### Issue 1754 - Tuesday 13th December, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas on request of US government
- ATO's old computer system craps out, leaves abuse survivors scrambling for info on their past
- Brighten your day with this video of Elon Musk booed on stage at Dave Chappelle gig
- Take the kids to a Telstra payphone and dial #HOHOHO for a bit of fun
- Cheap GoPro, Razer keyboard, 4TB Crucial SSD, Xbox Series S, Samsung 980 Pro SSD, 10% off JB/OW/EB/GG gift cards, Samsung Galaxy A13

## The News

### Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas on request of US government

Former cryptocurrency posterboy Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBF) has been arrested in the Bahamas. We don't know what he's been charged with, just that the US District Attorney for the Southern District of New York sent an extradition request to the Bahamian government and they acted on it. More details to come tomorrow. A scoop in the AFR today says that the FTX and Alameda Research crew had a group chat in Signal titled "Wirefraud" (lol). Bloomberg is reporting that FTX's US lawyers reckon "the Bahamas asked him to mint new digital coins worth hundreds of millions of dollars and then transfer those tokens to the control of island officials". Looks like we got ourselves a new Elizabeth Holmes in SBF.

### ATO's old computer system craps out, leaves abuse survivors scrambling for info on their past

The ATO's 20-year-old internal software tool used to retrieve old tax returns has "stopped working and cannot be fixed" according to iTnews. Anyone wanting a tax return prior to 1997 is now shit out of luck. This is particularly bad because many institutional child sexual abuse survivors claiming compensation via the National Redress Scheme use historical ATO data to verify their income and calculate how much they are owed. A lawyer representing abuse survivors says that "abuse survivors struggle to piece together shattered lives. Sporadic work and insecure living mean survivors rely heavily on the ATO to prove what they’ve earned throughout their life". Now that's no longer available to them, making a difficult process even more difficult.

### Brighten your day with this video of Elon Musk booed on stage at Dave Chappelle gig

Towards the end of his San Francisco gig last night, Dave Chappelle invited Elon Musk on stage. The crowd then erupted in boos. Check out the videos, it's incredibly satisfying seeing the world's richest man eat shit in public. I don't know what Elon expected? People cheering and clapping like one of this stage managed Tesla or SpaceX events? Dave Chappelle tried to crack a few jokes to lighten the mood but it didn't work so he insulted the audience instead. The show ended with Elon Musk yelling into a microphone, "I'm rich, bitch". A few hours later Elon tried to defend himself on Twitter, saying "technically, it was 90% cheers & 10% boos", then deleted the tweet and is trying to pretend it never happened.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Take the kids to a Telstra payphone and dial #HOHOHO for a bit of fun

Dial #HOHOHO (#464646) at a Telstra payphone and until the 24th of December, you'll be connected to Santa's workshop. Kids can chat to talk to Mrs. Claus, an elf, or the big man himself via a series of voice prompts. Gough Lui gave it a shot and mapped out all the options available and recorded a bunch of audio from the service. Impressive that Telstra set this up for all their payphones. I think the point of it is to get kids familiar with what a telephone is, as bizarre as that sounds. Also thank you Gough for documenting all this. One day there will be people looking back on this in utter fascination.

## Bargains

- GoPro HERO9 Black Bundle + 1 Year Subscription - $379.95 from GoPro
- Razer BlackWidow Lite Keyboard - $48.45 from Microsoft's eBay store
- Crucial MX500 4TB 2.5" SATA SSD - $391.89 from Amazon USA
- Xbox Series S console - $399 at Target
- Samsung 980 PRO with Heatsink 2TB Gen 4 NVMe M.2 SSD (good for PS5) - $369 from Amazon
- 10% off EB Games, JB Hi-Fi, Officeworks & The Good Guys gift cards at Woolworths
- Samsung Galaxy A13 4G 128GB smartphone - $219 at Kmart

## Image Of The Day

Color pictorial map by Kirby Scudder, shows Silicon Valley occupying practically all the real estate from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. The expanse from the west to the east coast of the US is depicted in bands with the Pacific Ocean in the foreground, then I-280 then US 101, then the San Francisco Bay and in the far distance the Atlantic Ocean. In the foreground bands there are depicted many high tech companies, advertising and communication companies, business and distributors of digital contents, along with Stanford, the San Francisco Bay, Cal Berkeley, then at left is Lake Tahoe and the Rockies, and at right Los Angeles. (jakej / Internet Archive)

## The End

📻 Late of the Pier - Broken

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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.