### Issue 1544 - Thursday 10th February, 2022

You might have noticed a new footer in today's issue, which has affiliate links to Fastmail, Aussie Broadband and Vultr. I deliberately chose these businesses to affiliate with because I'm a long term user of their services and their referral offers include a discount of benefit for both of us.

I don't really want The Sizzle to become a place where corporations get a voice and take up valuable space - there's plenty of that out in society already - but these are bills I need to pay and by using these affiliate links, my financial burden is lowered and stress levels about slow growth in Sizzle subscribers eased. But just know I feel appropriately guilty for placing them there.

## In Today's Issue

- Samsung Unpacked: Galaxy S22, S22 Plus, S22 Ultra & S8 Tab
- Nintendo Direct: more Mario Kart, Switch Sports and Portal
- NBN increases ARPU, ACMA hands out biggest ever fine for spamming, anti-troll law enters Parliament
- US radio station bricking car headunits with dodgy graphic
- Cheap 10TB HDD, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, 10% off Macs, EVGA 1080p capture device, Lenovo wireless keyboard & mouse, free Telsim SIM, free 7-day Optus eSIM trial, Megaboom 3 speaker, Samsung S22 range pre-order offers

## The News

### Samsung Unpacked: Galaxy S22, S22 Plus, S22 Ultra & S8 Tab

Samsung's got new stuff for ya. The Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus are similar to last year's Galaxy phones in their design but with the usual spec upgrades like improved camera, faster SoC, better display and so on. The S22 Ultra takes over the role as the big boy now that the Note branding is discontinued. Probably the best new feature of all these phones is the promise of "at least four generations of Android OS updates" to match the 4 years of security updates. The Galaxy Tab range got some love too, with the addition of a large 14.6" unit packing an OLED panel, Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 1 SoC, 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage. Samsung's Australian website has all the pricing and release dates if you're keen.

### Nintendo Direct: more Mario Kart, Switch Sports and Portal

Nintendo also did a live stream to announce new products this morning. As usual with most Nintendo stuff, it all looks like methods of distracting primary school kids for a few hours to me, but I know adults enjoy this stuff too. Games I might entertain playing include a large update to Mario Kart on the Switch that'll add 48 new tracks they've remastered from all the old iterations of Mario Kart. Switch Sports is the venerable Wii Sports, but made for the Switch. Make sure to strap those controllers to your wrist nice and tight! Valve is gonna bring the Portal series of games to the Switch some time this year. This is a personal failing, but I've never played Portal. Don't judge me.

### NBN increases ARPU, ACMA hands out biggest ever fine for spamming, anti-troll law enters Parliament

- NBN finally increased its ARPU - by a dollar from $45 where it's been stuck for years, to $46. Good, but still off the $51 target. This is largley due to NBN's free CVC boost during COVID lockdowns coming to an end and users upgrading from 12mbit or 25mbit plans to 50mbit.
- ACMA has handed down its biggest ever fine for spamming, slapping a rather weak $2.5m penalty on Sportsbet. ACMA claims between Jan 2020 and March 2021, Sportsbet sent over 150,000 SMSes and emails to 37,000 customers that previously asked to be unsubscribed.
- The infamous "anti-trolling" bill that'll allow "those who believe they have been defamed online to apply to identify the anonymous posters of this material" has been introduced into Parliament, despite the law's inquiry not submitting its feedback.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### US radio station bricking car headunits with dodgy graphic

A bunch of 2014-2017 Mazdas in Olympia, Washington (the capital city of Washington, just outside Seattle) have had their radios bricked by an errant data transmission. Anecdotal evidence seems to be that all these drivers were listening to KUOW on digital radio (the yanks use HD Radio, we use DAB) that broadcasts an image to pop up on the radio's display on their screen as a nice little treat for listeners. The image didn't have a file extension, which caused the headunits of these cars to reboot, then get stuck into a boot loop as the image is likely cached. It impacts the reversing camera too and the only way to fix this is for Mazda to replace it for ~US$1500. Computers, don't trust em.

## Bargains

- Western Digital Red Plus 10TB HDD - $359 from Amazon USA
- Free 28-day SIM with 30GB data from Telsim (Telstra MVNO)
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for Nintendo Switch - $53.30 from the Nintendo eShop
- 10% off Macs at JB Hi-Fi again
- EVGA XR1 1080p HDMI USB-C capture device - $79 from BPC Tech's eBay store
- Lenovo Professional Ultraslim wireless keyboard & mouse - $37 at Harvey Norman
- 7-day free trial of Optus Flex eSIM plan
- UE Megaboom 3 portable Bluetooth speaker - $208.25 from Amazon
- Various Samsung Galaxy S22/S22 Plus/S22 Ultra pre-order offers from Officeworks, JB Hi-Fi, Amazon, Vodafone, Westpac, Samsung and Samsung's Education Store

## The End

📻 Surf Hell - Little Barrie

😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.

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📚 Browse The Sizzle Archive. A few issues are missing and it's not searchable, but it's better than nothing.

## Affiliate Links

Fastmail. Email where you are the customer, not the product. Loads of features, smooth no-nonsense web interface, plus calendar and contact hosting. They've been around for 20 years and I've been a customer for over 10. Use this link and get 10% off your first year and I get around 30c/month you remain a customer.

Aussie Broadband. Great customer service and responsive to community needs (they have an "unofficial" Discord, they publish their CVC!). I've been a customer since 2017 and don't plan on going anywhere. Use my referral code (1001031) to get $50 credit when signing up for an NBN plan and I get $50 credit towards my next bill.

Vultr. All my Australian-based hosting needs (3x VPSes) are handled by Vultr. Easy to use admin interface, automatic backups, built-in firewall, custom ISO support and reasonable prices. Sign up with my link and score $100 credit. I get $25 credit if you're active for 30+ days and spend at least $25.

## Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

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.