Apple stuck in Chinese rock and hard place
Blizzard still stuck in Chinese rock and hard place
2019 Nobel Prize for Chemistry goes to inventors of rechargeable lithium-ion battery
Latest version of Backblaze adds indefinite backup history feature
Cheap Kogan Mobile plan, Synology DS918+ NAS, Yamaha soundbar, KEF bookshelf speakers, 86" LG 4K TV, Boost Mobile starter kit
Apple first rejected, then published, an app called HKmap.live on the App Store a few days ago. It allows people to know what's happening with the HK protests and has been vital to for protestors to organise. Chinese state media (a literal government mouthpiece) said in a column that "by allowing its platform to clear the way for an app that incites illegal behaviour, [does Apple] not worry about damaging its reputation and hurting the feelings of consumers?". Meanwhile, Apple removed the Quartz news app from the App Store in China because the Chinese government doesn't like how Quartz is reporting the HK protests. I hope Apple enjoys all that Renminbi.
The backlash against Blizzard's weak as piss actions yesterday regarding Blitzchung has grown. A former Hearthstone champion and current commentator has backed out of the upcoming Grandmaster final at Blizzcon. He reckons the punishment handed out to Blitzchung was way too harsh for the actions. About 20-30 employees at Blizzard walked out in protest over their employer's actions, upset that Blizzard is increasingly censoring whatever China's government wants in their games. Politicians are leveraging the situation too, with US Senators saying China is infringing on the rights of people that don't even live in China. I hope Blizzard also enjoys all their Renminbi.
The inventors of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. M. Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough, and Akira Yoshino were responsible the base research during the 70s and 80s that lead to the hundreds of incremental improvements to the humble lithium-ion battery we know today. I don't think the importance of lithium-ion batteries to modern life can be overstated - so many things use them and further refinement and mass production of the lithium-ion battery could be a key technology in saving us from the current disaster of climate change.
Backblaze 7.0 just came out and comes with a great new feature - "the ability to keep updated, changed, and even deleted files in your backups forever by extending version history", which in my opinion, finally makes Backblaze an option for proper backups. Prior to this it would only keep stuff for 30 days, which I wasn't a fan of. For US$2/m extra, you get to go back a year and for US$2/m plus US$0.005/GB/month, you can keep them indefinitely. The only way Backblaze could top itself now is to add the ability to back up to a local server (i.e: SSH) and/or an external HDD. That would be awesome.
Kogan Mobile is offering a 90 plan for $9.90 that includes 20GB every 30 days. New customers only (i.e: port out/port in)
Synology DS918+ 4-bay NAS - $663 delivered from Futu Online's eBay store
Yamaha YAS-108B soundbar - $159.20 from The Good Guys eBay stor
KEF Q150 bookshelf speakers (pair, black) - $600 from JB Hi-Fi
LG 86UM7600PTA 86" 4K Smart TV - $3196 delivered from The Good Guys eBay store
Boost Mobile $150 starter kit - $135 from simcardsale on eBay
🎶 Lafayette Blues - The White Stripes
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