Daily Archives: 2020-09-18

ARM is now backing Panfrost Gallium3D as open-source Mali graphics driver

Posted on 2020-09-18 by pappp

Source: OSNews

Article note: This is a delightful change of pace. Nvidia better not fuck it up.

Most information presented during the annual X.Org Developers’ Conference doesn’t tend to be very surprising or ushering in breaking news, but during today’s XDC2020 it was subtly dropped that Arm Holdings appears to now be backing the open-source Panfrost Gallium3D driver.

Panfrost has been developed over the past several years as what began as a reverse-engineered effort by Alyssa Rosenzweig to support Arm Mali Bifrost and Midgard hardware. This driver had a slow start but Rosenzweig has been employed by Collabora for a while now and they’ve been making steady progress on supporting newer Mali hardware and advancing the supported OpenGL / GLES capabilities of the driver.

This is a major departure from previous policy for ARM, since the company always shied away from open source efforts around its Mali GPUs.

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Stanislaw Lem’s The Invincible being made into a videogame

Posted on 2020-09-18 by pappp

Source: Boing Boing

Article note: Oh shit, that sounds fun. Good pedigree both for the setting and the adaptation team.

Polish author Stanislaw Lem's 1964 sci-fi thriller, The Invincible, is being made into a videogame by Polish game company, Starward Industries. Sayeth PC Gamer: The Invincible is a 1964 hard sci-fi novel by Polish author Stanislaw Lem about the crew of a powerful deep-space vessel that lands on the planet Regis 3 and learns some…

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Ed-Tech Mania Is Back. It won’t solve academe’s problems

Posted on 2020-09-18 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: I generally use the phrase "Carpetbaggers" for ed-tech companies because they're primarily profiteering from change and unrest and lemming "leaders." Every now and then we get genuinely useful bits of instructional technology, and some of them are _very_ useful, but the ratio of rent-seeking to actual utility is not something to be impressed by.
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Raspberry Pi can finally boot directly from USB

Posted on 2020-09-18 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Yesss. Direct USB Booting in the default ROM, so SD cards are avoidable. USB storage is often much cheaper and more convenient.
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Study shows proof that a safer UV light effectively kills virus causing Covid-19

Posted on 2020-09-18 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: I've been running light-tight reflective lined containers (repurposed low-end soft side coolers) with mercury vapor lamps for sterilization of lab equipment all semester, continuing to feel validated that that works, even though COVID-19 surface transmission seems to be low risk. Downside: photokeratitis in a matter of seconds if you look at them out of the enclosure. Having that kind of material-safe, easy sterilization without the whole "254nm UVC is terrible for humans" problem is awesome, though I'm not sure how the ramp up of 222nm light sources will go, I think the only 222nm narrow-band source that's commercially viable are KrCl Excimer lamps, which are slightly exotic.
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FreeCAD: A free and open source multiplatform 3D parametric modeler

Posted on 2020-09-18 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Interesting thread just for the discussion of alternatives. I haven't had great luck with FreeCAD (I find it awkward, and it has been pretty crash-y, especially the path toolbench), but it is aimed right where I want there to be something. I end up doing a lot of simple pieces in OpenSCAD for 3D printing, or NativeCAM (a conversational direct-CAM tool) for subtractive machining, but I'd really like a decent dependable, free parametric CAD/CAM setup that would take care of my whole set of needs.
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