Tom Coates was invited to a "Data Dialogue event at Meta's offices in San Francisco" along with other "Fediverse" community people to discuss what Meta's plan is for Threads and ActivityPub integration - the protocol Mastodon uses - and published a long blog post about the meeting. The entire post is an interesting retelling of what appears to be a frank discussion between Meta and the Fediverse community, but the key bit of info in the post is a timeline from Meta of what they plan to do. Incrementally by the end of 2024, you'll be able to "follow Mastodon users within Threads, and reply to them and like them", with an end goal (still TBD) of "full blended interoperability between Threads and Mastodon". Lots of interesting questions around consent from non-Meta users getting their data sucked into Meta's algorithm for recommendation/display on Threads, moving accounts between Threads and Mastodon and moderation of what Mastodon content they decide to show to Threads users.
Senator James Paterson wrote to 19 Australian companies using TikTok's tracking pixel, "asking whether they continued using it; if not, when they stopped using it; and whether they sought legal advice assuring them they were abiding by the nation's privacy laws". A bunch of them said they removed it once they realised it likely breaches the Privacy Act be default, so that's cool, but others like the University of Wollongong, Kmart, Woolworths and Sportsbet persist. He's a Liberal senator so it's probably related to some sinophobic bullshit and it's just a coincidence this happens to be a digital rights issue (I don't see him emailing about Google or Meta's tracking pixels), but regardless nice to see some businesses discover the juice isn't worth the squeeze when it comes to TikTok's tracking pixel at least - which to be fair, is one of the nastiest tracking pixels out there.
OpenWRT is making their own 1st party, officially supported router. Up until now all the OpenWRT hardware support is best effort. Some devices were better than others for how easy they are to hack, but none were made with input from OpenWRT, designed with ongoing OpenWRT support in mind. They will be working with the BananaPi team to develop a a router that'll cost less than US$100, contain a 2.5GbE & 1GbE port, 1GB of RAM, Mediatek SoC, 3x3 WiFi 6, NVMe SSD, USB-C power, optional PoE and open source schematics. BananaPi will sell it and give a cut to OpenWRT in return. It's still early days in the process but should be on sale some time this year.
Late August 1992 - Historic abandoned Overseas Telecommunications Commission satellite earth station dish at Brown Range, Carnarvon, Western Australia, Australia. The 'Big Dish' (as it was colloquially known) has a 29.5 metre diameter reflector. The control building is not open to the public, but you can visit the site & enjoy panoramic views over Carnarvon and the surrounding plantations from the viewing platform. The OTC Dish Base is located on Brown's Range & was the site of Australia's first earth station for satellite tracking & communications (one of only eight in the world at the time). It was an integral part of the communications network for the Apollo Moon Programme & also helped track Halley's Comet. It was operational for 21 years (1966-1987) & played a major role in global communications of that era. (aussiejeff / Flickr)
📻 See/Saw - Jay Reatard
😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.
💬 Checked out the paid subscriber only forum? It's a tidy little place to discuss tech with like minded Aussies.
👋 Forums not your thing? The Sizzle has a Slack group you can procrastinate in and chat with other nerds bored at work.
💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the customer portal.
🎁 Make someone's day and buy them a 12 month gift subscription to The Sizzle.
📚 Browse The Sizzle Archive. A few issues are missing and it's not searchable, but it's better than nothing.
🫂 Friends of The Sizzle is a small group of businesses or organisations operated by Sizzle subscribers. Support your fellow Sizzler!
💔 Tired of my bullshit? Unsubscribe and I'll never speak to you again.
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.