### Issue 1764 - Friday 13th January, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- SBF gets a Substack to explain actions, digs deeper hole
- US domestic flights grounded for hours due to computer oopsie
- Intel regains the CPU performance crown with i9-13900KS
- Canon PowerShot Zoom Compact Telephoto Monocular
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Tile trackers, Samsung Galaxy Tab A8, various MVNO 365-day pre-paid SIMs, USB gigabit ethernet adapter

## The News

### SBF gets a Substack to explain actions but digs deeper hole

Sam Bankman-Fried isn't allowed to leave his parents Palo Alto home while he's awaiting trial in October, so he's started a Substack to give his side of the story. In it he claims "I didn't steal funds, and I certainly didn't stash billions away" and that if he only had a few more weeks FTX wouldn't have gone bust, blah, blah, blah. Save it for the courthouse mate. If I was avoiding prison on $250m bail for fraud and money laundering and my former friends/co-conspirators rolled over instantly, providing full co-operation to the federal government - I would blog about birds I saw in my backyard instead of spilling my guts about the crimes I committed. That's just me though, I'm not a financial genius.

### US domestic flights grounded for hours due to computer oopsie

The USA's FAA Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system crapped out yesterday and grounded all domestic flights in the USA for an entire morning - all due to a "damaged database file" in not only the live system, but the backup system too. An anonymous source told CNN that they tried to "reboot the system" which takes 90 minutes, but when it came back online "it wasn't completely pushing out the pertinent information that it needed for safe flight, and it appeared that it was taking longer to do that". Total stomach sinking moment knowing that a reboot and the backup were both fucked. Apparently NOTAM is very legacy and severely underfunded. I'm shocked.

### Intel regains the CPU performance crown with i9-13900KS

Intel's new i9-13900KS is the fastest CPU you can buy and chuck in a desktop computer. It's made up of 8 "performance" cores and 16 "efficiency" cores, with a maximum turbo boost clock speed of 6GHz. To achieve that 6GHz clock speed, you'll need a massive cooling setup as the rated TDP at that clock speed is a whopping 320W. Even the base TDP of 150W is pretty damn toasty. More benchmarks will come as it filters out into the retail channel, but initial runs in Cinebench R23 show it handily beating AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X (40301 vs 36193). That could change with the release of AMD's 7950X3D in a few weeks!

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Canon PowerShot Zoom Compact Telephoto Monocular

I found this camera in 2020 so it might not be that special anymore, but the Canon PowerShot Zoom has a 400mm lens but is small enough to fit in a pocket and looks more like a mini telescope than a camera. Canon pitch it as a "Compact Telephoto Monocular" for "hiking, birdwatching and nature gazing". Quality won't be amazing with its 1/3" sensor, but for $400 (possibly lower during a sale) and super small and light (smaller than a smartphone), I'm sure it will fill a niche for someone out there. Here's a video overview of the PowerShot Zoom from a fisherman and some sample photos. Props to Canon for still doing this kinda thing despite the camera market getting totally decimated by smartphones.

## 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.

- Tung would like a set of nice screwdrivers with quality of live improvements for building PCs
- fuzzygel asks if any other Sizzle subscribers are using Dakboard or similar to build in-home displays
- bartron indulged in buying a handheld retro gaming console
- Kagenzo needs a smart thingy that supports the control of top-down bottom-up cellular/honeycomb blinds
- gabors wants to know if any local libraries lend Nintendo Switch games

## Bargains

- Tile Mate single or Tile Mate Essentials 4-pack - $19.95/$87.95 at JB Hi-Fi
- Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 Wi-Fi 64GB Grey - $287 from Officeworks
- amaysim (Optus MVNO) 365-day SIM with 60GB or 120GB of data & 2000 bonus Everyday Rewards points - $99/$119 from Woolworths
- Kogan Mobile Prepaid (Vodafone MVNO) with 120GB data - $120 from Kogan
- Boost Mobile 365-day SIM (Telstra MVNO) with 140GB/260GB data - $163/$240 from Lucky Mobile
- USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet adapter (ASIX AX88179A chipset) - $7.50 from Amazon

## Image Of The Day

A sign posted at the entrance of an internet cafe reads: "You should not spread antisocial material on the internet" top, and "Please come with me because you published materials to harm the unity of the nation" bottom, in Beijing, China Thursday July 20, 2006. Amnesty International accused Yahoo, Microsoft and Google on Thursday of violating human rights principles by cooperating with China's efforts to censor the Web and called on them to lobby for the release of jailed cyber-dissidents. "The Internet should promote free speech, not restrict it. We have to guard against the creation of two Internets - one for expression and one for repression," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty's U.S. branch, in a statement. (AP Photo / Elizabeth Dalziel)

## The End

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