### Issue 1630 - Friday 17th June, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- The weird wine and culture loving cult operating within Google's Developer Studios
- Elon Musk News - SpaceX is sick of him, Twitter employee Q&A, sued for promoting Dogecoin
- Facebook's Pixel caught sending sensitive health data back to Zuck HQ
- Use a 5K retina iMac as an external display by replacing its guts with a driver board
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Farming Simulator 22, Google smart home stuff, Seagate 2TB portable HDD, Amazon Echo, Logitech MX Master 2 mouse, iPhone 12, Nintendo Switch charging case, Alienware & Dell monitors

## The News

### The weird wine and culture loving cult operating within Google's Developer Studios

Kevin Lloyd is suing Google after getting sacked for bringing to their attention the "Fellowship of Friends". He worked as a contractor within Google Developer Studios, a team responsible for evangelising Google's developer products and noticed a large portion of the team lived somewhere called Oregon House - the location of a compound belonging to a cult called Fellowship of Friends - and that they were all members of said cult. There doesn't seem to be anything illegal or bad these people did at Google (who knows what they did outside of work), just selling a lot of the wine their cult makes to Google and a whole heap of cronyism hiring other cult members, but it is certainly creepy and weird having so many of cult members hanging around. Kevin has a blog post about his time there and why he is suing.

### Elon Musk News - SpaceX is sick of him, Twitter employee Q&A, sued for promoting Dogecoin

SpaceX employees are circulating an open letter for president Gwynne Shotwell stating that "Elon's behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks". Read the entire letter, they really are sick of his bullshit. Twitter employees had a taste of what it's like to have Elon as a boss, as they were graced with his presence for a 1-hour Q&A session regarding his plans for the company. By the sounds of it, he is just making shit up as he goes along and has no idea how to actually make those plans happen. There's a full transcript here. Finally, Elon is getting sued by a group of full blown idiots because they lost their shirts on Dogecoin. They reckon Elon duped them into believing Dogecoin is a "legitimate investment". The Dunning-Kruger on display here is extraordinary and multiple layers deep.

### Facebook's Pixel caught sending sensitive health data back to Zuck HQ

We all know Facebook's tracking scripts are a hideous blight on the internet, but a report in The Markup gives solid examples of how shitty they are when used on hospital websites (why are they even on hospital websites??!). On 33 of the 100 sites tested they found the Meta Pixel active on appointment scheduling pages. This sends a shitload of data to Facebook including IP addresses, names, appointment times and the type of appointment. I don't think I need to explain to this audience how Facebook can cross-check this info with their existing data to identify people and add medical stuff to their already intrusive dossier and why it is bad. The article gives other examples of data "leaking" to Facebook, like allergy info, medication doses, sexual orientation, doctors names and more. What a fucking mess we've made of the internet lately.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Use a 5K retina iMac as an external display by replacing its guts with a driver board

I wasn't the only one who thought it was such a waste when the glorious 5K LCDs inside the 27" Retina iMacs were unceremoniously dumped when the computer attached to it was no longer useful to its owner. You can now buy "driver boards" that are compatible with that 5K LCD and re-purpose them as a standalone external monitor. It's a bit of fucking around, but this video on YouTube is one person's attempt to salvage what would otherwise be e-waste. There's a few more on YouTube if you search for "5K iMac driver board". If you were handy with electronics I reckon grabbing as many 27" Retina iMacs as possible, chucking one of these boards neatly inside and re-selling the display for $1000-$1500 would be a nifty little side business.

## Friday Forum Update

Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.

- patsch wants a smart thermostat in their house and wants to know if other Sizzlers have done this.
- 12vdc wants tips on traveling without a laptop, but still needing to use macOS every now and then.
- notgoodwithnames (and me) is after a self-hosted Dropbox/file sync replacement.
- permezel is seeing some weird network activity on their Internode internet connection.
- Got a semi-recent iPhone you'd like to sell? javab0y is in the market.

## Bargains

- Farming Simulator 22 for PS5 - $29 at Big W
- 20% off Google Nest Doorbells & Security Cameras at JB Hi-Fi (get Officeworks to price match)
- Seagate Expansion Portable 2TB HDD - $69 at JB Hi-Fi
- Amazon Echo (4th Gen) - $79 from Amazon
- Logitech MX Master 2S Mouse - $74 from Hekka
- Apple iPhone 12 64GB - $897 at Officeworks & Amazon
- Anko Nintendo Switch Charging Case - $10 at Kmart
- Alienware AW3821DW 37.5" curved 3840x1600 gaming monitor or Dell SE2723DS 27" 2560x1440 monitor - $1289/$299 from Dell's eBay store

## The End

📻 Numbskull - Ash

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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.