### Issue 1236 - Monday 26th October, 2020

If you're reading this, it means the migration of The Sizzle from Substack to ActiveCampaign/Chargebee/Zapier went okay! As always, please contact me if you notice any weirdness, I'm sure there's something I've missed.

## In Today's Issue

- Youtube-dl and 18 forks of it are taken off GitHub due to RIAA complaint
- NBN wants to throttle fixed wireless connections because it can't handle the load
- Tesla pushes "Full Self-Driving" update to general public vehicles for beta testing on public roads
- Big Sur not respecting macOS firewalls & Chrome not deleting Google cookies
- Cheap Xiaomi 65W USB-C PD battery pack, Corsair 750W modular PSU, Store DJ $50 off, Samsung 256GB flash drive, Xiaomi 34" and AOC 49" curved monitors, 15% off iTunes gift cards, Coles Mobile 365-day SIM, Xbox Live Gold

## The News

### Youtube-dl and 18 forks of it are taken off GitHub due to RIAA complaint

I hope that everyone knows of the wonder and magic that is youtube-dl. It's a command-line app that will download pretty much any video on any website. YouTube is the main one, but it'll do dozens of other video streaming platforms too. GitHub removed it off its site this weekend when the USA's RIAA contacted GitHub telling them to take down youtube-dl's repo along with a 18 forks of youtube-dl, because it could technically be used for copyright infringement. What's troubling about GitHub removing youtube-dl is that what the RIAA sent wasn't a copyright infringement notice, nor was it a DMCA notice. It's just a vague "omg we don't like what this app could do" and GitHub acted on it. Youtube-dl's code is still out there and is easy to access, so fingers crossed the love for youtube-dl remains despite not being on GitHub.

### NBN wants to throttle fixed wireless connections because it can't handle the load

Bad news for NBN users on the fixed wireless network - you're gonna be throttled because NBN can't be arsed upgrading to meet customer demand. They're having a sook that "2.24% of users consumed 12.3% of total downlink capacity resources" and "1.65% accounted for use of 18.5% of total uplink capacity", so are running the idea of throttling stuff like "server and database backup applications running at high bandwidth", "large software downloads, such as operating system updates" and "VPN traffic, which could otherwise conceal any of these workloads", along with the usual suspect of BitTorrent. I'm only an extremely lapsed network engineer, but the problem NBN's facing doesn't not sound like that big of a problem to be honest. Give these users a proper fixed line connection and the problem is solved???

### Tesla pushes "Full Self-Driving" update to general public vehicles for beta testing on public roads

Tesla has begun rolling out an update to Autopilot that it calls Full Self-Driving for a select group of drivers in the US. Prior to this update, Autopilot wouldn't turn corners or go through roundabouts and wouldn't do other driving stuff if there was no painted lines on the road. This latest update apparently lets the car loose to drive itself with no restrictions. A Tesla with FSD will drive around city streets unassisted, manouvering around other vehicles/obstacles and turning corners, in addition to the actions it could already do like stop/go at traffic lights. The linked article has a bunch of videos of Autopilot in FSD mode in action. Going by how rough and unrefined Autopilot is on my Model 3 and the fact you're supposed to pay full attention anyways whilst using it, the risk to reward ratio here is skewed way too high for me to fuck with.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Big Sur not respecting macOS firewalls & Chrome not deleting Google cookies

Looks like Apple is whitelisting 56 of its apps and daemons from having their network access blocked in Big Sur. Most users would expect that when using an app like Little Snitch of TripMode to filter traffic, all traffic that meets the blocking or filtering conditions would be impacted, but Apple carved out a niche for itself that any on-device firewall apps can't block. Google has been doing similar things in Chrome, where if you select "clear cookies and site data when you quit Chrome", it won't clear cookies and site data for Google's sites like Search and YouTube. I kinda understand this sort of happening on smartphone and tablets as they're now the PC for the masses and there's a different set of expectations from those users. It would be nice if Windows and macOS towards the "power user", whilst the mainstream increasingly uses iOS and Android for all their computing needs. Let us have our niche!

## Bargains

- Xiaomi ZMI Power Bank Pro 20Ah 65W USB-C PD output - $85 from the Mi eBay store
- Corsair RM750x modular PSU - $184 from Scorptec's eBay store using Afterpay
- $50 off any $300 spend at Store DJ
- Samsung BAR Plus 256GB USB 3.1 flash drive - $53.30 from Phonebot
- Xiaomi Mi curved 34" 3440x1440 monitor - $509 for Kogan First members
- 15% off iTunes Gift Cards at Coles starting Wednesday
- Coles Mobile (Optus MVNO) 365-day SIM, 60GB data - $99
- 12 months of Xbox Live Gold - $50 at JB Hi-Fi
- AOC AG493UCX 49" 5120x1440 curved monitor - $1439.10 from Shopping Express

## The End

📻 WAXIT - Dennis Cometti

😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.

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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.​