Neil Young is a popular musician that is so pissed off about Joe Rogan "spreading fake information about vaccines" on his equally, if not more popular Spotify exclusive podcast, Mr. Young told his management "to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform", further adding that "they can have Rogan or Young. Not both". Well, Spotify chose Rogan and his 11 million regular listeners. Good on Neil Young for not wanting to give his creative work to a company he disagrees with and good on Joe Rogan for making life difficult for Spotify, because I like seeing mega billion dollar corporations having to decide between art, principles and money.
Just when you think the rich couldn't get richer, Apple posts an all time quarterly revenue record for Q1 2022 - US$123.9b flew out of our pockets and into Apple's bank accounts in October, November and December 2021. There was a profit of US$34.6b on that revenue. A$6,000 a second of profit. You blinked and Apple made six grand of profit. Fuck me dead. Some highlights: Mac revenue is at an all time high - 25% growth compared to Q4 2020 quarter. China now makes up 21% of Apple's revenue - almost the same as Europe's 24%. Services, stuff like iCloud, Apple Music, App Store revenue, etc is now 15% of Apple's overall revenue - but the iPhone is still 58%. Unrelated except for the fact it's an iPhone feature, the beta for iOS 15.4 has an option to use Face ID whilst wearing a mask, at the cost of reduced security.
Kia released Australian pricing and specs for their fancy new EV6 electric car. The "base model" EV6 Air clocks in at an RRP of $67,990, has a WLTP range of 528km and has had rave reviews overseas. It's party trick is an 800V battery system, meaning it can add ~370km range in just 18 minutes when hooked up to an 800V charger (which exist on the main inter-capital-city routes in Australia). They'll start shipping next month, but too bad if you want one this year, as "only 500 vehicles were allocated to the Australian market between now and the end of the year", but Kia has received "received no fewer than 1800 firm orders". The ongoing semiconductor shortage, weak EV incentives compared to Europe and battery supply constraints don't make selling an EV in Australia easy.
You might have heard about a "solar tax"/export tariff (i.e: you pay to export instead of getting paid) possibly getting implemented for residential rooftop solar exports. Because there's shitloads of homes with solar panels now, on a sunny day between 11am and 2pm there's more power getting exported to the grid than the grid can handle and the grid owners don't want to pay for upgrades. The Australian Energy Regulator has released a draft about what to do about this and according to Solar Quotes, it's a pretty reasonable solution. The charges must "only recover costs" and the grid owners have to justify them. There will also have to be "a basic solar export service" available at no charge. Nothing will happen until 2025 at the earliest, 2026 in VIC.
Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.
📻 It Began In Afrika - The Chemical Brothers
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