One Finite Planet

The Canary: part II

First Published:

typewriter2My previous post was a diversion for the usual, and this post is a continuation of the diversion, but normal topics are set to return!  For now, a little more the episode of the early warning of failing journalism.

In the previous ‘canary post’ I outlined reasons why the almost universally reported ‘Microsoft will not release new Surface Devices because they have to wait for the new Intel processors’ at least from my analysis seems an example of the press simply getting in wrong, as the processors concerned are actually well know to be already available. (example of reporting here: note the words “because it’s too early to put Intel’s next-gen Kaby Lake processors and chipsets into the devices” and here and here. And this is reporting after the even has announced.  Before the event was announced there was even stronger repetition of the clear error. Over and over.

If the press can get something as simple and as obvious as this wrong, what else can they get wrong?   Most disconcerting in a society that requires a functioning press for the protection of democracy. After further analysis of what is misreported, I will look at just what are the possible reasons for this misreporting.

Back to the innocent little canary, the misreporting of the environment for a tech company to release new products.   As of today, October 16,  an actual Microsoft press event is now scheduled for October 26, and yesterday,  the first signals that my analysis which just two days ago ran contrary to almost all press reports, may indeed be correct.  That evidence is that Amazon now lists current surface products as ‘(OLD VERSION)’.  Now finally there are journalists suggesting that this may be due to an update of current surface models to the new Kaby-Lake cpu. This is yet to be confirmed, so stay tuned for confirmation.

There is also a second part of this story.  Journalist predictions were in two parts:

  1. current surface products cannot yet be updated as they must wait for the new CPU
  2. instead a new ‘all-in-one’ surface desktop will be released

It has already been discussed that in fact the currect surface products do not have to wait for the new CPU as the ‘mobile’ versions of this CPU are already released.

The important point for ‘part 2’, the release of the all in one, is that this idea is impacted by the fact that the desktop versions of this new ‘Kaby-Lake’ cpu are in fact not available.  Despite the mobile new CPUs actually being available and the Desktop versions not available, all the reporting was the mobile devices cannot be released and no discussion at all on the need for the new CPU in a desktop.

Microsoft may be about to announce a new ‘all-in-one’ device, but the lack of new desktop CPU being available means either:

  1. the new ‘all-in-one’ device will be announced but not available until next year
  2. or this new ‘all-in-one’ will actually function like an ‘all-in-one’, but actuallybe something different and be more a modular system and allow a choice of using current surface devices for CPU and disk, or offering a CPU and disk drive as a separate module.

I can add more at a future date, but this is probably enough discussing of this now to illustrate the point, and refer back to in a future post it this turns out correct.

Significance?

It is only about laptop computers, and I am only interested because I wish to buy one by a specific date for a present, so just waiting is not appealing. But the significance of what is clearly an error that could be discovered with even the research available to an outsider, being reported and echoed throughout the press is a great concern.  Is this also happening with respect to the war in Syria for example.  Or reporting on the candidates in an election?  I feel the age of the internet has eroded the business model of journalism, and we all may pay the price.  More news, but the same news repeated without any fact checking.

Comment?

Table of Contents

Categories

A different perspective: Humans maybe the greatest threat to life on Earth but also the only hope.

The title ‘one finite planet’ can be mistaken to be yet another proclamation of how we live on this amazing planet which could even be unique, and we humans are foolishly placing it all at risk. Boring.

No. Instead, the perspective is we are living on a planet that is naturally hostile to humans, where nature dictates only a limited total amount of life, can only exist for a limited time, and that time is almost at an end. When seen from this perspective, even the environment mission changes from just not interfering, to the more complex task of tackling the challenge of overcoming nature, while yes, quite importantly, not bringing life to an early end in the process.

Read More »

Surprise, Shortest day ever recorded: Not just the solstice, but climate change?

This page is more under the heading of ‘fun facts’.

The first ‘fun fact’ is that while everyone knows how the length of daytime and nigh time vary throughout the year, it may come as a surprise to realise the length of the entire day, also varies. Partly because, second fun fact, the a day is a longer than one rotation of the Earth, which lead to the third fun fact: we just had the shortest total day ever recorded.

Read More »

WordPress.com to the Next Level: Plugins, Elementor, CoBlocks?

Something completely different. A discussion on how this site is hosted: on wordpress.com.

Anyone who has started a “blog” or other site on wordpress.com, may get to wonder, what are the options for upgrading the website? What is the value of the free, personal or premium plans and beyond? What real world benefits are there, and, alternatively, what would you lose and/or gain from moving away from wordpress.com. This is a page discussing being in that situation. If you are not considering having a website, it may be of little interest.

Read More »

Images, Making Animated GIFs & Solving colour problems.

This is part of series of pages I will be adding on things I have learnt as part of building this website, and I will soon try and enable following by topic (when I get this page working), so people can separately select notification on building websites and/or population or other issues, without being notified of things outside their interest. Standby for that update.

Meanwhile this page provides general help on making an animated GIF for a series of images, specific help on a challenge with animated GIFs, and a list of sites with free images as a resource for those building images.

Read More »

Fool’s Gold, Scams & realities of a Hydrogen Future: “Where does the hydrogen come from?”

The race to stop CO2, has led to many ‘scams’ projects involving hydrogen, but it is not always clear who is being scammed: the public, or the proponents of hydrogen projects. What is the attraction behind the obsession with hydrogen? This is a look at the motives, the myths and the facts around hydrogen projects.

Spoiler: There are some valid roles for hydrogen, but hydrogen has no role as an energy source, and even any potential role as an energy carrier is highly questionable.

Read More »