Someone check the federal electorate of Fisher for a gas leak because the MP representing that part of Australia said in Parliament, "the identification of people who use social media accounts is as important as age verification". He then referenced a 2021 report on domestic violence that "recommended new and existing social media accounts must identify themselves to the platform they're signing up using 100 points of ID, similar to signing up for a new mobile phone". I don't know if anyone is taking that point of view seriously, but it was said out loud by the opposition, on the record, and nobody in government has said it's a bad idea. Related - the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne is going to host a conversation with Signal's President Meredith Whittaker about this kinda stuff if you're interested.
AMD announced new Ryzen CPUs using a fresh Zen 5 microarchitecture at Computex overnight. The desktop CPU range (9000 series) aren't that much different to the current 7000 series, but use a more modern TSMC manufacturing process to squeeze out an extra 16% performance on average across a range of benchmarks. If you're still on the AM4 socket, AMD hasn't forgotten you and is releasing a range of Zen 3 based CPUs. On the mobile side of things, there's the Ryzen AI 300 series chips - a successor to the popular Ryzen 7840/7940 and a competitor to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X ARM-based SoCs. They combine a Zen 5 CPU, RDNA 3.5 GPU and an XDNA2 NPU all in the one package designed for laptops and mini PCs. All this stuff is due for release some time in July.
X has actually done something I think is good and changed their rules to clarify that adult content is okay on their service. It was never 100% banned, but adult content sat in a gray area where it would be randomly deleted with no recourse. Now that X has it written down, "you may share consensually produced and distributed adult nudity or sexual behavior, provided it's properly labeled and not prominently displayed", it gives people making a living out of adult content a bit of certainty. It's also quite a departure from basically every other US service since the passing of FOSTA-SESTA and spits in the face of jurisdictions like Texas where you need age verification to access adult content. This, plus fighting with eSafety to expose the Online Safety Act's hollowness, almost makes me want to thank Elon Musk? Maybe?
Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks test bed in Villarceaux, France (Alcatel-Lucent / Flickr)
📻 Fuck This Band - Mclusky
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