NEWS
Uber ropes in Victoria's taxi inquiry guy into its global advisory board
Uber has formed a "global advisory board" that will help Uber be less shit as it expands into new markets. I guess the "fuck it, let's just launch it and see what happens, who needs regulations anyways" approach has stopped working. On that board is a name Victorians may be familiar with - Professor Allan Fels, who not only was in those crappy industry superannuation ads, but also lead the taxi industry inquiry here. The good professor knows which way his toast is buttered. Oh and Uber now lets you request a pickup at Sydney airport.
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Twitter updates their Mac app. Finally.
Twitter released an update to its previously languishing Mac app. It's got Moments support now. And gifs. Polls too. It actually looks ok I reckon. I'm using it instead of Tweetbot. I like seeing who retweets and favourites my amazing and fantastic tweets. Plus Moments is actually kinda ok.
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Tesla lost money, wants to make a lot more cars, had two VPs leave
Tesla's Q1 2016 earnings are fresh out of their accountant's arsehole and ready for vigorous consumption by nerds, financial, technological and automotiveal (that's not a word) around the globe. Tesla lost $282m off revenue of $1.15b, which is what everyone expected. During the earnings call, Elon Musk said that he's sleeping in the factory these days and that they're looking for the best manufacturing people in the world, to make Tesla the best manufacturer in the world. Just before the call, the VP of Production and VP of Manufacturing quit/resigned/pushed out of the frunk of a Model S - (insert Señor Thinkpiece here). Telsa also aims to produce 500,000 cards by 2018, which is two years earlier than they planned.
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Claude Shannon gets an IEEE Milestone
I had no idea who this guy was until today, but Claude Shannon is generally regarded as the father of information theory. All this bullshit I write about every day, Claude foresaw it and researched the topic at the ephemeral Bell Labs out in New Jersey, during the 40s and 50s. The IEEE yesterday bestowed upon him the posthumous honour of an IEEE Milestone award and memorial. This guy also founded digital circuit design theory back in the 30s, applying Boolean algebra to electronic circuits. During WW2 the guy even busted codes and secured comms for the good of his country.
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A baby step towards robot surgeons
Robotic surgeons just got a little closer - the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center stitched up a pig's intestine without any human intervention and it did a better job than the humans (kinda). All this robot does is stitch up tissue, but it would be analogous to say, a spot welding robot in a car factory, replacing one tedious task a human used to do. The robot also had a harder time of doing it inside a live animal versus a human, but the robot's stitches were better at preventing leaks and much more consistent. They're gonna try this thing out on humans in about 2-3 years. Who wants to be first?
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COOL SHIT
Godwin's Law backed up by data from Reddit
The theory of Godwin's Law, once only an anectode, now has data to back the theory up. Using Reddit's dataset of 4.6 million comments, it was found that if a thread gets 1000 comments or more, there's a 78% chance of someone mentioning Hitler. Would love to see this versus say, Guardian, News Limited or Fairfax comments. Which news outlet has the most people with Hitler on their mind!? (it's gonna be news tho, we know, just give us the proof)
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Google updates Slides, adds audience Q&A and a laser pointer
Google has updated the presentation component of it's office suite. Slides now has an audience Q&A feature where if you're giving a talk, you can have people shitpost on it as you give the presentation. There's also a laser pointer that you can control with your mouse, which will make pointing out all those sweet profits you made for your business much easier.
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Cheap iTunes credit & cheap Nexus 5X
Just two bargains for you cheapskates today. First, Big W has the cheap iTunes credit you crave, with 20% off $30 and $50 cards. For ultra cheapskate mode, get Officeworks to price match Big W for a total of 25% off! Second, eGlobal is selling the 32GB, H791 variant of the Nexus 5X for a meagre $390 including delivery. A great price for a great phone. By far the best Android phone in that price range.
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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!