### Issue 2102 - Tuesday 4th June, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- Liberals agitating for 100 points of ID to make a social media account
- AMD's new Zen 5 CPUs and mobile SoC
- X formally adds adult content as permitted on their platform
- The Art of Warez, Supermium, macOS trackpad & mouse tweaking tools
- Cheap Timezone credit, Pixel 8 Pro, AirPods Pro, Moto G84, Anker USB battery, Kayo gift cards, iPad Air M1 5th-gen, Dell micro PC, Jabra earbuds, 4TB NVMe SSD, Anbernic console

## The News

### Liberals agitating for 100 points of ID to make a social media account

Someone check the federal electorate of Fisher for a gas leak because the MP representing that part of Australia said in Parliament, "the identification of people who use social media accounts is as important as age verification". He then referenced a 2021 report on domestic violence that "recommended new and existing social media accounts must identify themselves to the platform they're signing up using 100 points of ID, similar to signing up for a new mobile phone". I don't know if anyone is taking that point of view seriously, but it was said out loud by the opposition, on the record, and nobody in government has said it's a bad idea. Related - the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne is going to host a conversation with Signal's President Meredith Whittaker about this kinda stuff if you're interested.

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### AMD's new Zen 5 CPUs and mobile SoC

AMD announced new Ryzen CPUs using a fresh Zen 5 microarchitecture at Computex overnight. The desktop CPU range (9000 series) aren't that much different to the current 7000 series, but use a more modern TSMC manufacturing process to squeeze out an extra 16% performance on average across a range of benchmarks. If you're still on the AM4 socket, AMD hasn't forgotten you and is releasing a range of Zen 3 based CPUs. On the mobile side of things, there's the Ryzen AI 300 series chips - a successor to the popular Ryzen 7840/7940 and a competitor to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X ARM-based SoCs. They combine a Zen 5 CPU, RDNA 3.5 GPU and an XDNA2 NPU all in the one package designed for laptops and mini PCs. All this stuff is due for release some time in July.

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### X formally adds adult content as permitted on their platform

X has actually done something I think is good and changed their rules to clarify that adult content is okay on their service. It was never 100% banned, but adult content sat in a gray area where it would be randomly deleted with no recourse. Now that X has it written down, "you may share consensually produced and distributed adult nudity or sexual behavior, provided it's properly labeled and not prominently displayed", it gives people making a living out of adult content a bit of certainty. It's also quite a departure from basically every other US service since the passing of FOSTA-SESTA and spits in the face of jurisdictions like Texas where you need age verification to access adult content. This, plus fighting with eSafety to expose the Online Safety Act's hollowness, almost makes me want to thank Elon Musk? Maybe?

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### The Art of Warez, Supermium, macOS trackpad & mouse tweaking tools

- Please enjoy this 30 minute video documentary titled, The Art of Warez, that shows off the beautiful ANSI art that is associated with pirated software and BBSes while explaining its origins. It also dips into discussing how the personal computing vibe of the 80s and early 90s went from an "all the information needs to be free!" counterculture to the hunk of crap we have now.
- It's a bad idea to connect versions of Windows this old to the internet but if you need to use a modern browser on an old as hell PC, Supermium is what you want. It's "a drop-in replacement for Google Chrome with privacy and usability enhancements, optimized for legacy and modern Windows systems alike" that runs on Windows XP and newer platforms. It even supports Chrome extensions.
- Apple, in their infinite wisdom, treats the mouse scroll settings the same as a trackpad, so if you switch between the two regularly it's very annoying. Mos is a simple macOS tool that lets you have different settings for a mouse than the trackpad. LinearMouse and Mac Mouse Fix are other apps that do a similar thing if for whatever reason you don't like Mos. Why this stuff isn't built-in on macOS is beyond me.

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## Bargains

- Double load credits at Timezone 8th-10th June
- Google Pixel 8 Pro 128GB/256GB/512GB - $929.10/$1019.10/$1199.10 from Google
- Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) with USB-C Magsafe Case MTJV3ZA/A - $295.20 from MacApp's eBay store
- Motorola Moto G84 12GB RAM/256GB Storage - $285 from Mobileciti
- Anker 537 USB powerbank 24Ah 65W output - $89.98 from Amazon
- 10% off Hubbl (i.e: Kayo/Binge) gift cards via Woolworths Gift Cards
- 5th-gen iPad Air (M1 SoC) 64GB - $719.10 from Mobileciti
- Refurb Dell Optiplex 7070 micro PC (i7-9700, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) - $350.22 from UN Tech's eBay store
- Jabra wireless earbuds, e.g: Elite 10 - $198 from The Good Guys eBay store
- Fanxiang 4TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD - $277.87 from Fanxiang's eBay store
- Anbernic RG556 handheld gaming console - $254.99 from Anbernic's eBay store

## Image Of The Day

Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks test bed in Villarceaux, France (Alcatel-Lucent / Flickr)

## The End

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