### Issue 1830 - Friday 21st April, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Starship launched then exploded
- Queensland has increased EV purchase incentives
- Imgur deleting old images, Twitter removes legacy blue ticks, Google to make ads with AI
- Custom made eight player gaming PC on wheels
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Square credit card reader, Yamaha soundbar, SanDisk external SSD, Google Pixel Watch, DreamHack Melbourne tickets

## The News

### Starship launched then exploded

SpaceX's big rocket launched from Boca Chica last night, but "experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation" about 4 minutes after escaping Earth's gravity. Starship was supposed to "reach an altitude of about 150 miles during a journey around the globe before splashing down into the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii" but multiple engines didn't fire, causing it to "lose altitude and begin to tumble", so when Starship (the bit at the top of the rocket, which shares the same name as the overall rocket/craft) attempted to separate from the Super Heavy booster, it spun out of control and exploded. SpaceX will try another launch "in a few months" according to Elon.

### Queensland has increased EV purchase incentives

Queensland has beefed up their EV incentives. Instead of $3,000, you get $6,000 off the price of an EV, making it the most generous in the country. The price cap for eligible cars has increased to $68,000, as has the household income threshold which is now $180,000. Those who have already claimed the rebate as of July 1st 2022 can retroactively apply to get the extra $3,000. Combine this with the FBT exemption for EVs on a novated lease and it makes for a very attractive offer for Queenslanders. Meanwhile in Victoria, EV sales have dropped 2.1% this quarter compared to last quarter despite every other state recording double digit growth (90% in NSW, 80% in QLD, 147% in ACT).

### Imgur deleting old images, Twitter removes legacy blue ticks, Google to make ads with AI

- Imgur is removing all "explicit" images and any ""old, unused, and inactive content" as of May 15th. That's a lotta dead links and cool images lost forever. Honestly I'm surprised Imgur even makes any money. Image hosting is expensive, display ads aren't very lucrative in 2023. How are they even operating?
- Blue ticks are finally gone from Twitter unless you pay US$8/m for Twitter Blue - or you're LeBron James, Stephen King or someone else Elon Musk likes so he "personally pays" it for you. I logged in to Twitter to see if anyone I follow has paid and only 0.5% has coughed up the cash. How long until the banks take over Twitter ya reckon?
- According to a leaked internal presentation, "clients can supply Google with chunks of disparate content like images, video clips, and written copy for an ad campaign. Google's AI will then remix what it's given to produce algorithmically advertisements". What could possibly go wrong?

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Custom made eight player gaming PC on wheels

A dude on the OCAU forums is building an 8-player LAN party in a box. It's literally a custom made metal box that has the guts of 8 computers in it, each with their own 1U PSU and GPU. The idea is to chuck it in the middle of a room, surround it with tables, plug in monitors, keyboards and mice and game away. I don't even know what games you can play on a local network these days, but I like the idea of crazy computer setups that seem absurd at first, but fill niche use cases like this bloke's multi-player gaming dreams.

## 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.

- Do you have strong opinions about toasters? Josh needs your help.
- dalan wants to buy an electric car and has questions about financing it
- funcitonretrun wants an "improved mousing experience", as we all do
- netizen is after a webcam to improve Zoom calls in the living room with their kids and other family members
- joshuawithers has a project in their head they need a web developer to help make a reality - maybe that web developer is you

## Bargains

- Square contactless & chip card reader - $29 from Officeworks
- Yamaha YAS-109 Soundbar (Grey) - $179 from Amazon
- SanDisk 4TB Extreme PRO Portable SSD - $541.14 from Amazon USA
- Google Pixel Watch Wi-Fi - $399 from Google or JB Hi-Fi
- 50% off DreamHack Melbourne 2023 1-day and 3-day passes - $27.50/$60 via Ticketek

## Image Of The Day

A cool business card given to me by legendary hacker Kevin Mitnick after a media event at CeBIT 2015, back when I got invited to media events.

## The End

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