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Coalition's new anti-EV policy, Hubbl time running out and an unethical AI experiment

Plus: get a load of these tiny emulators

Author

Cam Wilson
April 28, 2025

Issue 2319 - Monday 28 April 2025

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The News

Coalition adds new anti-EV policy but gee get a load of this budget EV ute

The Coalition’s war on EVs has continued as the party announced a handful of policies that would make buying and owning an electric vehicle significantly more expensive. Since the backflip over removing EVs from the fringe benefits tax exemption which would add a couple thousand each year (The Driven), its transport minister Bridget McKenzie has earmarked finding a way to make EV drivers pay for using the roads, since they don’t pay the fuel excise (ABC News). While I think there’s probably a debate to be had on whether EV drivers should be tipping into the coffers in some way, the cumulative effect of the Coalition choosing to make owning an EV a much less attractive option. In US EV news, there’s a US$20,000 domestically made, no-frills but modular EV ute that’s going into production next year that’s been getting a lot of hype (The Verge).

It doesn’t have a radio or sound system but you can buy an SUV upgrade kit and other upgrades if you want

Hubbl’s time is running out

Foxtel’s new owners are already “reviewing” the future of Hubbl after News Corp reported $100 million on its launch (AFR). One of the first bits of business for DAZN, the Saudi-backed sports streamer DAZN that bought Foxtel, is looking at the streaming box to make “a decision about its future” (which is business speak for 🔪🔪🔪). Look, even if a company with no real interest in an over-the-top-box service hadn’t bought the company, I’m not sure Hubbl was long for this world considering how dodgy the whole service was (see below for a typical example of a post in a Hubbl owners Facebook group). Speaking of international companies, Meta continues to make even more money than last year in Australia but only paid a tiny, similar amount of tax because of its multinational tax avoidance schemes (AFR).

An unethical AI reddit experiment

Reddit’s r/ChangeMyView community has lashed out at university researchers who secretly set up AI accounts which pretended to be a rape victim and an anti-BLM black man on the subreddit (Reddit). Over the weekend, moderators revealed that University of Zurich researchers had revealed they’d run an experiment on r/CMV users using LLMs to respond to people who’d ask them to “change my view”, and even shared their draft research (Google). Predictably, the sub was furious and didn’t buy the researchers’ argument this was the only way to do the study (Reddit). Funnily enough, OpenAI has literally done a similar study on r/ChangeMyView — except the company took real posts, used AI to craft responses, but then used their own internal tests to rate how the AI performed (TechCrunch). As a general rule, I’m not a massive fan of AI pretending to be actual people because it’s not. Getting an AI to reply to people saying “"I'm a male survivor of (willing to call it) statutory rape”? Absolutely not.

Leftovers

  • NSW Police nets Sydney man for alleged unauthorised access of NSW court registry website (ARN)

  • Election battle on Chinese apps intensifies as Liberals target crucial voters (ABC News) 

  • Liberals remove TikTok post after influencer calls in lawyers over ‘stolen’ content (The Age)

  • Singapore orders foreigners' Facebook posts removed under election law (ABC News)

  • Did 5G kill the IMSI catcher? A primer on one of the oldest cellular vulnerabilities (Zetier)

  • 4chan is back after a nearly two-week shutdown, but it still has some serious problems (Engadget) 

  • A flight carrying hundreds had to divert after someone's tablet got stuck in a business class seat (Insider) 

  • When /etc/h*sts Breaks Your Substack Editor: An Adventure in Web Content Filtering (Substack)

  • Only Google Can Run Chrome, Company’s Browser Chief Tells Judge (Bloomberg, $) 

  • Is Google’s smart tag network any good yet? (The Verge) 

  • Meta’s AI chatbots were reportedly able to engage in sexual conversations with minors (Engadget) 

  • Nike is facing a lawsuit from people who bought its NFTs (The Verge)

  • Hegseth had an unsecured internet line set up in his office to connect to Signal, AP sources say (AP News) 

  • U.S. attorney for D.C. accuses Wikipedia of ‘propaganda,’ threatens nonprofit status (Washington Post, $)

  • Bitcoin Miners Get Little Relief From Top Cryptocurrency’s Rally (Bloomberg) 

  • We’ve unlocked a holy grail in clean energy. It’s only the beginning. (Vox)

  • Tech Workers Are Just Like the Rest of Us: Miserable at Work (WSJ)

Oh, Also

How about these tiny emulators?

If you’re looking for something to take the edge off as you’re easing back into the cruel five day work weeks, may I suggest dicking around on Tiny Emus. It’s a website run by one guy who’s been collecting real old school device emulators that can run in browser, and putting the code up on GitHub. Nothing like booting up Space Invaders on C64 to give you something to smile about on a dreary Monday!

Bargains

Electrical & Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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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.

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