Plus: Turn your Casio into a cyborg smartwatch ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

September 25, 2025 | Read online
# EU 'watches' teen social media ban, RubyGems drama, mechanical keyboards Plus: Turn your Casio into a cyborg smartwatch
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Edition 2426
"Battleship Memorial Park (280) USS Drum SS-228 - conning tower - The Torpedo Data Computer" (Flickr: RNRobert)
# The News
### EU says it’s ‘watching’ as Australia celebrates the teen social media ban before it’s even begun
The head of the EU says it is “learning” from Australia as Anthony Albanese spruiks the teen social media ban at the UN (ABC News). The Prime Minister held an event promoting its “flagship” tech policy, which included a speech from a mother whose 15 year-old child died by suicide after being bullied on social media (SMH, $). European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen threw her support behind the “bold” ban.
We in Europe are watching and will be learning from you as you implement your world-first, and world-leading social media ban. Urrsula von der Leyen
The Sizzle: A close read of von der Leyen’s language shows that she’s supportive — but stops short of calling for the same measures.
The reason I’m making this distinction is that I think it’s pretty remarkable how hard the government is selling this policy considering it hasn’t happened yet. I think regardless of whether you’re for or against the ban — opinions vary, even among the tech savvy — everyone knows the implementation of this policy is a major, major unanswered question that will influence its success. I’m going to write some more about this but, suffice to say, this feels like counting your chickens before they hatch.
also, I thought the government said this wasn’t a ban?
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### What the hell is going on with RubyGems?
There’s some drama happening in the world of open source development as the non-profit supporting the Ruby programming language has been accused of a “hostile takeover” of some volunteer-run projects. A couple of days ago, someone purportedly sidelined the group of people maintaining RubyGems (put simply, a pretty popular tool used widely by those using Ruby) and installed group Ruby Central as its owner (here’s one version of events in a PDF). It was sold as improving “governance” of the project, but some people have accused Ruby Central’s actions as pushed by its major corporate sponsor Shopify (Joel Drapper). Now people are quitting Ruby Central (GitHub)
The Sizzle: There’s a lot going on and I’m not super familiar with the situation, but the big takeaway here is about the perverse incentives of open source tools: things like RubyGems are enormously popular (4 billion gems downloaded in May!) and are used to make a lot of money. And yet, exceedingly few people support their development financially or otherwise. This makes them vulnerable to takeovers like this, which are bad for everyone!
TL;DR: There’s a responsibility for big players to throw a bone to the people watching over the few lines of code that the entire world depends on.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### There’s never been a better time to buy a mechanical keyboard
Plummeting costs and growing options has prompted the Verge to declare that “we’re living in the golden age of affordable mechanical keyboards”. Their article lists a bunch of the options, like the “Toyota Corolla of Keyboards” Keychron V1 Max and the “tinkerer’s dream” Meletrix Zoom75 Tiga.
The Sizzle: It’s time to confess. I’m still using a gazillion year old Apple Magic Keyboard (no number pad). But recently, I bought a standalone mechanical number pad for my wife because her work laptop doesn’t have one and she’s always typing numbers.
you can almost hear the clicking in this photo
Anyway, I started playing with it when it arrived and… it was like semi-religious experience? I felt sick going back to the Magic Keyboard. So, do you have a mechanical keyboard? Show me your gear or post it in the Slack/forum!
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
Australia:
Australian tech regulators have put out a working paper on immersive technologies i.e. AR/VR (Digital Platform Regulators Forum) End of support for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Windows Server (Australian Cyber Security Centre) These experts will decide if the teen social media ban is a success or not (Crikey, $) Nine, Seven seek path to Big Tech damages under new digital regime (Capital Brief, $) Uber ordered to pay deactivated driver in landmark ruling (The Australian Financial Review, $) Home Affairs taps ex-Microsoft exec to lead AI development (iTnews) Origin Energy offering Australia’s first Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) subscription (techAU) Samsung Galaxy S25 FE Review - Good at its bargain price, but not at full price (Alex Reviews Tech) Help Me Find Missing Issues of Australian Personal Computer (Decryption)
Rest of the world:
AI hype train may jump the tracks over $2T infrastructure bill, warns Bain (The Register) Instagram hits 3 billion monthly users (The Verge) India court rejects X's free speech argument, backs government takedown powers (TechCrunch) Neon, the No. 2 social app on the Apple App Store, pays users to record their phone calls and sells data to AI firms (TechCrunch) Jaguar Land Rover hack has cost 30,000 cars and threatens supply chain (The Times, $) Larry Ellison Is a Shadow President in Donald Trump’s America (WIRED, $) AI is impressive because we’ve failed at Semantic Web and Personal Computing (Rakhim’s blog) Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one picture (Bit-by-bit) Google will soon break all third-party YT clients with server-side ad injection (Reddit) Only took me 11 minutes to verify that I am not a robot, thanks Discord (Reddit)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### Turn your Casio into a cyborg smartwatch
The CASIO F-91W is a timeless classic. Fun fact: its popularity with terrorists — who reportedly use its timer for bombs — means that the US intelligence agencies once considered it a sign that someone could be al-Qaida (Guardian).
But for those people who want a little bit more, Ollee is selling a replacement mainboard that gives it Bluetooth and fitness tracking capabilities. You can buy a DIY kit or a readymade upgraded Casio (although if I’m being honest, I feel like the appeal of the Casio is that it is a dumb watch).
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
$30 off $300+ Spend at JB Hi-Fi
Electrical & electronics
Kodak Pixpro Fz45 Red - $145 at digiDirect eBay Apple Airpods Pro 3 - $406 Sony WH-1000XM6 Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones (Black) (Refurbished) - $449 at Sony eBay Eufy Camera Kit & Sony Headphones at JB Hi-Fi Sony WH-1000XM6 for $568 eufy S3 Pro 4 Camera Kit (T8894TW1) for $1469 Samsung HW-Q990F Soundbar - $1215 at Appliance Central 75-inch Hisense U8QAU 4K ULED Mini LED Smart TV - $2487 at Harvey Norman
Computing
ASUS USB-AC53 Nano AC1200 Dual-Band USB Wi-Fi Adapter - $9 at PLE MagicRaven 15.6" 1080p 60Hz Portable Monitor - $79.99 at MAGICRAVEN via Amazon AU Lexar PLAY PRO microSDXC Express Card 1TB - $299 at Camera Warehouse Ubiquiti Unifi U7 Pro Wireless Access Point - $311 at Amazon DE via AU Dell S2725QS 27" 4K UHD 120hz Monitor - $336 at Dell Dell Latitude i5/16/512 & Dell OptiPlex i5/16/255 - $809 at Hub by Triforce HP Victus Gaming Laptop 15.6" FHD Intel i5-13420h 16GB 512GB SSD RTX 4050 6GB - $958 at HP eBay Gigabyte MO27U2 27" 240Hz 4K QD-OLED Monitor - $979 at Mwave AMD Radeon Graphics Cards at Mwave XFX AMD Radeon RX 9070XT for $979 Sapphire Radeon RX 9070 XT NITRO+ for $1179 Lenovo Legion Go S AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme (1TB) - $1279 at JB Hi-Fi Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 5G 512GB + Bonus $350 Digital Costco Card - $1799 at Costco
Mobile
Google Pixel 8a 128GB - $467 at JB Hi-Fi
# The End
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