### Issue 2128 - Thursday 11th July, 2024

My mouth is still sore after a root canal this week and a raging haemorrhoid popped up this morning, so today's issue is worse than usual because I really cannot be fucked to put any effort in. Sorry, but also, deal with it, not every issue can be a winner.

## In Today's Issue

- New Samsung Galaxy stuff
- Google is making a way to transfer photos from Google Photos to iCloud Photos
- Gay Furry Hackers take on the Heritage Foundation
- A Bitcoin mine in Texas is making the people that live near it very sick
- Cheap Blackmagic gear, Diablo IV for PS5, Bluetti big battery, Photobooks, Samsung trade-in Galaxy Z Fold promo, Reolink video doorbell

## The News

### New Samsung Galaxy stuff

Samsung had a thing overnight to announce some new phones and smart watches. The Galaxy Ring "tracks heart rate, skin temperature, sleep, and general activity, plus whatever AI-colored wellness Samsung cooks up, like Energy Score and Wellness Tips. The Galaxy Watch Ultra (lol shameless) is basically a more outdoorsy/robust version of the Galaxy Watch 7, which itself is very similar to the Galaxy Watch 6 but with a new Exynos W1000 SoC. There's new folding phones - Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 - are spec bumped iterations of the previous generation folding devices. Aussie release dates and pricing are here, but the Ring hasn't got a release date or price yet.

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### Google is making a way to transfer photos from Google Photos to iCloud Photos

There will soon be a feature in Google Photos that makes it easy to move your images across to iCloud Photos. The reverse, iCloud to Google Photos, has been available since 2021 apparently - you have to ask Apple for permission to do this, like a little child asking mummy and daddy for a lolly, but it's there. It's all part of the Data Transfer Initiative, a nonprofit set up by Apple, Meta and Google to try and make it a bit easier to move data between the three tech behemoths. The DTI also has a handy list of articles on how to move or extract common bits of data in and out of various big tech services.

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### Gay Furry Hackers take on the Heritage Foundation

Project 2025 is a very bad 900+ page plan devised by a bunch of US right wing freaks called the Heritage Foundation, who are waiting for Trump to become President again so they can take the USA back to the 1950s. This upset a group of self-proclaimed Gay Furry Hackers calling themselves SeigedSec, who managed to get their hands on a list of "every user" in the Heritage Foundation database, many of which work in the US government and don't want it known they're members. This then lead to a Heritage executive, Mike Howell, chatting with a SiegedSec leader, who then posted the chat logs on Telegram and ultimately, disbanding SiegeSec "for our own mental health, the stress of mass publicity, and to avoid the eye of the FBI". I don't think this hack achieved much, but I do like writing about Gay Furry Hackers.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### A Bitcoin mine in Texas is making the people that live near it very sick

Time is reporting on a Bitcoin mining farm out in the Granbury, Texas that is making life miserable for the tiny town's inhabitants. They spoke to "more than 40 people in the Granbury area who reported a medical ailment that they believe is connected to the arrival of the Bitcoin mine: hypertension, heart palpitations, chest pain, vertigo, tinnitus, migraines, panic attacks. At least 10 people went to urgent care or the emergency room with these symptoms". The constant loud humming from fans is noise pollution so severe that a local ENT doctor reckons "it increases their cortisol and sugar levels, so you're getting headaches, vertigo, and it snowballs from there". My gut reaction is for the citizens of Granbury to mount an attack on the data centre. It's in Texas, don't tell me these people aren't heavily armed. May as well use those guns for something useful.

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## Bargains

- Various EOL Blackmagic ATEMs, Television Studio HD, etc at Videoguys
- Diablo IV for PS5 - $57 from Amazon
- Bluetti EB55 537Wh Portable Power Station - $451 from My Generator
- Photobooks with "unlimited" (over 260 pages) from $44 + postage from Photobook Australia
- $450 trade-in bonus for the Galaxy Z Fold6 via Samsung
- Reolink Smart 2K+ video doorbell - $116.52 from Reolink's eBay store

## Image Of The Day

TDK MD-XAPR60 Recordable MiniDisc (juri.su)

## The End

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