# In This Issue

- NZ gets 10gbit FTTP while our NBN struggles to connect premises and deliver advertised speeds

- Australian Computer Society taken to Federal Court over restructuring process irregularities

- The Mustang Mach E is Ford’s first proper mass produced electric car

- Nice website comparing the video transcoding capabilities of Nvidia GPUs

- Cheap 3rd-gen Chromecast, DS918+ NAS, Samsung 82" TV, Adobe Creative Cloud, TP-Link smart wi-fi switch, GL.inet travel router, Gigabyte & Seagate bonus SSDs, Netgear LTE modem

# News

#### NZ gets 10gbit FTTP while our NBN struggles to connect premises and deliver advertised speeds

New Zealand's been kicking our arse when it comes to internet speeds for a while now, but Chorus (who is kinda like their Telstra) has taken it to the next level with the announcement of XGS-PON 10gbit services going live to 87% of the country starting in Feb 2020. Meanwhile, Telstra is accusing the NBN of forgetting to hook up thousands of premises. They reckon there's over 8,000 customers who have been left without a service for other 36 months due to their install being complicated and NBN not being fucked to put any effort into fixing it. Vodafone is also having a go at NBN for under provisioning connections and wants NBN to add a "buffer" so that if you pay for 50mbit for example, you actually get 50mbit, not 46.4mbit or whatever.

#### Australian Computer Society taken to Federal Court over restructuring process irregularities

I don't know if anyone cares, but the Australian Computer Society is going through some shit right now. A group of "senior members" are suing the ACS in Federal Court, arguing that the decision and process to restructure the ACS into a member-run organisation into a corporate contains "significant irregularities". Apparently a vote on the issue gathered only 747 votes from the total 43,000 members and of those 747 votes, only 561 supported the change - 0.1% more votes than the 75% required to restructure the ACS. Literally one vote determined this change. According to the members taking the changes to court, the ACS will turn into a "marketing corporation", instead of being the industry association it's supposed to be.

#### The Mustang Mach E is Ford’s first proper mass produced electric car

Ford has joined the EV party, announcing their first mass production (i.e: not a compliance car to meet a certain country regulations) electric car. The Mustang Mach E is a crossover style vehicle (lifted hatchback really) that'll start appearing in people's driveways late 2020. Base model will cost US$43,895 and have roughly 370km range. Alex on Autos has a good video explaining the details of the Mustang Mach E and Electric Revs has a nice article with more detail on the Mach E's drive-train (batteries, motor etc.). That's as close you'll probably get to one though, as Ford isn't bothering to sell the Mach E in Australia because we are a bad country that deserves all the ill fortune it gets.

# Not News

#### Nice website comparing the video transcoding capabilities of Nvidia GPUs

Building a Plex server and wondering which GPU to install to take advantage of its hardware video transcoding feature? Elpamsoft has a very handy website comparing the video transcoding capabilities of each of the Nvidia GPUs along with their retail name. Some GPUs only support H.264 (not the newer H.265/HEVC), some GPUs need more VRAM than others and each have limits on how many concurrent transcoding streams they can handle. I put a GTX1650 in my Plex server, which after patching the drivers, handles over 6 hardware transcodes at once without breaking a sweat. If you're wondering why you might need a GPU at all in your Plex server, I have one to ease the load when playing back HEVC content on device that don't support it and for remote viewing when a direct stream won't work (e.g: connection too slow).

# Bargains

- 3rd-gen Google Chromecast - $44.25 at JB Hi-Fi

- Synology DS918+ NAS - $615.20 from Computer Alliance’s eBay store

- Samsung 82" UA82RU8000 4K TV - $2680 + delivery ($200-ish) from Appliance Central on eBay

- 12m subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud is currently on sale for $43.99/m

- TP-Link HS110 smart wi-fi switch with energy monitoring - $29.75 from Smarthomestoreau on eBay

- GL.inet GL-MT300N-V2 travel router - $25.51 on Amazon AU

- Buy some Seagate Ironwolf HDDs and get a free 500GB SSD

- Buy a Gigabyte RTX Super graphics card and get a free 1TB SSD

- Netgear LB2120-100AUS LTE modem - $135.20 from Computer Alliance’s eBay store

🎶 Fuck wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin') - Dr. Dre

😁 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Join us on Slack and chat with other Sizzle subscribers.

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.​