I was a guest on the Hemispheric Views podcast this week. They got me on to chat a bit about The Sizzle, you might find it interesting!
Amazon's Ring constant collusion with US police is well known, but recently they admitted to the US Senate that in 2022 they complied with 11 "emergency" requests from police. In these cases there was no warrant but Ring handed over video to police without the camera owner's consent. That's pretty concerning. Now The Verge has discovered that it's so routine, that Ring has a formal website for cops to request "emergency" video from a Ring camera without a warrant. I get why there might be an urgent need for access to video, but damn this is a slippery slope that isn't worth sliding down considering the high risk of abuse.
Hyundai has shown off the production model Ioniq 6 - a fancy sedan that kinda looks like a munted Porsche. The biggest battery variant has 610km of WLTP range and is based on the same E-GMP platform as the Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6. It'll go on sale in Australia in "the first half of 2023" in one fully-equipped specification, two drivetrain options (RWD & AWD), will be a similar price to the Ioniq 5 and sold the same way via Hyundai's website. Speaking of the Ioniq 5, there's now two variants in Australia - the Dynamiq and Techniq. The Dynamic has fewer features (no sunroof, smaller wheels), but is cheaper ($69,990+ORC) and has more range (481km). Still bugger all stock flowing in though.
Some local tech news from the week that didn't make the cut then, but are worth mentioning now as there's not much else going on:
Everyone tells you to never set up your own mail server and just pay Fastmail/Microsoft/Google to do it for you, but Mail-in-a-Box makes it stupidly easy to self-host a modern mail server that appears to not get shitlisted by the big boys. There's a decent webmail interface, it supports Let's Encrypt, has good spam filtering and is regularly updated (last update June 12, 2022!). I installed it myself years ago for fun and it was great, so I imagine it's only improved in the years since.
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.
📻 Demons - Super Furry Animals
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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.