Anthony Levandowski criminally charged for stealing Waymo’s Lidar secrets
More women in the game industry call out abusive male colleagues
SpaceX’s Starhopper test flight a success, first of many steps to crazy powerful Mars rocket
A list of garbage in Windows 10 that Microsoft forces on us
Cheap iTunes & Spotify gift cards, Wharfedale DS-1 active speaker, Civ6 DLC, Boost 12m prepaid, Google Home Max
Anthony Levandowski is back in the news, having been charged by the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California on 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets. This is separate to the now resolved civil action between Uber and Waymo where he was the central figure in the case that ended up in Uber paying Waymo US$245m. These are criminal charges, alleging that Levandowski "knowingly stole, and without authorization appropriated" Waymo's trade secrets in regards to lidar sensors for robocars. Levandowski could end up in jail if found guilty, which going by the facts of what Levandowski did, seems inevitable. Kinda hard to play innocent when you copied all that data whilst negotiating with a competitor.
It looks like the pissant dweeb blokes in the video game industry are having a bit of a #metoo moment, with multiple women going public with stories of harassment recently. Nathalie Lawhead has accused Jeremy Soule "of rape while the two were working together at an unnamed games studio in Vancouver in 2008". Zoe Quinn tweeted about "alleged abuse from indie developer Alec Holowka, best known for his work on Aquaria and Night in the Woods". Adelaide Gardner "wrote a lengthy Twitter thread accusing Luc Shelton, a programmer at British studio Splash Damage, of sustained psychological and physical abuse two years ago". Other women have also told their stories in what I hope ends up with justice for the women and a reality check for the men.
SpaceX successfully completed a 150m "hop" with a prototype spacecraft called "Starhopper". Starhopper itself isn't meant to do anything productive except be a test platform for the real star of the show - SpaceX's Raptor rocket engines. This new engine is focussed on being straight out the most powerful possible and reusable, as opposed to the Merlin engines used on SpaceX's Falcon rockets, which have low priced launches in mind. The end goal is to have 35 Raptor engines strapped to Super Heavy (previously known as BFR), which will carry Starship with 6x Raptor engines all the way to Mars. It'll also be the most powerful rocket since NASA's Saturn V, which still holds the record for most payload & thrust.
How-To Geek has a list of all the stupid shite in Windows 10 that should be removed immediately by Microsoft - stuff like "My People" (the icon of two people that's supposed to be a shortcut to your contacts), the 3D objects folder that for some reason gets placed higher than Desktop and Documents in Explorer, the sad and pathetic start page in Edge (it's all Daily Mail clickbait whenever I open it), the plethora of ads for Edge and games and "feedback" that pop up randomly in the task bar and my personal pet hate: Candy Crush and the dozens of other bullshit apps pre-installed with a fresh factory install of Windows! It used to be that only the OEMs would include bloatware, but nope, Microsoft does it too.
No good bargains today, so here's some of the previous bargains I liked recently that are still valid:
15% off iTunes and Spotify gift cards at Big W.
Wharfedale DS-1 wireless active speaker - $299 from The Audio Tailor
Civ 6: Gathering Storm expansion (it's fantastic) - $18 at DL Gamer
Boost Prepaid 12m prepaid kit with 80GB of data and unlimited calls/SMS - $140 at Big W
Google Home Max - $254.15 using the code PGUY15
🎶 California Dreamin' - José Feliciano
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The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.