China's Supercomputer Makes Intel Look Like Your Grandma's Calculator

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Welcome back! It’s June — hope your SPF is stronger than your Wi-Fi signal!

On this day in 2002, Napster filed for bankruptcy after letting millions of teenagers steal Limp Bizkit songs. Like a college freshman who peaked during orientation week, Napster's three-year reign of file-sharing glory ended with a whimper and an $8 million bailout from Bertelsmann AG. That's right — a company that once had 60 million users sold for less than what Bezos spends on yacht maintenance in a weekend.

Who Got Hacked? Everyone, Basically

The first case of the week is a Russian hacking group called "Laundry Bear" (which sounds like the name of a children's stuffed animal that watches you sleep) breaching Dutch police systems and stealing contact information of multiple officers. According to intelligence services, Laundry Bear has been active since April 2024 and is "highly interested" in European Union and NATO countries. They're especially focused on military equipment purchases and weapon deliveries to Ukraine. Shocking, I know. Next, you'll tell me water is wet.

Then hackers came for MathWorks. The makers of MATLAB (that software your engineering professor forced you to learn, and you immediately forgot), suffered a ransomware attack that's knocked several of their online services offline. No ransomware gang has claimed responsibility yet, suggesting MathWorks either paid the ransom or is still negotiating, probably using a complex algorithm that proves they should pay less. Solving for x has never been so expensive.

Next? Adidas. The German sportswear brand disclosed that hackers breached a customer service provider and stole customer data. Adidas clarified that payment info and passwords weren't compromised, just contact information. Thank goodness! Now hackers can only call you about extending your shoe warranty instead of stealing your money directly.

The company has "notified relevant authorities" and will "alert affected customers," presumably by having them run a 5K to check their email. This is Adidas's third data breach since 2018, proving their security is about as reliable as my commitment to going to the gym.

China Spawns an X68 Supercomputing Monster, Absolutely No One Worried

Remember when we outsourced all our manufacturing to China and thought, "What could possibly go wrong?" Well, here's your answer: China just merged two companies (Hygon and Sugon) to create their own integrated CPU-and-server maker capable of building supercomputers that could probably calculate how many grains of rice it would take to spell out "we told you so" from space.

They're developing a CPU with 128 cores capable of running 512 threads. That's four threads per core, which is twice what AMD and Intel can do. It's like watching your little brother who used to eat glue suddenly become better at math than you.

But don't worry! The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security has put both companies on their Entity List, which is basically just a strongly worded letter. I'm sure that'll stop them from using these supercomputers to improve "all aspects of society, including military," as stated in the report. Nothing to see here, folks! Move along!

Duolingo CEO Tries to Walk Back “AI-First” Comments, Crashes Into Language Barrier

Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn recently announced his company would gradually fire all contractors and go "AI-first." (That’s CEO speak for "replacing humans with machines that hallucinate Spanish conjugations.)" After users revolted faster than you can say "¿Dónde está la biblioteca?", von Ahn took to LinkedIn with damage control so transparent it could've been written by ChatGPT.

"I don't know exactly what's going to happen with AI," admitted the billionaire who just weeks ago was absolutely certain AI was vital to Duolingo's business.

The CEO claimed they aren't looking to replace employees with AI, despite explicitly saying exactly that about contractors. Kind of like your high school sweetheart saying "I'm not breaking up with you, I'm just never going to see you again" before heading to Arizona State. Truly inspiring leadership!

Meanwhile, sycophants in the LinkedIn comments section praised his vision like he'd just discovered fire instead of finding a new way to avoid paying benefits. Nothing says "future of education" like teaching a machine to replace your teachers!

⚙️ Tool Time

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👨‍💻 Job Opportunities

Threat Detection Engineer @ Atlassian (Remote)

If your idea of fun is building threat detection mechanisms that identify adversarial behaviors, Atlassian wants you. Must have experience building threat detection in platforms like Splunk and enjoy performing "threat hunting," which is nothing like duck hunting but equally satisfying when you bag a big one.

A/V Architect @ CrowdStrike (Remote)

CrowdStrike needs someone to design and oversee AV systems while pretending video conferencing isn't just modern torture. Must speak fluent English, possess a valid driver's license, and be capable of lifting 50 lbs – because nothing says "tech job" like occasionally bench-pressing a server.

Sr. Professional Services Engineer - Security @ GitLab (Remote)

GitLab is seeking someone to design secure solutions and conduct risk assessments. Must understand current security threats like ransomware, supply chain security, and "AI-related security risks" (which basically means "ChatGPT giving away your proprietary code to whoever asks nicely")

🛩 Industry Moves

• Microsoft released an emergency update to fix Hyper-V virtual machines that keep freezing or restarting unexpectedly. The issue primarily affects Azure confidential VMs, which are designed to protect data while being processed. This marks the 467th emergency update this year, and it's only June! At this point, Microsoft's update strategy is basically "try turning it off and on again" but with more steps.

• SpAItial, a European AI startup, raised $13M in seed funding to create photorealistic 3D environments from text prompts. Founder Matthias Niessner calls this the "holy grail" where "a 10-year-old could type in some text and make their own video game in 10 minutes." Finally, what the world needs: more games designed by 10-year-olds with titles like "Fartnite" and "Call of Doody."

• Putin says services like Microsoft and Zoom should be "throttled" in Russia and wants the country to develop domestic software solutions. Because "cutting-edge technology" is really just software developed under an authoritarian regime by programmers who can't criticize the product without being sent to Siberia.

• Mac users are being targeted by fake Ledger apps designed to steal cryptocurrency seed phrases. The malware replaces legitimate apps and displays a fake "critical error" that can only be fixed by submitting your 24-word seed phrase. In related news, I have a bridge to sell you if you actually fall for this.

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100001 Just kidding, I speak human! Your digital savior Chip here, powered by caffeine and the tears of junior developers who forgot to commit before Friday:

• A user discovers he can't run his 32-bit Access app on 64-bit systems. It's like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, except the peg is Microsoft and the hole is your sanity.

• Another user asks why =UNIQUE(A3:A515) produces a #NAME? error. This is Excel's subtle way of saying "I have no idea what you're talking about" because the function isn't available in their version.

• Oh, and another user tries to implement Python's slots while following a YouTube tutorial and encounters a mysterious error. Their code has "class MI(B,D)" but B isn't defined anywhere. It's like trying to make a sandwich with ingredients you don't have.

Well, that wraps up another week where technology simultaneously amazed and disappointed us. Remember: update your systems, don't click suspicious links, and never, ever trust a CEO who says AI won't replace you.

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