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Portables (Apple)

Apple MacBook Neo Beats Every Single x86 PC CPU For Single-Core Performance (notebookcheck.net) 329

Early benchmarks show the A18 Pro-powered MacBook Neo beating every current x86 CPU in single-core Cinebench performance, including chips from Intel and AMD. Notebookcheck reports: We have performed a couple of benchmarks and were particularly impressed by the single-core performance. Not in the short Geekbench test, but in Cinebench 2024, where a single-core test takes about 10 minutes. The A18 Pro consumes between 3.5-4 Watts in this scenario and scores 147 points. This means it is faster than every other x86 processor in our database, including the two desktop processors Intel Core Ultra 9 285K & AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D. This also means the MacBook Neo beats every modern mobile processor from AMD, Intel and also Qualcomm, even though the upcoming Snapdragon X2 chips should be a bit faster. The A18 Pro is also slightly faster than Apple's own M3 generation in this scenario. Further reading: ASUS Executive Says MacBook Neo is 'Shock' to PC Industry
Oracle

OpenAI Is Walking Away From Expanding Its Stargate Data Center With Oracle (cnbc.com) 41

OpenAI is reportedly backing away from expanding its AI data center partnership with Oracle because newer generations of Nvidia GPUs may arrive before the facility is even operational. CNBC reports: Artificial intelligence chips are getting upgraded more quickly than data centers can be built, a market reality that exposes a key risk to the AI trade and Oracle's debt-fueled expansion. OpenAI is no longer planning to expand its partnership with Oracle in Abilene, Texas, home to the Stargate data center, because it wants clusters with newer generations of Nvidia graphics processing units, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The current Abilene site is expected to use Nvidia's Blackwell processors, and the power isn't projected to come online for a year. By then, OpenAI is hoping to have expanded access to Nvidia's next-generation chips in bigger clusters elsewhere, said the person, who asked not to be named due to confidentiality.
In a post on X, Oracle called the reports "false and incorrect." However, it only said existing projects are on track and didn't address expansion plans.

CNBC notes: "Oracle secured the site, ordered the hardware, and spent billions of dollars on construction and staff, with the expectation of going bigger."
Programming

Stack Overflow Went From 200,000 Monthly Questions To Nearly Zero (stackexchange.com) 125

Stack Overflow's monthly question volume has collapsed to about 300 -- levels not seen since the site launched in 2009, according to data from the Stack Overflow Data Explorer that tracks the platform's activity over its sixteen-year history.

Questions peaked around 2014 at roughly 200,000 per month, then began a gradual decline that accelerated dramatically after ChatGPT's November 2022 launch. By May 2025, monthly questions had fallen to early-2009 levels, and the latest data through early 2026 shows the collapse has only continued -- the line now sits near the bottom of the chart, barely registering.

The decline predates LLMs. Questions began dropping around 2014 when Stack Overflow improved moderator efficiency and closed questions more aggressively. In mid-2021, Prosus acquired Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion. The founders, Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky, exited before the terminal decline became apparent. ChatGPT accelerated what was already underway. The chatbot answers programming questions faster, draws on Stack Overflow's own corpus for training data, and doesn't close questions for being duplicates.

Comment Designed by committee (Score 1) 46

No one was asking for the radical changes being implemented in Formula 1 for 2026 season. Arguably, the current cars (tracing architecture to 2014 season) and regulations have been delivering an excellent on track show, specially starting with 2020 season when the budget caps were finally implemented for the teams. For example in 2025, F1 had three drivers from two teams fighting for the champion title all the way until the end of the final race of the season.

Most of the criticism of the current technology is lame and superfluous.

1. Cars are "too big".

So what? They still look great.

2. DRS is lame.

So the solution is to replace DRS with another more complicated still DRS-like technology, where drivers still push the button to overtake, only this time to get a power boost instead of opening the rear wing. Big yawn (Indycar had this more than a decade ago). And current DRS is not lame. The overtake is not automatic. For one, the car has to be within 1 second from the car in front to be able to activate it, and we have seen many times that having active DRS still does not guarantee an overtake.

3. 50/50% hybrid power units.

Nobody was asking for this either. The current PU is already hybrid. F1 and manufactures are just surrendering to the "green" politcs of EU.

I honestly believe that 2026 will turn out to be a disaster season for F1 one way or another.

Comment Re: Compare Economic sizes (Score 1) 265

Russia has a tiny GDP and spends as much as possible on the military. It's economy is smaller than Italy

Nope, when adjusted for purchasing power paruty, Russian GDP is twice the size of Italy. According to various estimates, Russian military spending is around 7-8 of GDP. In other words, this war could go on for a long time.

Comment Re: Ha ha Russia yeah right (Score 1) 265

Technologically, Russia is so far behind, it's had to rely on equipment being manufactured by Iran and North Korea (neither of which is "first world").

U.S. Needs To Be Building Tens Of Thousands Of Shahed-136 Clones Right Now. Russia is now building significantly improved versions of Shahed drones now.

Comment Re: Europe has itself to blame for this (Score 1) 265

One of the most insane things is how after Russia's surprisingly poor military performance in the Georgian war

I really don't understand how posters on the Internet forums are still coming up with this claim. Russians routed Georgian army out of South Osetia in 2-3 days, and then Georgia was left without any military. Georgian soldiers were seen stealing civilian vehicles to escape out of the conflict zone.

Comment Re: you really need to read better news (Score 1) 265

The reason the war has taken so long is that with drone warfare,

No, drones became more important after 2023. Up to the summer of 2023, this looked like a positional trench war with lots of artillery duels, to extent that both sides were running out artillery shells and the entire NATA didn't have a sufficient quantity of artillery shells to send to Ukraine.

The real reason this war took so long is that Russia did not suppress Ukrainian air force and air defenses in the first few weeks like USA and allies did with Iraq in the beginning of the first Gulf War. It could have been a game over for Ukraine if Russian air force could bomb with impunity the front lines and say fly over Kiev.

Without air superiority, the war turned into a slow grim trench meat grinder, and drones made it even worse.

Comment Re: yes and... (Score 1) 265

Ukraine has already inflicted almost 1.2 million casualties to the Russian army in the war.

There is no basis for such claim besides Ukraine's own propaganda machine. Both countries treat their own casualty numbers as a state secret. Independent sources claim much lower casualty numbers.

That is half of the Russian casualties during their war of aggression in Afghanistan.

Where are you finding these crazy "facts" about the war in Afghanistan? Soviet (not Russian) casualties in Afghanistan were about 15,000 killed over the entire decade-long war. From the Soviet perspective, their losses in Afghanistan was only an unpleasant blip for a country that already had many other problems and struggles. It always amused me reading about the claims of various Western politicians from back then how their aid to afghan resistance was what really broke up USSR.

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