### Issue 1756 - Thursday 15th December, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Dutton using QLD killings to justify encryption backdoors
- Facebook repeats mistakes of Myanmar in Ethiopia
- NBN jacking up prices "to maintain current service levels"
- ACMI, Tetris, GeForce Now, Million Dollar Homepage, Felt
- Cheap 98" TCL TV, Samsung tablet, Sid Meier game pack, Samsung SSD, Sonos products, Asus ROG Phone 6, iPad Pro M2 11", Telstra post-paid plan

## The News

### Dutton using QLD killings to justify encryption backdoors

Opposition leader Peter Dutton is back on his anti-encryption bullshit again, after it appears that the recent mass murder in rural Queensland was inspired by conspiracy theories the shooters got their brains cooked via the internet. He reckons accessing encrypted data is "just a technology issue", comparing it to the contents of a safe and that police should be given access to it. I don't know what that has to do with the Queensland shooting as cookers talk about all this shit in the clear. He added that "I worry about information your children are accessing online" and "we should be very realistic about the benefit of the internet in many ways in our lives", due to the amount of disinformation being spread on the internet. Legitimate issues, none of which giving cops an encryption backdoor will make a 0.001% difference to.

### Facebook repeats mistakes of Myanmar in Ethiopia

Remember Facebook's antics in Myanmar? That whole thing where a genocide happened and Facebook was the main tool used to incite it because nobody at Facebook was moderating an entire country because it wasn't in English? It's happened again in Ethiopia. Two Ethiopian researchers and a Kenyan human rights group are suing meta for "not only failing to moderate violent posts about the country's conflict in the Tigray region, but also amplifying the most virulent ones". There was only 25 moderators for Ethiopia's 117m population. Facebook knows moderation is important, it does it in the USA, Australia, UK, etc, but can't be fucked doing it elsewhere in the world - with devastating consequences.

### NBN jacking up prices "to maintain current service levels"

NBN wants to increase prices on the very popular 50mbit speed tier (about half of NBN customers are on 50mbit) but does not "want to create an expectation that price rises mean better baseline service standards, arguing it should be able to charge more just to maintain its current service levels". The fucken audacity. Imagine being any other business and saying this! RSPs are obviously not happy with this as they'll cop all the heat from customers who see bills going up but their unreliable copper connections stay the same or get worse over time. NBN's pricing is all bullshit anyways, made up by the government, as Mark Newton over on Mastodon explains much better than I ever could.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### ACMI, Tetris, GeForce Now, Million Dollar Homepage, Felt

- A peek into ACMI's media preservation lab, sponsored by Blackmagic Design. Everyone involved with this is doing the Lord's work. May they live forever. By the way, an ACMI membership is a great Christmas present and helps support one of my favourite places in Melbourne!
- Looking for a quick and easy way to play Tetris? Tetri.io runs in the browser and is smooth as silk. Has multiplayer options or solo play with various scenarios, no ads and is totally free. It may or may not be why today's issue is a little late.
- There's been an Apple Silicon version of Nvidia's GeForce Now game streaming service for a few months now. Perfect for those with a fat internet connection who want to enjoy some fancy 3D games but don't want to (or can't afford) to build a gaming rig.
- The National Library's Trove Twitter account reminded me about the Million Dollar Homepage. In 2011 (not that long ago!) someone set up a website with 1,000,000 pixels and sold each pixel for a dollar. This is what it looked like. What a time to be alive.
- Felt is an interesting web app I stumbled across a few months ago. At its most basic it lets you annotate a map and share it with others. You can draw routes, create pins (with emoji), text boxes, freehand lines, links and so on. Could be very useful if you want to share a particular journey with people.

## Bargains

- TCL C735 98" 4K QLED TV - $5596 + delivery from The Good Guys
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 128GB Dark Grey Wi-Fi - $888 from Amazon
- Sid Meier's Ultimate Collection Holiday Encore for PC - $23 from Humble Bundle
- Samsung 980 PRO with Heatsink 2TB Gen 4 NVMe M.2 SSD - $329 on Amazon
- 15% off all Sonos gear at The Good Guys. Don't forget the 10% off Good Guys gift cards at Woolworths and to price match other shops like VideoPro to save even more.
- Asus ROG Phone 6 5G 512GB (Black) - $1281.55 from JB Hi-Fi
- iPad Pro 11" M2 256GB - $1436.31 from Sydneytec's eBay store
- $1200 JB gift card when you sign up for a $99/m 24m 300GB/m Telstra contract (i.e: $49/m after cashing in the gift card)

## Image Of The Day

Apple Mac Colour Classic, with dust cover, keyboard and mouse, boxed software and manual. 1993 (Science Museum Group)

## The End

📻 I Wanna Be Adored - The Stone Roses

😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.

💬 Checked out the paid subscriber only forum? It's a tidy little place to discuss tech with like minded Aussies.

👋 Forums not your thing? The Sizzle has a Slack group you can procrastinate in and chat with other nerds bored at work.

💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the customer portal.

📚 Browse The Sizzle Archive. A few issues are missing and it's not searchable, but it's better than nothing.

🫂 Friends of The Sizzle is a small group of businesses or organisations operated by Sizzle subscribers. Support your fellow Sizzler!

💔 Tired of my bullshit? Unsubscribe and I'll never speak to you again.

## Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

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.