In This Issue

News

TikTok explains why they closed the account of a Chinese concentration camp critic

TikTok has apologised for banning US teen Feroza Aziz, who posted a video raising awareness of China's concentration camps full of innocent Uighur Muslims, disguised as a make up tutorial video. Everyone's first instinct is "oh she was shitting on China so the Chinese app banned her", but TikTok's statement is unusually clear about why they accidentally banned Feroza's account. A few days earlier she posted a picture of Osama bin Laden, a big no-no on TikTok, which she was banned for. She then made a new TikTok account on the same device, which is the account she used for this Uighur awareness video. A few days after that, a human moderator noticed this new account was linked to the old account (same device unique ID) and locked the new account. When TikTok realised what they done, Feroza's account was re-instated and TikTok apologised. No conspiracy! No collusion!

It’s official, Jony Ive has left the spaceship

Jony Ive's photo has been taken down from Apple's leadership page, marking the end of an era in Cupertino (look it's Thanksgiving in the US, there's fuck all news going down). I totally forgot Jony was leaving Apple until I saw this article pop up. So long mate, take your shitty laptop keyboards with you. 100% that was Ive's idea, right? Jony will now ride off in the sunset, with his massive pile of money and unlimited street cred for being the bloke who designed the iPhone, to work at his new consultancy LoveFrom with Marc Newson. Can't wait to see what beautiful overpriced baubles they produce together. Apparently LoveFrom will work with Apple on stuff, but who knows what that’ll be exactly.

Government submits legistlation for a tax on non-NBN fixed line internet connections

Our big brained government is still persisting with a $7.10/m tax on every fixed-line broadband connection not provided by the NBN. So for example, new estates where developers decide to install Opticomm FTTP or apartment buildings with Spirit FTTB, because NBN services cost too much compared to the private sector. If the "Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2019" passes the Senate, the tax will begin on July 1st, 2020. Government reckons this tax is necessary to fund the economically unviable parts of the NBN (fixed wireless & satellite), but experts reckon the amount raised by the tax won't even make a dent and is really just a fuck you to the non-NBN ISPs building networks that compete with the government's expensive piece of crap. I’m shocked the Liberal party are being vindictive little bitches. Shocked.

Not News

Live baseball updates on the command line

I'm not a big baseball fan, but Playball is so cool I couldn't not mention it here. This little piece of Javascript runs on your terminal and gives you play by play updates on live MLB games in full ASCII glory. If you're someone who lives in the terminal already, it looks way less dodgy having this up on your screen than the MLB website or a video. This could absolutely work for cricket too. I remember many summers sitting in the office at RMIT or Melb Uni, babysitting Xserves whilst looking at Cricinfo's live blog because we didn't have a TV in the cubicle farm. If I had Playball but for cricket, I'd at least look like I'm working! Someone smarter than me should make that.

Bargains

Just a heads up, all the eBay deals here need eBay Plus to get the full discount. You should sign up for it, there’s a free trial too.

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😁 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Join us on Slack and chat with other Sizzle subscribers.

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.​