### Issue 1257 - Wednesday 25th November, 2020

## In Today's Issue

- Victoria to spend big on upgrading regional internet & creating their own digital transformation agency
- Facebook still taking money for anti-vax ads in Australia
- Elon Musk is the world's 2nd richest person
- So many bookmarks, so little time
- Cheap Elgato Stream Deck, Bose headphones, Dell 34" monitor, Logitech mouse, TP-Link smart plug, Pioneer speakers, Sandisk microSD, heaps of XB1/PS4 games, Amazon Kindle & Echo gear, 30% off Quadlock cases, 30% off Crumpler bags, $20/m off Aussie Broadband NBN100

## The News

### Victoria to spend big on upgrading regional internet & creating their own digital transformation agency

Part of Victoria's plan to spend itself out of a COVID induced economic hole is $626m to upgrade the state's internet access, filling in the NBN's gaps. A big chunk of the cash is to bring gigabit fibre internet for businesses and provide fixed wireless to communities struggling with satellite. The other half of the fund is to upgrade mobile phone and data coverage in regional areas. They're also dropping almost $200m to create Digital Victoria, which appears to be very similar to the federal government's Digital Transformation Agency, but at state-level for Victoria only.

### Facebook still taking money for anti-vax ads in Australia

As if you needed further proof Facebook are scumbags arsehats, they're still taking money to run anti-vaccine ads in Australia. Facebook has publicly said they're banning ads with vaccine misinformation or ads that discourage vaccination, but Cam Wilson over at Gizmodo has found dozens of examples of local kooks and idiots giving Facebook thousands of dollars to promote "informed medical opinions" and various events, particularly during the Queensland state election. Pathetic that this is happening as we are on the cusp of a COVID-19 vaccine.

### Elon Musk is the world's 2nd richest person

Elon Musk is now the world's second-richest person. Old mate has US$128b of wealth, mostly tied up in Tesla shares (he owns 20% of the company) which have been going absolutely bananas the last few months. Just in the past week his wealth grew 33%, helped by Tesla being added to the S&P 500, automatically adding it to a vast number of index funds worldwide, increasing the demand for Tesla shares. Amazon's Jeff Bezos is still king dick though with a massive fortune valued at US$182b - but going by how astronomical Tesla shares are going lately, Musk might end up the world's richest man sooner rather than later.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### So many bookmarks, so little time

- Life in Afghanistan is so shit, the youth are gorging themselves on PUBG, creating something out of Ready Player One. Can't say I blame them.
- Lyn Conway, a computer genius responsible for very large scale integrated (VLSI) microchip design has received an apology from IBM who sacked her in 1968 for being transgender.
- Forbes explains some of the pitfalls of being an early adopter with Apple Silicon Macs, like almost everything not optimised ARM being kinda sluggish and at worse, simply not working.
- ZeroSSL now supports the ACME API, offering an alternative to Let's Encrypt for free, auto-renewing SSL certificates.
- Alexander Klöpping got a 32" e-ink display, mounted it on a wall and set it to automatically display a PDF of the New York Times' front page. Shame the display costs 2300 euro.

## Bargains

- Elgato Stream Deck - $189 at JB Hi-Fi
- Bose QC 35 II or NC700 headphones - $299/$419 at JB Hi-Fi
- 30% off store-wide at Crumpler
- Refurbished Dell 34" U3415W monitor - $639 from the Dell Outlet
- Logitech M720 Triathlon wireless bluetooth mouse - $45 at JB or Amazon
- TP-Link HS110 smart plug with energy monitoring - $20 from Amazon
- Samsung T5 500GB portable SSD - $88 at Harvey Norman
- Pioneer SP-FS52 floorstanding speakers - $399 from Kogan
- 30% off Quadlock cases and mounts (car, bike, etc.)
- $20/m off NBN100 Aussie Broadband plans for the first 6 months
- SanDisk Extreme MicroSDXC 128GB - $21 at JB or Amazon
- Far Cry New Dawn for PS4/XB1 - $39 at Amazon
- NBA 2K21, Watch Dogs Legion, Borderlands 3 for PS4/XB1 - $39/$59/$19 at Amazon or JB
- Doom Slayers Collection (Doom 2016, Doom 3, Ultimate Doom, Doom 2) for PC - $12.39 from Fanatical
- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 & 2 for PS4/XB1 - $39 from Amazon or JB
- Amazon Echo Dot 3rd gen/4th gen/with clock, Show 5, Kindle Paperwhite - $32.30/$46.55/$65.55/$46.55/$141.55 from The Good Guys eBay store
- Amazon Echo Show 8 - $109 from Amazon
- Kindle Oasis or Kindle 10th-gen e-book readers - $319/$99 from Amazon

## The End

📻 Sich Öffnen - Not From There

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

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