Plus: A private, personal dream interpreter in your browser ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

July 14, 2025 | Read online
# AI hiring wars, police reports rewritten with AI and joining the mini-PC club Plus: A private, personal dream interpreter in your browser
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Edition 2373
"At the far eastern reaches of Sagittarius, where it shares space with Capricornus, resides the globular cluster M75." (Flickr: dragonflyhunter)
# The News
### AI engineers are so hot right now
Google has killed OpenAI’s acquisition of Windsurf by sneakily hiring the AI coding platform company’s employees (The Verge). Google’s hires are the latest in an AI hiring arms race in Silicon Valley, most publicly by Mark Zuckerberg (WSJ, gift link). The Meta founder has been reportedly waving around $100m+ pay packages to successfully snare execs from Apple (Bloomberg, $) and buying companies like Scale AI just to get its workers (Reuters).
The Sizzle: These companies have decided that the top “cracked” AI engineer talent is a differentiator, in the same way pouring ungodly amounts into buying GPUs to power AI training and operation has been. Is it really worth it? It’s clear that top Silicon Valley types see what happened in the mobile race — where Apple and Google are the bottleneck through so much commerce and life happens — and think that AI will be like that, except for even more.
I mean, how could you say no?
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Police are using AI to rewrite crime reports before they look at them
Victoria Police are using generative AI to help rewrite the public’s reports on non-serious crimes before cops see it (IT News). Each year, there’s about 150,000 non-serious reports that come in via phone or online. Now, “human agents” who review the submissions to the digital form can use generative AI to put it into a “short ‘narrative’ format that frontline police are used to writing and consuming”.
The Sizzle: Last year, I wrote about how (now last-gen) AI tools were trialled to see how good they were at summarising submissions to the government (Crikey, $). Police forces and governments get a lot of incoming communication so I get that it’s tempting to use these tools to get through them all. But, even if these tools are accurate, I worry it’s a bad idea because I don’t think jamming us through a machine is going to improve trust in these institutions. (And that’s before we even get into AI tools used by police that seem to hide that they’re being used).
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Welcome me to the mini-PC club
I took the plunge and have purchased a cheap lil mini-PC. My main ‘puter is a 2024 MacBook Pro. It’s a beast and spends 90% of its time plugged into a dock, but it’s ill-suited to anything that requires self-hosting because I’ll lug it around to other locations just enough to be annoying.
so much GREEN
What are your most useful self-hosted apps? So far, I use Linkding as my own read-it-later service, ChangeDetection to keep an eye on things for work, and I’m planning on running Plex. What else should I use? What do you actually use? Please let me know! Also — this is such a newb question — but what’s the best remote software? I’ve used Chrome Remote in the past.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
ATO tech spend review backlash over lack of detail (Mandarin) Australian government not suspending ads or posts on X amid antisemitic Grok chatbot incident (The Guardian) Husic urges digital crackdown on hate speech (AFR, $) Police shut allegedly illegal vape website, claw back $1m in sales (The Australian, $) Building my dream F1 racing sim rig transported me to the track (Gadget Guy) Polestar lashes carmaker lobby for ‘unfounded’ attack on EV standards (AFR, $) Busting Second Hand EV Battery Myths – Pickles introduces State of Health certificate for used Electric Cars (EFTM) Hi I’m Jono Prosser, Group Executive Residential at Aussie Broadband - AMA (Reddit) Vast Numbers of Lonely Kids Are Using AI as Substitute Friend (Futurism) Five Companies Now Control Over 90% of the Global Food Delivery Market (Markets Ain’t Efficient) Ofcom head says age checks are ‘really big moment’ for children’s online safety (The Guardian) Apple Oracle Mark Gurmann on new Apple products in 2026 and exec shakeup (Bloomberg, $) BYD will accept liability if one of its self-parking cars crashes (Fast Company) The inside story of why Linda Yaccarino left Elon Musk’s X (FT, $) Grok says its surname is Hitler (X dot com) 24 hours with Alexa Plus: we cooked, we chatted, and it kinda lied to me (The Verge) A Never-Ending Supply of Drones Has Frozen the Front Lines in Ukraine (WSJ) Major Nintendo Switch Piracy Website Seized By FBI (Kotaku) EA’s latest The Sims 4 patch is making everyone pregnant, including the men and the chaste (VideoGamer) Trump Gets 'Ratioed' on Truth Social for First Time Amid Epstein Backlash (Newsweek) How I found a bypass in Google's big anti-adblock update (0×44 dot xyz) Let me pay for Firefox! (Mozilla forum)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### A private, personal dream interpreter in your browser
I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of crossover between the “self-hosting/data privacy” and the “dream interpretation” types, but, hey, I thought this was neat: the Starwhale Oracle (Github) which runs entirely in the browser. It apparently uses “deterministic logic” to match keywords to 300 custom meanings. You can try an instance here (Dream Interpreter). I asked the Oracle about a dream I had recently about my teeth falling out, and it meant an “urgent call for trust amidst uncertainty” 😬. Is that good?
I probably didn’t need an interpreter to tell me this but it’s always good to have a second opinion
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & Electronics
SanDisk High Endurance 128GB MicroSD Card at Amazon AU for $24 at Amazon Shelly Plus 1 WiFi & Bluetooth Smart Relay Switch (2 Pack) at Amazon DE via AU for $33.69 at Amazon ZYRON Powastone 100W GAN Desktop Charging Station 4 ports - $40 at ZYRON Lexar Professional Gold MicroSDXC Card UHS-II 256GB V60 - $47.64 at Amazon US via AU FORGE Smart Ring Gold/Silver/Black Size 8-12 - $79.90 at Forge Electrical Anker MagGo 3-in-1 Charging Station with Qi2 - $99.99 at Costco Bose SoundLink Flex 2nd Gen Bluetooth Speaker - $111 at Bose Sennheiser Open Back Headphones HD 599 Special Edition, Black - $120 at Amazon AU Logitech Z623 THX Certified 2.1 Speakers - $168 at Officeworks Reolink Trackmix PoE 4K Dual Lens PTZ Security Camera w/ Motion Tracking - $181 at Reolink Amazon Au eufy Homebase 3 S380 - $181 at Goodbuyz DJI Mic Mini (2 TX + 1 RX + Charging Case) - $196 at Amazon AU Reolink 16MP 36ch NVR (No HDD) - $240 at Reolink Official eBay BISSELL CrossWave HF3 3598F Cordless Wet & Dry Vacuum Mop - $299 at Amazon AU Roborock Q8 Max+ Robot Vacuum & Mop - $399 at Roborock AU via Amazon AU Sony SEL85F18 Full Frame E-Mount 85mm F1.8 Lens - $549 at Sony Viture Pro XR/AR Glasses + Bonus 8BitDo Ultimate C Bluetooth Controller - $549 at Viture US via Amazon AU eufy Familock S3 Max Video Smart Lock (E85V0TY1) - $694 at JB Hi-Fi Business Sigma Contemporary Lens for Sony FE at Sigma Photo 20mm f2.0 for $695 at Sigma Photo 24mm f2.0 for $695 at Sigma Photo Apple AirPods Max Starlight + others [USB-C] - $742 at digiDirect Fender Super Reverb Tone Master - $1349 at Fender Samyang Sony FE AF FF Lenses at digiDirect 50mm f1.4 II for $599.50 at digiDirect 24-70mm f2.8 II for $936.75 at digiDirect 35-150mm f2-2.8 for $1536.75 at digiDirect Samsung 65" OLED S85F 4K Vision AI Smart TV - $1814 at Samsung EPP LG 86 Inch QNED81A AI LED UHD 4K Smart TV - $1999 at Costco OM Systems OM-1 Mark II Body Only Black - $2575 at Amazon AU Samsung Frame Pro 85" TV - $2849 at Samsung Government EPP Store
Computing
ASUS USB-AC53 Nano AC1200 Dual-Band USB Wi-Fi Adapter - $13.50 at Amazon AU Logitech Products at Amazon AU Pebble Mouse M350s (Rose) for $27.30 at Amazon AU HD Webcam C270 for $31 at Amazon AU Durgod Wireless Mechanical Keyboards at Centre Com K230 Fusion Tri-Mode Wireless for $89 at Centre Com Mk75 Tri-Mode Wireless for $89 at Centre Com K615w Corona Tri-Mode Wireless for $99 at Centre Com CORSAIR Void v2 Wireless Headset - $119 at Amazon AU Brother HL-L2464DW, Wireless Mono Printer/ Scanner/ Copier, 28ppm, Black/ Grey - $169 at Amazon AU Dell UltraSharp U3415W 34" 3440x1440 21:9 Curved Monitor (No Stand) - $189 at BPC Technology (Refurbished) Epson Ecotank ET-2810 Multifunction Printer - $238.40 at Amazon AU Brother MFC-L2880DW Wireless Mono Laser Multi-Function Printer - $247 at Amazon AU Brother HL-L3280CDW Compact Colour Laser Printer - $339 at Amazon AU Mercusys Halo H47BE BE9300 Wi-Fi 7 Tri-Band Mesh Router System (2-Pack) - $349 at Amazon AU Brother DCP-L3520CDW Compact Colour Laser Printer - $359 at Amazon AU HP OmniBook Ultra AI 14" Laptop (AMD Ryzen AI 9 365, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) - $1799 at Amazon AU MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G Gaming Trio OC Graphics Card - $4499 at PC LAN
Mobile
$250 off iPhone 16 range at amaysim with any plan Apple iPhone 16e for $899 at Telstra
# The End
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