### Issue 1742 - Friday 25th November, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Version 2.0 of Stable Diffusion brings large improvements, also more difficult to generate porn
- Tesla makes "Full Self Driving" available to all who purchased it in North America
- More riots and general unpleasantness in Zhengzhou, aka iPhone City
- The internet was not designed and built to withstand a nuclear attack
- Friday Forum Update
- Black Friday has begun proper and I have already impulse purchased too much

## The News

### Version 2.0 of Stable Diffusion brings large improvements, also more difficult to generate porn

There's a new major version of everyone's favourite AI art generator, Stable Diffusion. Version 2.0 has a "a brand new text encoder" that "greatly improves the quality of the generated images", but is also "further filtered to remove adult content". Stability AI's founder Emad Mostaque said in their Discord server that they "can't have kids & nsfw in an open model", "so get rid of the kids or get rid of the nsfw" - they chose the kids. Stable Diffusion 2.0 can now generate images "with resolutions of 2048x2048–or even higher", has improved Depth-to-Image models and loads more stuff that I do not understand but assume will result in the generation of better quality images. Keep an eye out for when Diffusion Bee (a Stable Diffusion GUI for macOS) gets updated.

### Tesla makes "Full Self Driving" available to all who purchased it in North America

All the Tesla owners in North America that splashed out to buy the "Full Self Driving" option for their cars can now use it. Prior to today, if you wanted to use FSD you had to be invited by Tesla (and have paid for it) and achieve a high "safety score" that Tesla would use to determine if you can be trusted with FSD. Now everyone that paid can use the new beta version of FSD. This is apparently thanks to the merging Autopilot (i.e: highway driving) with FSD (city driving) into the one software stack. It's still a beta, so you've still got to be ready to take over at any moment and any accidents are fully your fault - so I don't really see the point, particularly in city driving where FSD can be totally unpredictable.

### More riots and general unpleasantness in Zhengzhou, aka iPhone City

Foxconn's "iPhone City" in Zhengzhou has experienced a new batch of large protests. It appears that after a big recruitment drive for new workers to replace those who fled during the last big lockdown a few weeks ago, the new workers are pissed off about Foxconn changing the terms of their bonus payments. Workers rioting through the Foxconn compound were met with tear gas and "groups of law enforcement officers clad in hazmat suits kicking and hitting protesters with batons and metal rods". The videos posted on social media look pretty wild. In an attempt to placate the protestors, Foxconn sent out text messages to employees offering 8,000 yuan to quit and 2,000 yuan once they board buses to leave the factory. Apple is "working closely with Foxconn to ensure their employees' concerns are addressed".

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### The internet was not designed and built to withstand a nuclear attack

It's common knowledge that the internet was created by the US military in the cold war to provide a way for them to communicate should there be a nuclear attack - except that's not true at all! Total bullshit. It was really designed as a project to link scientists across the US to a big expensive computer. That's it.Silicon Folklore profoundly debunks this myth, even going to the effort of making a chart to show who started peddling the nuclear war narrative first. That narrative stuck around, most likely, because it's sexier than the relatively boring "we wanted to share a computer" narrative, despite never being true.

## 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.

- AliceC is after a "write blocker", which I never heard of until now. They're USB devices that go between your computer and an external HDD to ensure no data at all is written to the external HDD.
- pat wants a 4G/5G mobile hotspot device with support for as many radio bands as possible
- imathew kicked off a thread to discuss the Sizzle's image of the day
- jloh created a thread for Sizzle subscribers to share their Mastodon usernames (mine's decryption@aus.social)
- Some cheap stuff in the Buy & Sell area, like Mitty's iPhone 8 and wongm's Sigma 10-20mm lens for Canon cameras

## Bargains

- WorkRoster.com (rostering software made by a Sizzle subscriber!) is 66% off for the first 6 months
- 3x Xiaomi Bluetooth temp & humidity sensors - $19.49 from topstore360's eBay store
- Logitech MX ERGO Trackball Mouse - $96.09 from digiDirect
- Buy 1 Yubikey, get the Second Yubikey at 50% off from Trust Panda
- Klipsch R-100SW Subwoofer - $398 from West Coast HiFi
- Crucial BX500 2TB 2.5" SSD - $169 from Amazon
- Crucial BX500 1TB 2.5" SSD - $79 from Amazon
- Yamaha ATS-1090 Black Soundbar - $175 from Amazon
- 20% off Gift Cards at TimeZone
- Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Mini PC (i5-6400T, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD) - $125.15 from MetroCom's eBay store
- Logitech MX Keys Mini - $99.06 from LogitechShop's eBay store
- $1200 JB Hi-Fi or The Good Guys gift card if you go on a 24m $89/m Telstra contract with 300GB of data
- Audio Pro PS 125 125W Subwoofer - $131.25 from Hificlearance's eBay store
- TerraMaster F2-422 2-bay NAS (10GbE LAN, 2x 1GbE LAN, 4GB RAM, Intel J3455) - $391.99 from Amazon
- Return to Monkey Island for PC - $28.76 on Steam
- Logitech G413 TKL SE Mechanical Keyboard - $64 at JB & Amazon
- Hisense 98-inch U7HAU FALD 4K Smart TV & bonus $499.50 gift card - $4995 from Harvey Norman
- Sony WF-L900H LinkBuds - $139 from Amazon
- PlayStation 5 God of War Bundle - $888 from Amazon
- Gran Turismo 7 for PS5 - $39 from JB Hi-Fi
- 30% off all Beyond Compare (very useful file comparison software) licences from Scooter Software
- Logitech Ergo M575 wireless trackball - $58.58 from itsaustralia's eBay store
- Telstra $300 365-day pre-paid SIM with 200GB of data - $249.90 from OzTechBiz
- 5% off storewide at digiDirect, which can be stacked with the 6% Cashrewards cashback offer & various camera manufacturer cashbacks (Sony, Canon, etc)
- Refurbished iPhone 8 64GB - $219 from Kmart (in-store only)
- Bose Soundbar 500 - $489 + delivery from TVSN
- Refurbished JBL Bar 5.1 Surround with MultiBeam soundbar - $389 from SydneyTec's eBay store
- Woolworths Mobile (Telstra MVNO), 365-day SIM, 100GB data, eSIM available - $140 from Woolworths
- Sony WF-1000XM4 Truly Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones (Black) - $298 from Amazon
- Samsung HW-Q990B/XY soundbar with wireless rears & subwoofer - $1149 from Powerland's eBay store
- Apple 20W USB-C Charger - $25.20 from Amazon
- Dell UltraSharp U3223QE 31.5" 4K Monitor - $1066 from RonaRigs
- Apple online store 10% cashback (capped at $100) via Cashrewards
- Amazon sitewide 15% cashback between 4pm & 6pm TODAY online (capped at $20) via Cashrewards

## Image Of The Day

CRAY AND SP-2 COMPUTERS, publication date 2/8/1996 (NASA/Glenn Research Center/Internet Archive)

## The End

📻 Belter - Powderfinger

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