### Issue 1974 - Wednesday 15th November, 2023

You hopefully saw the email I sent this morning about Sizzlethon 2023 - my latest attempt to get more people to try out The Sizzle. I know it's only been a few hours, but we've only raised a pathetic $18 for Cafs. We can do better than that! Visit https://sizzlethon.thesizzle.com.au, grab yourself a referral URL and tell your mates about The Sizzle.

## In Today's Issue

- Singtel, Optus' parent company, to blame for sending dodgy route info
- Government keen for a cybersecurity safe harbour law to protect businesses under attack
- Rivian semi-bricked all their cars with a busted OTA update
- One coder's uneasy relationship with ChatGPT is another's productivity booster
- Cheap Google Pixels, 2.5" SATA SSD, 15% off JB & Good Guys gift cards, 50% off Binge, Lenovo micro PC, Catch Connect & Amaysim pre-paid, Cricut Maker 3, Abelton Live, SVS subwoofer, Netgear 5G modem, Celestron microscope

## The News

### Singtel, Optus' parent company, to blame for sending dodgy route info

The Sydney Morning Herald has news that the "third party" Optus reckons sent it dodgy router info that crashed its entire network is actually the Singtel Internet Exchange. If you don't know, Singtel own Optus. Apparently Optus are keeping it quiet because a bunch of Singtel execs are in Australia right now and Optus doesn't want to embarrass them. It's still not cool that Optus blindly accepted these changes, but it probably explains why they were so cagey in giving proper details last week. Also in the SMH article is a Telstra exec quoted as saying "Telstra's executives carry SIM cards of other carriers with them in the event of a Telstra outage". Makes sense to me, but does Optus not do this basic redundancy practice? Dual SIM phones aren't exactly rare.

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### Government keen for a cybersecurity safe harbour law to protect businesses under attack

The government is keen for "safe harbour" laws that would "temporarily shield companies from liability during a cyber-attack", as a report by the Australian Signals Directorate says that its efforts to help businesses with cyber-attacks are "being hampered by lawyers, who are concerned about future regulatory actions from the government". This is backed up by the Business Council of Australia, who want to cut down the time wasted by businesses "vetting" information before handing it off to "ensure it cannot be misinterpreted by the plethora of existing regulators and government agencies". I was gonna blast the businesses asking for this as they could simply follow the law and not worry about getting in trouble if they're hacked, but knowing the government, any cybersecurity related laws are probably difficult or impossible to practically implement.

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### Rivian semi-bricked all their cars with a busted OTA update

Rivian, that US electric car company that makes massive and expensive SUVs and utes that are kinda nice if you're into that sort of thing, pushed out an update to their fleet of vehicles that bricked the entire infotainment setup. While the vehicles can still be driven, the screens, including the instrument cluster, are blank. Rivian said on Reddit (of all places?) that the cause is a "a fat finger where the wrong build with the wrong security certificates was sent out" and the only way to fix it might be "physical repair" - i.e, taking it back to Rivian. OTA updates are great when they have new features but really suck when mistakes like that happen that probably shouldn't in a more robust production environment.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### One coder's uneasy relationship with ChatGPT is another's productivity booster

James Somers has an excellent article in The New Yorker about ChatGPT changing his relationship with programming computers: "When I first used GPT-4, I could see what Dijkstra was talking about. You can't just say to the A.I., "Solve my problem." That day may come, but for now it is more like an instrument you must learn to play. You have to specify what you want carefully, as though talking to a beginner. In the search-highlighting problem, I found myself asking GPT-4 to do too much at once, watching it fail, and then starting over. Each time, my prompts became less ambitious. By the end of the conversation, I wasn't talking about search or highlighting; I had broken the problem into specific, abstract, unambiguous sub-problems that, together, would give me what I wanted". The referral system for The Sizzle I told you about today - I built it in a weekend using ChatGPT that same way. I've also used ChatGPT to make me various shell scripts. Well worth the $30/m OpenAI ask for it.

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## Bargains

- Google Pixel Tablet with Speaker Dock - $547 at Officeworks
- Micron 1100 2TB 2.5" SATA SSD - $145.06 from Amazon UK
- 15% off a range of TCN gift cards (JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys) at Coles next week
- 50% off Binge for 6 months for Qantas Frequent Flyer members
- Lenovo M910q micro PC (i5-7500T, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) - $165 from CLS
- Catch Connect 365-day SIM with 60GB/120GB/200GB data & unlimited calls/SMS - $89/$109/$150
- Amaysim $40 pre-paid SIM (can be used on 365-day PAYG plan) - $18 from Officeworks & Woolworths
- Cricut Maker 3 - $555 from Spotlight
- 20% off Abelton Live 11 with a free upgrade to Live 12 - $423 from Abelton
- SVS SB-4000 Subwoofer - $2999 from Westcoast Hi-Fi
- Netgear Nighthawk M6 Pro 5G mobile modem - $690 from Telstra
- Google Pixel 6a 128GB - $399 from Telstra
- Google Pixel 8 128GB/256GB or Pixel 8 Pro 128GB/256GB/512GB - $998/$1098/$1298/$1398/$1598 from JB Hi-Fi
- Celestron 28 Piece Microscope Kit - $69.95 from Optics Central's eBay store

## Image Of The Day

Semiconductor laser diode from a DVD drive. Alexey Marchenko. 3.6X objective lens magnification. (2017 Nikon Photomicrography Competition)

## The End

📻 Eating Roaches - The Meanies

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## Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

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.