### Issue 1738 - Monday 21st November, 2022

I'm back! Thanks Josh, Dan and Chris for keeping the Sizzle going while I spent some time away from the computer.

## In Today's Issue

- Elon still appears to be running Twitter into the ground
- Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to 11 years prison
- Creators of Z-Library arrested in Argentina
- News that happened while I was away
- So much cheap stuff on offer today, I can hear your credit card crying from here

## The News

### Elon still appears to be running Twitter into the ground

By far the dominate story while I've been away are Elon Musk's antics at Twitter. Every few hours there's a mind bending anecdote that makes you go "huh, SpaceX and Tesla must be successful in spite of Elon, not because of him". I gave up trying to track them all, but a website called Twitter Is Going Great has done it for me. Just over the weekend Twitter let Trump back on (plus Kanye West, Jordan Peterson and more persona non grata types), its copyright detection system failed (during a World Cup, FIFA is overly precious of fans sharing clips), the head of ad sales and head of trust & safety both quit and there's no content moderators for the entire Asia-Pacific region. Elon rat fucking the shit out of Twitter genuinely makes me sad.

### Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to 11 years prison

Infamous medical laboratory charlatan Elizabeth Holmes has been sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in jail "on four counts of defrauding investors" with Theranos - not flogging dodgy blood tests, there wasn't enough evidence of that - her punishment is for ripping off a few rich people. Just before her sentencing, she told the court through tears that "every day for the past years I have felt deep pain for what people went through because I failed them. I regret my failings with every cell of my body". There will be another hearing soon to determine how much restitution Elizabeth pays the investors she mislead. Her partner in crime, Sunny Balwani, will be sentenced December 7th for his sins of defrauding both investors and patients.

### Creators of Z-Library arrested in Argentina

The US DoJ nabbed two Russians, Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova in Argentina, claiming they operated Z-Library, pirated 11 million books and charged them with "criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud and money laundering". It's pretty tough to run a large scale piracy service without getting busted by the US government eventually, but Anton and Valeriia made it easy for the FBI to find them, using Gmail and AWS for Z-Library activities, who happily handed over all the personal info they had on the pair. The good news is that Z-Library's collection lives on, with the Pirate Library Mirror creating a copy of Z-Library as late as September. Anna's Archive is a great portal to access a bunch of these pirate book libraries.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### News that happened while I was away

- FOSS Patents has revealed that Google paid Activision Blizzard King US$360m in 2020 to keep their vast array of popular games on the Play Store and not make their own app store like Epic's attempt. They called it "Project Hug" and made "about two dozen deals like that" to essentially pay off competitors into not competing with Google in the app store market. Dodgy as fuck and I'm sure to be of interest to governments around the world in their ongoing regulation of digital markets.
- Waymo has received permission from the Californian government to "transport passengers in test autonomous vehicles without anyone at the wheel". Cruise has been hooning around small areas of San Francisco since June without a driver, but Waymo's aiming for a much larger portion, servicing "San Francisco, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Sunnyvale" areas in the coming weeks. I'd love to go for a ride in one of these things, just for the novelty of it.
- NSW has begun a pilot of NSW Digital ID. Eventually you'll be able to enable it in your Service NSW app, take a selfie and you can then use your digital ID to prove who you are with various organisations without having to give them a copy of your physical ID. Obviously there's a lot of shit going on in the background, but at face value it sounds pretty damn good compared to scans and photocopies of drivers licences. Service NSW has a detailed information page about NSW Digital ID. The Victorian government probably won't do anything like this for many years.

## Bargains

- 15% off JB Hi-Fi and Good Guys gift cards at Coles between 23rd Nov to 29th Nov
- 10% off Macs at JB Hi-Fi until Sunday (combine with the above gift cards for mega discount)
- Apple iPad Pro M1 12.9-inch 128GB Wi-Fi (Space Grey) [5th Gen] - $1449 at JB Hi-Fi
- Every single Echo, Fire TV and Kindle on sale at Amazon (e.g: 5th-gen Echo Dot - $49, Echo Show 15 - $320, Fire TV Stick 4K Max - $49, Kindle Paperwhite - $167)
- 2x Echo Dot (4th-gen) or Echo Show 5 (2nd-gen) + Ring Video Doorbell - $58/$133 from Amazon
- Google Pixel 7 Pro 128GB - $1037 at Harvey Norman
- Google Pixel 7 128GB & bonus $250 Google Store credit - $999 from Google
- Meross Smart Garage Door Opener Remote (Compatible with Apple Homekit) - $54.59 from Amazon
- Amaysim 365-day pre-paid SIMs 60GB/180GB - $60/$100 from Amaysim
- Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Gen) - $359 from David Jones
- Bose Smart Soundbar 700 (Black) - $669 from Amazon
- Amazon eero 6+ Mesh Wifi System (AX3000, Dual Band), 3-Pack - $359 from Amazon
- Google Pixel 6a - $549 from Google
- Samsung Galaxy Buds Live, Black - $99 from Amazon
- Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 40mm - $199 from Samsung
- Elgato Stream Deck Mk.1 15 Keys - $139 from Amazon
- VIOFO A129 Pro Duo dashcam - $233.34 from Amazon
- Ring Indoor Cam - $79 from Amazon
- Logitech Lift Vertical Ergonomic Mouse - $84.50 from Amazon
- Nvidia TV Shield Pro - $239 from Amazon
- Samsung 870 EVO 4TB 2.5" SATA III SSD - $498.92 from Amazon USA
- Plex Pass Lifetime - $119.99 from Plex
- Death Stranding for PS4 - $14.95 from Amazon
- The Last of Us Part II for PS4 - $12 at Amazon
- Apple AirTag 4-Pack - $127.08 from digiDirect
- Paramount Plus Annual Subscription - $44.99 from Paramount
- 10% off Nintendo eShop gift cards at Big W
- 50% off Macrium Reflect backup software - US$34.98 for single licence, US$69.98 for 4x licences
- HDHomeRun Flex Quatro HDFX-4DT (DVB-T/T2/C) TV tuner - US$199.99 from Silicondust
- Doom Eternal for PC - $11.54 on Steam via Green Man Gaming
- Logitech MX Mechanical Mini Wireless Keyboard - $165.20 from digiDirect
- Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack for PC - $2.29 at GoG
- Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones - $339 from Amazon
- Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones - $493 from Amazon
- Cygnett CHARGEUP MAXX 30,000 mAh Power Bank - $54.40 from Cygnett
- Panasonic DP-UB820 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Player - $453 at JB Hi-Fi
- SVS SB-1000 Subwoofer - $729 from West Coast Hi-Fi
- Jabra Elite 7 Active/Pro earbuds - $179 from Amazon
- Sega Ages Games (e.g: Fantasy Zone, Wonder Boy: Monster Land, Alex Kidd in Miracle World) - $3.28 each at the Nintendo eShop
- EKO 40" K400FSG Full HD Android TV - $279 from Big W
- TPG 5G Home Internet (capped at 100mbit) - $32.49/m for first 6 months + 1 month free
- Belkin BoostCharge Pro 4-Port GaN Charger 108W - $77.25 from Amazon
- 20% off Sonos gear (everything except the mini Sub, Move, Sonos 5 & Sonos Amp) at the Sonos online store

## Image Of The Day

In 1999 the Japanese mobile phone company NTT DOCOMO released a set of 176 emoji for mobile phones and pagers. Designed on a twelve-by-twelve-pixel grid, the emoji—a portmanteau of the Japanese words e, or picture, and moji, or character—enhanced the visual interface for NTT DOCOMO’s devices and facilitated the nascent practice of text messaging and mobile email. Drawing on sources as varied as Japanese graphic novels, the typeface Zapf Dingbats, and common emoticons (simple faces that computer users made out of preexisting punctuation marks), Kurita, a designer at NTT DOCOMO, included illustrations of weather phenomena, pictograms like the heart symbol, and a range of facial expressions.

The shift toward concise, telegraphic correspondence that began with the advent of email in the 1970s accelerated dramatically when messaging moved to mobile devices. People had even less space and time to get their point across, and the conveyance of tone and emotion became both more difficult and more urgent. Emoji, when combined with text, allow for more nuanced intonation. Filling in for body language, they reassert the human within the deeply impersonal, abstract space of electronic communication. Now, with more than 2,600 in use, emoji have evolved far beyond NTT DOCOMO’s original set into an essential, global, and increasingly complex companion to written language. Nonetheless, the DNA for today’s emoji is clearly present in Kurita's humble pixelated designs. (MoMA)

## The End

📻 Revolt III - Kent

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