# Issue 874

##### Monday, 13th May 2019

## In This Issue

- Uber's IPO was a dud
- Silicon Valley makes its own stock exchange
- 60 beta Starlink satellites ready to launch
- Perth's getting the world's fastest computer
- ALP will give game industry cash if they win the election
- The 8 year old i7-2600K CPU is still competitive
- 10 years of blockchain, still no good use for it
- Cheap Spotify, Xiaomi 45W battery pack, Xiaomi smart scale, Samsung 4TB SSD, Unlimited Usenet, SimCity 4 Deluxe

## News

### Uber's IPO was a dud

Uber is now a publicly listed company (they're UBER on the NYSE), with shareholders, a stock price, annual reports and shit like that. You'd think such a well known business that operates around the world would be an investor's delight, but the reality is that Uber's business sucks and investors know it, as Uber's share price has already dropped 7.6%. That's not what's supposed to happen after an IPO.

### Silicon Valley makes its own stock exchange

On the topic of stock exchanges, the SEC has approved creation of the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE) - "a Silicon Valley-based platform aimed at tech startups that want to go public while taking their time to develop products and services. The exchange will have rules to limit executive bonuses, require more disclosure for milestones and reward long-term shareholders with more voting power". I'm no financial genius, but it sounds like an interesting concept to me.

### 60 beta Starlink satellites ready to launch

Elon Musk tweeted out a photo of the first 60 Starlink satellites loaded up in a rocket, ready to orbit Earth and test Starlink's idea to blanket the globe in internet. These satellites don't have the cool inter-satellite laser communications stuff though, SpaceX hasn't fully developed that technology yet. Also Elon related, a judge said he has to explain his "pedo guy" tweets in front of a jury. That'll be fun to watch.

### Perth's getting the world's fastest computer

The CSIRO and Perth's Pawsey Supercomputing Centre is gonna build a massive computer to process data from the Square Kilometre Array. It's called the "Science Data Processor" (catchy) and will be built alongside a similar system in Cape Town, South Africa, that when combined will be the world's fastest computer - 25% faster than IBM's Summit! 5 terabits/sec of data will be sucked in from the 132,000 antennas in outback WA, generating 600PB of data a year of "science data products" for scientists to sift through and hopefully unlock some secrets of the universe.

### ALP will give game industry cash if they win the election

Down at the Espy on Saturday arvo, Bill Shorten said that if the ALP wins the election, they'll reinstate the Australian Interactive Games Fund and give it $25m to hand out over 3 years. The AIGF was shitcanned pretty much immediately after the Libs got into power back in 2013 and there's been no federal government assistance for the Australian game industry ever since. Things like the AIGF can help turn single person game developers grow into studios employing multiple people, so it'll be nice to see it return.

## Not News, But Still Cool

### The 8 year old i7-2600K CPU is still competitive

Anandtech's proved Moore's Law is cooked, publishing a comparison of the venerable i7-2600K CPU from 2011, to a modern i7-7700K (2017) and i7-9900K (2018). It's surprising how competitive the 8 year old CPU is with most workloads, particularly when overclocked. Sure, the new CPUs are faster (twice as fast in some scenarios, like 4K gaming), but your eight year old rig can still play most games at 1080p fine provided you upgrade the GPU and for non-gaming everyday office/web browsing stuff, there's kinda no reason to upgrade at all.

### 10 years of blockchain, still no good use for it

Considering all the hype and billions of dollars of investment in blockchain and cryptocurrency, you'd think by now there'd be something mildly useful to demonstrate how awesome this technology is. Can you name anything off the top of your head that uses blockchain and is cool? I can't and neither can Hackernoon. I'm not going to be stupid enough to say it's a useless technology, but I'm skeptical (along with the DTA) that the problems blockchains aim to resolve actually need blockchain.

### Cheap Spotify, Xiaomi 45W battery pack, Xiaomi smart scale, Samsung 4TB SSD, Unlimited Usenet, SimCity 4 Deluxe

- 10% off Spotify Premium gift cards - 6 months for just $64.80 at Australia Post.
- Xiaomi Power Bank 3 Pro 20,000mAh battery, 45W USB-C PD input & output, QC3.0 charging, Australian stock - $63.04 delivered.
- Xioami Smart Scale, AU stock, $49.49 delivered from Gshopper.
- Samsung 4TB (yeah, 4TB!) 860 QVO SATA SSD is $639.20 + delivery from Computer Alliance's eBay store (don't forget the Samsung cashback that brings the price down to $560).
- Unlimited Usenet is offering 18 month plans (no download/speed limits) for US$40 (~AU$60). I'm not vouching for em (never used em), but the punters on OzBargain aren't whinging and the price is right.
- SimCity 4 Deluxe (Mac & PC) is just $2.69 on Steam via Fanatical.

That's it, see ya tomorrow!
--Anthony

Everyday Formula - Regurgitator

Aussie Broadband is the best ISP I've used since Internode's glory days. Their CEO gives talks at AUSNOG about their network and they even have network utilisation charts for every NBN POI. Their pricing isn't the cheapest, but if you want an ISP that's fast & reliable, give them a shot. Use my affiliate link or my referral code (1001031) and we both get $50 credit on our next bill.

The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Join us on Slack and chat with other Sizzle subscribers.

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