### Issue 1877 - Thursday 29th June, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Former federal MP Stuart Robert accused of taking bribes for securing tech contracts
- Launtel lets loose to the ACCC with all the problems they have with the NBN
- 80% of Google's video ads don't meet the standards they promised to advertisers
- GPT-3 is very good at bullshitting in tweet form
- Cheap Goose Game, Boost Mobile, Logitech emjoi keyboard, Pixel 7 Pro, Samsung S23 & Watch5, Sennheiser earbuds, refurb Dell SFF PC & MacBooks, Edifier bookshelf speakers, UE Megaboom 3 speaker

## The News

### Former federal MP Stuart Robert accused of taking bribes for securing tech contracts

Former MP Stuart Robert has been accused of receiving kickbacks for awarding "lucrative" tech contracts for Services Australia and the NDIS. A company called Synergy 360 was set up to lobby government for tech contracts, funded by companies like Infosys, Salesforce and Unisys. In a sworn statement to a parliamentary inquiry, Anthony Dalby (ex-husband of one of the co-founders of Synergy 360) alleges that a company called United Marketing was funneling cash from Synergy 360 to Stuart Robert to secure contracts. In a separate statement, someone else that worked at Synergy 360 gave orders to send "the earnings from Synergy 360 to a company called Australia Property Trust, which was part owned by Roberts". It's all very messy and a lot of unproven allegations, but sounds to me like Roberts would be the ideal candidate for the National Anti-Corruption Commission's first investigation.

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### Launtel lets loose to the ACCC with all the problems they have with the NBN

Launtel has made an interesting submission to the ACCC's ongoing deliberation of NBN's wholesale agreement with RSPs. They feel our pain and want pricing on the "legacy" high speed tiers like 250/100, 500/200 and 1000/400 to drop dramatically. These speed tiers are "attractive to a certain high end residential user" (hello, yes, that's me!) and believe this is "a massive untapped part of the market that could raise NBN's ARPU". The extra upload speeds "cost NBN and RSP almost nothing, given that most data pipes are symmetrical and they are always sized for the download portion". The full submission is only 2 pages and worth a read to understand how ISPs are as pissed off with NBN's half-arsed practices as users are.

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### 80% of Google's video ads don't meet the standards they promised to advertisers

Google's Video Partners program promises that "the ads it places will run on high-quality sites, before the page's main video content, with the audio on, and that brands will only pay for ads that aren't skipped". However according to research by Adalytics and reported by the Wall Street Journal, 80% of the ads run between since 2020 did not meet those standards and ad agencies like UM Worldwide and AIDEM are pissed off, asking for their money back. Not specifically video ads and Google, but this level of fraud and incorrect stats backs up my experience trying to promote The Sizzle via paid ads, so I'm not surprised. 80% is pretty wild though. Ads are literally Google's main job and they can't even do that properly.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### GPT-3 is very good at bullshitting in tweet form

A study by researchers at the University of Zurich found that people they surveyed couldn't tell if a tweet was written by a human or GPT-3 and are more likely to believe disinformation when it is generated by GPT-3. Granted, the tweets were out of context (couldn't see the user's profile or past tweets), but when applied in this manner, people legitimately couldn't tell it was written by a bot and were more likely to believe it. Luckily then, that the Vatican (via a Catholic university think tank) has released a handbook titled "Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap" - a "much-needed corporate primer offers a practical roadmap with specific recommendations to help organizations address the ethical complexities associated with disruptive technologies such as AI, machine learning, encryption, tracking, and others".

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## Bargains

- Untitled Goose Game for Switch - $15 on the Nintendo eShop
- $45 cashback on the $250/260GB and $30 cashback on the $170/140GB 12-month Boost Mobile pre-paid SIMs via Cashrewards
Logitech POP Keys wireless mechanical keyboard with emoji keys - $74 from Amazon
- Google Pixel 7 Pro 128GB/256GB/512GB - $999/$1149/$1299 from JB Hi-Fi
- Samsung S23+ 256GB & Watch5 - $980.25 from JB Hi-Fi & Telstra with a bit of fucking around
- Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3 earbuds - $269.10 from Amazon
- Refurb Dell Optiplex 7060 SFF PC (i5-8500, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $269.10 from Australian Computer Traders
- Edifier R1380DB active bookshelf speakers - $99 from Centrecom
- Refurb 14" Apple MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1889 from JB Hi-Fi
- Refurb 13" MacBook Air (M2, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) - $1259 from JB Hi-Fi
- Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3 Portable Bluetooth Speaker - $197 from Amazon

## Image Of The Day

Water color from the Atari 400 user manual. Painted around or just before 1979. (lotig / Internet Archive)

## The End

📻 New Noise - Refused

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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.