### Issue 1898 - Friday 28th July, 2023

Don't freak out, it's Raj again. I promise not to overcook the snags! Now let's pop a cold one and kick the weekend off early with some Sizzle sweetness...

## In Today's Issue

- Centrelink's new $191m calculator gets written off
- Tesla's driving range estimates are a lie
- Android phones will now notify you of snooping AirTags
- Kiwi YouTuber 'reubs' recreates "The Simpsons: Hit & Run" in UnrealEngine
- Bargains, bargains, bargains

## The News

### Centrelink's new $191m calculator gets written off

McCrapper (ScoMo) & co tendered out the construction of a new entitlement calculator engine (ECE) to be built for Centrelink, throwing $23m at their bros, Infosys to do so. In the next three years additional boosts of $44m, $67m & $57m were paid totalling $191m until Bill-bo Baggins (Bill Shorten under Albo) decided to put an end to it. Apparently they did get the thing working in a shadow mode alongside the current system, which is no-shit called "ISIS", but no one was confident enough to let it takeover and so it was decided to just keeping using the old one. Now look, I know projects are never simple, but this feels like something an Excel Spreadsheet could've done. I'll happily do up some pivot tables for you Bill. Good price too, just $2m.

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### Tesla's driving range estimates are a lie

It's not just cake that's a lie, its how far you can drive your Tesla too. Rueters is reporting that Musk was directly involved in the rigging of driving range estimates on Tesla vehicles a decade ago. If a car had more than 50% of its battery left the algorithm would throw up a more "rosy" estimate of the actual driving range remaining. At 50% and below an accurate range would be shown, then at 0% a 24km buffer was left. They're unsure if Tesla is still using the same rosy algo in today's models, however they were recently fined by South Korean regulators, noting that their cars were delivering as little as half their advertised range in cold weather. Yikes.

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### Android phones will now notify you of snooping AirTags

Google are rolling out an update for all Android 6+ devices that will alert you if an unknown tracking device is following you. The feature was announced back at Google's I/O event and currently only works with Apple's AirTags. It's a custom solution and not based off the joint Apple-Google tag specification which is yet to be finalised. If you find a rogue AirTag, your Android device will be able to read some basic info from it, which may include the owner's name or last few digits of their phone number, depending on how it was setup. Along with this Google announced they'll be delaying their own "Find My Device" network plans, wanting to wait until the joint spec was completed and then give Apple the opportunity to implement it in iOS.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Kiwi YouTuber 'reubs' recreates "The Simpsons: Hit & Run" in UnrealEngine

Occasionally those long, dark, deep YouTube holes turn up something truly incredible. Thankfully at the bottom of one I went down a year ago was Reuben 'reubs' Ward, an UnrealEngine game developer who recreates old video games in the modern engine. The latest of these series being his journey to bring back "The Simpsons: Hit & Run". His videos and Patreon take you on the full ride, starting with a completely blank slate to the finished product. Along the way he explains details around why the game was made the way it was, due to limitations in power available more often than not, and how he replicates them in the new world. You don't have to be techie in any way to enjoy these and if you're at all interested I highly recommend checking it out.

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## Bargains

- ZSUS 14" FHD IPS Portable Monitor - US$78.60 from AliExpress
- DJI Mini 3 with DJI RC-N1 controller - $674 from JB Hi-Fi
- Garmin Epix (Gen 2) Sports Watch - $749 from JB Hi-Fi
- Halo: The Master Chief Collection (XB1, PC, Xbox X) - $12.48 from Xbox
- Immortals Fenyx Rising (PS4, PS5, Xbox X) - $5 from EB Games
- The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4) - $19 from Amazon

## Image Of The Day

Press Photos of the iPod Hi-Fi (Wilhelm4 / Internet Archive)

## The End

📻 The Vampyre of Time and Memory - Queens of the Stone Age

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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.