### Issue 1283 - Thursday 14th January, 2021

## In Today's Issue

- YouTube says piss off and don't come back for a week to Donald Trump
- Apple's "big announcement" is US$100m of funding for various racial equality programs in the US
- The DTA spent $2.5m AWS stuff for COVIDSafe, plus $5m for random consultants
- Two Sizzle subscriber projects I want to tell you about
- Cheap Dell 27" monitor, 70" Big W 4K TV, Samsung Frame TVs, Chris Sawyer's Locomotion, Google Nest Audio

## The News

### YouTube says piss off and don't come back for a week to Donald Trump

YouTube finally came to the party and knocked off some of Trump's videos. Apparently one of his uploads violated their content policies on inciting violence - dunno which one, YouTube isn't saying - but it's one of his post-insurrection uploads. They also removed two videos uploaded to the White House's official channel. Trump's been issued a "strike" on YouTube, which means "the channel is now prevented from uploading new videos or livestreams for a minimum of seven days - which may be extended". I'd be surprised if YouTube doesn't keep him on ice until at least the inauguration of Biden on Jan 20th.

### Apple's "big announcement" is US$100m of funding for various racial equality programs in the US

Yesterday, CBS's morning TV show in the USA said in an exclusive interview with Tim Cook that Apple has a "big announcement" for tomorrow. It's now tomorrow and that big announcement is Apple spending US$100m to expand its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI) - "the Propel Center, a first-of-its-kind global innovation and learning hub for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); an Apple Developer Academy to support coding and tech education for students in Detroit; and venture capital funding for Black and Brown entrepreneurs". Not what I was hoping for from a "big announcement" from Apple, but this is nice too.

### The DTA spent $2.5m AWS stuff for COVIDSafe, plus $5m for random consultants

Guardian journo Josh Taylor got his hands on some new info about COVIDSafe's costs. They've got contracts worth over $7m and have spent almost $6m on this turd of an app, with over $2.5m going to AWS. I'm no big city programmer, but that sounds like a lot of money for an backend infrastructure that isn't supposed to store much data? The rest of the cash is spread across various consultants sucking at the government teat doing who knows what. At leat Vision Australia got $16,000 for accessibility consulting work. Oh, and they're still refusing to say how many active users COVIDSafe has - no doubt because it's embarrassing and everyone's removed it from their phones.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Two Sizzle subscriber projects I want to tell you about

I absolutely love hearing about the projects Sizzle subscribers work on, so I was delighted to get an email from Charlie Gleason last night telling me about an open source app he made called Pika. It's a colour picket for macOS that "makes it simple to quickly find colours onscreen, in the format you need, so you can get on with being a speedy, successful designer". I have absolutely no need for it, but it looks cool and useful for people more creative than me. Another Sizzle subscriber called Paul took made a faithful reproduction of Solitaire of Windows 3.1 on iOS by using the original cards.dll file! Adorable.

## Bargains

- Dell S2721D 1440p 27" monitor - $279.28 from Dell
- 70" EKO 4K Smart TV - $799 at Big W
- JB Hi-Fi has Samsung's "Frame" TVs on sale, making way for the new ones
- Chris Sawyer's Locomotion for PC on Steam - $1.29 from Fanatical
- Google Nest Audio - $129 at JB Hi-Fi (Bunnings sell these and price match, worth a shot for an extra 10% off)

## The End

📻 Rock N Roll - Peaches

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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.​