Notices by The Penguin of Evil (etchedpixels@mastodon.social)

@shinmera @andyprice Used sensibly a lot of them (like C sequence points) make an enormous performance difference to code.

@Crofton @jwildeboer It's also increasingly in their interest to play hardball. If they drop the price to $40 the US and Canadian producers go under. They'll not be able to get funding because it's also obvious that the Saudis can do this whenever they want and that oil is on a rather short runway at this point.
As a side benefit they get to screw their rivals in Iran and the Houthis.

@jwildeboer @cstross Something approaching 75% reduction in cost per watt in ten years. Not quite comparable to microprocessors but huge by most industrial standards.

What also astounds me is how global it is - the numbers from places like Pakistan are just mind boggling

@jwildeboer I am hoping that if Trumpy goes oil gas oil gas, he'll piss off the Saudi's who will then decide to bury the US fracking and gas industry by flooding the market a bit. Would probably take out the Russians and a few others too at $40 a barrel.

@jwildeboer There's hints where the rest is going too. Musk is in with the Trump team and busy with this
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/5965923

Join the dots

@sjvn They could make it happen pretty soon by fixing liability laws. Not going to happen in a hurry and certainly less likely under the next lot.

The Unix original choice of a 32bit time_t ending in 2038 seems particularly inspired today.

@lanodan @neil I did implement this at one point for X using a very early cheapo head rather than eye tracking helmet. It definitely had potential but the kit was never ready for it.
Didn't find looking away a problem you just had to remember to look back before typing again. I suspect some kind of "and don't change window until they keyboard is idle a bit" might work too.

Was more useful for quake.

@ryanc @mjg59 The UK can be a bit funny if there are things like name changes recorded on one passport but not yet the other.

@GossiTheDog Are they signed garbage ?

Homcom cursed cable. That or @NanoRaptor has escaped onto Amazon too

#cursedcables

@liztai Rebranded "bendy bus". They were a disaster in the UK. Snarled up roads, caused excess pedestrian and cyclist deaths and have mostly disappeared.

@bread80 @haitchfive That's not how fab economics work. You can't keep a bit of an old process around in a corner for the odd little job. Either you've got it and you run it hard or you reuse the space for a more profitable option.

@alienghic @mekkaokereke $25K .. that's not a small and affordable EV by Chinese standards. Think $5K maybe $10K for something fancier.

From Littlefuse/Zilog

"Dear Customer and/or Distributor,

Please be aware that our Water Foundry Manufacturer is discontinuing support for the Z80 product and other product lines. Refer to the attached list of the products affected

Last time to buy (LTB) Orders will be accepted until June 14th 2024."

Sic transmit gloria mundi Z80 and Z180

#retrocomputing #z80

@cstross What - indeed.. inches ?? not metric. What kind of tech person uses inches

@thomasfuchs

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/congo-late-chimpanzee-painter-whose-work-sold-thousands-will-solo-show-december-1671976

The defence rests its case.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines art for one thing as "an activity through which people express particular ideas: " - in which case AI prompting and guiding is art.

American Heritage says "The conscious use of the imagination in the production of objects intended to be contemplated or appreciate" so providing it has a human guiding it then it is art.

And it's all a bit like the old "computer paint programs will ruin art"

@f4grx @thomasfuchs If you run even a random number generator long enough it will produce something which is art but it will do so by accident. There's a simple proof of this - Macbeth is considered art. Eventually as per the thousand monkeys the generator will produce Macbeth. There are some important nuances around creating art versus intentionally making a work of art. Even clouds randomly shape into something that provokes reaction and is art in the eye of the viewer.

@BethanyBlack @neil It's even scarier when you get a glimpse at some of the details involving lines too fine to draw with light, a world where quantum physics things like electron tunnelling are just part of the day job for design, where the metal is so tiny that over time the migration inside the chip is enough to wear it out, and where active areas of some gates are count on your fingers numbers of atoms wide and where it produces more heat per mm2 than the surface of the sun.

@drwho @bval @hailey Security is easier, if they want a CLA you just post the exploit and fix publically then put the popcorn in the microwave.