### Issue 1662 - Tuesday 2nd August, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Visa could be held partly responsible for allowing PornHub to monetise kiddie porn
- Indonesia blocks Steam & PayPal for not complying with local regulations
- Linus Torvalds likes the MacBook Air, a new version of Winamp appears, AMD GPU owners get magic noise cancellation
- Does a computer processor get worn out?
- Cheap Apple TV, AudioTechnica USB mic, Boost Mobile SIM, "Ultimate" gift cards, Ryzen 5 5600X CPU, FIFA 22 for PS5

## The News

### Visa could be held partly responsible for allowing PornHub to monetise kiddie porn

About a year ago, Serena Fleites and 34 other women sued PornHub for monetising child porn. They argue that PornHub made shitloads of money off videos of minors doing sexual acts - obviously a very bad thing to be making money from. The allegations are laid out in this New York Times article from late 2020 and led to PornHub deleting millions of videos and only allowing verified users to upload content. Now Sarah and the other plaintiffs are taking aim at Visa. A Californian judge agrees with them, saying that "Visa knew that MindGeek's websites were teeming with monetized child porn" and that Visa could be partly responsible for any harm. The trial is yet to take place, but if the judge is going on hot like this already, it's not good for card processors and adult content.

### Indonesia blocks Steam & PayPal for not complying with local regulations

Indonesia doesn't often get a run here, but when you cut off Steam and PayPal from over 273 million people, it's newsworthy. They introduced a new law making it mandatory for all service providers have a local presence and that they must respond to "urgent removal of material deemed harmful to national security and the public" within 4 hours. Google, Meta, TikTok, Spotify and 200 other foreign services responded, but a couple didn't, so they got blocked. On one hand, sweet, Big Tech companies seeing consequences for ignoring government rules. On the other, the government rules suck. By the way, Australia has pretty the same law - get rid of "class 1 material or class 2A material" within 24 hours or get a "a civil penalty of up to 500 penalty units" or "several other enforcement options".

### Linus Torvalds likes the MacBook Air, a new version of Winamp appears, AMD GPU owners get magic noise cancellation

- Linus Torvalds let loose in the latest Linux kernel release notes that he's enjoying the new M2 MacBook Air. He went on to say that an arm64 laptop is "something I've been waiting for for a _loong_ time, and it's finally reality, thanks to the Asahi team".
- A new version of Winamp popped up out of nowhere. Version 5.9 RC1 Build 9999 was posted on their forum, "the culmination of 4 years' work since the 5.8 release". It now works in Windows 11. Just seeing that icon brings back some good memories.
- AMD added a "Noise Suppression" feature to its latest drivers, their own version of Nvidia's RTX Voice noise cancellation. Officially it needs an RX 6000 or newer GPU, but NimeZ has backported it older GPU drivers. Very cool.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Does a computer processor get worn out?

Someone on Reddit asked a beautifully naive question - "does a computer processor get worn out?" - that lead to some great answers in the comments. You'd think no a CPU doesn't wear out as there's no moving parts that collapse from of wear and tear. But there is something called "electromigration", which is the wearing away of atoms inside the nanometer thin wires that make up a modern CPU. Those wires are so thin that eventually the mere act of electricity passing through it for decades will cause one to "snap" and the CPU will malfunction.

## Bargains

- Get a $70 Apple gift card if you buy an Apple TV from Apple's online store
- Audio Technica AT2020USB+ microphone - $119 from PC Case Gear
- 100% cashback (i.e: free) on Boost Mobile 40GB 28-day prepaid SIM via Cashrewards
- 10% off "Ultimate" gift cards from Giftcards.com.au (Xbox, Kayo, Binge, Toyworld & others)
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU - $289 from Harris Technology's eBay store
- FIFA 22 Standard Plus Edition for PS5 - $9 from Amazon

## The End

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