### Issue 2227 - Friday 29th November, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- Banning kids under 16yo from social media is now law, 12 months to figure out how
- Privacy Act updates passed too
- Kodak upgrading film factory, Spotify depreciates big parts of API, law changed to allow AN0M evidence
- Meta's Thread is the gas leak social network
- Friday Forum Update
- Today is Black Friday, get some bargains up ya

## The News

### Banning kids under 16yo from social media is now law, 12 months to figure out how

The bastards actually did it - kids under 16 will be banned from social media 12 months from now. The bill passed the senate last night after changes were made to ensure that "no Australian will be compelled to use government identification (including Digital ID) for age assurance". We still don't know which services will require age verification, we don't know how that verification will take place and the Communications Minister gains the power to decide these things at their discretion along with the eSafety Commissioner. I've followed Aussie tech laws since day one of The Sizzle almost 10 years ago and this amendment to the Online Safety Act is the shadiest, most populist driven, least evidence based tech law I've seen any government pass. Disgraceful.

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### Privacy Act updates passed too

Over at the Attorney-General's department, they're proud of passing an amendment to the Privacy Act. We will get a "new statutory tort to address serious invasions of privacy", a "Children's Online Privacy Code", "greater transparency for individuals affected by automated decisions" and probably the most controversial, "criminal offences to outlaw doxxing". Will be interesting to see who police decide to charge first with this new power. The Attorney-General said this is the "first tranche of recommendations from the Privacy Act Review", but fuck knows when tranche two will happen. It took 4 years for this half-arsed update to the Privacy Act to happen, compared to 4 months to ban kids from social media.

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### Kodak upgrading film factory, Spotify depreciates big parts of API, law changed to allow AN0M evidence

- Bad news for film photography fans, Kodak is pausing production at its legendary Rochester factory in the USA. The good news is they're shutting down for a while to build more capacity and modernise the plant because film is increasing in demand.
- A bunch of Spotify API endpoints are no longer available for new apps. This sucks for people that just wanna experiment with Spotify's rather detailed and useful API. Spotify say it's to "create a more secure platform", mmmmhmm, sure it is mate.
- Remember that wild story where the AFP developed backdoored smartphones and handed them out to crooks, then arrested heaps of them after spying on their comms? The government quietly passed a law retrospectively allowing the evidence gained via that sting to be permissible in court.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Meta's Thread is the gas leak social network

This is a bit old (March 2024) but Max Read describes their experience with Threads as a "gas leak social network" because "everyone on the platform, including you, seems to be suffering some kind of minor brain damage" and I 100% agree. I check in on threads every now and then and all I see in the algorithmic feed are people asking the most inane questions that is clearly engagement bait, and more worryingly, people I follow responding to that engagement bait in earnest thinking they're having a discussion or helping out. Gas leak is the perfect way to describe Thread's vibe.

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## 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.

- KathyReid is after people's experiences migrating email off a cPanel hosted setup to Protonmail
- Quigly is mucking about with Fingerbots and 3D printers to control a remote control from their phone
- davo67 is looking to start a side-hustle doing small coding jobs on-demand and wants to know if anyone else has done this
- DrJosh is selling a nice 14" M1 Pro MacBook Pro (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD), you should buy it if you want a cheap laptop
- Search engine Kagi is giving paid users 3x free three month trials to give away and Sizzle subscribers are sharing their Kagi free trial links in this forum thread

## Bargains

- Samsung T7 1TB portable SSD - $114 at Officeworks
- Samsung Bar Plus USB Drive 128GB - $19 from Amazon
- LG C4 42" OLED 4K TV - $1195 via The Good Guys eBay store
- Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Evo Turntable - $829 from Pro-Ject Audio Systems
- Microsoft Surface Pro 11 (Snapdragon X Plus or X Elite, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1598/$1998 from Microsoft
- Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x (Snapdragon X Plus, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $899 from Lenovo
- Get a $1200 JB Hi-Fi gift card if you go on a 24m Telstra contract, $89/m with 300GB data at JB Hi-Fi
- 10% off various Ultimate gift cards (can use at Officeworks, JB Hi-Fi, IKEA, EB Games, Good Guys etc) at Australia Post's online store only
- Apple Mac Mini M4 with 16GB RAM & 256GB SSD - $898 at Harvey Norman (get Officeworks to price beat down to $853.10)
- Criterion Collection CC40 Blu-Ray box set - $686.68 from Amazon USA
- Hisense 100" Q7NAU 4K TV, free delivery & wall mount install - $2883 at Harvey Norman
- PlayStation DualSense Controller - $75.15 via the Gamesmen's eBay store
- Toshiba X300 Pro 18TB 3.5" HDD - $493.05 from Amazon USA
- Yard Force 1200W Solar Power Station (974Wh battery, 1200W output, couple of USB ports, optional solar panel) - $299 at Mitre10
- Sony WH-1000XM4 Headphones - $325 from Sony
- 20% off CDs and vinyl at JB Hi-Fi
(good luck finding a store that still has music in stock)
- SVS SB-2000 subwoofer - $1099 from CHT Solutions
- Ubiquiti U6+ access point or Dream Machine SE - $144.29/$767.51 from Sydneytec's eBay store
- Ubiquiti UXG Lite Gateway - $79 from Scorptec
- Command & Conquer Remastered Collection or Mass Effect Legendary Edition - $4.49/$7.19 on Steam
- Diablo II: Resurrected - $22.95 via Battle.net
- 20% cashback on Amazon devices from Amazon (e.g: Kindle, Eero, Echo, etc) via Cashrewards
- 8% cashback on Apple's online store (includes EDU store, capped at $170, lots of exclusions) via ShopBack
- 6.5% cashback at Apple's online store (includes EDU, no cap, same inclusions) via TopCashback
- 15% cashback on Lenovo's online store (uncapped) via TopCashback
- 10% cashback on Sony's online store (capped at $250, no price match/discounts) via Cashrewards
- Woolworths Everyday Market 35% cashback ($350 cap) via ShopBack

## Image Of The Day

With a peak performance of 2.79 exaFLOPS, El Capitan comprises more than 11,000 compute nodes and provides Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with a flagship machine 22 times more powerful than its previous fastest supercomputer, Sierra. (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

## The End

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