citruscomputing

I'm super excited about the Index. All the time, I feel like I go "oh, I need to buy this thing" or "I should message that person about this" but I'm in the middle of a task and then I forget. (Or I have to get out my phone or a notepad to write it down - the phone is distracting and the notepad needs to be synced manually later, which I won't do.) I think my main use case is probably going to be adding stuff to my grocery list while I'm cooking, but I'm also excited about the webhooks integrations - I can pipe my idle while-driving questions to an agent and read the report later, for example. Or maybe I'll connect it to home assistant - "It's cold, turn down the AC please" or "hey can you play some music" without having to break focus. If this all works alright, I'm thinking about figuring out audio-out, so I can ask "what's on my calendar for tomorrow" and get a verbal answer. (Or maybe, putting this+todo lists on e-ink displays in physical space.)

I think the reason this is so exciting to me is that it's a way to interact with technology that's a lot less "evil" feeling. I am at my best when I'm not looking at screens all day, and the index provides an off-ramp that can potentially move several common workflows off those screens. I think even on my technology-off days, using the ring would still be fine. It also looks cool, and speaking into a ring to make things happen is much more aesthetically pleasing to me than "ok google." I really think you can't discount the cool factor here.

they want to isolate gay and trans children from other gay and trans people. don't you know, there's social contagion afoot, but if we protect y^Wour children from this inherently sexual (and thus adult) content, we can prevent it. this is enough to make me oppose age verification wholesale. I don't care if there's fancy ZKPs, it's still going to be used to isolate and harm hundreds of thousands of vulnerable trans kids, who are already experiencing astronomically elevated suicide rates over the past few years. they don't need more of this.

In Denver, they'll be expanding once they have budget. Also as soon as Axon finishes developing their integrations with civilian cameras into their Fusus product. They've also got natural-language queries in the pipeline ("find red trucks near here"), and they already have integration with the hundreds of existing non-ALPR LEO cameras. It's not better.

It's different. The primary harms of flock come from their horizontal integration into a nationwide surveillance network, working with ICE etc. Axon (formerly Taser) has strong vertical integration, which is new and we haven't thought through as much yet. (This is the position of city councilmember Sarah Parady, who's been part of a working group to research+draft ordinances about surveillance technology, and whose speech at the meeting voting on the contract I really respected. I think it's available online.)

The Axon contract is smaller than the Flock one, 50 cameras instead of >100, but that's because it's all they could get budget for, and they want to expand. DPD owns the data and is theoretically not supposed to share it with federal agencies, but there are lots of legal ways to make them comply. They're setting a 21-day retention period for data that's not part of an ongoing investigation, but I think that's missing the point, and it's not codified into law. The Axon cameras can be switched into a mode where DPD can view live feeds. Most of the contract provisions that the mayor's office added because of significant public outcry I would call "token." They're not addressing the real issues, and it's still contributing heavily to the development of the surveillance state.

Overall, it's an improvement, in the sense that breaking your leg is better than breaking both your legs. But don't get me wrong, they're coming for the other one as soon as they can.

Hi, I'm in Denver. They're already doing this over on Colfax. It's a significant change vs the existing halo cameras, because they use the drones to follow people.

Well yeah, that's what "alignment" means...

We have ceded too much ground in this debate. When I say "trans women are women" I mean that, ontologically, it is really true that trans women are a subcategory of the general class "women."

Like you say, we are searching for outliers. We don't cut women that are too strong or too tall. We shouldn't cut out women that happen to be trans. If all the top levels of women's sport end up dominated by trans athletes (something I don't see occurring, and that isn't supported by the data), then good, outliers found. We love to see women succeed.

(To avoid perverse incentives, though, the HRT requirement is critical. Otherwise you have trans women having to choose between being more competitive and receiving necessary medical care.)

It's being built as we speak. I attended at a city council meeting yesterday, discussing approving a contract for ALPR cameras. I learned about a product from the camera vendor called Fusus[0], a dashboard that integrates various camera systems, ALPRs, alerts, etc. Two things stood out to me: natural-language querying of video feeds, and future planned integration with civilian-deployed cameras. The city only had budget for 50 ALPRs, and they stressed how they're only deploying them on main streets, but it seems like only a matter of time before your neighbor is able to install a camera that feeds right into the local PD's AI-enabled systems. One council member raised concerns about integrations with the citizen app[1] specifically (and a few others I didn't catch the names of). I'm very worried about where all this is heading.

[0] https://www.axon.com/products/axon-fusus [1]: https://citizen.com/

It's already happening. Someone local to me seems to be spray-painting over ring cameras and leaving flyers about the ring-flock-ice connection. I can't say I agree with the methods, but it is sending a message.

Oh, this will be very useful. My current solution is incredibly hacky, I run an unauthenticated SSH server on the Kindle (key-based wasn't working), port scan to find it, and SFTP new files. At home, at least, I have a static IP. The whole system falls apart enough that I usually just connect to calibre's remote server and send books that way, though. I wonder what the battery impact of running tailscale on a Kindle is.

Hm. Not the biggest fan of the "parasite" framing given how little we know. I feel the default should be something more like lichens.

This applies to fashion as well. Hackers should tinker with their clothes and jewelry more.

Right now the solution that makes the most sense to me is intentional communities. If anyone reading this has experience living in one, I'd love to chat. Email is in profile.

As important context, it gained popularity in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

I got the distinct feeling that she really died and that I was just in a very long dream in which she survived, and that I would wake up very soon to a world of sorrow.

This is how I've felt every time a friend has tried and failed to commit suicide. I'm so sorry.

Similar story to you with non-celiac gluten sensitivity: I was having disabling flank pain for months, but after ruling out a couple things they shrugged and gave me an IBS diagnosis and a prescription for a drug with bad long-term side effects. Someone suggested cutting out gluten, which I tried and the pain went away. Intentional and unintentional reintroduction of gluten leads to the pain coming back within a few hours.

if not for the work requirement, at 80gb you could likely do what I do: use syncthing to make there be a full copy of the files on your phone. I've got a media terminal, my laptop, and my phone each keeping each other up to date. it's never broken or been frustrating. it works offline perfectly.

can't forget

The music video is fantastic too and so, so beautiful except for the rap part which I don't like.

I highly recommend reading this article about how Israel has been using AI: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

It really brought home for me the real, existing harms this type of technology is already doing in the "defense" space.

It's a real shame tattoo ink isn't regulated in the US, at all.

Jade roller/gua sha? Also look up "post ffs lymphatic massage" or similar. This helps me when my immune system is acting up. Not sure if it'd help with the CSF specifically, but this is how to move lymph out of the head.

Off-the cuff response, not heavily edited:

My parents have one child that doesn't talk to them (myself) and as soon as my siblings are financially independent it'll be all three. I see echoes of what my parents did in what you're saying... unsure if my perception is accurate or not. A couple years ago my parents asked me, quite frankly, "what did we do wrong, why does your sister talk to you about all this stuff and not us, how can we support her like you're doing - because what we're trying doesn't work." They didn't take my advice, but maybe you will.

Your child is an adult. I know they don't seem like one; the 19 year olds I know certainly don't. But they are, and you _have_ to treat them like one. In my experience, people rise or fall to the level of your expectations. This means you ask how they're doing, you listen, and you _don't_ try and fix the problems right away. You really have to listen, I can't overstate this. You may offer advice or help, but never force it. Better yet, ask what they need instead of guessing, and then LISTEN. If they say "get off my back," then do it (ask "what does that look like, concretely?"). Build the trust that you'll be there in the ways they want. When they say "xyz is really rough", say "I went through some similar things, would you like to hear about that?" and not "let's sit down and make a plan to fix this, it's going to heavily impact your future." They have their own goals now. They will make mistakes. Please try and see yourself as a mentor, or even a peer, rather than just a parent.

My parents were overly involved in ways that made school so much more stressful than it needed to be. Participating in every parent group, tracking my location at all times, getting on me about grades constantly. It didn't help me build the skills I needed to, and I dropped out of college (a top 10 university!) after the first year. That's so much worse than getting a 3.0. What's gotten me to the level of achievement I have in my career is _not_ the stuff they really hammered in was important, but the messing around in my own time on stuff I was passionate about, and the connections I made entirely online.

I cannot speak much to the emotional work you will have to do. It is extremely difficult seeing someone you love going down a path you think is bad for them, and worse when you feel there is nothing you can really do without making it worse. I went through this recently with a partner struggling with addiction. I think the most important takeaway I have is that you can't make it about yourself and your desire to help, not to them at least. It's about nonjudgemental presence, support in the ways they say they need (and not the ways _you_ want to feel supportive), and offering options they might not have thought of - but only occasionally.

I've been setting up a media player console, and foobar is the sole reason it's running windows. Fantastic piece of software.

I hate this website.

This is a fascinating article. We know that we need to get kids outside more, but aren't able to prioritize that (except in Taiwan). Instead we're trying to find ways that let us keep using classrooms and screens the same way. I'm very interested in the increased indoor light therapy (for my own use). I would really like for it to be as bright indoors as it is outdoors, matching the spectrum of the sun, without being horrifically expensive.

Agreed. I really think we'd be better off if EBT was expanded to everyone. Maybe this is a more palatable step into UBI.

Eh, I'm really not a fan of iterm's tmux integration. It tries to do too much. I can't have my tmux statusbar (only the iterm one) and it really wants you to use iterm panes (and iterm commands to split them...). I like that my terminal config is mostly portable.

Hi! I'm someone who generally hates the "shoved-down-your-throat"ness of AI, and who got pretty upset at the MDN saga (which we do not need to relitigate here), so I think we have something in common. I'm not bothered by this feature though, because it's totally optional and unobtrusive. Can I ask why this is important to you?

I have a friend who takes this; it's very expensive and insurance doesn't want to pay for it, but if you convince them that you're high enough risk ("oh, I just keep finding myself in strangers' beds, I love getting people's blood on me, and I'm just too dumb to remember to take a pill every day"), you can get it.

Normal PrEP actually puts you at greater risk if you forget to take it, so I'm really glad that the injectable one is an option. It's much more effective, too. I should see about trying to get on it soon...

Mp3tag for Mac (https://mp3tag.app/) does the same - great piece of software, I've used it 6 times and have one day of trial left :)