Final issue of The Sizzle for 2024! It'll be back on the 6th of January 2025, have a good break, touch some grass and so on.
Now we know why our valiant defender of privacy Apple went crying to Reuters yesterday about big mean data stealing Meta - the EU Commission released their draft recommendations on what Apple should be doing in order to comply with the DMA's interoperability measures. You can read the details on the proposed measures the EU wants in this PDF. It's stuff like better access to notifications, improved app background execution, audio switching, better performance for peer-to-peer wi-fi, AirPlay, close-range file transfers, accessibility features and heaps more. Apple's propaganda machine spat out a 5 page PDF saying how interoperability is a risk to privacy so third party developers should be second class citizens and the only people you can trust are Apple.
Over 140 Facebook moderators working in Kenya for a company called Samasource have sued their employers after being diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, generalised anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder. I don't think it's much of a stretch to imagine why their brains are fucked up after moderating Facebook, but they claim viewing "images and videos including necrophilia, bestiality and self-harm" in 8 to 10 hour working days, caused them to abuse drugs and alcohol to cope which then led to other problems in their life - all while being paid "eight times less than their counterparts in the US". If a group of people planted backpacks of C-4 at each of Meta's datacenters and remotely triggered them simultaneously, I wouldn't be upset.
The Open Home Foundation has announced Home Assistant Voice, a little US$59 box with an ESP32 and microphone and speaker that ties into HA natively via Bluetooth so it can interpret voice commands locally or in the cloud. It even has a Grove port for hanging sensors off it. The killer feature is probably being able to run all the voice commands locally - better latency and more privacy! The kicker is that you need something beefier than a Raspberry Pi for your HA server, like an Intel N100 mini PC. HA also released the firmware source code and blueprints to print your own enclosure. We are blessed to be living in a time where Home Assistant exists and is flourishing. Protect it at all costs.
This is it folks, the last issue of The Sizzle I'll be writing for a while. Thank you for all the love (and money) you've given me over the past decade. It's been a real privilege to write for you all the last nine and a bit years. We collectively went through a lot of shit in this godforsaken industry but I couldn't have asked for a better bunch of people to march through it with. If you want to keep up to date with what I'm up to post-Sizzle, follow me on social media or read my blog, anything important will be posted there. So yeah, good bye and good good luck Cam. I warmed the crowd up for ya, give 'em a good show mate!
Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.
Self-portrait, 20th December 2024 (decryption)
📻 Blur - No Distance Left to Run
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The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.