Issue 1753 - Monday 12th December, 2022
Lots of interesting news around today that I couldn't ignore or cut, hence the unusual format.
In Today's Issue
- Aussie news
- Space news
- Twitter news
- AI/ML generated content news
- Cheap PS Plus subs, Razer TB4 dock, 4TB Crucial SSD, 1TB Samsung SSD, Orico M.2 enclosure, Optus 4G wi-fi modem, Samsung A8 Tab, Disney Plus, DJI OM 4 SE gimbal, Switch Pro controller, Pixel 7 Pro, iPhone SE
The News
Aussie news
- Around 200 Australian Apple store employees and members of RAFFWU are going on strike between 3PM December 3rd until Christmas Day. They're still fighting for "fixed rosters, known hours of work, weekends of two consecutive days and an agreed annual wage rise". The Adelaide, Newcastle and Brisbane stores have the most RAFFWU members. If you're nearby, give them a bit of support.
- The Federal Court has dismissed the ACCC's case against Google, alleging that "Google did not explicitly take consent from users about a change made in 2016 that combined personal information in Google accounts with activity on non-Google sites that use its technology to display advertisements". The court reckons there was adequate informed consent. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.
- 16,000 of the 132,000 people that have requested Telstra make sure their phone number not be listed anywhere, have had their numbers made public via the 1234 directory assistance service. They weren't leaked online, but it raises the question - why do we even have phone listings/White Pages still? Get rid of it. Phone numbers should be unlisted by default.
Space news
- NASA's Artemis 1 mission is complete! Orion splashed into the Pacific Ocean and was recovered successfully. The next Artemis mission is planned for May 2024 and will be the same 10 day trip and orbit of the moon what just happened but with humans inside. Putting humans on the actual lunar surface is planned for Artemis 3 in 2025 and will use SpaceX's Starship.
- Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is paying SpaceX for a ride to the moon, but a year earlier than Artemis 2 and instead of taking astronauts, will be joyriding around the moon with "eight artists from a range of disciplines" such as "an EDM DJ, two photographers, a documentary filmmaker, and a YouTuber". dearMoon will be Yusaku's 2nd trip to space. He went to the ISS last year with the Russians.
- Not specifically space news, but is pretty fucken sci-fi so I'll mention it here. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has "achieved net energy gain in a fusion experiment in the past two weeks", producing "about 2.5 megajoules of energy, which was about 120 per cent of the 2.1 megajoules of energy in the lasers". A formal announcement is coming Wednesday with more details. Fingers crossed on this one.
Twitter news
- The Twitter Files Part 2 - Elon let journalist Bari Weiss dig around internal Twitter communications and found that they've been shadowbanning/limiting the reach of particularly nasty users, which just happen to also be MAGA Qanon fuckers. This is supposed to be some sort of revelation, but Twitter told people this was happening back when they did it.
- Twitter Blue is finally re-launching. Tomorrow you will be able to spend US$8/11 to see 50% fewer ads, edit tweets, post longer videos and receive "priority" in people's timelines to "fight scams and spam". Not part of Blue, but Twitter will let you know if you've been shadowbanned (defeats the point???) and increase the character limit from 280 to 4,000.
- Charlie Warzel does a good job over at the Atlantic summing up how I feel about Elon these days. IMHO the bloke is getting manipulated by savvier people than him to be a right-wing activist, not far removed from Qanon, MAGA etc. I don't know why he's doing it, but that appears to be his shtick now - pleasing some of the deepest shit stains in society.
Something I Saw On The Internet
AI/ML generated content news
- Unstable Diffusion is a forked version of Stable Diffusion that "can better handle human anatomy, generate in diverse and controllable artistic styles, represent under-trained concepts like LGBTQ and races and genders more fairly, and allow the creation of artistically beautiful body and sex positive images" (i.e: porn). They're seeking $25,000+ on Kickstarter to buy a shitload of GPUs.
- A bloke in Queensland has used ChatGPT to successfully dispute a parking fine. It was a pretty obvious mistake (typo in the rego number typed in to the EasyPark App), but ChatGPT wrote something succinct that got the job done. Considering 44% of Australians are functionally illiterate, this kinda thing could be very handy for many people.
- Sizzle subscriber Wolfjay has a pertinent blog post with their feelings about AI generated art. They point out that the bulk of the AI image content is derived from the LAION dataset, that by even the most generous interpretation, is unethically sourced by scraping any image on the internet and considering it fair use. None of this is done with any consent and the tech bros will never ask for it. Fuck em.
Bargains
Image Of The Day
Steve Wozniak Riding Segway in Yerevan, 2011 (hovikmusayelyan / Flickr)
The End
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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.
