Plus: Contrary to popular belief, the Pluribus smart fridge didn’t send Carol mad ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

December 18, 2025 | Read online
# Optus triple-zero review, GitHub charging backflip and what a year for Aussie games Plus: Contrary to popular belief, the Pluribus smart fridge didn’t send Carol mad
{{OPEN_TRACKING_PIXEL}}
Edition 2475
"Flea market - Rabat" (Flickr: Evgeni Zotov)
Good afternoon Sizzlers! Just another reminder that this is the penultimate edition for the year. I’m thinking about breaking with format tomorrow and picking a few Sizzle winners and losers of 2025. If you have anyone you want to nominate, send me a message or drop in the Slack or forum - CW
Also don’t forget to check out the Sizzler last minute Christmas gift guide!
# The News
### Optus had widespread fuckups that led to their big triple-zero outage, review finds
Heads will roll and changes will be made to Optus’ call centres and network operations over the 18 September triple-zerooutage, after the company’s board responded to a review of what went wrong (news dot com dot au). The Optus board received the report earlier this week which slapped the telco for “gaps in process, accountability, and escalation and information protocols”. The report blames a communication breakdown with Nokia for causing the outage initially but, crucially, for ignoring “early alerts” and treating complaints as if it were a problem on the customer’s end. Optus’ board says it has accepted all 21 recommendations, with the chair John Arthur promising “financial penalties through to termination in appropriate cases.” (Sorry I can’t seem to find a copy of the actual review, I’ll update the web version if I do).
The Sizzle: Suggestions like having stricter rules around network upgrades and improving the ability to escalate issues seems like a no brainer. The decision to move call centre operations back on shore seems kind of like a second order issue — the problem isn’t that call centres are elsewhere, per se, but that clearly their staff are disconnected from the rest of the company — but if it helps, I can’t see a good reason why not to pursue it. Vague promises to improve culture and avoid siloing are nice but, let’s be real, every organisation has that. The real problem is it’s fundamentally impossible to test this because the stressor for these systems is the things that you don’t expect. Let’s hope this isn’t just box ticking operation for a board and company under pressure.
Also how’s this for timing: some Optus customers this morning were suffering an outage.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### GitHub is doing an excellent job of pissing off its user base right now
GitHub has successfully pissed off a lot of people for no reason by proposing and then walking back an idea to charge people to use runners that they host themselves (IT Brief). For those not familiar, a runner is a bit of software that co-ordinates running (get it?) certain software tasks. At the moment, you can get GitHub to use its cloud computing to run the tasks for a fee or you can use your own computers, just using GitHub to essentially be like the traffic controller for various tasks. Yesterday, GitHub said it would cut the cost of the runners it hosts, while beginning to charge for people who self-host — a first. This pissed off a lot of people who’d built their various workflows around this service. Then, today, GitHub backflipped on the self-hosting runner fee for the time being, but noted that “we have real costs in running the Actions control plane.” (GitHub).
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### 2025 was a pretty good year for Australian games
Our good friends at the Australian independent gaming outlet SIFTER have published “The definitive list of Australian made video games” made this year. Of course, you’ll have heard of the smash success Hollow Knight: Silksong, but there are some other hidden gems in there like Tavern Keeper, Lushfoil Photograph Sim and The Drifter. Worth a geez through the list to see if there are any that take your fancy — and it’s great to see someone chronicling a part of culture that doesn’t get much shine in the mainstream media.
looks so sick
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
Australia:
Elon Musk’s X wins appeal to lift block on Australians seeing Charlie Kirk shooting footage (The Guardian) Gov backs its own AI adoption with $225m (iTnews) MYEFO cuts $102m from Industry Growth Program (InnovationAus, $) ACCC’s Recent developments in artificial intelligence - industry snapshot (ACCC) AI-generated images of Bondi gunman used to spread false information (ABC News) Upgraded NBN faces its first big test, as not everyone is on board (GadgetGuy) 2026 Australian Business Death Predictions (in Administration/Bankruptcy/etc.) (OzBargain)
Rest of the world:
Google Gemini 3.0 Flash is here with massive context and speed upgrades (9to5Google) Meta Considering Charging Business Pages to Post Links (Social Media Today) Oscars to Bolt From ABC to YouTube Starting in 2029 (The Hollywood Reporter) Bluesky is getting a ‘find your friends’ tool (The Verge) Financial Audit Podcaster Caleb Hammer Mines Drama Gold From Financial Ruin (Bloomberg, $) The Real Race for an AI Moratorium: Stopping Data Centers (Tech Policy Press)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### Contrary to popular belief, the Pluribus smart fridge didn’t send Carol mad
There was a viral Reddit post a few weeks back that claimed that an advertisement for the new hit Apple TV show Pluribus on a smart fridge had sent a woman to a psychiatric hospital. The ad, the post claimed, had convinced a woman that she was suffering delusions because it had included her name which she chalked up to a sign of her deteriorating mental health.
apology NOT accepted
This grimly comic post was shared widely as one of the pitfalls of shoving ads onto every screen in our lives. Alas, it seems, it was too good (or too bad, I guess) to be true. Someone actually looked into it and realised that someone had joked about this exact scenario in Reddit a few weeks earlier, and there’s no proof that the original poster was telling the truth (Apple Insider). So, for now, we’re marking this as “bullshit” — but it is tempting to say it feels true.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & Electronics
Good Guys: $40 off if you spend $300+, $60 off $450 Jackson 4 Outlet Individually Switched Powerboard with 1 Metre Lead - $11 at Woolworths (Down from $22) Truefree C10 Clip-on Wireless Earbuds - $23.98 at Amazon Ugreen 65W USB C Desktop Charger - $37.99 at Amazon Shokz Openfit 2+ Black/White at MR_Global Store via AliExpress - $175 at MR_Global Store via AliExpress Shure MV6 USB Microphone (Speech/Gaming) at Amazon AU - $182 at Amazon AU (Down from $289) Apple AirPods Max (USB-C) Blue/Purple at Officeworks - $547 at Officeworks (Down from $997) Google Pixel Watch 4 45MM WiFi Black/Obsidian at Amazon Japan - $588 at Amazon Japan (Down from $677) JBL Partybox 520 Portable Party Speaker at Betta - $795 at Betta (Down from $999) LG 42" OLED EVO C5 AI UHD 4K Smart TV at The Good Guys - $1206 at The Good Guys (Down from $2195) Dreame L50 Ultra at Bing Lee - $1349 at Bing Lee (Down from $1949) LG 86" NANO80A 4K LED TV at JB Hi-Fi - $1488 at JB Hi-Fi (Down from $2649)
Computing
UGREEN Webcam with Microphone at UGREEN via Amazon AU 1080P Grey for $29.61 Light Grey for $30.90 2K for $44.15 Toshiba Canvio Advance V10 4TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive - Black at Amazon AU - $148 at Amazon AU Lacie 1TB 2000MB/s Rugged SSD at Amazon - $150 at Amazon (Down from $299) Western Digital 6TB WD Red Plus NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD at Amazon US via AU - $233 at Amazon US via AU AOC U27G4XM 27" 4K 160Hz / 1080p 320Hz MiniLED monitor at Scorptec - $539 at Scorptec (Down from $599) ASUS ROG Strix GS-BE18000 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Gaming Router (UK Model) at Amazon UK via AU - $586 at Amazon UK via AU (Down from $799) Asus ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming Wi-Fi AM5 ATX Desktop Motherboard at Amazon Germany via AU - $708 at Amazon Germany via AU (Down from $969) Microsoft Surface Laptop 13" Snapdragon X Plus (8 Core)/16GB/512GB SSD Laptop - $1388 at Harvey Norman (Down from $2199)
Mobile
OnePass Mobile 365-Day Prepaid SIM Plan at OnePass Mobile 200GB for $144 360GB for $179
# The End
😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.
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