### Issue 1812 - Friday 24th March, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- TikTok's CEO sat in front of a US Congressional hearing for 6 hours and we learned nothing
- Linus Tech Tips and other Linus Media Group channels yanked off YouTube after account compromise
- Twitter still exists, is rolling out half-baked premium subscription worldwide and will remove non-paid blue ticks on April 1st
- New Framework Laptops with AMD CPUs and a 16" version coming soon
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Steam Deck, Baseus powerbank, refurb ThinkPad T480, VIC Energy Compare $250 bonus, PNY 2TB SSD, Toocki 140W USB charger

## The News

### TikTok's CEO sat in front of a US Congressional hearing for 6 hours and we learned nothing

There was yet another dog and pony show in the US Congress regarding a technology company and this time it was TikTok's turn to cop a range of asinine questions for a solid 6 hours. CEO Shou Zi Chew flew in from Singapore and fielded question on ByteDance's links to the Chinese Communist Party, if they spy on American citizens, why they don't do more to "protect children", what data they collect and so on. Shou gave up nothing and ultimately the politicians lost more face than TikTok did to be honest. If you feel like laugh crying at the dismal state of affairs on a Friday afternoon, here's the full session video on YouTube. Or just open TikTok and your "For You" page will be flooded with clips of the ones where the politicians look the most ridiculous and out of touch. What a coincidence!

### Linus Tech Tips and other Linus Media Group channels yanked off YouTube after account compromise

Linus Tech Tips got kicked off YouTube overnight. Looks like a cryptocurrency scammer got access to their YouTube account and started an Elon Musk deep fake live stream shilling a "special crypto giveaway" to its 15.3m subscribers, with the aim of "phishing for people to reveal their crypto wallet details, reassured by a big brand like LTT and Tesla". The Linus Media Group's other channels were also compromised and "given new names focused on Tesla". Linus said on Floatplane that they are working with YouTube to get "to the bottom of the attack vector with the (hopeful) goal of hardening their security around YouTube accounts and preventing this sort of thing from happening to anyone in the future".

### Twitter still exists, is rolling out half-baked premium subscription worldwide and will remove non-paid blue ticks on April 1st

You know what we haven't talked about in a while? Twitter. Ah yes, the social network I loved but now treat like a friend from high school I haven't seen in 20 years that used to be cool but now is a depressing joke, has had some action the last few days. They're finally rolling out Twitter Blue worldwide and for your money you get "a checkmark, the ability to write longer tweets, getting prioritized ranking in conversations, and seeing half as many ads" - but those last two features don't actually exist yet, soooo yeah. Twitter is also removing the "legacy" blue checkmark from all non-paying accounts as of April 1st. The silver and gold checkmarks will remain to denote government/officials and business accounts respectively.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### New Framework Laptops with AMD CPUs and a 16" version coming soon

Framework, the folks making nice upgradeable and easy to repair laptops that ship to Australia now, have some new products. The 13" version of the Framework now has the choice of the new 13th-gen Intel CPUs or, finally, AMD Ryzen 7040-series CPUs. Framework also introduced a 16" screen laptop with higher TDP CPUs, upgradeable GPUs and a "fully reconfigurable input deck". No specs yet for the 16", but pre-orders kick off "spring 2023" and starts shipping "late 2023". The 13" with the new CPUs can be pre-ordered now, but they won't ship for a few months. If I was in the market for a Windows laptop to use as a daily driver, the 13" Framework Laptop is what I'd get. It's a great laptop made by not-shit people. I like how Framework go about it with all the open source stuff and the community around them.

## Friday Forum Update

Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.

- gurgle started a thread about one of my all time favourite TV shows, Mr. Robot
- LiamJM and others are trying to work out if their personal data is at risk via the Latitude Financial breach
- rjmckenzie joins the despair in Amazon's decision to scrub DPReview from the internet
- bja's VPN subscription is expiring and is after opinions on who you'd recommend they give their money to
- warkolm wanted to let us know about Justin Warren's (hello Justin!) great weekly tech newsletter, The Crux

## Bargains

- Steam Deck 64GB - $799 + shipping from PCByte
- Baseus 20000mAh USB (20W output) powerbank - $29.04 from Khakiplaza's eBay store
- Refurb Lenovo ThinkPad T480 laptop (i5-8250U, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 256GBSSD, 1080p touchscreen) - $449.99 from Bufferstock's eBay store
- Fresh round of $250 cash money bonuses from the government via Victorian Energy Compare
- PNY CS1031 2TB PCIe NVMe SSD - $129 + shipping from Umart/MSY/Scorptec
- Toocki GaN 140W 5-port USB-PD charger & 1m 100W USB-C cable - $48 from Aliexpress

## Image Of The Day

In the 1930's Bill Hewlett and David Packard, students of nearby Stanford University, started their company in this garage in Palo Alto, CA. It's considered to be the birthplace of Sillicon Valley. (harry_nl / Flickr)

## 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.