Plus: The Aussie at the top of the world's AI (ab)use leaderboard ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

July 30, 2025 | Read online
# Teen YouTube accounts banned, Microsoft's AI deal and Aussie 'space' flight Plus: The Aussie at the top of the world's AI (ab)use leaderboard
Edition 2385
"THE GREATEST FUN in all the world is computer imaging. In my entire life I've only done one other thing that was as much fun...koff koff." (Flickr: Bill Strain)
# The News
### Teens will be banned from having YouTube accounts, which will definitely solve every problem our kids are facing
The worst kept secret in politics is finally out with YouTube now being added to the social media platforms that will be required to try to stop teens from having accounts in Australia (ABC News). The federal government announced the decision in its now published “online safety rules” regulation (Legislative dot gov) and despite YouTube’s threats to sue.
The Sizzle: The YouTube exception is funny because it is the platform likely to be least affected by the ban because it only bans accounts. Why everyone’s focused on it, though, is that it was such a clear example of how the federal government has been making up shit as they go along with this law. Now that it’s fixed — pending a legal challenge, maybe — I don’t think the law is fundamentally any better for it being included because it is a bizarrely written law dealing with a vague grab-bag of every digital concern that some experts aren’t sure it’ll solve.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Microsoft and OpenAI have a really weird relationship
Microsoft is set to re-write its deal with OpenAI that will clear the way for the AI company to become a for-profit company (Bloomberg, $). Under its original investment, the Windows-maker has access to OpenAI’s tech until it either invents “artificial general intelligence” or hits $100 billion in total profits. These arrangements have complicated OpenAI’s quest to shed its status as non-profit — but apparently Microsoft might drop it for 30%~ share in whatever OpenAI becomes.
The Sizzle: This stuff might seem in the weeds but it’s subplot to the “AI is taking over the world” storyline. OpenAI has been pissing off Microsoft — even releasing competing office products (ZDNet) — but Microsoft ultimately holds the ChatGPT maker’s balls in a vice and can make life very hard if it wanted to. Whether OpenAI does become Skynet and control the world might ultimately depend on what deal Sam Altman can hash out with the company that makes Xboxes and Excel.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Australia’s first ever “space” flight is a go
Australia’s first ever space flight (or at least, space flight aspirant) has lift-off — for 14 seconds (ABC News). Gilmour Space has fought defects and unsuitable conditions for a few months, but has officially launched its first rocket, Eris, in north Queensland. After 23 seconds of “engine burn time”, the rocket briefly took off and crashed.
[EXCLUSIVE] ERIS | Test Flight 1 SUCCESS | Gilmour Space Technologies
The Sizzle: Not much to add other than: cool. Keep at it, lol.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
As Australia’s teen social media ban looms, here’s how the platforms are lobbying for an exemption (Guardian Australia) Stake.com founder invests millions to build Australia’s ChatGPT (AFR, $) Stunted govt data sharing scheme to be ‘stripped back’, opened up (InnovationAus, $) Introducing study mode (OpenAI) Google AI Mode adding Search Live video, Canvas, PDF upload, and more (9to5Google) Photoshop just made it shockingly easy to edit objects and people into photos (The Verge) Irrelevant facts about cats added to math problems increase LLM errors by 300% (Science) YouTube tells creators they can drop more F-bombs (The Verge) Age Verification Laws Send VPN Use Soaring—and Threaten the Open Internet (WIRED) Meta Is Going to Let Job Candidates Use AI During Coding Tests (404Media, $) Why does it take longer for MacOS to check an invalid login password than the correct one? (Reddit)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### The Australian at the top of the AI (ab)use leaderboard
In yesterday’s Sizzle, AI company Anthropic said it was putting caps on its Claude Code product because of mega-users abusing its “all-you-can-eat” AI subscription. As soon as this was announced, the Claude Boys began pointing fingers at those people who were boasting about their use — like people on a third-party usage leaderboard.
When I looked yesterday, there was a familiar name at the top of the charts: an Aussie called Geoff Huntley who allegedly had clocked up $100,000s worth of usage and had a GitHub full of, err, odd projects. Dodging the pitchforks that were out for him, I hit up Geoff to find out what the fuck he was doing with all that compute but, alas, I’m disappointed to report that he had found a way to spoof usage. Still, a fun guy and one worth paying attention to!
| geoff @GeoffreyHuntley |
🫡
Anthropic @AnthropicAI Some of the biggest Claude Code fans are running it continuously in the background, 24/7. These uses are remarkable and we want to enable them. But a few outlying cases are very costly to support. For example, one user consumed tens of thousands in model usage on a $200 plan.
5:16 PM • Jul 29, 2025
2.6K Likes 72 Retweets
151 Replies
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & electronics
Anko 15W Portable Charger USB-C 10000 mAh - $7.50 at Kmart Soundcore Liberty Earbuds at Kiwi Teck via eBay Soundcore Liberty 5 for $139 Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro for $174 Dyson V10 Absolute Stick Vacuum Cleaner (Nickel/Copper) - $549 at Dyson eBay Dyson WashG1 (Ultra Blue/Matte Black) - $549 at Dyson eBay (Box Damaged) Sony WH-1000XM6 Premium Noise-Cancelling Headphones Black - $605 at MyDeal
Computing
Lexar Thor OC DDR5 RAM 32GB Kit (2x16GB) 6000MHz XMP 3.0 & AMD Expo, CL32-38-38-96 - $155 at Amazon AU Mitsumaru 32inch QHD IPS HDR Monitor Type C - $199 at Amazon AU Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ Plus 5G (64GB/4GB, 11'') Graphite - $289 at Medinah Traders eBay Fanxiang SSD M.2 4TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe for PS5 - $290 at Fanxiang-Official-Store eBay Lexar NM790 4TB NVMe SSD - $359 at Mwave WD_BLACK 4TB SN7100 NVMe Internal Gaming SSD - $401 at Amazon US Samsung 990 Pro 4TB with Heatsink - $425 at Samsung EDU Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Fiber - $506 at Digilifeonline eBay HP Victus Gaming Laptop 15.6" FHD Intel i5-13420H 16GB 512GB SSD RTX 4050 6GB - $879 at HP Official Store eBay Dell PowerEdge T440 Server Xeon Gold 6140, 128GB Ram, 2x 960GB SSD, 6x 4TB HDD - $990 at ACT Networks (Refurbished) Gaming PCs at Nebula PC RTX 5070 Ti build for $2568 R7 7800X3D, 32GB CL28 RAM, 2TB 7000MBs SSD, 850W PCIe5, RTX 5080 16G build for $3088
Mobile
Lyca Mobile 50GB 28-Day Prepaid SIM with $30 cashback - $17.50 at Lyca Mobile this seems insane but, if true, you might be able to make money from this? Vodafone 220GB 1-Year Prepaid Mobile Starter Pack before 30% cashback & 15% bonus - $179 at Vodafone Boost Mobile 300GB 12-Month Prepaid SIM and $45 cashback - $250 at Cashrewards
# The End
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