### Issue 1869 - Monday 19th June, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Sam Altman visits Melbourne, gets meeting with federal MP to discuss AI regulation
- Meta scales back COVID disinformation policies while Spotify ignores Joe Rogan's anti-vax antics
- US hospital closes down after failing to recover from ransomware attack
- New browser engine, Ladybird, attracts $200,000 in donations in single day
- Cheap QNAP NAS, Coles & Boost pre-paid SIMs, Acer monitor, Xiaomi battery, Gigabyte graphics card, PS5, Kayo, Sonos sub, Kingston & Samsung SSDs, Dell laptop, AirPods, UE Boom 3, Seagate Xbox expansion card, Xbox controllers, Zigbee USB dongle, AirTags, Telstra 300gb phone plan

## The News

### Sam Altman visits Melbourne, gets meeting with federal MP to discuss AI regulation

OpenAI boss Sam Altman has wrapped up his bizarre "please regulate us" world tour in Melbourne late last week. It got very little coverage in the media, but here's an exclusive interview he gave with The Australian. Not much in there that we haven't heard already and doesn't give any specifics on how to regulate AI, but just that it's something that should be regulated based on how "risky" the AI is. Altman did however score a 40-minute meeting with federal Industry and Science minister Ed Husic, who claims to have "secured a commitment that OpenAI's models would be made available to Australian scientists and researchers", "ensuring there is early involvement in the pre-release of new generations". I'd love more detail on this so-called commitment from OpenAI.

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### Meta scales back COVID disinformation policies while Spotify ignores Joe Rogan's anti-vax antics

Meta has decided it no longer needs to enforce a site-wide misinformation policy regarding COVID, saying that "our Covid-19 misinformation rules will no longer be in effect globally as the global public health emergency declaration that triggered those rules has been lifted". It will instead tailor its rules by region. I don't know why making up bullshit about COVID is acceptable in one region but isn't in another, but I'm also not responsible for creating the biggest bullshit machine history has ever seen. Meanwhile, Joe Rogan's Spotify hosted podcast is on a fresh anti-vaccine streak, interviewing Robert F. Kennedy Jr and letting him spew all kinds of nonsense about vaccines unchallenged. Spotify has removed Rogan's podcasts in the past for similar crap spewing, but this one remains untouched.

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### US hospital closes down after failing to recover from ransomware attack

In 2021 St. Margaret's Health in the US state of Illinois, "required a complete shutdown of the organization's computer network" after a ransomware attack. Over 2 years later and that hospital is now shutting down permanently, citing the ransomware attack as a factor in its demise. Hospital management claims the ransomware attack "halted the hospital's ability to submit claims to insurers, Medicare or Medicaid for months, sending it into a financial spiral". When compounded with a shortage of staff the hospital just couldn't continue. Yeah, the hospital should have had better security and yeah, the American health care system is fucked, but also how shit is it that a bunch of low-grade hackers can take a community's hospital away?

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### New browser engine, Ladybird, attracts $200,000 in donations in single day

SerenityOS is an operating system Andreas Kling and dozens of contributors have been working on that's a "love letter to '90s user interfaces with a custom Unix-like core" that's got a nice community of people hacking away at it. Ladybird is its web browser, also designed from scratch and isn't based off WebKit or Blink or Gecko like every other web browser. Over the weekend Ladybird received two separate US$100,000 anonymous donations. We don't know who these donors are, but it'll help chip away at the dominance of Apple and Google in what is in my opinion, the most important computing platform - the world wide web.

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## Bargains

- QNAP TS-464-8G 4-Bay NAS - $623.22 from Futu Online's eBay store
- Coles Mobile 365-day pre-paid SIM with 85GB data & unlimited calls/SMS - $99 from Coles
- Acer 21.5" 1080p IPS ZeroFrame monitor - $99 from Acer
- Xiaomi QB826G 25,000mAh USB battery (supports pass-through charging, UPS functionality, 100W USB-C PD output) - $141.52 from Amazon
- Gigabyte Eagle RX 6600 graphics card - $272.22 from Computer Alliance's eBay store
- PlayStation 5 Console Disc Edition - $724 from Big W
- Get $10 off Kayo per month (new customers only) via Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Sonos Gen 3 Sub - $993 from The Good Guys
- Kingston NV2 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD - $126 from Amazon
- Dell Inspiron 15 laptop (i5-1135G7, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 1080p 15.6") - $587.40
- Samsung T7 Portable SSD 1TB/2TB - $108/$188 from Amazon
- Boost $200 pre-paid 365-day SIM with 140GB data & unlimited calls/SMS - $163.90 from Oz Tech Biz
- Apple AirPods (2nd Generation) - $168 from Amazon
- UE Boom 3 portable Bluetooth speaker - $129 from Mobileciti
- Seagate Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X|S 1TB - $242.85 from Amazon USA
- Get a $1000 JB gift card when you go on an $89 24m Telstra contract with 300GB of data at JB Hi-Fi
- Xbox Series Wireless Controller - $69 from Microsoft
- Xbox Wireless Controller + Wireless Adapter for Windows - $89 at JB Hi-Fi
- Home Assistant SkyConnect Zigbee and Thread USB Gateway - $55 from Smart Guys Australia
- Apple AirTag 4 Pack - $127.92 from Titan Gear's eBay store

## Image Of The Day

Latrobe Valley Computer Users Group Newsletter - September 1991 (abeckett / Internet Archive)

## The End

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