### Issue 1826 - Monday 17th April, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- SpaceX about to launch the biggest rocket humanity has ever seen
- Montana decides to ban TikTok for the entire state, not just government devices
- Government deciding if EVs sold in Australia should have "acoustic vehicle alerting systems"
- 8K displays are a waste of money and energy
- Cheap Red Dead Redemption 2, Samsung & LG 34" monitors, FIFA 23 for PS5, 2 months free Apple TV+, Diablo Prime Evil Collection, Massdrop x Sennheiser headphones, Ironwolf 12TB HDD, Edifier R1700BT speakers

## The News

### SpaceX about to launch the biggest rocket humanity has ever seen

SpaceX is gearing up for the first launch of the immense Super Heavy rocket along with its Starship upper stage. The Super Heavy part of the overall spacecraft has 33 "Raptor" engines in it that at full power generate 75.9 MN of thrust compared to the Saturn V's 34.5 MN. When the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft are combined, the launch vehicle is a whopping 119m tall - 9 meters taller than the Saturn V. It's a fucking beast! Launch will happen no earlier than Monday 17th of April 8AM local time, from "Starbase" in Boca Chica, Texas. If it works, it'll be amazing. If it explodes, it'll also be amazing. YouTube live feed kicks off tonight at around 10:15pm.

### Montana decides to ban TikTok for the entire state, not just government devices

The US state of Montana has banned TikTok entirely - not just on government devices, but for everyone in the state. Under the law, "TikTok could face fines if it continued to operate in the state, as could Apple and Google if they allowed users to download the app. The law lifts the prohibition, which would take effect in 2024, if TikTok is sold to a company that is not incorporated in an adversarial nation". The justification for the ban is "Beijing could use the app to obtain the data of users in Montana". They're fine if a US company does it, but not a Chinese one, cool, gotcha. I don't know how the ban works in practice as Montana is a population and economic minnow in the US

### Government deciding if EVs sold in Australia should have "acoustic vehicle alerting systems"

The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and The Arts (that's a mouthful) is taking public submissions on if it should mandate acoustic vehicle alerting systems (AVAS) for electric vehicles in Australia. Personally I hate them and love the silence, but when driving an EV in a car park people are usually oblivious to my movement, so I can understand why they'd be necessary to avoid injuries or worse. Hopefully they follow the USA's lead and ban the use of custom sounds ("goat bleating, ice cream truck music, applause, and fart sounds"), like Tesla implemented for a short while until the NHTSA told them to stop.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### 8K displays are a waste of money and energy

Ben Abraham argues that 8K is a waste of time, money and most importantly, energy. First of all, the "pixels per degree" of an 8K display exceeds human vision pretty much at every distance except right up to your eyeballs. As he calculates, you'd have to be sitting less than 92cm away from a 100" 8K display to gain any benefits over 4K. But the kicker is really energy efficiency. The GPUs and associated hardware, along with all those pixels in the display itself, need orders of magnitude more electricity to do their thing. You know how cars are getting more efficient, but we keep getting bigger cars, so overall the reduction in carbon emissions isn't that amazing? It's like that, but for TVs and monitors.

## Bargains

- Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC - $29.68 from Steam
- Samsung LC34H892WGEXXY 34" USB-C curved 3440x1440 100Hz VA monitor - $583 from Amazon
- LG 34WQ75C 34" USB-C curved 3440x1440 60Hz IPS monitor - $585 from Amazon
- FIFA 23 for PS5 - $38 from Amazon
- 2 months free Apple TV+ for new and "qualified" returning subscribers
- Diablo Prime Evil Collection for PC - $32.95 from Battle.net
- Massdrop x Sennheiser HD 6XX Open Back Headphone - $325 from Drop
- Seagate IronWolf 3.5" Internal NAS Drive 12TB - $312.30 from Amazon USA
- Edifier R1700BT active speakers with Bluetooth - $119 from Centrecom

## Image Of The Day

I took this photo at the National Museum of Australia in April 2022. It was part of a temporary exhibit "celebrating" 75 years of the Australian Signals Directorate. I was dumb and didn't take a photo of the item's label, but from memory this was used by the ASD to skim people's RFID cards. They'd hide the gear in a book, walk close to the target and have enough data to clone the card.

## The End

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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.