Plus: I told you! I called it, I did. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

October 24, 2025 | Read online
# Telcos anti-ripoff rules rejected, ooooo e-bike and the Sizzler Say Plus: I told you! I called it, I did.
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Edition 2446
"Computer cave 2" (Flickr: Ron and Jean Viveralli)
# The News
### Telcos have 30 days to figure out how to stop ripping off punters
The telco watchdog has rejected the industry’s pitch for a new rules, saying that they won’t do enough to protect people from being ripped off (ACMA). ACMA’s acting chair Adam Suckling said that industry-drafted Australian Telecommunications Alliance’s proposed code was better than the 2019 rules but still not good enough. The key deficiencies, ACMA said, are around the protections for “responsible selling, credit assessments, disconnection and the provision of mobile coverage information to consumers.” Now, telcos have 30 days to come up with improved rules or ACMA can just write its own.
The Sizzle: Regulations are vvvv important when you have highly concentrated markets, like, say when we have only 3 mobile network providers. There’s been a fair bit of reporting over the past few years about dodgy business practices by telcos, and there’s also been a lot of work on how companies should care for people in family violence situations. The industry says the codes address this, the regulator thinks they can do more.
We see the self-regulation model used in a lot of tech/digital industries (also, notably, the internet safety codes) and I can’t think of a time when it’s reached the point that a regulator actually says “fuck this, I’m just going to write the rules now”. The sicko in me wants to see it happen.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### This e-bike is making me feel things…
A spin-off from electric car-maker Rivian has released its first (pretty sweet looking) modular e-bike. The company, ALSO, has announced the TM-B e-bike, along with a commercial and consumer four wheeler (Verge). The Verge has a nice profile of ALSO’s first products which highlight cool things, like:
It has a “pedal-by-wire-system”. Instead of the traditional mechanical connection between the pedals and the wheels, the rider pedals to charge a battery, and there’s a separate motor for the wheels. Riders can either use a fixed mode for pedalling (that feels constant pressure) or it has an emulated fixed-ratio bike mode too. It can swap between a normal seat, a broader “utility” seat, and the motorbike-style bench seat. Plenty of other bells and whistles like remote unlocking and adaptive riding profiles based on whose phone it’s connected to.
The launch model of the two-wheeler costs just under $7,000 Australian, but there will be a cheaper model sold eventually.
It’s probably a pretty divisive look but I rate it
The Sizzle: I feel drawn to e-bikes. I’ve always loved riding a bike, but it’s obviously not practical to ride a traditional bicycle around Sydney to do a lot of things that are instead done by a car. The safety thing is chief among them, but I don’t think any bike design is going to fix that. The price also makes it hard. Nice e-bikes are not as expensive as a car, but they’re also not cheap enough that you could justify buying it on top of — and not instead of — another car.
RJ Scaringe & Chris Yu Introduce the TM-B
If you ride (or are thinking about riding) an e-bike: I’d love to hear from you!
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### The Sizzler Say: why are people falling for the AI bubble? Pub measurements and a cool word birthday doodad
As always, if you wanna get involved (or even be able to read what’s on Slack) you can join the Slack server and forum via these links.
Slack user MMC asked the age-old question about the AI bubble “How are people falling for this?” and got quite a few responses. A solution (and some consternation) about the cloud-needing smart beds. You guys really popped off about the NMI measuring pubs. Artywah shared a cool doodad that lets you see which words were first used in which year. And finally, a good email about multi-cloud storage:
Multi cloud is annoying because you can’t really take advantage of AWS or google specific services, you end up with a lowest common denominator of the two. Also you need to be running simultaneously in both or have a failover plan Being in a single cloud provider, you can be in multiple regions, this is best practice for high availability systems, but it’s also roughly double the cost and requires careful planning to make sure you aren’t still reliant on something that breaks anyway when us-east-1 goes down You could self host or use a smaller hosting provider but then you miss out on some of the higher level cloud goodies, a simple example is Aurora, an AWS specific hosted version of MySQL or Postgres, which is just much nicer and easier to operate. Customers do definitely get sad when cloud outages take you out, mostly in b2b, but commercially you’d need to charge them a decent premium to subside the complexity and cloud costs to offer them multi region.
Daniel based on his experience working at B2C and B2B companies
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
Australia:
‘Nothing’ done to address gaps created by teen social media ban, says children’s commissioner (Crikey, $) Boom or bubble? Understanding Australia’s data centre surge (The Australian Financial Review, $) cool interactive 'Your new website sucks': Bureau of Meteorology redesign is lightning rod for heated criticism (The Guardian) i don’t mind it! Western Sydney University confirms personal data stolen in latest cyber attack (Cyber Daily) Tech mega-deals face shake-up as some fail to deliver value (InnovationAus, $) Not just delivery fees: Choice report shows groceries delivered by Uber Eats, DoorDash cost 11% more (SmartCompany) Australia to sign UN 'surveillance treaty' in Vietnam (iTnews)
Rest of the world:
Apple loses UK lawsuit over app store commissions (Reuters) How the AWS outage happened: Amazon blames rare software bug and 'faulty automation' for massive glitch (GeekWire) EU leaders leaning towards backing an age limit for kids' social media (Euractiv) Two US judges say use of AI led to errors in court rulings (iTnews) Google hails breakthrough as quantum computer surpasses ability of supercomputers (The Guardian) Trump eyes government control of quantum computing firms with Intel-like deals (Ars Technica) AI Creators Are Already Taking Over Social Platforms and Getting Paid (Bloomberg, $) A $60 Mod to Meta's Ray-Bans Disables Its Privacy-Protecting Recording Light (404 Media, $) Google data center gas power plant carbon capture (The Verge) Google Earth AI (Google Blog) What Happened to Apple's Legendary Attention to Detail? (Fragments & Reflections)
| Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex |
Absolutely brilliant detail from the new Reddit AI copyright lawsuit vs. Perplexity. They set a trap for Perplexity - a test post only crawlable by Google, existing nowhere else on the internet. Within hours, it was on Perplexity 😳 nytimes.com/2025/10/22/tec…
12:56 PM • Oct 23, 2025
2.78K Likes 377 Retweets
38 Replies
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### I told you! I called it, I did
I told you. I. told. you. Microsoft has released an animated avatar for its AI product Copilot (The Verge). It’s a kind of warmy, blobby, thing. It’s fine.
But wait, you say, weren’t you just crowing about being right? Yes I was, dear reader, and I will continue to: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella tweeted a video showing that if you click Mico a bunch of times, Clippy appears.
| Satya Nadella @satyanadella |
Clippy is back!!
9:04 PM • Oct 23, 2025
3.49K Likes 184 Retweets
155 Replies
I’m counting that as a ✅ for the Sizzle.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & Electronics
Cygnett 15W Wireless Charging Disk + 20W USB-C Charger & Cable - $14.99 at MobileSkin Novoo 100w USB C Charger, Gan III Fast Charger - $35.99 at Mbest-AU via Amazon AU Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max - $69 at Amazon AU Skullcandy Hesh ANC Headphones via Price Check button - $94 at The Good Guys UGREEN 200W Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh, 3C CN Version - $108 at Gadget Hive AU Roborock Q7B Robot Vacuum - $249 at Roborock via Amazon AU TCL 50" C7K Premium QD Mini LED Google TV 2025 - $794 at Harvey Norman LG 65" NANO80A AI LED UHD 4K Smart TV 2025 - $796 at The Good Guys LG 48" OLED B5 AI UHD 4K Smart TV - $1195 at Amazon AU LG B5 4K OLED Smart TVs at Harvey Norman 55" & $150 Gift Card for $1428 65" & $200 Gift Card for $1818 TCL 85" P7K 4K UHD QLED Google TV [2025] & Bonus $150 JB Gift Card - $1436 at JB Hi-Fi LG OLED EVO C5 AI 4K UHD Smart TV 2025 at JB Hi-Fi 55" & $200 GC for $1836 65" & $300 GC for $2636 Sony 55-Inch Bravia 8 4K HDR OLED TV & $250 Harvey Norman Gift Card - $1992 at Harvey Norman TCL 85" C7K Premium QD Mini LED Google TV 2025 85c7k + $250 Storecash - $2236 at The Good Guys
Computing
Dell Latitude 5420 Intel i5 1135g7 16GB RAM 256GB SSD 14" (Refurb) - $389 at Australian Computer Traders MSI Thin 15 15.6-inch i5-13420H/16GB/512GB SSD/RTX3050 - $679 at The Good Guys iPad mini 8.3-inch Wi-Fi 128GB A17 Pro - $687 at Officeworks HP OmniBook 3 14 Laptop AI 7 350 16GB RAM / 512GB SSD - $1131
Mobile
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# The End
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