Hello, it’s me, Anthony, the guy who used to write The Sizzle.

After 252 days away not much has changed. I’m still standing by and watching the internet pillaged and burned by gormless men. The computer that lives in my pocket is still bad and the computer on my desk has lost all its social capital. Elon Musk is "Completely Addicted to Anime Gooner AI Slop". The North Melbourne Kangaroos men's team continue to ruin my weekends. But that's okay as I get another opportunity to join you in a cathartic bodysurf through the thick brown sea of shit we call technology.

Cam will be back next week but I hope he lets me out of the cage more often.

The News

Niche blogging site blocking entire US state

Dreamwidth is probably a website none of you have heard of, let alone used, but this fork of Livejournal will start blocking all visitors with IP addresses it thinks are from the US state of Mississippi. This is due to a law that forces all "social media websites" to do age verification for all accounts. Sound familiar? As more of these laws happen across the world, it's justified for sites that aren't trillion dollar megacorps to say fuck it, we will block your area entirely rather than deal with this nonsense. But it's also not going to stop governments doing it and suddenly the entire internet is age-gated, requires identity documents and using a VPN is illegal. Us nerds will live in our digital bunkers, off the grid, like a cyber-bushmen and women, but the rest of society won't even realise what they've lost. Many may even be happier this way.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Tesla Makes Full Self Driving (Supervised) Available in Australia

Pedestrians, cyclists and other road users should be on high alert, as Tesla made "Full Self Driving (Supervised)" available to some drivers in Australia today, making us the first right hand drive country to experience it. Aren't we lucky? For those willing to risk their lives for TikTok, your Tesla needs version 4 of the onboard computer, then you need to shell out $10,100 for the software upgrade and wait for to be blessed by Tesla's beta program to have a little nibble of autonomous (supervised) driving while they work out the (many, potentially fatal) bugs. As a commenter on CarExpert.com.au said "Dashcam Owners Australia is going to have so much more Youtube content".

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Microsoft still doesn’t care that Azure is a key component in the Palestinian genocide

Cam has covered this story when it happened but I wanted to mention it again because it's easy to forget in the constant drum beat of bad news - Microsoft is still knowingly participating, enhancing and profiting from an extremely clear and obvious genocide. It was revealed a few weeks ago that Israel's Unit 8200 met with Satya Nadella to set up a "a customised and segregated area within Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform" that they use to do mass survellance in Gaza, that in turn, is used to starve, murder and torture Palestinians. This is not an "oopsie we didn't know what was happening" type thing, Microsoft was told in advance what is going to be collected and they didn't give a shit. Microsoft is more concerned about protestors making noise at their HQ than the obvious fact they're a modern version of IBM helping the Nazis efficiently eliminate jews. Fuck them, fuck them all and I hope I'm alive to see the day all these bastards experience the consequences of their actions.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

252 Days of Bookmarks

I still pay attention to computer stuff!

Some stuff I bookmarked since I last wrote The Sizzle:

Some stuff I read since I last wrote The Sizzle:

Some stuff I wrote since I last wrote The Sizzle:

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius - except today.

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Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

The Sizzle is created on Gadigal 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.