Hi folks! Justin Warren here filling in for Anthony again today. You may remember me from The Crux weekly enterprise tech newsletter, the What If? bot on Mastodon, or my silly stickers.
The organisation that claims to speak for the #NaNoWriMo hashtag has posted a blog that says categorically condemning AI “would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.” This… bold… stance has rustled many jimmies. Daniel José Older, a lead story architect for Star Wars: The High Republic, immediately resigned from the NaNoWriMo writers board, saying:
Hello @NaNoWriMo this is me DJO officially stepping down from your Writers Board and urging every writer I know to do the same. Never use my name in your promo again in fact never say my name at all and never email me again. Thanks!Many people were reminded that #NaNoWriMo is still a thing, so it’s impossible to say if this is good or bad.
Starlink has refused to comply with an order by the Brazilian Supreme Court to block access to X/Twitter in the country after Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered the combination social media platform and Nazi bar to be banned. The ban by de Moraes was upheld by a unanimous vote of Brazil’s five-member Supreme Court panel. Other social media platforms are struggling to juggle signing up all the new users fleeing X/Twitter, making fresh popcorn, and laughing so hard you can hear them from space.
The city of Columbus, Ohio has sued a security researcher who told local media the city was wrong about the extent of a databreach. Ransomware group Rhysida published a bunch of data it had apparently copied from a police crime system, including witness, victim, and suspect information for 10 years of police reports, including undercover reports. The city tried to downplay the incident, and is now going after the researcher who embarrassed officials by pointing out that the “dark web” isn’t a real place, the data breach was quite bad, actually, and maybe they could concentrate on not sucking at computers quite so much.
NASA has a nifty single-page app that spells your name using images from its Landsat dataset.
Type in your name, hit enter, and it’ll find bits of the world that look like letters to spell your name.
You can download the resulting image to share with your mates. Why not post it into the Sizzle Slack and annoy everyone with a bit of frivolous fun?
everyone with a bit of frivolous fun?
DigitalVision: Business Connections (Internet Archive / ShivaShaw)
😎 Today's issue of The Sizzle was curated by JP because the purpose of a system is what it does.
💬 Checked out the paid subscriber only forum? It's a tidy little place to discuss tech with like minded Aussies.
👋 Forums not your thing? The Sizzle has a Slack group you can procrastinate in and chat with other nerds bored at work.
💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the customer portal.
🎁 Make someone's day and buy them a 12 month gift subscription to The Sizzle.
📚 Browse The Sizzle Archive. A few issues are missing and it's not searchable, but it's better than nothing.
🫂 Friends of The Sizzle is a small group of businesses or organisations operated by Sizzle subscribers. Support your fellow Sizzler!
💔 Tired of my bullshit? Unsubscribe and I'll never speak to you again.
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.