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'The Great Telstra Outage of 2016': Girt by CNET podcast 60

A free data day thanks to the Telstra out(r)age, the horrifying truth about your Twitter timeline and DBC LLC vs iiNet is dead and buried. Plus: a chat with Mars One's Josh Richards and a red hot review of Firewatch.

Nic Healey Senior Editor / Australia

Nic Healey is a Senior Editor with CNET, based in the Australia office. His passions include bourbon, video games and boring strangers with photos of his cat.

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Nic Healey

Feb. 11, 2016 7:30 p.m. PT

2 min read

Tuesday saw Telstra encounter a few issues with service, causing data and voice outages around a lot of Australia. Despite the outage affecting about 15 percent of customers, 100 percent of customers get a free day of mobile data this Sunday. A disproportionate response, or just a telco doing right by an inconvenienced user base?

Telstra's not the only one who's copped it, with Twitter suffering the indignity of being smacked on its own service with the hashtag #RIPTwitter trending after rumours that the service would be changing the way your timeline appears.

Josh Richards is a name you might recognise from this week. The physicist and comedian was in the news for spending five days in a glass box designed to simulate a Mars habitat. But he's also a genuine contender to be a colonist on the Red Planet as one of the final 100 hopefuls angling for a spot on the Mars One mission. We chatted with him about his dreams of dying on an alien world.

Finally, we scatter some sod on the final resting place of the landmark Dallas Buyers Club vs iiNet court case before settling back and waiting for the TPP's hand to punch out of the grave, heralding the sequel.

And Luke and Nic get a little overexcited about latest game to fly the "Indie Darling" flag, Firewatch.

Don't forget, we're always open to your thoughts and comments -- just jump on Twitter and hit us up via the #GirtbyCNET hashtag.