### Issue 1907 - Thursday 10th August, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Google tells government it should be allowed to scrape whatever it wants to train AI
- NBN misses FTTC/FTTN to FTTP upgrade traget by over 40%
- ABC abandons Twitter kinda, Intel's GPU drivers are spying on you, Slack to get UI revamp
- Nineteen glorious years of Open Street Map, may it never die
- Cheap microSD cards, USB-C & Thunderbolt 3 docks, CatchConnect SIMs, Kayo & Binge gift cards, CCST training, smart wi-fi plugs, Dell 34" monitor, Corsair mini SSD, refurb iPhone XR, Sony headphones, DataCamp for teachers, MySony perks

## The News

### Google tells government it should be allowed to scrape whatever it wants to train AI

Google told a government review of Australia's Artificial Intelligence Ethics Framework that it wants "copyright systems that enable appropriate and fair use of copyrighted content to enable the training of AI models in Australia on a broad and diverse range of data, while supporting workable opt-outs for entities that prefer their data not to be trained in using AI systems". Basically, let us harvest whatever we want for our gain for free and if someone wants to opt-out, they can just list it in the site's robots.txt (which can be easily ignored). How about Google only scrape sites that opt-in, along with some sort of reimbursement for the privilege of using my hard work for your harebrained AI schemes? I'm personally not against using my stuff for training AI, it's the lack of reimburse that shits me. You're gonna make $50b/yr off this data and my data consists of 0.000001% of it? Give me $500/yr or fuck off.

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### NBN misses FTTC/FTTN to FTTP upgrade traget by over 40%

NBN's let loose with how many people are taking up the offer of a free upgrade from FTTN/FTTC to FTTP and it's weaker than expected. Only 89,626 premises have bothered to upgrade over the last 12 months, far behind NBN's target of 157,000 and a small fraction of the over 2 million premises eligible. That said, 16,000 were upgraded in July & August alone so it is picking up pace. NBN hasn't explained why take up is so far behind their expectations, but reckons now that ISPs have come to grips with the upgrade process, they'll be more proactive in marketing it to customers. My gut feeling for the lack of upgrade demand is that people desperately want faster internet but do not want to pay $100/m+ to get it. The value proposition just isn't there for the mainstream customer.

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### ABC abandons Twitter kinda, Intel's GPU drivers are spying on you, Slack to get UI revamp

- The ABC is abandoning the bulk of its X/Twitter accounts to "shield team members from toxic interactions", but will keep four accounts going - ABC News (@abcnews), ABC Sport (@abcsport), ABC Chinese (@abcchinese) and ABC Australia (@abcaustralia). I guess the team members handling those accounts can handle the toxic interactions?
- Intel's latest Windows GPU drivers are packed full of telemetry that includes "the types of websites you visit", "how long and how often you visit certain types of sites", "how you use your computer", "other devices in your computing environment" and a bunch of other stuff. Very gross, but at least you can opt-out, unlike Nvidia's drivers.
- Slack is getting a UI overhaul, it's biggest ever apparently. There's a new sidebar on the left with shortcuts to various Slack features, then a big pane, almost half the window, dedicated to Direct Messages. One of the new features is the Activity window, that shows "all your messages, mentions, and reactions across all your Slack workspaces all in one place".

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Nineteen glorious years of Open Street Map, may it never die

Happy 19th birthday to Open Street Map. It's hard to underestimate the importance of this open source project. Practically every mapping company - TomTom, Apple, Meta, Microsoft & more - contribute to OSM and provide a strong alternative to the commercially driven Google Maps that could die at any time if Google decide it's not profitable enough. OSM is also the starting point for some great projects. I use an app called Water-Map regularly. It collects the "amenity=drinking_water" objects in OSM and puts them on a nice map so I can find somewhere to get some delicious free water when I am thirsty. The "amenity=charging_station" object is another useful one that apps like A Better Route Planner take and make an easy way to plan EV road trips with. Thanks Open Street Map and the lovely contributors who feed it data! By the way, StreetComplete is an Android app that makes it fan and easy to contribute to OSM.

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## Bargains

- Samsung EVO Plus micro SD cards 64GB/128GB/256GB/512GB - $7/$15/$26/$48 from Amazon
- Dell HD22Q USB-C dock - $159 from Shopping Express
- CatchConnect 365-day SIM with 120GB data & unlimited calls/SMS - $109 from Catch
- CatchConnect 365-day SIM with 60GB data & unlimited calls/SMS - $89 from Catch
- 10% off Kayo & Binge gift cards at Coles this week
- Free Cisco Certified Support Technician (CCST) Cybersecurity certification training from Skillsforall.com
- Crest smart wi-fi power plug with monitoring - $7.50 at Big W
- Dell S3422DWG 34" 3440x1440 curved gaming monitor - $516.27 from Dell
- Corsair MP600 Mini M.2 2230 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD - $149 from Amazon
- Refurbished iPhone XR 64GB - $199 from Coles Online
- Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Dock Pro - $169 from Mobileciti via Woolworths Everyday Market
- Sony WH1000XM4 noise cancelling wireless headphones - $399 from Amazon
- Free 6 months access to DataCamp Classroom Access for Teachers
- 10% off Sony's online store & $20 off a $100 minimum purchase on your birthday if you sign up for a free MySony account

## Image Of The Day

The Taishan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant in Taishan, Guangdong province, China. The plant features two operational EPR reactors. The plant's twin reactors each have a nameplate capacity 1750 MWe. Its Arabelle generators are the largest single-piece electrical generators in the world, each weighing 495 tonnes and built by Dongfang Electric. Of the 3500 MWe gross delivered, around 180 MWe will be used by plant systems. Most of this is used to power the pumps that feed water into the steam generators. The pair of reactors can deliver 3320 MWe net for supply to the grid, making these the most powerful reactors in the world. (Wikipedia)

## The End

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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.