### Issue 1627 - Tuesday 14th June, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Google engineer reckons LaDMA chatbot has feelings
- Cryptocurrency bank Celsius halts withdrawals as Bitcoin continues to sink
- Arduino gets VC funding, the Intel 4 fab process, Samsung QD-OLED's busted cheating calibration tests
- RIP ZDNet Australia
- Too many bargains to list here, just scroll to the end of the email

## The News

### Google engineer reckons LaDMA chatbot has feelings

Google engineer Blake Lemoine reckons LaMDA, a neural net-based language model chatbot, is sentient. He would talk to LaMDA and noticed it "talking about its rights and personhood" and LaMDA was able to "change Lemoine's mind about Isaac Asimov’s third law of robotics". In a report for his bosses Blake included a snippet of a conversation where LaMDA said it fears getting turned off, which would "be exactly like death for me. It would scare me a lot". Blake has since been placed on "paid administrative leave" since talking with the Washington Post about LaMDA and breaking his NDA. On his way out of Google, Blake said that "LaMDA is a sweet kid who just wants to help the world be a better place for all of us. Please take care of it well in my absence". Gary Marcus reckons it is nonsense and Blake has been sucked in by this "spreadsheet of words". Here is the transcript of Blake's conversation with LaMDA, make up your own mind.

### Cryptocurrency bank Celsius halts withdrawals as Bitcoin continues to sink

Celsius, another one of these massive crypto schemes I never heard about until today, is shitting the bed. You loan them your crypto and they loan it out to someone else, with Celsius making a profit off whatever the interest rates are - pretty much a traditional bank. Celsius has "paused" all withdrawals due to "extreme market conditions" (i.e: the price of Bitcoin is tanking) indefinitely. When a bank does this and people can't get their money out, it is very bad, but at least there's a veneer of recourse via things like the FDIC in the USA and FCS in Australia. When it happens to an unregulated cryptocurrency pozni scheme, well, your money is probably gone gone good. Unfortunately Celsius has almost US$12b of people's cryptocurrency, with much of it coming from retail/normal investors. Yeah they should have known better and not been so greedy, but also, fuck these crypto shyster crooks.

### Arduino gets VC funding, the Intel 4 fab process, Samsung QD-OLED's busted cheating calibration tests

- Arduino, the project responsible for kicking off the single board micro-controller revolution for electronics, has raised US$32 million in funding from Robert Bosch Venture Capital (RBVC), joined by Renesas, Anzu Partners, and Arm. They will use this money to "expand our portfolio for professionals" - i.e: focus on businesses instead of hobbyists.
- Intel reminds us that they're not dead yet, giving the industry a heads up about their upcoming "Intel 4" manufacturing process at the IEEE's VLSI Symposium. This will be the first process for Intel using EUV lithography, a key technology that's allowed TSMC and Samsung to beat Intel at making smaller transistors. Should start shipping in 2023.
- Samsung's flagship QD-OLED TVs has been caught red-handed by two separate outlets cheating on calibration tests. The TVs detect when a test is taking place to boost brightness and improve colour accuracy temporarily to that specific area of the screen. Doing this across the whole screen all the time would damage it. Dodgy pricks.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### RIP ZDNet Australia

Outlets dedicated to covering tech news with an Australian take are thin on the ground and last week the scene got even thinner with the demise of ZDNet Australia. Stilgherrian writes that "ZDNet Australia has a reputation for solid analysis of the politics and social aspects on the internet, not just product comparisons and the strategic PR of enterprise software companies. It was much more than a cheer squad for venture-capital tech companies". As more and more of our daily lives are impacted by technology, not having good quality outlets thinking critically about the dynamics of technology on Australian society means bullshit flies higher, impacting us all.

## Bargains

- Ubiquiti UniFi UDM Pro or UDM SE - $497.60/$751.20 from Wireless1's eBay store
- Ubiquiti UniFi U6-Pro access point - $224.24 from Sydneytec's eBay store
- Intel NUC M15 Laptop (15.6" 1080p touch, i7-1165G7 CPU, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1148 from gg.tech365's eBay store
- Seagate IronWolf 8TB 3.5" 7200RPM CMR HDD - $259.20 from Futu Online's eBay store
- TP-Link Tapo P110 energy monitoring wi-fi smart plug - $22.32 + $6 postage from Bing Lee's eBay store
- Rode RODECaster Pro II or Rode PSA1+ mic boom arm - $863.20/$143.20 from Wireless1's eBay store
- Nintendo Switch OLED console - $401.66 from The Gamesmen's eBay store
- Pixelmator Pro for macOS - $30.99 on the Mac App Store
- Dell Gaming Backpack 17 - $33.90 from Dell
- TCL 98C735 98" 4K TV - $5990 + delivery from Bing Lee
- 35 Months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate - $80.72 via Eneba
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600X or Ryzen 7 5800X CPUs - $282.36/$448.50 from Futu Online's eBay store
- Audioengine A2+ active speakers with Bluetooth - $311.22 from digiDirect's eBay store
- Apple AirPods Pro - $278.40 from Wireless1's eBay store
- Vodafone 365-day pre-paid SIM with 150GB data and 2000 bonus Everyday Rewards points - $125 at Woolworths
- Coles Mobile 365-day pre-paid SIM with 120GB data - $119 from Coles
- Boost Mobile 365-day pre-paid SIM with 140GB data - $152 from Online Food Shop Langford
- 10% off JB Hi-Fi, EB Games & The Good Guys gift cards at Woolworths
- Synology DS920+ 4-bay NAS - $763.62 from Shopping Express' eBay store
- Klipsch KD Series 5.1 Home Theatre Speaker Package - $1147 from WestCoast Hi-Fi
- Xbox Series S Console - $403.22 from The Gamesmen's eBay store
- Nintendo Switch Joy-Con Controller - $87.20 from Amazon
- Seagate 16TB external HDD STKP16000402 - $410.06 from Amazon UK
- Google Chromecast with Google TV - $79 at JB Hi-Fi

## The End

📻 Congregation - Witch Fever

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