### Issue 1559 - Thursday 3rd March, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Bandcamp now belongs to Epic
- Ford splits into separate EV and fossil fuel entities
- Ukrainian support in video games, Russia whinging about satellites
- APNIC explains the intricacies of repairing a submarine cable after volcanic eruption
- Cheap refurb Dell laptop, Uniden CB radio, 86" LG 4K LCD TV, POCO smartphones, Samsung 970 Evo SSD

## The News

### Bandcamp now belongs to Epic

For some reason Epic has purchased Bandcamp. In the sale announcement, Bandcamp said nothing is changing and Epic is helping them to "expand internationally and push development forward across Bandcamp, from basics like our album pages, mobile apps, merch tools, payment system, and search and discovery features, to newer initiatives like our vinyl pressing and live streaming services". Bit sad to see Bandcamp sell out like this considering they were not VC backed and were making a profit, but it's hard to say no to a giant sack of cash. Fingers crossed Epic doesn't fuck up the best place for musicians to sell their art without the suits squeezing them dry.

### Ford splits into separate EV and fossil fuel entities

Ford is splitting its business in two. Ford Model e will develop electric vehicles, with Ford Blue continuing to generate cash with internal combustion engine vehicles. The reason Ford's management gives for doing this is to allow them to operate at "start-up speed", but in reality it's due to investors wanting pure-EV businesses, with the combustion side of things perceived (probably accurately) as dragging the business as a whole down. Same thing as AGL splitting its fossil-fuel and renewable energy generation businesses. All that shit is a liability now, at fucking last.

### Ukrainian support in video games, Russia whinging about satellites

The amount of tech related news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine is slowing down, but there's still notable happenings. EA is removing Russian clubs and the Russian national team from its range of FIFA and NHL games. They also removed "an unlockable Russian helicopter from its newest shooter, Battlefield 2042". The Ukrainian government wants to see more video game activism, asking game companies to "temporarily block all Russian and Belorussian accounts". Roscosmos is stirring shit with OneWeb, a company providing satellite internet in a similar vein to Starlink. They want the UK government to sell off its stake in OneWeb and to promise the network won't be used for military purposes. Roscosmos went on Russian TV to say if someone touches a Russian satellite, they'll consider it an act of war.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### APNIC explains the intricacies of repairing a submarine cable after volcanic eruption

APNIC published a great article about what happens to submarine cables when a volcano erupts, like what we saw in Tonga recently. There was too much sediment and crap in the water so their remote control submarine couldn't be used to dig the cable up, so it had to be done manually by pulling it from various locations and seeing what comes up to the surface. This was more difficult than anticipated because the cable moved kilometers away from where it should be thanks to something called turbidity currents - kinda like underwater avalanches. They also couldn't find a repeater that's supposed to be there and was replaced, along with 90km of new cable.

## Bargains

- Refurbished Dell Latitude 7300 (1080p touch screen, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, i7-8665U) - $699 from Recompute
- Uniden UH8060S NB 80 CH UHF LCD Speaker Radio - $259.47 from Ryda's eBay store (affiliate link)
- LG UP80 86" 4K TV - $2495 at JB Hi-Fi
- POCO M4 Pro or POCO X4 Pro 5G smartphones - $249/$367 from Aliexpress
- Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD 1TB - $145 from Amazon

## The End

📻 Fast G - Ovlov

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