970x-2950...

Techmoan's recent video on extended play (2.5 hour) CDs is also quite interesting.

https://youtu.be/5fG1crhGqI0

> If you look at the boxes now[1], they only have the Amazon curved-arrow logo on them.

Another thing I noticed is that some third-party sellers are using similar yellow curved arrows in their product images [1][2]. I guess this results in more sales due to the association with Amazon?

[1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07583NM7L

[2] http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071VX675L

> You don't even see it's Firefox anymore

Are Mozilla's designers simply following the 'debranding' or 'decorporatizing' trend? [1] [2]

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/the-age...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17649985

> I keep the BLE key in a desk drawer for the purpose of authing my mobile devices as it's pretty much the only way to auth on iOS

Krypton Authenticator [1] is another option for iOS. It can turn an iPhone (or Android smartphone) into virtual U2F key.

[1] https://krypt.co/

Thanks to the USB 3.0 Promoter Group, USB 3.1 Gen 1 (a.k.a. USB 3.0) devices have been rebranded as USB 3.2 Gen 1x1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0#USB_3.2

The USB 3.2 standard is backward compatible with USB 3.1/3.0 and USB 2.0. It defines the following transfer modes:

USB 3.2 Gen 1x1 - SuperSpeed, 5 Gbit/s (0.625 GB/s) data signaling rate over 1 lane using 8b/10b encoding, the same as USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 3.0. USB 3.2 Gen 1x2 - SuperSpeed+, new 10 Gbit/s (1.25 GB/s) data rate over 2 lanes using 8b/10b encoding. USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 - SuperSpeed+, 10 Gbit/s (1.25 GB/s) data rate over 1 lane using 128b/132b encoding, the same as USB 3.1 Gen 2. USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 - SuperSpeed+, new 20 Gbit/s (2.5 GB/s) data rate over 2 lanes using 128b/132b encoding.

USB 3.2 is supported with the default Windows 10 USB drivers and in Linux Kernel 4.18.

Quinn Nelson (a.k.a. Snazzy Labs) recently did a couple of videos where he replaced the stock thermal paste on a 2017 MacBook Pro with a liquid metal thermal paste [1] and then 3 months later with a standard thermal paste [2].

With the liquid metal paste the CPU temps dropped 10°C, ran 200MHz faster and the MacBook Pro didn't thermal throttle. The standard thermal paste also saw a 7-10% improvement in thermals compared to Apple's paste.

I wonder if replacing the paste with a better one would help with the latest i9 MacBook Pro?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw4gqfrBN4c

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNoZNzOQpVw

Shouldn't Norway's be Norwegian [millennials] in the title?

I have never heard of a Norwegian referred to as a 'Norway'.

To me, the title reads as: "Unlike most millennials, the Norway countries are rich" which doesn't make any sense because millennials are people not countries.

How difficult would it be to do the same with Super Mario World on the SNES?

Thanks! I will give that a try.

One feature I wish HIBP had was support for sub-domain addressing [1] and plus addressing [2].

My main email address has the format 'example@fastmail.fm' and receives alerts from HIBP if found in a data breach, but all of the related subdomain-based email addresses do not (e.g. netflix@example.fastmail.fm, google@example.fastmail.fm etc.)

Based on the 1Password screenshots in the linked article it would appear that specific support for sub-domain/plus addressing may not be required?

However, Firefox Monitor looks like it has the same limitations as the HIBP website/API and makes the alerts somewhat less useful when using sub-domain/plus addressing.

[1] https://www.fastmail.com/help/receive/addressing.html

[2] https://haveibeenpwned.uservoice.com/forums/275398-general/s...

> I write "images" to it in ISO format but I keep wondering how long boot media will depend on emulating a spinning CD/DVD drive.

Could UEFI HTTP Boot [1][2] replace the need to boot from ISOs?

[1] https://firmwaresecurity.com/2015/05/09/new-uefi-http-boot-s...

[2] http://ipxe.org/appnote/uefihttp

> I just wonder how one could create such a program that the users will have some guarantees that it will not leak stuff.

You could do what Okta does with its PassProtect [1][2][3] browser extension and use the Have I Been Pwned API along with k-Anonymity [4][5][6].

PassProtect is a browser plugin that makes it easy for people to see in the moment whether or not their password was exposed in a breach. With a real time, as-you-type notification, PassProtect quickly alerts users of possible "riskier" passwords so they can take action immediately and without compromising privacy. By using k-anonymity, PassProtect ensures that your passwords are never seen, stored, or sent over the network during this checking process.

We’ve also made it easy for developers to add this functionality directly into their app or website. By also surfacing related information and breach details, PassProtect promotes security awareness for users while relieving developers of the burden of tracking breaches and maintaining a homegrown tool.

[1] https://www.passprotect.io/

[2] https://www.okta.com/blog/2018/05/add-passprotect-to-your-we...

[3] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/passprotect/cpimld...

[4] https://www.troyhunt.com/ive-just-launched-pwned-passwords-v...

[5] https://blog.cloudflare.com/validating-leaked-passwords-with...

[6] https://github.com/OktaSecurityLabs/passprotect-js

> The mini has Thunderbolt and and digital audio in/out. The NUC has neither of these.

The NUC I am using at the moment (a NUC7I5BNK) has Thunderbolt 3.

The current Mac mini is stuck with Thunderbolt 2 and doesn't have any USB-C ports either.

> Did I miss something

Yes. See the section titled 'Arguments against securing the web'.

https://scotthelme.co.uk/https-anti-vaxxers/

With Google recently investing $20 million in GitLab [1] and helping them migrate from Azure to Google Cloud Platform [2][3], what are developers going to do when Google inevitably acquires GitLab?

Move their repositories back to GitHub, switch to BitBucket or something else entirely?

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/09/gitlab-raises-20m-series-c...

[2] https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/06/why-and-how-gitlab-abando...

[3] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/05/gke-gitlab-integration/

Do you think twofactorauth.org would be willing to list the regional Amazon websites separately so that your extension can pick them up automatically?

Great idea for an extension.

One thing I noticed straight away that I thought was worth mentioning is that a notification doesn't popup when visiting the regional Amazon websites like Amazon.co.uk/.de/.es/.it, despite it being possible to enable 2FA for these sites through Amazon.com.

Screenshot: https://vgy.me/UaHJm1.png

This is also mentioned on twofactorauth.org...

Enabling on Amazon.com activates 2FA on other regional Amazon sites, such as UK and DE.

Official announcement at 32:50 in the Google I/O Developer Keynote.

https://youtu.be/flU42CTF3MQ?t=1970

> It doesn't make sense to say watts per hour.

Perhaps, but that doesn't change the fact that Plasma TVs are generally more expensive to run than modern LCD or OLED TVs. [1]

Pioneer's 9th generation Kuro KRP-600A had an operating power consumption of 478 watts. [2]

[1] https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/led-oled-power-consumption-a...

[2] https://www.whathifi.com/pioneer/krp-600a/specs

Isn't that due to the very high energy consumption [1] than refresh rate? Who would want a TV that consumes ~300-600 watts per hour?

[1] https://www.treehugger.com/gadgets/plasma-tvs-suck-electrici...

> banking software means something written in COBOL, RPG400 etc. These languages are pretty old and hence, finding talent for these is like trying to find needle in a haystack.

It's really interesting to see which of the new UK and European 'challenger' banks purchased third-party banking software and which decided to spend the time writing their own modern banking systems [1]. A few examples from the linked article...

Monzo: For banking ops, it decided to build its own platform. Technology used is mainly open source: Linux, Apache Cassandra distributed database (used by the likes of Apple and Twitter), Google’s Go (golang) programming language at the back-end and PostgreSQL relational database. The system is hosted at two data centres in the UK on Mondo’s own hardware. There is a team of 16 people working on this.

Atom Bank: It has created a hefty technology set-up in its run up to the launch: FIS’s Profile core banking system; FIS/Sungard’s Ambit Quantum and Ambit Focus for treasury and risk management; Iress’ Mortgage Sales & Origination (MSO) suite for mortgage business, front-to-back office; Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX for regulatory reporting; Intelligent Environments (IE) for front office capabilities; CSC’s ConfidentID system for security; Phoebus Software for secured business lending and account servicing for residential lending; and WDS Virtual Agent for customer queries supplied by WDS (a subsidiary of Xerox).

Starling: The bank has an in-house developed core system. It uses GPS and Bottomline Technologies for processing and payments operations, respectively.

At what point does it become cheaper to buy one of these smaller banks and migrate everyone across to their platform?

[1] https://www.bankingtech.com/2018/04/uk-challenger-banks-whos...

> It involves using rw-everything and looking at SLIC table version.

There's a much easier method that automates all of that for you: the Multi-OEM/Retail Project (MRP) [1]. This queries the SLIC or MSDM tables for you during the installation of Windows and enables you to create a single DVD or USB drive that works with OEM PCs from 131 different manufacturers.

All you have to do is copy the included '$oem$' folder to the 'sources' folder of your Windows 10, 8.x, 7 or Windows Vista ISO/USB and it takes care of the rest.

The MRP is designed to determine what motherboard manufacturer is fitted and find the DMI, (board information), to then check against a database to pick the right theme, logo's etc. Along side this, if the computer has either a MSDM key or SLIC within the bios, to check that against the database and attempt to allow LEGAL activation as the Computer's OEM suppliers would do. For those with a Windows 10 Digital Licence (HWID), or MSDM key your computer should auto-activate when you go online, providing you have installed the correct Edition for the HWID/MSDM key.

[1] https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/multi-oem-retail-pr...

> fairly certain you can't use Microsoft downloaded iso for an oem

ISOs downloaded through Microsoft's Windows Media Creation Tool [1] will read the product key from the BIOS of OEM PCs that were sold with Windows 10 and will auto-activate when connected to the Internet.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has previously supported MPEG-2 and VC-1 hardware-based decoding by selling additional licenses in their online store [1][2]. By making the licenses optional they didn't need to increase the cost of all Raspberry Pi devices unnecessarily.

There isn't any reason they couldn't do the same for HEVC or H.266 as long as the hardware support was there.

[1] http://www.raspberrypi.com/mpeg-2-license-key/

[2] http://www.raspberrypi.com/vc-1-license-key/

Does siftrss do anything like Full-Text RSS [1] to transform partial web feeds into full feeds? Quite a few of the websites I subscribe to only show summaries of the articles.

[1] http://fivefilters.org/content-only/

HGST won't be with us for much longer either due to the recent WD rebranding [1][2].

As part of the unification of our new Western Digital brand, the Ultrastar DC HC320 is being introduced under the Western Digital Data Center (DC) segment branding.

All new commercial and enterprise products going forward will carry this new Western Digital branding as we transition away from the HGST brand. Western Digital has gone through a significant transformation with the integration of multiple companies. Moving to the Western Digital brand for all of our commercial and enterprise products is the first step in unifying the brands in our portfolio.

[1] https://blog.westerndigital.com/western-digital-sets-new-hig...

[2] https://www.hgst.com/products/hard-drives/ultrastar-dc-hc320

Also worth mentioning is the Temporary Containers add-on [1] [2] which works in conjunction with Multi-Account Containers.

If you browse the Internet in default Tabs or in a specific Container you still collect Cookies, Storage and Cache in one place — which is something advertisers and other data-collecting services really appreciate — it makes tracking you easy. Fortunately there’s an easy way to automatically create new Containers every time you open a new Tab and delete the Container if it’s not needed anymore: the Temporary Containers Add-on. By default you can open new Tabs in Temporary Containers with the Toolbar Icon or the keyboard shortcut Alt+C. If you enable the “Automatic Mode” in the options however, it will overwrite your standard ways of opening websites in new Tabs and external programs opening links. Instead of opening the website in No Container, it will open the website in a freshly created Temporary Container. You’ll notice how the names of the Containers keep counting up every time you open a new tab and visit a website: tmp1, tmp2, tmp3. As soon as you close the last Tab in such a Container, it will automatically get removed and with it all that data that makes you easy to track.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/temporary-con...

[2] https://medium.com/@stoically/enhance-your-privacy-in-firefo...

> One way is to print to postscript and convert back to pdf, but then you can't copy text from it.

If you use the following GhostScript command it's still possible to select the text in the unprotected PDF.

    "%ProgramFiles%\gs\gs9.22\bin\gswin64c.exe" -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sFONTPATH=%windir%/fonts;xfonts;. -sPDFPassword= -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dPassThroughJPEGImages=true -sOutputFile=Unprotected.pdf Protected.pdf

> be great if they were more modular to a standard

There is actually. The Open Pluggable Specification [1] which is primarily used for digital signage screens. It's a shame consumer TVs don't use this standard (or something similar).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Pluggable_Specification