### Issue 1679 - Thursday 25th August, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- US government and Elon Musk are very interested in the Twitter whistleblower's claims
- Apple trying to screw over Australian retail workers and obstruct unions in latest pay agreement
- Free payphone wi-fi, Plex hacked, Apple event Sept 8th, Nvidia has too many GPUs, California to ban new ICE cars by 2035
- 100% renewable energy in Australia is extremely realistic and here's the stats to prove it
- Cheap Xiaomi 34" monitor, Sigma E-Mount Art lens, Call of Duty for PC, Google Nest Hub Max, Google Pixel 6a, Chromecast with Google TV, Samsung external SSD

## The News

### US government and Elon Musk are very interested in the Twitter whistleblower's claims

The US government, at multiple levels, is very interested in Peiter "Mudge" Zatko's whisteblowing on Twitter's infosec house of horrors. The SEC wants to know if the claims of intentional misreporting of bots is legit as Twitter has told investors it's not a problem. The FTC has a consent decree with Twitter as part of their punishment in 2011 for misusing emails and phone numbers that Mudge reckons are still being abused. The DOJ is very interested in claims Indian spies were employed and given high level access to Twitter's infrastructure. Meanwhile, Twitter's management is brushing all these allegations off as "foundationally, technically and historically inaccurate". You'd think Elon Musk's lawyers would love this, but Mudge's claims are mostly irrelevant to Musk and Twitter's beef and could help Twitter more than it helps Elon.

### Apple trying to screw over Australian retail workers and obstruct unions in latest pay agreement

I avoid writing about the Big Tech companies and their battles with unions in the US as it's mostly a sideshow for Australians - but Apple is currently tangled up in a fight with unions over here. The Australian Services Union and the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union have filed a claim with the Fair Work Commission that Apple is "unlawfully denying entry to one of its stores to officials hoping to speak with staff" and "blocking a request for more time to consult with members". Apple wants to sneak through a new agreement that'll give workers a pissweak 2.5% pay increase despite inflation running at 6% and Apple making tens of billions of dollars in profit every quarter. Solidarity comrades!

### Free payphone wi-fi, Plex hacked, Apple event Sept 8th, Nvidia has too many GPUs, California to ban new ICE cars by 2035

- Telstra is turning 3,000 of its payphones into free wi-fi hotspots as of today. Over the coming years they will make every payphone a free wi-fi hotspot. Making calls from payphones has been free for 12 months and the most popular service called on a payphone the last year is Centrelink.
- Plex got popped (dunno when or how) so sent an email out to everyone forcing an immediate password reset for all users. No card info or private library info was access according to Plex. Never been a better time to ensure you're using a unique password everywhere and have 2FA enabled.
- Apple's got an event lined up for the 8th of September at a time any sane Australian should be sleeping. They're calling this one "Far Out" and given it a space theme. 100% guarantee we will see the iPhone 14, but maybe it's AR/VR headset time???
- Nvidia has "excess inventory" of gaming GPUs and has a strategy to "sell-in well below the current sell-through levels in the marketplace to give the channel an opportunity to correct". Cheap graphics cards! It also means no RTX4000 series cards until this old stock is gone.
- California - the most car loving state in the most car loving country - is banning the sale of new internal combustion engined passenger cars and trucks by 2035. Doing so will reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions by 30%. California is so far ahead of the rest of the US on EV adoption, it's ridiculous.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### 100% renewable energy in Australia is extremely realistic and here's the stats to prove it

David Osmond has spent the last year running weekly simulations of a 100% renewable energy grid for the Australian National Energy Market. He used actual and real time generation and demand data for the last 12 months, but scaled up the amounts of sun, wind and storage to see if it's possible to power Australia off renewable energy alone. The good news is that it's totally possible for Australia to be 100% renewable and only a very achievable 5 hours (24GW/120GWh) of storage is necessary. It doesn't take into account stuff like fancy HVDC transmission lines from the NT or WA into the east coast grid, which could reduce the need for storage even further. David had a long chat with a YouTuber about his work if you're interested in learning more.

## Bargains

- Xiaomi 34" 3440x1440 144Hz curved gaming monitor - $499 from Gearbite's eBay store
- Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 DG DN Art Lens for Sony E-Mount - $1519.20 from digiDirect's eBay store
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) for PC - $29.50 on Battle.net
- Google Nest Hub Max - $239 from The Good Guys eBay store
- Google Pixel 6a 128GB - $597 at Officeworks
- Chromecast with Google TV - $79 at Officeworks & JB Hi-Fi
- Samsung T7 Shield 2TB Blue - $265.43 from Amazon UK

## 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.