Issue 2286 - Friday 7 March 2025

TGIF! It’s been a great week. Have a break and let’s do it all again. (PS — if you haven’t already, I recommend checking out the Sizzle Slack server and forum to chat about each edition & more)

The News

“Independent” weather forecasters still rely on government data and technology

With Cyclone Alfred about to hit, some people are turning to alternative “independent” weather forecasters (SMH, $). These range from organisations like Weatherzone, which has its own models relying on data from the Bureau of Meteorology and other sources; to the cranks like Higgins Storm Chasing (which alarmingly has more Facebook followers than BOM).

As you can probably tell from my tone, I think most of these alternative sources are not very good, not transparent and often rely on the hard, thankless work and technology of BOM and other global government weather agencies. Also relevant, the federal government’s promised mobile national emergency alert system that can deliver a “message to any device with a SIM card, targeting a location to within 160 metres, and overriding ‘do not disturb’ settings” is not yet operational despite a 2024 deadline. (ABC News)

Digital service tax on global tech companies & defining Australian companies

The Greens want a European-style digital services tax on the $27 billion in revenue made by top tech companies in Australia each year (The Guardian Australia). Research done by the parliamentary budget office for Senator Sarah Hanson Young reckons we’d get $11 billion over the medium term by slapping the tax on tech companies earning more than $20m in Australia and $750m worldwide each year. This is the type of tax that prompted the Trump executive order that I wrote about a few weeks ago. A treat for the real procurement nerds here, the federal government has finally defined exactly what it means to be an “Australian business” so we can start tracking exactly how many contracts are awarded to local companies (Information Age).

Their definition:

US is going to use AI to catch un-American behaviour from visa holders

A follow-up to the story about the Trump administration wanting to start demanding prospective citizens’ social media accounts linked in the Leftovers yesterday — btw have you been enjoying the Leftovers section? Let me know! — is that the US government now wants to use AI to review visa holders’ social media accounts to see if they support Hamas (Axios).

This is a terrifying: using an error-prone technology monitoring a highly nuanced topic run by a government that has shown little interest in avoiding errors or appreciating nuance. Even if you have little sympathy for those who might be caught up in this, you should be worried because who knows what other purposes this technology would be used for. Speaking of Trump, the pause on the US TikTok ban is set to expire less than a month… and there’s been no discussion between the owners and prospective buyers (Axios). Sounds like ByteDance and China are daring the US to ban it again.

Leftovers

Oh, Also

Using AI to catch politicians on their phones in parliament

This is a few years old, but just came across my feed again: a Belgian art project that uses AI to monitor and post whenever it detects that politicians are using their phones while parliament is in session (Dries Depoorter). Personally, I think there are legit reasons why MPs might be on their phones (there is a lot of boring parliament). I think the more interesting thing about this artwork is how it turns surveillance technology on politicians for once. As one commenter noted: “This same tech is about to be rolled out en masse to surveil workers everywhere (if it hasn't already been). I further suspect that by applying this to the people in charge of creating regulations, the artist is trying to drive new regulations.” (Hacker News)

Bargains

Electrical & Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday afternoon. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

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Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

The Sizzle is created on Gadigal 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.