Plus: Of course you can play Quake on outdated medical equipment ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

July 09, 2025 | Read online
# Elon's racist AI, social media ban tech trial results and Gemini reads your texts Plus: Of course you can play Quake on outdated medical equipment
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Edition 2370
me and my computer (Flickr: freizeit)
Sorry there are so many deals that took so long to check! Only a few more days of Prime Day(s), hope it’s not too much of an overload.
# The News
### Turns out the AI owned by a radicalised billionaire has been radicalised
Elon Musk’s Grok AI has started posting so many anti-semitic slurs and dogwhistles on Twitter that the company had to change its instructions (The Verge). Grok, powered by Musk’s company xAI, was recently updated to be “politically incorrect”, according to the billionare. So, it immediately started calling itself “MechaHitler” and saying that “folks with surnames like ‘Steinberg’ (often Jewish) keep popping up in extreme leftist activism.” (NBC News)
The Sizzle: It’s not complicated. The world’s richest man with his own history of anti-semitic comments (CNN) created a mega-racist AI bot — remember its obsession with white genocide? — because that’s what he believes. The problem isn’t that it’s offensive, but that it’s too obvious. X, formerly Twitter, is a lost cause at this point, but remember that xAI is being used in other places with companies like Microsoft rolling it out to its customers (TechCrunch).
My take? Not good!
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Teen social media ban tech trial results show tech isn’t as ready as was said by the people running the trial
The early results from the trial testing the teen social media ban age checking tech has cast doubt on the claim that it’s ready to go, according to experts involved (Crikey, $). Several experts who’ve seen some of its data, and according to snippets of the report I saw, say they’re concerned about the error rates, surprisingly little testing, and that a majority of companies involved don’t yet have commercially ready tech.
The Sizzle: Last month, the people running the $6.5 million government-funded trial said age checking tech was ready to go. But they didn’t actually publish their proof — which is a bizarre, and ultimately non-rigorous, way to go about investigating something like this. I think the question is: if the evidence is so compelling, why are people running the trial acting like it’s not?
Taken from the leaked draft results
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Google’s Android AI can now read your messages because, I mean, you probably want it to
Android’s AI Gemini assistant is starting to read data from and interact with WhatsApp, Phone and Message apps even if you haven’t turned on its “app integration” setting (TechRadar). This has led to some privacy concerns(X dot com) while others are framing it as a pro-privacy decision because Gemini will be able to access that app data without being needing access to all your apps data, and without sending it to Gemini’s cloud servers (according to the aptly named Android Police and 9to5Google).
The Sizzle: Speaking frankly, sometimes there’s too much knee jerk alarmism about “app wants to access data” without figuring out the context. Most of us wants our phone’s assistant to be able to read its messages! I want to be able to tell it to text my mum with a friend’s contact details. Doing things like Gmail’s new “manage subscriptions” feature (TechCrunch) is built on be able to access data. The more important question is not whether it can access the data — but how it treats it.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
More telco consumers seek Ombudsman support (ACMA) Qantas begins contacting customers with data breach details (CyberDailyAU) AI chatbots are ‘poisoning data’, regulator warns universities (The Australian, $) NSW gov to house drones permanently at traffic hotspots (ITNews) Uber rakes in $150m from Australian ad business (AFR, $) Telstra to slash jobs in major cull (SMH, $) Momentum builds — slowly — in Australian real time payments (Capital Brief, $) Cyborg beetles are now a thing as university shrinks first responders (Pickr) Georgia court throws out earlier ruling that relied on fake cases made up by AI (The Register) - Follow-up from the case mentioned in an earlier Sizzle this week. The [US] military might finally win the right to repair (Engadget) People Are Using AI Chatbots to Guide Their Psychedelic Trips (WIRED, $) Cloudflare: We Will Get Google To Provide A Way To Block AI Overviews (Search Engine Roundtable) Tennis players claim Wimbledon’s new AI system is getting calls wrong (The Telegraph) Details on AirPods with cameras revealed by new research (Apple Insider) Samsung’s event spoiled by massive last-minute leak (The Verge) Rising prices of DDR4, DDR5, GDDR6 RAM set to cause havoc on PC, smartphone and GPU prices (TechRadar) Activision took down Call of Duty game after PC players hacked, says source (TechCrunch) Mastodon is improving profiles and getting ready for quote posts (The Verge) Thunderbird 140 released (LWN) Firefox is fine. The people running it are not (The Register) The curious rise of giant tablets on wheels (Ars Technica) Mike Lindell lost defamation case, and his lawyers were fined for AI hallucinations (Ars Technica)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### Of course you can play Quake on an oscilloscope
Have you ever wondered whether it’s possible to play Quake on an analog oscilloscope? While none of these words are in the bible, I’m glad to say that the answer to this absurd question about medical equipment is yes (although it doesn’t appear someone has done it for DOOM — yet)
Quake on an oscilloscope: improved quality
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & electronics
Good Guys 10% cashback Samsung 15% off purchases and an additional 20% off on first purchase of $4000 INIU USB C to USB C Cable 100W 2-Pack 2m for $10.14 at INIU AU via Amazon AU Click 45W PPS PD Dual Charger for $11.95 at Bunnings 3-in-1 MagSafe Wireless Charger with Night Light for $29.99 at Minthouz-YLAU via Amazon AU NEEWER Phone/Action Cam Rig for $44.84 at ShiQiaoShang Amazon AU Soundpeats Q40 HD Bluetooth Neckband Headphones for $45.49 at Amazon AU Anker Prime Charger (100W, 3 Ports, GaN) for $79.99 at AnkerDirect via Amazon AU Samsung Galaxy SmartTag2 4-Pack for $85.50 at Amazon AU Linsoul SIMGOT EM6L for $99.55 at Amazon AU Reolink PoE Video Doorbell Camera with Chime for $111 at ReolinkAU via Amazon AU Vornado AC350 Air Purifier with True HEPA Filtration for $124 at Amazon AU Apple AirPods 4 at Amazon AU Standard for $157 with Active Noise Cancellation for $238 Creative Pebble X Plus 2.1 Speakers for $159 at Creative Labs via Amazon AU Lubluelu SL68 Robot Vacuum and Mop for $177 at Lubluelu Robot AU via Amazon AU Vornado Air Circulator 633DC for $179 at Amazon AU Klein Tools A-ET450AU Advanced Circuit Tracer Kit for $205 at Amazon AU Shokz Open Run Pro 2 at Shokz AU via Amazon AU Standard for $208 Mini for $208 Seinnheiser at Amazon TV Listening Wireless Headphones RS 175 Black for $235 HD 620S Closed Back Headphones for $250 Momentum 4 Wireless Headphones (Black) for $258 Over-Ear Open Back HD 600 Headphones, Black for $300 Bose QuietComfort Wireless Headphones for $288 at Bose AU Apple AirPods Pro 2 (USB-C) for $305 at JB Hi-Fi Google Pixel Watch 3 Wi-Fi at JB Hi-Fi 41mm Silver for $356 45mm Black for $409 Garmin Instinct E, 45 mm, Black Bezel with Charcoal Band (Black) for $358 at Amazon US via Amazon AU Sony WH-1000XM5 Noise Cancelling Wireless Over-Ear Headphones (Black) for $379 at Amazon AU Meta Quest 3S 128GB + Eleven Table Tennis Bundle for $399 at Amazon AU Apple Watch Series 10 GPS 46mm Jet Black Aluminium Case for $546 at Amazon AU Reolink 8 × 12MP PoE Camera, 16-Channel NVR with 4TB HDD Security System for $1262 at Reolink
Computing
Travel Laptop Backpack with USB Port for $15.99 at Kogan SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive USB Type-C Flash Drives, 512GB for $41 at Amazon AU Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE CPU Air Cooler for $50.32 at suomole via Amazon AU Thermalright Royal Pretor 130 CPU Air Cooler for $59.03 at suomole via Amazon AU Crucial RAM 64GB Kit (2x32GB) DDR4 3200MHz CL22 SODIMM for $165.94 at Amazon UK via AU Wobkey Rainy 75 Wireless 2.4ghz Mechanical Keyboard for $170.40 at KBM Gadgets via Amazon Au Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan 1TB Storage 1 Year Subscription for $188.69 at Amazon Media AU Samsung T7 2TB Portable SSD International Version (Titan Grey) for $203 at Amazon US via AU Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD – 3.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM for $254 at Amazon US via AU Western Digital Red Plus 3.5" Hard Drive 8TB for $266 at Amazon US via AU ASUS 15.6 Inch Chromebook Intel Celeron N5100 Processor 1.1 GHz 8GB RAM 64GB for $299 at Amazon AU Intel Core i5-14600KF (No UHD 770) Raptor Lake 14-Core 20-Thread up to 5.3GHz for $299 at Amazon Germany Ubiquiti Unifi U7 Pro Wireless Access Point for $316 at Amazon DE via AU WD Purple PRO 8TB Surveillance 3.5" Sata HDD, WD8002PURP for $319 at Umart Amazon Mini PC Intel Core i5 12450H(8C/12T,Turbo 4.4GHz), 16GB DDR4 512GB for $339 at Reatan S6 at Amazon AU Netgear Orbi RBRE960 Wi-Fi 6E Quad-Band Mesh Router for $369 at Amazon AU Crucial RAM 128GB Kit (2×64GB) DDR5 SODIMM 5600MHz for $468 at Amazon UK via AU Seagate Expansion Desktop 20TB External Hard Drive for $589 at Bing Lee Minisforum Bd795i SE Motherboard: AMD Ryzen 9 7945hx for $599 at Minisforum Store Amazon AU MINISFORUM UM690L Slim Mini PC - AMD Ryzen 9, 1TB SSD, 32GB RAM for $615 at MINISFORUM store Amazon AU Asus ROG Strix X870-F Gaming Wi-Fi AM5 Motherboard for $654 at Amazon DE via AU Western Digital Black SN850X PCIe Gen 4 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD 8TB for $934 at Amazon US via AU Palit GamingPro V1 GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16GB Graphics Card for $1381 at Smarthomestoreau eBay Apple iPad Pro 13" (M4): Ultra Retina XDR Display, Nano Texture Glass, 16GB/1TB Wi-Fi for $2599 at Amazon AU
Mobile
amaysim Starter Packs at Woolworths $1 Starter Pack for $0 $10 Starter Pack for $25 $12 Starter Pack for $35 $60 Starter Pack for $99
# The End
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