### Issue 1358 - Wednesday 5th May, 2021

## In Today's Issue

- Officeworks has stopped selling AirTags due to safety concerns
- Signal trolls Facebook & Instagram whilst educating users
- Trump's social media network goes live but is just a Wordpress blog
- A MiniDisc NetMD web interface, delightful Mac error chimes, Windows has a detailed battery report built-in, LEGO rental service and Microsoft's new default Office font
- Cheap Logitech webcam, Tenda Nova mesh wi-fi, DJI Osmo Mobile 3, Google Nest Hub & Fitbit combo, Xiaomi smart home kit

## The News

### Officeworks has stopped selling AirTags due to safety concerns

Officeworks has carried out a voluntary recall of Apple's AirTags from stores and online "due to safety concerns, specifically regarding how easy it is for the button-cell battery to be removed by a child". AirTags "will not be stocked by Officeworks until further guidance is provided from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission". Kinda weird that Officeworks has pulled AirTags from shelves, but they're still available to buy JB Hi-Fi, Apple, Harvey Norman and so on, who have just as much to lose if sued.

### Signal trolls Facebook & Instagram whilst educating users

Signal, everyone's favourite privacy focused messaging platform, has a new delightfully cheeky blog post. They purchased a bunch of Instagram ads that simply displayed you why the ad you just saw was shown to you. Check out the post for the examples. Very clever and a great way to educate users of the fine grained detail Facebook/Instagram has on you. Unfortunately the ads were taken down almost immediately due to Instagram's policy of no ads with "personal attributes" in them. Amazing how quickly and effectively ads critical of Instagram were removed, funny that.

### Trump's social media network goes live but is just a Wordpress blog

Donald Trump was boasting for months he was gonna start his own social media network after getting banned from Facebook and Twitter. Today that "network" has launched - a Wordpress blog with a theme that looks like a Twitter timeline. You know those dolls they give people with dementia so they can feel like they have something to care for? This feels like someone made Trump a fake Twitter so he has a void to yell into. I hope whoever made it at least fleeced him of a few hundred grand for spinning up a Wordpress instance and adding a bookmark to the post page on his iPhone's home screen.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### A MiniDisc NetMD web interface, delightful Mac error chimes, Windows has a detailed battery report built-in, LEGO rental service and Microsoft's new default Office font

- Stefano Brilli made a web app, in 2020, to upload music to a NetMD MiniDisc player. It uses ffmpeg to encode auto to ATRAC, then connects to the NetMD enabled MiniDisc player and uploads the file to it. God bless this nerd.
- Once upon a time, Macs had a personality and part of that personality was the weird chimes they made on boot if something was fucked - aka "chimes of death". 512 Pixels has collated a bunch of them for your listening pleasure. My favourite is the Macintosh LC.
- Wanna know how the battery in your Windows laptop is going? There's a very detailed utility in Windows 10 that'll give you a shitload of info about battery health, like how long each battery session lasted for, with a historical running total.
- LEGO rental is a thing now. You give CreativeBuild $42/m and they send you a new set once a month. You build it, enjoy it, then break it up and post it back to them. There are heaps of sets available. Perfect if all you want is the fun of building LEGO without the up-front cost of buying new sets.
- Heads up typography dorks, Microsoft is replacing Calibri as the default in Office (which replaced Times New Roman back in 2007) with one of five newly commissioned fonts. They'll all be available in the next revision of Office, but one will be the default. They all look fine to me, I don't know shit about what makes a good typeface.

## Bargains

- Logitech C670i 1080p webcam - $45 from Amazon
- Tenda Nova MW6 mesh wi-fi 3-pack & bonus wi-fi smart plug - $143.99 from Oz Smart Things
- DJI Osmo Mobile 3 combo kit (refurbished) - $99 from Kogan
- Google Nest Hub Max & Fitbit Inspire 2 combo - $329 at The Good Guys & Bing Lee
- Xiaomi Mi Smart Home Kit 4 in 1 Starter Pack - $64.90 from Amazon

## The End

📻 Slack Motherfucker - Superchunk

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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.​