### Issue 1727 - Friday 4th November, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- The tech industry downturn is here, layoffs and double digit losses
- RDNA 3 based RX7900 XTX and 7900 XT are AMD's latest graphics cards
- ACCC takes Dell to court for misleading monitor discounts
- Microsoft has a byzantine business structure designed to avoid Australian taxes
- Friday Forum Update
- dghdf5h

## The News

### >The tech industry downturn is here, layoffs and double digit losses

Looks like shit is getting real for many large technology companies. Stripe is sacking 14% of its staff, saying that they were "much too optimistic about the internet economy's near-term growth in 2022 and 2023 and underestimated both the likelihood and impact of a broader slowdown". Lyft are cutting 13% of their staff to "become leaner". Apple (who are still doing very well and despite a drop in share price, is still worth more than Meta, Alphabet and Amazon *combined*) has "paused almost all hiring". Twitter is unsanctimoniously firing almost half of their workforce. Even good old Atlassian has taken a hit, with their share price dropping 22%. No sackings (yet). Expect more news like this as the overall global economic trend veers towards recession. You can't make money when your customers have no money.

### RDNA 3 based RX7900 XTX and 7900 XT are AMD's latest graphics cards

It's AMD's turn to show off some new graphics cards, with the RDNA 3 based RX7900 XTX and 7900 XT announced today. According to AMD, "the new flagship 7900 XTX will deliver up to 70% more performance at 4K than their previous flagship, the 6950 XT". Apparently it's the first GPU to use a chiplet design, kinda like a reverse SoC with multiple functions that would normally be done in a single chip now split up, but on the same chip die/package (Asianometry has a good video about chiplets). There's also support for DisplayPort 2.1 and UHBR 13.5 data speeds, enabling 8K 165Hz output, something Nvidia doesn't support. They'll go on sale December 13th with an RRP of US$999 and US$899 respectively. I look forward to the benchmarks.

### ACCC takes Dell to court for misleading monitor discounts

The ACCC has taken Dell to court for "allegedly making false or misleading representations regarding the price of monitors that consumers could add on to purchases of Dell computers". According to the ACCC "the monitors were not sold for the 'strikethrough' price for most of the relevant time and, in some cases, the add-on price shown was more expensive than if the monitor was bought on a stand-alone basis". You know when Dell say a monitor was $999 but if you buy it with the computer it's only $699, even though if you buy the monitor separately it's $699 and goes on sale for $599 basically every few weeks? That's what the ACCC is pissed off with. That shit might fly in the USA, but in Australia it's against the law.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Microsoft has a byzantine business structure designed to avoid Australian taxes

It's that time of the year - heaping shit on multinational companies for finding loopholes in Australian tax law and getting upset at them when it's really the government that allows them to get away with it. There's many legit reasons for reducing taxable income, but as the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) explains, "for many of these [companies], are they squeezing artificial costs in there to artificially reduce taxable income through transfer pricing?" They use Microsoft as an example, having found "the tech giant is using a vast network of subsidiaries and tax havens in a potential attempt to minimise the tax it pays in Australia." You can check out CICTAR's report on Microsoft's tax dodgyness here.

## Friday Forum Update

Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.

- gurgle is after a soundbar that's easy to use for their parents
- Jusrus and andyb are after cheap, stable internet connections for security camera purposes
- Pete informs us the Kathleen Booth, the inventor of assembly language and early neural network researcher, passed away recently
- Noblejoker started a great thread to share your favourite Windows apps (a similar one for Mac apps here)
- andrew, like many of us, has too many cables and is after inspiration for a sane storage methodology

## Bargains

- CSIRO Double Helix Magazine 12/24 month subscription - $59/$110 from CSIRO Publishing
- Coles Mobile 12m SIM (120GB data, unlimited calls/SMS, VoLTE & VoWIFI support) - $119 from Coles

## Image Of The Day

(Click image to see uncensored. Go on, you know you want to!)

Future Sex was a 1990s magazine based in San Francisco and published by Kundalini Publishing. The magazine was glossy with four-color printing and featured articles, interviews, reviews, erotica, and erotic photography celebrating the zeitgeist of technological revolution, body modification, sexual liberation, and the mainstreaming of sexual proclivities previously considered taboo—from bondage to fetishes to teledildonics. (qdot / Internet Archive)

## The End

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