### Issue 1780 - Tuesday 7th February, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Google announces "Bard" conversational AI service
- NBN to give 30,000 families without internet a free 50mbit connection
- My Health Record not getting enough use, government to fund an overhaul
- AI-generated endless loop Seinfeld clone goes on a transphobic rant
- Cheap iPhone 12 mini, Return to Monkey Island, 15% off "site-wide" at Element14, Ozito mini compressor, various gift cards, Crucial 4TB SSD, Nikon Z9 camera, iPhone 14, Google Pixels

## The News

### Google announces "Bard" conversational AI service

Less than 24 hours since I shit on Google for investing in another AI company instead of leveraging the piles of AI crap they've got in the warehouse, they announced Bard - "an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA" - or in layperson's terms, "our alternative to ChatGPT that runs on Google Cloud". They even have screenshots of Bard integrated right into Google Search. Bard will is available to "trusted testers" now and will be made "more widely available to the public in the coming weeks". The AI-wars have begun, and while it is a little scary, it's also way more interesting than NFTs and cryptocurrency.

### NBN to give 30,000 families without internet a free 50mbit connection

Aside from the slow speeds and unreliability the main thing that shits me about the NBN is the cost. You're looking at close to $70/m for a 50mbit internet connection and for many households that's straight up unaffordable, so people go without. It's good to hear that the ALP has semi-followed through on one of their election promises to make the NBN more affordable with the School Student Broadband Initiative. This scheme will provide up to 30,000 families with no internet at home free 50mbit NBN for 12 months. It would be better if there was a concession plan for all Health Care Card holders, but the School Student Broadband Initiative is better than nothing.

### My Health Record not getting enough use, government to fund an overhaul

Despite spending almost a billion dollars on My Health Record since 2017, the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce's latest report reckons it isn't getting enough traction, leading to inefficiencies in Australian health care. Their recommendation, which the Health Minister agrees with, is "modernise My Health Record to significantly increase the health information available to individuals and their health care professionals, including by requiring 'sharing by default' for private and public practitioners and services, and make it easier for people and their health care teams to use at the point of care". Dunno the full details of what modernisation means, but the Minister reckons "it's going to take a significant period of time to rebuild the My Health Record".

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### AI-generated endless loop Seinfeld clone goes on a transphobic rant

Nothing, Forever, is an "endless AI-generated Seinfeld episode that features pixelated cartoon versions of characters from the TV show" that has been streaming on Twitch since December 14. It uses GPT-3 to generate scripts based off existing Seinfeld scripts and is connected to "custom Python code" that "renders the script into a video sequence, automatically animating human-created video game-style characters that read AI-generated lines fed to them". It was all shits and giggles until "the AI-generated clone of Jerry Seinfeld" went on a "brief transphobic rant" that got the show banned from Twitch. Apparently OpenAI's Davinci model shit itself, so the developers fell back to the older and less good Curie model. Yeah, transphobia tends tends to happen with older intelligence, yep.

## Bargains

- iPhone 12 mini & 90-day pre-paid SIM, 64GB/128GB/256GB - $400/$424/$474
- Return to Monkey Island for PC - $26.96 on Steam
- 15% off orders over $250 at element14 (heaps of exclusions, YMMV)
- Ozito 12V DC Digital Mini Compressor - $19.95 at Bunnings
- $10 credit on $200 Amazon gift cards, $100 Ultimate (i.e: JB/OW/EB/GG) & $100 Netflix gift cards at Amazon
- 20x Everday Rewards points on Ultimate Him (Binge, EB, JB, Kayo, Timezone, Xbox) gift cards at Woolworths
- Crucial P3 4TB PCIe 3.0 M.2 SSD - $379 from AusPCMarket
- Nikon Z 9 Mirrorless Camera (Body Only) - $7473.58 from Amazon
- $150 off iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus (e.g: iPhone 14 128GB, $1249) via Telstra
- Google Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 6A, Pixel Buds Pro & a bunch of Nest gear - $1049/$499/$249 from Telstra

## Image Of The Day

Swatch Internet Time (or .beat time) is a decimal time concept introduced in 1998 by the Swatch corporation as part of their marketing campaign for their line of Beat watches. Instead of hours and minutes, the mean solar day is divided into 1,000 parts called .beats. Each .beat is equal to one decimal minute in the French Revolutionary decimal time system and lasts 1 minute and 26.4 seconds (86.4 seconds) in standard time. Times are notated as a 3-digit number out of 1,000 after midnight. So, for example, @248 would indicate a time 248 .beats after midnight, representing 248⁄1000 of a day, just over 5 hours and 57 minutes. (Tradera)

## The End

📻 I Like Your Old Remix Better Than Your New Remix - Regurgitator

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