There's probably a few of you with absolutely no idea where the stupid titles for each issue come from. It's not my amazing imagination or creativity - it's random quotes from the legendary mid-2000's radio show, Get This. Sizzle reader @rpy has made a little website where you can listen to some Get This zingers on demand. There's also the excellent Marsland 5000 app for iOS and Android.
NEWS
Dallas Buyers Club gives up it's quest for punishing Aussie pirates
We all know about the right holders of the film Dallas Buyers Club (which is actually quite a good movie, you should watch it) protracted efforts to extract money from iiNet customers who downloaded the film illegally off BitTorrent. But after many appeals and compromises, the case is finally over! The lawyers representing the DBC rights holders decided not to pay the court a huge bond in order to be allowed to actually contact the copyright infringers. Sets a nice precedent for further copyright actions in Australia I reckon.
Twitter continues to tweak the timeline and I don't like it
Twitter has implemented "best of" tweets that will now appear at the top of your timeline as soon as you launch or visit Twitter. Pretty much what we've seen with the "while you were away" feature, but now it's right at the top and isn't marked as such - just a bunch of random tweets you have to scroll past until you get to the fresh ones. After years defending the official Twitter app and not giving a crap enough to use a third party client, I think the time has come for me to delete the official app and use Tweetbot or Twitteriffic or something.
The infamous "Netflix" tax has been submitted to Parliament
Our government's attempts to squeeze further money from our wallets continues today, as a bill to force overseas companies selling digital products in Australia into collecting GST. Companies like Amazon, Netflix, Steam and others will need to start charging an extra 10% for their gear in Australia, which sucks. I'm not sure how this will be implemented, but the bill is in Parliament and I doubt it'll get knocked back when it hits the Senate.
A Chinese consortium wants to buy the Opera browser for US1.2b
The Norway based Opera browser, which I reckon is quite nice, is apparently worth US1.2bn. A Chinese group of companies want to buy Opera and use it to create a better experience for their Chinese customers. Opera users in the west could also benefit from a much larger development team and deeper pockets in China. Hopefully they don't screw it up and turn Opera into a pile of junk as I like using it as my 2nd browser on Windows.
Tesla confirms Model 3 reveal date and assures pricing sub-$35,000 before incentives
For your dose of Tesla news, they recently confirmed that the Model 3 will indeed sell for under US$35,000 and actually be around US$25,000 after US federal & state tax incentives and grants. FYI, US$35,000 + 10% GST + 3% currency buffer is around AU$55,000. Tesla also confirmed the reveal will be on the 31st of March - only a few weeks away! Tesla, Tesla, Telsa, Tesla.
COOL SHIT
Handy "fix my fucked Windows box" script
We've all been there, sitting in front of a friend or relative's Windows computer full of spyware and shit you never knew existed. We can nuke it from orbit, re-installing Windows, or, you can use Tron. It's a script some dudes on Reddit made that can clean up the filthiest of Windows setups without needing to re-install Windows. It runs a bunch of anti-virus apps and anti-malware apps automatically, update popular apps and even defrag the HDD if it detects a HDD instead of an SSD. Pretty nifty!
Video of a British man showing off the world's tiniest cassette tape
Look at this video of the world's smallest cassette tape, a Sony NTC-120. A glorious gem from the days Sony did crazy arse shit that sounded cool, but never took off for a multitude of various reasons. The NT standard of tapes was like a cut down version of DAT and used predominately in dictaphones. Same dude showed off a little Sony Discman that was smaller than the size of a CD! I miss crazy 90s Sony.
New Tom Clancy game I might actually play
I'm not a huge gamer, barely any games tickle my fancy enough to bother spending hours playing them when I could be doing something more productive. But a new game based on a Tom Clancy franchise might make me whittle away a few weeks of my life in a virtual world once again. Tom Clancy's The Division is coming out in March and is an open world set in a dystopian Manhattan after a smallpox pandemic. If there's anything I enjoy more than a realistic game set in New York, it's one in a dystopian New York.
Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!)
--Anthony
The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Like The Sizzle? Tell your friends!