Source: Hacker News
Article note: That's a good step.
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Author Archives: pappp
Federal appeals court finds geofence warrants “categorically” unconstitutional
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Stratasys sues Bambu Lab over patents used widely by consumer 3D printers
Source: Ars Technica
Article note: Stratasys trollin' again, in the preferred jurisdiction of patent trolls.
They've held back the FDM field for like two decades already (most recently with their heated build chamber bullshit), now they're coming around to try again... With patents dated years after community projects and even commercial hobbyist level printers were publicly doing the things the claim.
Bambu aren't exactly "The good guys" since they've commercialized a bunch community work without credit or giving back (and filed patents for them in China), but at least they're chiefly engaged in shipping products to users.
Enlarge / The Bambu Lab A1, complete with heated build platform. (credit: Bambu Lab)
A patent lawsuit filed by one of 3D printing's most established firms against a consumer-focused upstart could have a big impact on the wider 3D-printing scene.
In two complaints, (1, 2, PDF) filed in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, against six entities related to Bambu Lab, Stratasys alleges that Bambu Lab infringed upon 10 patents that it owns, some through subsidiaries like Makerbot (acquired in 2013). Among the patents cited are US9421713B2, "Additive manufacturing method for printing three-dimensional parts with purge towers," and US9592660B2, "Heated build platform and system for three-dimensional printing methods."
There are not many, if any, 3D printers sold to consumers that do not have a heated bed, which prevents the first layers of a model from cooling during printing and potentially shrinking and warping the model. "Purge towers" (or "prime towers" in Bambu's parlance) allow for multicolor printing by providing a place for the filament remaining in a nozzle to be extracted and prevent bleed-over between colors. Stratasys' infringement claims also target some fundamental technologies around force detection and fused deposition modeling (FDM) that, like purge towers, are used by other 3D-printer makers that target entry-level and intermediate 3D-printing enthusiasts.
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Intel Raptor Lake 0x129 CPU Microcode Performance Impact on Linux
Source: Hacker News
Article note: This was one of the things I was most interested in as soon as Intel started talking about microcode patches for localized over voltage issues.
Test protocol isn't completely conclusive because it's a single device data set and there's potentially some context sensitivity, but looks like a good first pass. Possibly related to handling of branch-intensive code?
Basically: slight regressions, near-negligible on most jobs. Most noticible on cryptographically intense loads at around a 10% hit.
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Almost unfixable “Sinkclose” bug affects hundreds of millions of AMD chips
Source: Ars Technica
Article note: It's always the add on security/management features.
If you already have kernel access in any recent AMD box, you can use some (necessary for compatibility) memory remapping features to make the SMM (basically maximum-privilge firmware) read code from memory written by the OS... which can give you a firmware-resident foothold that will persist even through OS reinstalls.
Security flaws in your computer's firmware, the deep-seated code that loads first when you turn the machine on and controls even how its operating system boots up, have long been a target for hackers looking for a stealthy foothold. But only rarely does that kind of vulnerability appear not in the firmware of any particular computer maker, but in the chips found across hundreds of millions of PCs and servers. Now security researchers have found one such flaw that has persisted in AMD processors for decades, and that would allow malware to burrow deep enough into a computer's memory that, in many cases, it may be easier to discard a machine than to disinfect it.
At the Defcon hacker conference, Enrique Nissim and Krzysztof Okupski, researchers from the security firm IOActive, plan to present a vulnerability in AMD chips they're calling Sinkclose. The flaw would allow hackers to run their own code in one of the most privileged modes of an AMD processor, known as System Management Mode, designed to be reserved only for a specific, protected portion of its firmware. IOActive's researchers warn that it affects virtually all AMD chips dating back to 2006, or possibly even earlier.
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Introducing the RP2350
Source: Hacker News
Article note: Wow, that is a _much_ beefier, more flexible chip than the RP2040. 2x Cortex M33F, more better PIOs, more better IO in general including proper psram support, etc.
Not all the details yet, but looks pretty compelling.
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Reddit considers search ads, paywalled content for the future
Source: Ars Technica
Article note: Can at least one of the tech media outlets just start titling all of these "Reddit considers further enshittification: Part N" and put the details in the subtitle to make it easier to keep track of?
Reddit executives discussed plans on Tuesday for making more money from the platform, including showing ads in more places and possibly putting some content behind a paywall.
On Tuesday, Reddit shared its Q2 2024 earnings report (PDF). The company lost $10.1 million during the period, down from Q2 2023’s $41.1 million loss. Reddit has never been profitable, and during its earnings call yesterday, company heads discussed potential and slated plans for monetization.
As expected, selling ads continues to be a priority. Part of the reason Reddit was OK with most third-party Reddit apps closing was that the change was expected to drive people to Reddit’s native website and apps, where the company sells ads. In Q2, Reddit’s ad revenue grew 41 percent year over year (YoY) to $253.1 million, or 90 percent of total revenue ($281.2 million).
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Reddit considers search ads, paywalled content for the future
Source: Ars Technica
Article note: Can at least one of the tech media outlets just start titling all of these "Reddit considers further enshittification: Part N" and put the details in the subtitle to make it easier to keep track of?
Reddit executives discussed plans on Tuesday for making more money from the platform, including showing ads in more places and possibly putting some content behind a paywall.
On Tuesday, Reddit shared its Q2 2024 earnings report (PDF). The company lost $10.1 million during the period, down from Q2 2023’s $41.1 million loss. Reddit has never been profitable, and during its earnings call yesterday, company heads discussed potential and slated plans for monetization.
As expected, selling ads continues to be a priority. Part of the reason Reddit was OK with most third-party Reddit apps closing was that the change was expected to drive people to Reddit’s native website and apps, where the company sells ads. In Q2, Reddit’s ad revenue grew 41 percent year over year (YoY) to $253.1 million, or 90 percent of total revenue ($281.2 million).
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Microsoft’s internal memo: So Long, Intel (1992) [pdf]
Source: Hacker News
Article note: What a neat artifact!
Nathan Myhrvold did some spectacular prognosticating here.
The Apple/IBM prediction is _dead on_ up to the point where he didn't foresee that _after_ the collapse of Pink they would just buy a successor platform.
Technically he's right that 64bit architectures wouldn't move into the consumer space for a decade, but he dismissed 64-bit extensions to x86 and that's what eventually won as "the" ISA.
He failed to predict that Intel would build a superscalar P5 and captures-all-the-RISC-advantages-behind-a-dyanmic-reflow P6 that let them get away with all kinds of bullshit for a decade.
He's right that one of the _problems_ that messed things up for the RISC world (for Unix and NT and ...everyone) was that supporting multiple ABIs in a platform is a huge burden.
He correctly points out that DEC was in position to do Modern-OS-on-modern-RISC in the mid 80s and blew it so hard that Microsoft got "the guy they spurned" (Dave Culter).
He correctly anticipates that and how many-commodity-microprocessor systems would eat the bespoke high end market.
He caught that low-end RISC would eat Intel from below.
He missed that the great VLIW snowplow would fuck up the whole RISC market then collapse into itself...and somehow Intel would come out on both ends of that, but that story is unbelievable.
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LightBurn Turns Back the Clock, Bails on Linux Users
Source: Hack a Day
Article note: Shame.
I'd heard bad things about their Linux support, and prefer open solutions where possible, so I've avoided them. Laserweb is kind of mediocre and architecturally not my preference, but it has worked.
Angry Birds, flash mobs, Russell Brand, fidget spinners. All of these were virtually unavoidable in the previous decade, and yet, like so many popular trends, have now largely faded into obscurity. But in a recent announcement, the developers of LightBurn have brought back a relic of the past that we thought was all but buried along with Harambe — popular software not supporting Linux.
But this isn’t a case of the developers not wanting to bring their software to Linux. LightBurn, the defacto tool for controlling hobbyist laser cutters and engravers, was already multi-platform. Looking forward, however, the developers claim that too much of their time is spent supporting and packaging the software for Linux relative to the size of the user base. In an announcement email sent out to users, they reached even deeper into the mid-2000s bag of excuses, and cited the number of Linux distributions as a further challenge:
The segmentation of Linux distributions complicates these burdens further — we’ve had to provide three separate packages for the versions of Linux we officially support, and still encounter frequent compatibility issues on those distributions (or closely related distributions), to say nothing of the many distributions we have been asked to support.
We’re not sure how much of their time could possibly be taken up by responding to requests for supporting additional distributions (especially when the answer is no), but apparently, it was enough that they finally had to put their foot down — the upcoming 1.7.00 release of LightBurn will be the last to run on Linux.
To really add insult to injury, LightBurn is paid software, with users having to purchase a yearly license after the time-limited demo period. Accordingly, any Linux users who recently purchased a year’s license for the software can ask for a refund. Oh, and if you’re holding out hope that the community can swoop in and take over maintaining the Linux builds, don’t — LightBurn is closed source.
While there are open source projects like LaserWeb that can be used to control these types of machines regardless of what operating system you’re running, losing LightBurn on Linux definitely hurts. While we try not to put our stamp on closed source proprietary software because of situations exactly like this one, we have to admit that LightBurn was a nice tool, especially when compared to the joke software that many of these lasers ship with.
The developers end their notice to Linux users with what seems like a particularly cruel kick while they’re already down:
Rest assured that we will be using the time gained by sunsetting Linux support to redouble our efforts at making better software for laser cutters, and beyond. We hope you will continue to utilize LightBurn on a supported operating system going forward, and we thank you for being a part of the LightBurn community.
So take comfort, Linux users — LightBurn will emerge from this decision better than ever. Unfortunately, you just won’t be able to use it.
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The Future of Science Publishing
Source: Slashdot
Article note: This is essentially: The Gates foundation suggests that authors continue working around the useless, broken, extractive epeen contest run by the publishers by sharing preprints online, and only engage with the publication process enough to get their prestige points for career advancement.
It'd be better if there were money going into alternative infrastructure, but this is honestly not an unreasonable position.
A decade ago, the Gates Foundation announced it will cease covering open-access publishing costs for its grantees from 2025. This shift, following a decade of support for free access to research, sparked concerns in the scientific community. Experts fear the move could undermine the open-access model, which aims to make taxpayer-funded studies freely available. The decision also marked a significant change in the foundation's approach to disseminating research findings, potentially impacting global access to critical scientific information. So where do we go from here? From a report: [The Gates Foundation] notes that open access in its current form has resulted in "some unsavory publishing practices," including unchecked pricing from journals and publishers, questionable peer review, and paper mills -- people or organizations that produce fake or subpar papers and sell authorship slots on them. "Last year was a really pivotal year in scholarly publishing since lots of people who were really pushing gold open access for many years are now thinking, 'Oh, what beast have we created?'" says James Butcher, an independent publishing consultant in Liverpool, England, who writes the newsletter Journalology. "It plays into the hands of the big corporates because it's all about scale." Gold OA creates incentives for journals to publish as many papers as possible to make more money. Some publishers, often referred to as gray OA publishers, have been criticized for exploiting the gold OA model to churn out high volumes of low-quality studies. Butcher says that because subscription- based publishers traditionally couldn't increase revenues by publishing more papers, they tended to keep volumes fairly level. In contrast, Johan Rooryck, a French linguistics researcher at Leiden University and a proponent of open access, points to a "very rapid rise" in gold OA journals and papers in the past decade. The Gates Foundation is now suggesting that authors post online preprints of their author-accepted manuscripts -- near-final versions of studies accepted by journals for publication before they are typeset or copyedited -- and then publish in whichever journals they like.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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