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This week's Flash timewaster, firstly doesn't use Flash so I should rename this ancient feature, but certainly meeting the definition of timewaster, is Cursor Camp from RnR. Just wander around and click stuff, I guess!
     
     
     
     
See Baz's Viper (and another one!) at Wings over Shellharbour
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Thursday, 7-May-2026 22:44:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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If you want to see Baz's Full Scale MK II Colonial Viper in real life, go to the Wings over Shellharbour airshow on May 16th/17th. Scott Stewart in Queensland will also be bringing his life size MKI Colonial Viper from the 1978 Battlestar Galactica show and we will be displaying old and new side-by side.
Click for the worklog thread!
Audio Visual:
ENDORFY Viro Plus USB Alt Gray Gaming Headset @ Madshrimps
Kiwi Ears Belle Earphones @ APHnetworks
Keyboard:
EPOMAKER TH108 Pro Review @ Vortez
QUNIX MQ80 Keyboard @ TechPowerUp
Epomaker Luma40 Keyboard @ Madshrimps
Cooling:
CPS PCCOOLER RT720 TC @ TechPowerUp
Cooler Master Elite Liquid 360 Liquid CPU Cooler @ ThinkComputers
Noctua NF-A14x25 G2 chromax.black @ APHnetworks
ASRock Phantom Gaming 360 LCD @ TechPowerUp
Motherboard:
MSI Z890 GAMING PLUS WIFI6E Motherboard @ FunkyKit
ASRock B850 Rock WiFi 7 AMD AM5 Motherboard @ OCinside
ASUS ProArt Z890-Creator Wi-Fi @ TechPowerUp
PSU:
CPS PcCooler YT1000 ATX 3.1 Power Supply Unit @ NikKTech
FSP MEGA GM 1000W ATX 3.1 Power Supply Unit @ NikKTech
Video Card:
ASUS GeForce RTX 5090 Matrix Platinum @ TechPowerUp
Sapphire NITRO+ PhantomLink X870EA and Radeon RX 9070 XT @ guru3D
MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16G VENTUS 2X OC PLUS @ TweakTown
MSI GeForce RTX 5070 Ti VENTUS 3X PZ OC @ TweakTown
Benchmark:
Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D @ ThePCEnthusiast
Portable, Prebuilt:
Ninkear YBOOK 15 @ TechPowerUp
HP OmniBook 7 (Panther Lake) 16" Laptop @ TweakTown
HP Omen Max 45L Desktop PC @ HotHardware
As both Apple and Google introduce unwelcome changes in their phone OSes, here's a quick reminder that you do have alternatives to the Gruesome Twosome. The Keep Android Open campaign is gathering attention and support as the big red numbers on its page count down. The good news is that you do already have alternatives. If you are not the sort of person who reads phone reviews, or writeups of alternative phone OSes, and just wants to buy a new handset and retain control of it and its contents, we thought it might be a good time to remind you of where to go and who to talk to.
Notepad++ creator threatens legal action over macOS port of open-source app. Nextpad++ after legal action and a firm warning from the original Notepad++ developer, who was listed on the author page, and did not appreciate his name and branding being used without his permission. The port, for what it's worth, is at least functional and is indeed a native Mac OS port.
Firefox integrates an ad-blocker, but not to block ads. The inclusion of the code is experimental, and it's not intended for blocking ads. That's presumably also why it didn't appear in the release notes for either the early March beta or the late March release. So, yes, there is code for an ad-blocker in the last two versions of Firefox, but it’s off by default, and there’s no user interface to enable it. There are ways round this, and we'll return to that later.
NBN will start forcing fibre upgrades next year. NBN Co says impacted customers will be notified three times about the need to upgrade. This will happen at six months, three months, and one month out from the disconnection date. Customers who do not upgrade to FTTP within the six months will have their connection suspended. Requesting a fibre upgrade will resume connectivity. Customers who do not do this within 30 days will be disconnected entirely. These customers will need to order a new NBN service to get back online.
Global semiconductor revenue hit $298.5 billion for Q126, up 25% from the previous quarter. That nearly $300 billion of total revenue accounts for sales of logic, memory, analog, mixed signal and other types of chips. In March 2026, monthly revenue stood at $99.5 billion, which represents a 79.2% increase from $55.5 billion recorded in March 2025 and 11.5% higher from February 2026 levels. These monthly figures are calculated as a rolling three-month average by World Semiconductor Trade Statistics. Global chip sales remain on track to reach $1 trillion in 2026, with Q1 sales significantly exceeding sales in Q4 2025.
A newly-disclosed Linux kernel bug dubbed "CopyFail" is already being exploited, just days after researchers dropped a working root-level exploit. The Python-based code works against Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Amazon Linux 2023, RHEL 10.1, and SUSE 16, but the researchers warned that every mainstream Linux kernel built since 2017 is in scope of potential exploitation. The same exploit binary works unmodified on every Linux distribution, Theori says. The mechanics help explain the urgency. The attack is local and requires little access, with no user interaction, so anyone who already has a foothold on a vulnerable box can try their luck. It is the kind of bug that turns a small break-in into full control pretty quickly.
After 29 years in the business Ask Jeeves has closed its doors. Ask Jeeves: 3 June 1996 - 1 May 2026. Send no memes. It's a sad but also somewhat ironic time for users of the old Internet. As a tech writer with over 13 years of experience and 30 years of age myself, my memories of Jeeves prior to Google and Yahoo's takeover of search are limited but fond. In a way, Jeeves is a precursor to modern AI Large Language Model chatbots of today, since the search engine was optimized around asking direct questions rather than chasing specific keywords. This is rather similar to how modern AI search from Google, OpenAI and the like work, though obviously far less advanced.
This month's "Retro Let's Play" for May is Commando from 1985
Commando is the seminal run-and-gun arcade game that introduced players to high-octane action and fast-paced gameplay. Known for its intense combat and iconic grenade-throwing mechanic, Commando became a trailblazer for future titles in the genre. Players assume the role of Super Joe, a soldier tasked with infiltrating enemy territory and rescuing hostages, all while battling waves of adversaries. Its simple yet addictive gameplay mechanics, coupled with its military theme, resonated with arcade audiences worldwide. The game’s popularity led to numerous home console ports, including on the NES, 2600, Speccy, Amstrad, C64, Atari ST and Amiga.
click for the thread!
Friday again!
     
     
     
     
Friday Afternoon Reviews
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Friday, 1-May-2026 14:06:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming WiFi7 NEO - A Crosshair by any other name on Tweaktown.
ASRock B860 Rock WiFi 7 Motherboard on FunkyKit.
Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs Ultra 9 285K CPUs on ThePCEnthusiast.
NZXT N7 Z890 on TechPowerUp.
MSI MAG B850 Tomahawk Max WiFi II Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Input Etc:
CHERRY XTRFY MX 8.2 PRO TMR Wireless Gaming Keyboard on FunkyKit.
G-Wolves HTX Ultra mouse on TechPowerUp.
Thrustmaster T598 Direct Axial Drive Force Feedback Racing Wheel Bundle on Tweaktown.
CHERRY XTRFY K5 PRO TMR Compact Magnetic Switch Gaming Keyboard on FunkyKit.
Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro Esports Green Gaming Mouse on MadShrimps.
Audio Visual:
beyerdynamic Aventho 200 Over-Ear Wireless Headphones on NikKTech.
Victrola Journey Glow Suitcase Record Player on NeoSeeker.
MSI MPG 271QR QD-OLED X50 Review - 500 Hz for the Elite Few on TechPowerUp.
Edifier M90 Hi-Res Multimedia Speakers on NikKTech.
Storage:
Seagate Ultra Compact SSD 2 TB on TechPowerUp.
Beelink ME Mini 6-Slot Home Storage NAS PC (Intel N95) on FunkyKit.
Portable & Prebuilt:
HP Omen Max 45L Desktop PC Review: Cool, Quiet, Brutally Fast on HotHardware.
Motorola's 2026 Razr Fold Hands-On: Watch Out, Galaxy on HotHardware.
DFRobot LattePanda Iota single-board computer on TechPowerUp.
Lenovo Legion Pro 7 16IAX10H 16" OLED Gaming Laptop on NikKTech.
Dell Pro Max GB10 Review: NVIDIA’s Mini AI Supercomputer Tested on HotHardware.
ASUS ProArt GoPro Edition (PX13, HN7306) Review - Small but Deadly laptop on TechPowerUp.
Power Supply:
Jackery HomePower 2000 Ultra Review Video on FunkyKit.
ADATA SR800 Magnetic Power Bank SSD on ThinkComputers.
BLUETTI FridgePower, BlueCell 200, Display 1 Uninterruptible Power Supply on APHNetworks.
Cases:
Fractal Design Pop 2 Vision Black RGB Computer Case on APHNetworks.
Cooler Master Cosmos Alpha Full-Tower Chassis on Tweaktown.
Fractal Design Pop 2 Vision RGB on TechPowerUp.
Fractal Design Pop 2 Vision on ThinkComputers.
Arctic Xtender VG Black on OCInside.
CORSAIR FRAME 4000D WOOD RS & 4000X RS on Vortez.
I thought the title of this video might be a joke at first, but after watching it, it’s pretty surprising. If you’re curious about how modern chips are made, it's a great explaination of the process covering things like depositing the initial oxide layer on a silicon wafer, photolithography, etching, thin-film deposition, and testing. And, yes, that includes clean up with hydrofluoric acid and piranha solution.
And while we're on the topic of RAM, some Samsung workers are demanding a 15% cut of the company's memory profits and are now threatening to strike after negotiations stalled. Unions involved rejected a recent offer from executives. If talks break down, they will strike for 18 days, starting on May 21, which could throw the memory industry into an even deeper tailspin. This comes after rival memory maker, SK Hynix, is reportedly set to pay an average bonus of around $400,000 to each of its 35,000 employees amid soaring profits.
VideoCardz.com are asking AMD to stop scraping their website when they noticed traffic appearing to originate from AMD, up to 26,000 requests an hour, was creating a lot invalid requests. What caught our attention is that these were not normal page visits. The requests were targeting content that does not exist on our site, which made it clear this was some kind of automated monitoring or scraping activity. The traffic also exposed a war-room-dashboard user agent, which is where the “war room” label comes from. There is no need to send bots after our site, especially when several of our previous emails have gone unanswered (including the one about FSR4 INT8, btw).
Steam summer sales are still a couple of months away but you'll need more than 20,000 games to join the top 120 users on SteamDB. We guess many readers will be familiar with the experience of a digital games library growing into astronomical numbers. But personal three or four-figure game collections are relatively small when you see what the Steam whales are up to. It is still surprising to see that at least 120 people have collections with 20,000 or more games, according to SteamDB’s latest figures. Number one on the leaderboard is Sonix, with a Steam game collection of 43,085 Steam games worth nearly $750,000 at today’s prices.
Open source software is under a bit of an attack right now. One part of the puzzle for Linux to stop the LLM-powered vulnerability attacks is to kill off older drivers. How dare they remove my ISDN CAPI support. Bot-powered bug-busting is in the news of late, with scary-sounding reports of automated tools detecting flaws and vulnerabilities far faster than any unaided humans. Some of these are long-standing howlers, such as a 27-year-old bug in OpenBSD and a 23-year-old flaw in the Linux in-kernel NFS code. The good news is that there's one fairly dramatic but simple approach to handling this: if the bugs are in very old drivers for very old hardware, then don't even try to fix them – just remove them.
They shall grow not old
As we who are left grow old
Age shall not weary them
Nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We will remember them
Lest We Forget
In transit from IAD to ATL so here's Retro Misc Pics from November 2013. Back to normal next week!
1st Nov 2013:
     
     
     
     
     
8th Nov 2013:
     
     
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15th Nov 2013:
     
     
     
     
     
22nd Nov 2013:
     
     
     
     
     
29th Nov 2013:
     
     
     
     
     
Audio Visual:
KOORUI 34E6UC Gaming Monitor @ TweakTown
AOC U27G4 Gaming Monitor @ TweakTown
ASUS ROG Kithara Gaming Headset @ TweakTown
MSI MPG 272QRF X36 @ TweakTown
Keyboard, Mouse:
be quiet! DARK PERK Ergo Wireless Gaming Mouse @ FunkyKit
AULA F87 PRO V2 Wireless Gaming Keyboard @ FunkyKit
MSI VERSA 300 Wireless 8K Gaming Mouse @ FunkyKit
Epomaker HE108 Wireless Hall Effect Keyboard @ APHnetworks
AULA HERO 68 HE 65% Gaming Keyboard @ FunkyKit
RAWM Leviathan V4 @ TechPowerUp
Storage:
TerraMaster D1 SSD Pro Enclosure @ TechPowerUp
Beelink Me Pro & 22TB WD Red @ HotHardware
Motherboard, Memory, CPU:
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition @ storagereview
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition @ HotHardware
Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs. Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus @ ThinkComputers
Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-6000 32 GB CL40 @ TechPowerUp
MSI MPG X870E Carbon Max Wi-Fi @ TechPowerUp
Sapphire Pure X870A WiFi 7 Motherboard @ TweakTown
PSU:
MSI MPG Ai1600TS PCIE5 Power Supply @ FunkyKit
SAMA P1200 ATX 3.1 Power Supply Unit @ NikKTech
Portable, Prebuilt:
ACEMAGIC Retro X5 AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 @ guru3D
ACEMAGIC Tank M1A Pro+ @ TechPowerUp
Misc:
Endorfy Meta @ TechPowerUp
Nitro Concepts C-Racer Sim Racing Wheel Stand @ TweakTown
MSI VERSA 300 Wireless 8K Gaming Mouse @ NikKTech
PNY RTX 5080 Slim OC @ TechPowerUp
Retro Misc Pics
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Friday, 17-April-2026 14:05:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Travelling again, so here's Retro Misc Pics from October 2013:
4th Oct 2013:
     
     
     
     
     
11th Oct 2013:
     
     
     
     
     
23 Oct 2013:
     
     
     
     
     
25 Oct 2013:
     
     
     
     
     
Windows Task Manager 30th Birthday. A behind the scenes look at its development and secrets with the author.
Personal computing as we know it is dead. Now, we’re seeing inklings of a CPU shortage.
Chrome just shipped a better browser layout. Tab junkies take note.
Terahertz waves can see a chip’s internal activity. Superman would be proud.
Amazon buying satellite firm Globalstar. Apple, the space race is hitting home.
Nvidia quashes rumor. Is this like the football coach the board support on Sunday evening and sack on Monday.
Valve's VRAM Hack. 8GB ought to be enough for anybody.
Testing 208 billion transistors. All that testing is making me thirsty.
France to (gradually) ditch windows in government. Thanks IntelInside for the link.
Baz's Pics. Baz takes some pics. Thanks Baz.
Network:
EnGenius ECW520 Cloud Managed WiFi 7 AP @ NikKTech
ASUS ROG Rapture GT-BE19000AI Gaming Router @ TweakTown
Audio Visual:
ASUS ROG Swift PG32UCDM3 @ TweakTown
MSI MPG 322UR QD-OLED X24 @ TechPowerUp
Creative Pebble Nova @ TechPowerUp
ASUS ROG Strix Pulsar XG27AQNGV @ TweakTown
Keyboard, Mouse:
MARVO MAGMA M40 Magnetic Gaming Keyboard @ Madshrimps
Epomaker Luma100 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard @ APHnetworks
Epomaker Carbon X Gaming Mouse @ Madshrimps
Cooling:
XMG Neo 16 (E25) + Oasis Water Cooler @ TechPowerUp
ID-Cooling FROZN A620 SLK @ TechPowerUp
MSI MAG COREFROZR AA13 CPU Cooler @ ThinkComputers
Storage:
Kingston IronKey Locker+ 50 G2 256GB @ FunkyKit
Ugreen DH2300 NAS @ guru3D
Motherboard:
MSI MPG X870E CARBON MAX WIFI @ guru3D
GIGABYTE X870E Aero X3D Wood Motherboard @TweakTown
PSU:
Asrock SL-1200P @ TechPowerUp
FSP MEGA TI 1650W @ APHnetworks
Video Card:
MSI RTX 5070 Ti Ventus 3X PZ @ ThePCEnthusiast
MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G LIGHTNING Z @ FunkyKit
Portable, Prebuilt:
EnGenius ECW520 Cloud Managed WiFi 7 AP @ Madshrimps
iPhone 17e @ HotHardware
Misc:
MOZA CM2 HD Racing Dashboard Display @ TweakTown
Pragmata Performance Benchmark @ TechPowerUp
CPUID & HWMonitor Compromised
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Sunday, 12-April-2026 15:22:11 (GMT +10) - by MUTMAN
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Igorslab is reporting CPUID and HWMonitor downloads were both compromised and a .dll file is delivering a nasty virus. The official product page does not display an unusual filename, but rather the standard download path for the setup version, while the ZIP version links directly to a Cloudflare R2 domain. Clicking the setup link takes you to a separate CPUID download page, which explicitly states that the file “hwmonitor_1.63.exe” is ready and that the actual download will then take place via download.cpuid.com. This setup is interesting in itself because it does not consist of a single, consistently identical download path. At the same time, reports have been circulating in the community since today—primarily on Reddit—stating that users did not receive the expected file hwmonitor_1.63.exe upon download, but rather an installer named HWiNFO_Monitor_Setup.exe.
If you have downloaded either of these programmes it's time to get busy with a (number of) virus scan and removal tools.
Early this week. ;)
     
     
     
     
Microsoft Kills NVMe Registry Trick For Faster SSDs In Windows 11. M$ at it again
Apple’s 50-year odyssey. Happy 50th Birthday Apple
YouTube’s Copyright System Took Down NVIDIA’s DLSS Video. nVidia didn't pay for YT Premium
Dancing Behind the Scenes. Wheres the tap-shoes
Quantum Computers Could Obliterate Encryption. Q-day, its not to stick a flower behind your ear
Opting out of personal data use won't be an option. This'll end well
Claude AI To Use Your Computer Like A Human. Does it spend the day surfing O-COW too ??
Copilot is for entertainment purposes only. Worth every cent
Scientists Turn Bourbon Waste Into Supercapacitors With A 25x Energy Boost. I'd drink to that
LinkedIn is spying on you. Someone left the (browser)gate open
AI Pet Translator: Can Decode Dog Barks & Cat Meows Feed me Seymour ?
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