### Issue 1909 - Monday 14th August, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Telstra and TPG decide not to appeal ACCC's decision to prevent their mobile network roaming deal
- Musk and Zuck cage match postponed, Zuck's had enough of Musk's stalling
- The Internet Archive cops a new lawsuit, this time from record labels
- Five random things I saw on the internet
- Cheap Google Pixels, refurb Dell monitor, SanDisk microSD cards, HomePod mini, 49" Samsung monitors, Ryzen 7 CPU, 8BitDo Bluetooth controller, refurb ThinkPad X380

## The News

### Telstra and TPG decide not to appeal ACCC's decision to prevent their mobile network roaming deal

The plan for TPG and Telstra to share mobile networks and implement roaming for their customers is officially dead. The ACCC rejected the concept earlier this year saying it would further undermine regional telecommunications network investment, so everyone expected TPG and Telstra to appeal the ACCC's decision in court and that's what the two telcos said they'd do. But today, in an ASX filing, TPG said that it "will not seek judicial review" and Telstra said in its own ASX filing it has "now considered the judgement and will not be appealing the decision". Will be interesting to see what TPG (aka Vodafone) does now in regards to beefing up its mobile network outside of metro areas in order to compete with Telstra and Optus.

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### Musk and Zuck cage match postponed, Zuck's had enough of Musk's stalling

Also in things never happening - the cage fight between Musk and Zuck. After a series of clearly bullshit posts on X from Musk claiming they'll be fighting in Italy, that "everything in the camera frame will be ancient Rome", money will go to support children's hospitals in Italy and that the Italian PM has given it support (she hasn't), plus earlier posts about a sore shoulder and an MRI or something, Zuck pretty much told Musk to fuck off. He posted on Threads that "I think we can all agree Elon isn't serious and it's time to move on" and "if Elon ever gets serious about a real date and official event, he knows how to reach me. Otherwise, time to move on. I'm going to focus on competing with people who take the sport seriously". Once again, Elon Musk has let me down.

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### The Internet Archive cops a new lawsuit, this time from record labels

The Internet Archive has been slapped with a lawsuit from UMG, Sony and Capitol, who have an issue with around 2,700 out of 400,000 records preserved and digitised by the IA's Great 78 Project. They argue that most of the music is "already available to stream or download from licensed online platforms" and "face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed", with the IA's preservation simply a rouse for wholesale piracy. Also, the Internet Archive has posted that after losing its court case against book publishers it will be making changes to its lending program. According to the court documents the publishers want all books "commercially available in any format" removed from the IA - which sounds bad, but in practice, we now have a precedent for things out of print. The New York Times has a good summary of what the case was about and where it's at now.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Five random things I saw on the internet

- Need some tweakable, but realistic looking handwriting as an SVG? Calligrapher might be just what you're looking for.
- 16colors is an ASCII and ANSI art archive. No particular theme, just a large collection of cool as hell artwork made up of ASCII and/or ANSI characters.
- Please enjoy this CT scan of a pumpkin and the accompanying detailed explanation of what you're looking at. Medical imaging technology is fascinating.
- Wanna see the guts of an Apple 140W USB-C charger? ChargerLAB's got you covered. Apple long sold the best USB-C chargers (with a price tag to match) and the 140W unit is no different.
- The Museum of Obsolete Media is exactly what you think it is. Lots of stuff there I had no idea was a thing, like a floptical disk.

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## Bargains

- Google Pixel 6a 5G 128GB - $399 at JB Hi-Fi
- Google Pixel 7 Pro 5G 128GB/256GB - $987/$1137 at Officeworks
- Refurb/used Dell P2219H 22" 1080p IPS monitor - $78 delivered from UN Tech
- SanDisk 1TB Extreme Pro microSD card - $148.11 from Amazon UK
- SanDisk 512GB Ultra microSD card - $40.80 from Amazon UK
- Apple HomePod Mini - $99.16 from Catch with OnePass
- Samsung LS49AG950NEXXY 49" 5120x1440 curved gaming monitor - $1998 from Harvey Norman
- Samsung LC49RG90SSEXXY 49" 5120x1440 curved monitor - $1198 from Harvey Norman
- AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU - $639 + delivery from JW Computers
- 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller for Switch and Windows - $73.96 from Amazon
- Refurb Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga (i7-8650U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, touch screen & stylus) - $450 from Metrocom

## Image Of The Day

The Acoustic-Hearing Evaluation Unit (UNEVA) at the Universidad de Salamanca (USAL) is home to cutting edge research into hearing aid and implant technology. At the heart of the facility is a soundproofed room with variable reverberation that allows listening to be simulated in various sound environments thanks to its Genelec 8020 studio monitors. (Genelec)

## The End

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