### Issue 1267 - Wednesday 9th December, 2020

## In Today's Issue

- AirPods Max are Apple's new $899 over-hear headphones
- FireEye hacked by a "well-endowed nation state" that made off their their fancy security software
- YouTube's role in Christchurch massacre, Cyberpunk 2077 inducing seizures, Huawei made a Uighur detection algorithm, news media bargaining code cleaned up for Parliament, CentOS becomes a beta for RHEL
- Listen to three grown men talk about computer monitors for 46 minutes
- Cheap Macs, 5% off storewide at JB, Sensibos, Nikon Z6, Dell USB mouse, Pixelmator Pro, refurb XM3 headphones, Kingston SSD, Sonos Five, Last of Us Part 2, iPhone SE, Samsung T5 SSD

## The News

### AirPods Max are Apple's new $899 over-hear headphones

Apple has released AirPods Max, a Bluetooth over-ear noise cancelling headphone similar to the Bose NC700 and Sony XM4. They come in multiple colours, has some fancy design to evenly distribute ear cup pressure, uses memory foam in the ear cups, employs the same Digital Crown as in the Apple Watch to control volume and other stuff, has a H1 chip in it but not a U1 ultra wideband chip for spatial awareness. Charges via a Lightning cable and doesn't have wireless charging, not even in the weird "smart case" that when placed inside, puts the headphones to sleep. All this can be yours for AU$899. Add an extra A$55 if you want the Lightning to 3.5mm cable to plug it in to something.

### FireEye hacked by a "well-endowed nation state" that made off their their fancy security software

FireEye are one of the biggest infosec companies in the world. Whenever I read that something bad has happened to a computer, FireEye's name is often the one detailing how bad the computer thing went. In what is a delicious slice of irony and testament to the reliable mantra that computers are hard, FireEye got owned by "a well-endowed nation-state that made off with potent 'red-team' attack tools used to pierce network defenses". FireEye is obviously trying to play down the incident, saying there's no evidence of these tools being used maliciously in the wild and they've got "300 countermeasures that customers can use to protect themselves in the event that the tools are used", but a company who makes a living making sure you don't get hacked, getting profoundly hacked, sounds pretty fucken bad to me.

### YouTube's role in Christchurch massacre, Cyberpunk 2077 inducing seizures, Huawei made a Uighur detection algorithm, news media bargaining code cleaned up for Parliament, CentOS becomes a beta for RHEL

I couldn't decide which of these five articles to include in today's issue, so here's a quick summary of each one:

- A Royal Commission into the Christchurch massacre found that "extreme right-wing sites and YouTube was a significant source of information and inspiration". YouTube reckons it's made "significant progress" and tweaked its recommendations to limit "borderline content". Hmm, sure.
- Hot new game Cyberpunk 2077 has an unskippable scene at the beginning that has severe strobing with red and white flashing lights that can easily trigger an epileptic fit. There's not even a warning before its about to happen! One reviewer ended up having a grand mal seizure.
- Huawei is accused of developing and implementing a facial recognition algorithm for security cameras to try and detect Uighur's and alert police when they're found. No idea if it actually works, let alone the morality of such a thing.
- The news media bargaining code with slight concecessions "on either side" is set to enter Parliament this week. Main changes are taking into account the value of Google & Facebook's referral traffic and only reporting back changes made by human intervention, not machine learning/AI generated changes.
- IBM owned Red Hat has announced that CentOS, what used to be a free clone of Red Hat Enterprise, is now turning into a development version of Red Hat. CentOS 9 will get "fixes and features ahead of RHEL". No good if you want to test stuff on CentOS at home/in a lab and roll out in prod with RHEL.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Listen to three grown men talk about computer monitors for 46 minutes

Do you want to listen to a 46 minute podcast where myself, Marc Edwards and Peter Wells talk about monitors? You're in luck because there's a podcast exactly about that ready for you to download. Of all the questions I get from Sizzle subscribers, by far the most common one is what monitor to buy. You should listen to the podcast if you're keen to learn why I recommend the monitors I do, but if you just want a blanket recommendation knowing nothing about what you need - the Xiaomi 34" (3440x1440, cheap, looks good, 144Hz refresh) or the Dell U2721DE (2560x1440, a single USB-C cable for charging a laptop, USB hub & ethernet port) are solid choices. You're gonna have to listen to the pod to hear why I don't like 4K monitors or dual monitor setups.

## Bargains

- 5% off storewide (some exclusions) at JB Hi-Fi today only!
- 10% off Apple Mac computers, this time including the M1 Macs
- Sensibo Sky air conditioner remote control - $129 at JB Hi-Fi
- Nikon Z6 camera with 24-70mm f/4 lens - $2775 and get a $300 Amazon gift card after purchase
- Dell MS116 USB optical mouse - $8.66 delivered from Dell
- Pixelmator Pro for macOS - $30.99 on the App Store
- Refurb/seconds Sony WH-1000XM3 - $219 from Sony's eBay store
- Kingston A2000 M.2 NVMe 1TB SSD - $137.95 delivered from Amazon
- Sonos Five speaker - $599 at Amazon and JB Hi-Fi
- The Last of Us Part II for PS4 - $27.55 at JB Hi-Fi or $29 from Amazon & free shipping
- iPhone SE 64GB + $40 Vodafone pre-paid SIM - $597 at Officeworks
- Samsung T5 portable SSD 500GB - $84.55 at JB Hi-Fi

## The End

📻 WAXIT - Dennis Cometti

😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.

💬 Did you know that The Sizzle has a Slack group? Join in and chat with other subscribers like you.

💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info? Visit the customer portal.

🌐 Aussie Broadband is the best ISP in Australia. If it's good enough for Simon Hackett, it's good enough for us plebs! Sign up using my referral code (1001031) and we both get $50 credit.

The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.​