Publishers sue Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library claiming copyright infringement
2,300 people signed up for gigabit NBN with Aussie Broadband in just 4 days
Facebook employees crack the shits with Zuck after watching Twitter moderate Trump
Annoying Technology is very annoying
Cheap Samsung Galaxy tablets, Google Nest Hub, Ring doorbell, Apple TV 1080p
A group of the world's biggest book publishers have sued the Internet Archive's National Emergency Library, saying that making books available via the internet without restriction is theft. Prior to COVID-19 the Internet Archive would scan donated books and use DRM to limit the reading of that book to one person for a specific time period (or multiple people if they had multiple copies of the book) - like a normal library, just with a PDF instead of a hard copy. When libraries across the world shut down due to COVID-19 the Internet Archive removed all borrowing restrictions and this clearly pissed off publishers enough to stop turning a blind eye to the book scanning shenanigans and sue.
Aussie Broadband has said that 2,300 people signed up for NBN's new 1000/50 plans in the space of 4 days and was Aussie Broadband's biggest ever single day of organic sales, far exceeding their expectations. 850 additional users signed up for 250/25 (probably poor bastards on HFC). Superloop is the only other ISP offering NBN's 1000/50 plans at the moment and they reckon averages speeds during peak on their network are on average 800mbit/sec. Not bad! Also in super-fast internet land, the City of Adelaide is almost finished with its 10gbit CBD network. 1,000 buildings in and around the Adelaide CBD are now eligible for 10gbit connections via TPG. Internet speeds are still limited to 1000mbit ($440/m inc GST is sweet), but you can link offices or share resources with other buildings at 10gbit. I don't think there's anywhere cheaper in Australia you can get a 1gbit internet connection than Adelaide's CBD?
Facebook employees are going on virtual strike, logging off whilst they work at home to protest Mark Zuckerberg's lack of giving a shit regarding Trump's posts. Inspired by action over at Twitter, hundreds of Facebook workers "added an automated message to their digital profiles and email responses saying that they were out of the office in a show of protest" and "staff members have circulated petitions and threatened to resign, and a number of employees wrote publicly about their unhappiness on Twitter and elsewhere". They all want Facebook to do what Twitter is doing and moderate the President's posts. When asked if Facebook will emulate Twitter's moderation, Zuck said that "we think that it wouldn’t be right for us to do fact checks for politicians" and "private companies probably shouldn't be - or especially these platform companies - shouldn't be in the position of doing that". The Verge has a good article explaining the intricacies of Facebook's stance on Trump's posts.
Computers are bastards. I love them! But they're annoying pieces of shit that don't work like they should because they're made by imperfect humans who are also full of mistakes. Annoying.Technology is a little blog that highlights all those mistakes, mostly on macOS (Apple's forgotten software child). Mail showing unread counts for mailboxes with no unread emails. Not being able to put playlists into folders in Apple Music. An empty iMessage window after rebooting, requiring the app to be launched again to restore contacts and chats. Reddit's horrible, absolutely horrible UI. Preview's more info window refusing to use additional white space to show a long list of keywords. The list goes on and on and on. I admire this level of documentation of every little computer thing that annoys the authors of this blog.
Samsung Galaxy Tab A 128GB or Tab S5e 64GB - $359.10 / $449.10 at OpenShop
Google Nest Hub - $119 from Bing Lee’s eBay store using the code PMONTH200, but only for eBay Plus members
Ring Video Doorbell (1st-gen) - $119 from Ring
Apple TV (4th-gen, 1080p) 32GB - $159 from The School Locker
🎶 Gnarcissist - Mutoid Man
😁 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Join us on Slack and chat with other Sizzle subscribers.
📡 Aussie Broadband is the best ISP I've used since Internode's glory days. Their CEO gives talks at AUSNOG about their network and they even have network utilisation charts for every NBN POI. Their pricing isn't the cheapest, but if you want an ISP that's fast & reliable, give them a shot. Use my affiliate link or my referral code (1001031) and we both get $50 credit on our next bill.
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.