### Issue 1954 - Tuesday 17th October, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Govt looking into mandating crypto exchanges have a financial services licence
- Stack Overflow, LinkedIn & Bandcamp fired a bunch of people
- Intel's new 14th-gen CPUs are reheated 13th-gen CPUs which were reheated 12th-gen CPUs
- Man who got rich exploiting technology wants us to be more optimistic about technology
- Cheap LG 27" monitor, Oppo A54 5G phone, Anbernic RG35XX, refurb Dell laptop, Bimawen 16" 2.5K portable monitor, Lenovo Legion Go, Boost Mobile SIMs

## The News

### Govt looking into mandating crypto exchanges have a financial services licence

Cryptocurrency is still very much a thing and the Australian government is considering a law that'll make crypto exchanges and digital asset platforms "operating in Australia with more than $5 million in aggregate", "required to have an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL)". This will "beholden exchanges to the same rules as traditional AFSL holders, including disclosures, solvency and cash reserve needs, submission of financial accounts and management of conflicts of interest". They'll also need to have "standard form contracts as well as standards for the holding and transaction of tokens and custody software". These regulations are currently in the proposal paper stage, but it seems uncontroversial to me and should be law sooner rather than later to avoid more innocent (gullible? Greedy?) people getting ripped off.

⬆ Share or Discuss

### Stack Overflow, LinkedIn & Bandcamp fired a bunch of people

Dunno if these are related, but there's been a decent chunk of layoffs at tech companies in the last 24 hours. Stack Overflow sacked 28% of its workforce about a year after it doubled in size to ~500 people. Most of the firings are in the "go-to-market organization" and "supporting teams". LinkedIn has let go of almost 700 employees on top of the 700 it said goodbye to in May. Something about "streamlining" despite over US$15b of revenue and growing social media mindshare as Twitter shits the bed. Bandcamp, having crawled away from Epic's boot to Songtradr's, has sacked "about half the company" - which is on top of the 830 employees Epic sacked before selling Bandcamp.

⬆ Share or Discuss

### Intel's new 14th-gen CPUs are reheated 13th-gen CPUs which were reheated 12th-gen CPUs

There's new Intel desktop CPUs. The 14th-gen series chips are updates of the 13th-gen chips, literally codenamed Raptor Lake Refresh, "with Intel tapping further refinements in manufacturing and binning in order to squeeze out a little more performance from the silicon". The flagship units are the i9-14900KF and i9-14900K (the KF doesn't have integrated graphics, the K does) that pack 32 cores (8P & 16E) and come from the factory with a turbo boost of up to 6GHz on the P-cores. If you need balls to wall single threaded performance without any regard to power efficiency or thermals, this is the CPU for you.

⬆ Share or Discuss

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Man who got rich exploiting technology wants us to be more optimistic about technology

Marc Andreessen's published a "Techno-Optimist Manifesto". For those blissfully unaware, Mr. Andreeseen is a big swinging dick of venture capitalism. Look up "tech bro wanker" in the dictionary and Marc's shit eating grin will stare right back at you. He's done nothing of value since Netscape's IPO in 1995 but is still considered important because he has a lot of money that he hands out as investments via his venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (aka a16z). Is it any surprise then, that a man who got insanely wealthy due to the "Techno-Capital Machine" (his words) is a big fan of said machine? There's nothing new here. It's 1990s era thinking before most of us knew any better.

⬆ Share or Discuss

## Bargains

- LG 27GP850 27" 2560x1440 165Hz IPS monitor - $419 from Amazon
- OPPO A54 5G smartphone - $188 from Mobileciti's eBay store
- Anbernic RG35XX handheld emulation console - $65 from Aliexpress
- 15% cashback from Lenovo via Cashrewards
- Refurb Dell Latitude 7390 (13.3" 1080p touch screen, i5-8250U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) - $248.17 from Max Direct Computers eBay store
- Bimawen 16" 2560x1600 144Hz portable USB-C monitor - $198 from Aliexpress
- Lenovo Legion Go pre-order, Z1 Extreme + 512GB SSD or Z1 + 256GB SSD - $1349.10/$1169.10 from Lenovo
- Boost Mobile 365-day SIM with 170GB/260GB data, unlimited calls & SMS - $181/$240 from Lucky Mobile

## Image Of The Day

Larry Page (L), Co-Founder and President, Products, and Sergey Brin, Co-Founder and President, Technology, at Google's campus headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Google, the popular Internet search engine company, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 29, 2004 to raise as much as $2.72 billion in its long-awaited stock market debut. They founded the company in 1998. (Kim Kulish/Corbis via Getty Images)

## The End

📻 Worship The Whip - Be Your Own Pet

😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.

💬 Checked out the paid subscriber only forum? It's a tidy little place to discuss tech with like minded Aussies.

👋 Forums not your thing? The Sizzle has a Slack group you can procrastinate in and chat with other nerds bored at work.

💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the customer portal.

🎁 Make someone's day and buy them a 12 month gift subscription to The Sizzle.

📚 Browse The Sizzle Archive. A few issues are missing and it's not searchable, but it's better than nothing.

🫂 Friends of The Sizzle is a small group of businesses or organisations operated by Sizzle subscribers. Support your fellow Sizzler!

💔 Tired of my bullshit? Unsubscribe and I'll never speak to you again.

## 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.