Off-and-on trying out an account over at @tal@oleo.cafe due to scraping bots bogging down lemmy.today to the point of near-unusability.

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: October 4th, 2023

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  • tal@lemmy.todaytoLinux Phones@lemmy.caJolla Phone Pre-order Voucher
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    4 hours ago

    A user configurable “hardware” privacy switch is a contradiction in itself. If it can be controlled by software it can’t do what the marketing claims 🤦

    One reason to have hardware switches is because the manufacturer doesn’t want malware that has compromised the OS to be able to bypass it, and from this standpoint — which is a very legitimate position — then that’s very much a real objection.

    But another reason is because people don’t want to rely on using an app on a touchscreen, but to have a convenient way to twiddle the thing without dicking around with the touchscreen, similar to why people complain about some modern cars lacking physical controls. Lets you flip it off in your pocket or whatnot. From that standpoint, it might be a reasonable design. That is, there it isn’t “I’m worried about the OS being compromised”, but “I just want a convenient way to kill access to software running at an application level to various sources of data”.

    I do think that it’s important to make sure that consumers are not misled as to what guarantees the physical switch provides, though.





  • 4chan’s position is that they aren’t doing business in the UK, which is why they’re disregarding the UK regulator’s fines. The UK regulator might be able to block them in the UK if the UK rolls out a Great Firewall of the UK, say, a la China, but probably not get the US to enforce rulings against them. And, I’d add, such a Great British Firewall is going to have limited impact unless the Brits also ban VPNs in the UK that don’t also do such blocking internal to the VPN and additionally block external VPNs, a la Russia.

    In the same way, lemmy.today is doing business in the EU.

    Very unlikely, in the eyes of the US court system. They have no EU physical presence, and aren’t advertising targeting EU people.

    Facebook

    Yeah, now they might be affected, but they’re in the EU.

    EDIT: For context, last year, this happened:

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-fines-google-20-decillion-world-gdp-youtube-kremlin-war-ukraine-rcna178172

    Russia fines Google more than the world’s entire GDP

    Russian courts can hand down whatever rulings they want, but they don’t really have an effect elsewhere unless other legal systems view them as having jurisdiction.

    Iran has the death penalty for blasphemy. But the US isn’t going to enforce rulings on blasphemy unless it views Iran as having jurisdiction over the person posting said content.




  • Micron is one of the “Big Three” DRAM manufacturers.

    Crucial is their “sell directly to consumers” brand.

    https://netvaluator.com/en/top-10-ram-manufacturers-by-market-share/

    Micron Technology stands as the third giant, with a market share close to 20%, or about 23 billion USD in DRAM revenue. Unlike Samsung and SK Hynix, Micron is headquartered in the United States, making it a critical supplier for Western markets. Its product portfolio covers both DRAM and NAND, giving it broader exposure to the memory industry.

    The company’s consumer-facing Crucial brand is well recognized among PC builders and gamers worldwide. Micron also plays a vital role in supplying DRAM for servers and AI, competing directly in the HBM space. Its strategy focuses on quality, diversification, and maintaining a stable supply chain for North America and Europe. As the only American giant, Micron is strategically important in the geopolitical landscape of semiconductors.









  • I read an article yesterday that Samsung’s memory division wasn’t even willing to let Samsung’s own cell phone division lock in any long-term memory buying agreement with them, which the cell phone division hsd been trying to do. Too much money in selling HBM memory for parallel compute to datacenters.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/china/ai-frenzy-is-driving-new-global-supply-chain-crisis-2025-12-03/

    Some 6,000 miles away in California, Paul Coronado said monthly sales at his company, Caramon, which sells recycled low-end memory chips pulled from decommissioned data-center servers, have surged since September. Almost all its products are now bought by Hong Kong-based intermediaries who resell them to Chinese clients, he said.

    “We were doing about $500,000 a month,” he said. “Now it’s $800,000 to $900,000.”

    I threw away a bunch of large-capacity DDR4 DIMMs last year, figured that they’d be useless in the future. Kind of wish I hadn’t, now. Reusing old DIMMs is probably the only source of supply that can be ramped up in the near term.

    In October, SK Hynix said all its chips are sold out for 2026, while Samsung said it had secured customers for its HBM chips to be produced next year. Both firms are expanding capacity to meet AI demand, but new factories for conventional chips won’t come online until 2027 or 2028.

    Two or three years until manufacturing capacity will be ramped up.