### Issue 1899 - Monday 31st July, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- New homes in Victoria banned from connecting to gas network
- The Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation needs work according to ACMA
- Foxtel's Project Magneto is probably the Sky Glass TV
- Three cool websites according to Hacker News
- Cheap Samsung SSD, Belkin USB charger, PS VR2, Echo Pop, Meta Quest 2, Catch Connect, Apple Music, Konka flip phone, Telstra plan, Google Pixel 7, Samsung 34" Thunderbolt monitor, JB Hi-Fi coupon

## The News

### New homes in Victoria banned from connecting to gas network

Victoria has banned gas connections on new residential properties. As of the 1st of January 2024, if you're applying for a permit to build a new house, you can't hook up to the gas network, even if you want to. Induction cook tops, heat pump hot water and reverse cycle air conditioning are the way to go. The government is pitching it as a way to save money (and it is) but it's also a huge step to reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions. Everyone seems to be onboard, including Environment Victoria, the Property Council of Australia, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. The only people having a sook is the Liberal party, who aren't offering any serious reasons to stop using gas except "electricity is expensive". Bitch, have you seen the cost of gas??!

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### The Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation needs work according to ACMA

ACMA has published a fresh report on the effectiveness of the voluntary Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation that the main social media companies signed up to 2 years ago. The main finding is that ACMA wants messaging services included in the code, as right now there's loads of misinformation spreading via WhatsApp and Telegram that is going unchecked and unreported on. They also realised it is "impossible to assess whether the actions are delivering the intended outcomes for users and the Australian community" and that there are "significant questions about the extent to which signatories are engaged meaningfully with commitments they made by signing up to the code". No shit.

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### Foxtel's Project Magneto is probably the Sky Glass TV

Foxtel is hyping up something called "Projet Magneto". According to Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany, "They [consumers] are hopping from one app to the next without finding what they want, unable to track what they're subscribed to and how much they're spending every month. Magneto will solve all of these problems and more". Sounds kinda interesting, but really, it's just another Foxtel branded set top box, running Foxtel's software, the centrepiece of which is likely a re-skinned and localised version of Sky's Glass TV - a TV you pay per month for that includes access to Sky. Yawn. Maybe a few drooling boomers will burn their kid's inheritance on it? Hurry up and give me 4K Kayo you dogs.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Three cool websites according to Hacker News

Hacker News can be a circle jerking shit libertarian shitfest full of naive Americans, but it also has good stuff, like this post asking "what's the coolest website you know?". My three favourites from the comments are Every Noise at Once, "an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space". Apollo in Real Time, which takes all the NASA command radio, photos and documents and displays them in real time as if you were following the Apollo missions back in the 70s. River Runner, tap anywhere on the globe and it will tell you where a drop of rain that lands in that location will end up.

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## Bargains

- Spend $300 at JB Hi-Fi and get a $50 coupon for your next purchase
- Samsung T7 portable SSD 2TB - $177.58 from Amazon UK
- Belkin WCH013AUBK 65W dual USB GaN charger - $49 from i-Tech
- PlayStation VR2 Horizon Call of The Mountain Bundle - $769.46 from Amazon
- Amazon Echo Pop compact smart speaker - $39.50 from JB Hi-Fi
- Meta Quest 2 128GB VR Headset - $442.79 from Amazon Japan
- Catch Connect 365-day prepaid SIM with 180GB/260GB data - $150/$200 from Catch
- Free 3 months of Apple Music for new customers, 2 months for returning customers
- Konka F21 Flip Phone (4G) - $69 at Big W
- Get a $1200 JB Hi-Fi gift card when you go on a 24m contract ($99/m, 500GB data) Telstra plan as a new customer
- Get a $200 JB Hi-Fi gift card when you buy a 128GB Google Pixel 7 smartphone for $799
- Samsung CJ791 34" 3440x1440 100Hz monitor with Thunderbolt 3 - $698 from Amazon

## Image Of The Day

During the 1970s a team led by John Mallard built the first full-body MRI scanner at the University of Aberdeen. On 28 August 1980 they used this machine to obtain the first clinically useful image of a patient's internal tissues using MRI, which identified a primary tumour in the patient's chest, an abnormal liver, and secondary cancer in his bones. This machine was later used at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in London, from 1983 to 1993. Mallard and his team are credited for technological advances that led to the widespread introduction of MRI (Wikipedia / University of Aberdeen)

## The End

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