### Issue 1553 - Wednesday 23rd February, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Virgin Hyperloop fires 111 staff, will focus on transporting cargo instead of humans
- Lots of people drop down a speed tier when NBN promo ended according to ACCC
- Intel's Bitcoin ASIC, Tonga's internet is back, OAIC reports fewer data breaches, Asustor NASes getting ransomware'd and Spotify's Car Thing is real
- The Moon will be a busy place over the next 5 years
- HP gaming laptop, Sony PS5 headset, Lenovo USB keyboard, Anker bluetooth speaker, Viofo USB webcam, Huawei wi-fi router, Baseus 65W USB-PD car charger, Samsung 980 Pro SSD with heatsink, Radeon RX6600 GPU

## The News

### Virgin Hyperloop fires 111 staff, will focus on transporting cargo instead of humans

Probably the most hyped and most funded of all the hyperloop Elon Musk brain fart contenders is Virgin Hyperloop. They had grand plans for scooting people between Dubai and Abu Dhabi in just 12 minutes, but that's all gone to shit as Virgin Hyperloop sacked 111 people this week. They're now going to focus on moving cargo due to "global supply chain issues and all the changes due to Covid". Or, maybe, hear me out here - the hyperloop is a boondoggle. Oh and Virgin Hyperloop's major investor is DP World, a massive logistics company. That cares way more about moving containers than people.

### Lots of people drop down a speed tier when NBN promo ended according to ACCC

The latest NBN Wholesale Market Indicators report by the ACCC is out and it shows that regular punters are indeed price sensitive when it comes to their internet speeds - "150,000 connections dropped out of the 100Mbps plans, over 2,800 full fibre lines dropped out of the 500-1000Mbps/50Mbps speed tier, and the various 50Mbps tiers gained over 180,000 connections" as promotions run by ISPs, incentivised by NBN to lure users to higher speed plans (and increase NBN's ARPU) ended. Most people don't want to spend more than $60/month on internet, speeds be damned. There's also now 13 ISPs that service all 121 POIs across Australia. Just some trivia for your next BBQ or dinner party.

### Intel's Bitcoin ASIC, Tonga's internet is back, OAIC reports fewer data breaches, Asustor NASes getting ransomware'd and Spotify's Car Thing is real

- Intel has lowered themselves to making Bitcoin mining ASICs, showing off a box called the Bonanza Mine System that competes with other useless boxes turning electricity into heat in the least efficient way possible like Bitmain's AntMiners.
- Tonga's submarine cable is back online, mostly. Digicel said full connectivity is restored and Cloudflare noticed traffic levels more or less back to normal too. Digicel also said they're looking into building a second cable should shit hit the fan again.
- New report from Office of the Australian Information Commissioner says 2021 had 150 fewer mandatory reportable data breaches than 2020 (907 vs 1057) and 70% of those breaches impacted less than 100 people.
- Asustor NAS units are getting slammed with ransomware attacks. The r/asustor community on Reddit reckons Plex seems to be a possible attack vector and Asustor has disabled their myasustor.com dynamic domain name service.
- Spotify's Car Thing appliance is out in the USA. It's literally a little tablet with a big dial for using Spotify and Spotify only. You pair it to your phone over Bluetooth and to the car via either 3.5mm cable or Bluetooth. Does anyone actually want this?

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### The Moon will be a busy place over the next 5 years

Jatan Mehta has a list of all the Moon related missions planned by global space agencies for the next 5 years. The biggest is NASA's CLPS which consists of 7 missions, operated by commercial outfits, to dump rovers of all shapes and sizes, made by all kinds of different organisations on the lunar surface. Japanese company ispace plans to drop a little tennis ball robot along with a bigger 10kg rover called Rashid, from the UAE. They'll do a second mission with a bigger privately made rover in 2024. India's Chandrayaan 3 will take another crack at a moon landing later this year. NASA's VIPER rover will explore the Moon's south pole in 2023. Canada is planning its own south pole mission too. Even Australia is getting in on the action to hitch a ride on a second iteration of NASA's CLPS program in 2026.

## Bargains

- HP Victus 16.1" gaming laptop (1080p, Ryzen 7 5800H, RTX3050Ti, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $119 from HP
- Sony PS5 Pulse 3D wireless headset - $117.86 from Amazon
- Lenovo Preferred Pro II USB keyboard - $9.98 from BNEACTRADER's eBay store (affiliate link)
- Anker Soundcore Motion+ bluetooth speaker - $123.52 from Amazon
- Viofo P800 USB webcam - $48.97 from dynamic.brothers on eBay (affiliate link)
- Huawei AX3 Pro wi-fi 6 router - $76 from Wireless1's eBay store (affiliate link)
- Baseus 65W USB-PD QC 4.0 USB car charger - $16 from AliExpress
- Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSD with heatsink (good for PS5) - $404.10 + shipping from Shopping Express
- Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 Eagle 8GB graphics card - $549 from Scorptec's eBay store (affiliate link)

## The End

📻 Long Slow Goodbye - Queens of the Stone Age

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