### Issue 2000 - Thursday 21st December, 2023

It's the last Sizzle for 2023!! Issue 2001 will be sent out on Jan 8th, 2024. There's a two part 2023 year in review thingy that'll go out to everyone next week and maybe some Boxing Day bargains if there's anything good - but hopefully you don't read it because you're too busy chilling out and avoiding the computer. See ya next year!

## In Today's Issue

- Reuters special investigation into Tesla steering & suspension issues
- EU designates popular adult video sites as Very Large Online Platforms
- Waymo's 11.4m kilometers of robotaxi activity shows it's pretty bloody safe
- WSJ chats to some companies Apple has liberated features from
- Cheap solar MPPT controller, DJI action cam, Airtags, Nokia burner phone, Red Dead Redemption 2 for PS4/XB1, Bose earbuds, Sonos sub, Alan Wake 2 for PS5

## The News

### Reuters special investigation into Tesla steering & suspension issues

Reuters has a feature story about shoddy Tesla build quality, centered around suspension issues and in particular, problematic control arms and links (aka "whompy wheel"). Customers would literally have wheels fall off on new cars, but Tesla would direct technicians to blame owners for abusing the vehicle and refuse to cover it under warranty - despite Tesla's engineers internally documenting that the design is flawed and even ordering multiple redesigns and seeking compensation from suppliers due to the faulty design. To add insult to injury, Tesla did recall the cars using this suspension design in China where the regulator forced them, but not elsewhere in the world. This isn't a new phenomenon in car manufacturing, shit happens, but Tesla's lack of ownership of the problem is disturbing and unfortunately, on trend for the brand.

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### EU designates popular adult video sites as Very Large Online Platforms

The EU has designated Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat as "Very Large Online Platforms" (more than 45 million average users a month in the EU) under the Digital Services Act. As a result, these sites "have to conduct risk assessments and mitigate the spread of illegal content like child sexual abuse material and deepfake pornography", as well as "transparency requirements like being subject to external audits, publishing transparency reports on content moderation decisions, and providing publicly available data to researchers". Will be interesting to see what approach they take to age verification as the Australian eSafety Commissioner is pushing for it, Peter Dutton is all for it and the government is still on the fence.

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### Waymo's 11.4m kilometers of robotaxi activity shows it's pretty bloody safe

Waymo has published crash data from the day it started robo taxi services until the end of October 2023, encompassing over 11.4 million kilometres of driving and 700,000 customer trips, mostly in Phoenix and San Francisco. During that time there was an 85% reduction in crashes "involving any injury, from minor to severe and fatal cases" and a 57% reduction in "police-reported crash rates" (no injury but police notified). There's some issues with the data they're comparing against that Waymo acknowledges, but overall, Waymo's progress seems quite positive. Unlike Tesla's YOLO approach, Waymo's method of precise mapping and a suite of high resolution sensors, plus higher levels of transparency (unlike weaker competitors embarrassed to share how far behind they are) instills way more confidence to me that they'll achieve something useful. Waymo's blog post has more info if you're interested.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### WSJ chats to some companies Apple has liberated features from

This is a kind old-ish article from April 2023, but it lays out the various ways Apple loves ripping off its partners and developers. Featured in the WSJ story is Masimo, who built blood-oxygen measurement devices that Apple was interested in working with, but then ended up adding something very similar to the Apple Watch. There's Blix, who claim Apple stole their "technique for anonymising email addresses during online service sign-ups". There's Tile and AirTags. There's AliveCor and the ECG feature in the Apple Watch. Sure, it's easy to argue that Apple simply did what these companies did, but better, but it really puts the brakes on true innovation when if you come up with something awesome and want to share it with a company like Apple who can bring it to the masses and they just fuck you over and copy it.

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## Bargains

- Victron Smart Solar 100/30 MPPT Solar Controller - $161.81 from Micktron's eBay store
- DJI Osmo Action 4 Standard Combo - $469 from Amazon and JB Hi-Fi
- Apple Airtag 4-pack - $129 from MyDeal
- Nokia C32 Android 13 smartphone (4GB RAM, 64GB storage) - $129 from Target
- Red Dead Redemption II for PS4/Xbox One - $27 from Amazon
- Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds - $382.46 from Myer
- Sonos Sub Mini - $545 at JB Hi-Fi
- Alan Wake II for PS5 - $72.76 from the PlayStation store

## Image Of The Day

Liquid crystals in a mobile LCD screen. Alexey Marchenko. 20X objective lens magnification. (2020 Nikon Photomicrography Competition)

## The End

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## Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

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.