jkestner

If it bleeds, it leads. That is, our media has hyped up violence in society as it’s become more rare, and politicians use it to scare people into thinking we need to go back to the good old days.

Like Europe, the US has a pastiche of laws across states and municipalities, and varying levels of enforcement. My state has laws protecting free-range children.

You’re probably right that only in the US do people freak out over unaccompanied kids, but I wouldn’t say that’s true of most of the country.

I don’t think you can profile this as American. Are they conservative suburbanites? My kid walks to/from school longer than that. Many kids take public transit in big cities. Rural kids may ride a motorbike much further.

My new venture-backed social network is called Wormtongue, no reason.

Not too shocking. Many people’s jobs here require that they pretend that they’re not coding for fascism.

And of course, it's compounded by being pooled. Like RealPage, ALPR services like Flock, Axon Fleet Hub, and Motorola Vigilant VehicleManager offer data laundering so that organizations that shouldn't be talking can communicate.

Privacy laws now.

The Bezos investment gives me pause too. But the claim that there’s no telemetry is exciting: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/06/slate-says-its-electric...

New privacy legislation is about 20 years overdue. Between age verification, privately owned national camera networks, and above all else, data brokers, citizens need to reassert their right to anonymity.

In the face of government hostility, at least we here can make more tools like Signal or at least choose not to feed customer data to the beast.

I guess, but I’d just say it’s moved to other distribution models because who reads newspapers now? Mostly people who want to read Family Circus reruns (okay, that’s uncharitable).

I can’t speak to other countries, but we have a very healthy ecosystem in webcomics. I back several on Patron, buy the compilations of others on Kickstarter, and otherwise grab new issues at my local comic book store or library.

Don't forget that Tesla bought SolarCity to bail out Musk's cousins. I need a chart of all his mergers.

Dumb objects are not totally niche. No one actually likes smarts that impede the core function. The Slate truck strips a lot of this out.

The trick with phones, since the smarts are a core function, is not making them dumb, but more akin to a PC. Less convenience served on a platter, more freedom to develop and install just what you want without compromising on UX. The N95 and other Symbian phones did this for me.

I don’t want the rat race of modern smartphones. I want an appliance.

And you could do a lot in it with Python. I wrote scripts to talk with Bluetooth gadgets I built.

Tell you what though, I would jump on a modern N95. I only really want a basic phone with a good camera, and sure, Python. Only need LTE and a thinner form factor.

I'm thankful I live in one of the several states with "free range" laws to protect parents from this. https://letgrow.org/states/

The valuation is actually mostly about AI. Satellites, like electric cars, don’t have quite the growth story (and I do mean “story”).

https://bsky.app/profile/patigallardo.bsky.social/post/3mnhc...

Something something about metrics ceasing to be a good measure. Texas has draconian measures for districts containing a failing school, even as they redistribute the majority of funding from cities to rural districts. No surprise the schools want to pass by any means.

I'm ramming my head against a wall in sympathy.

Interesting that the boss immediately asked the same question. So they're aware that AI gives nondeterministic answers and yet still use it.

I had to start getting colonoscopies ahead of schedule because my dad never did, until it was too late. He was scared of doctors after he associated them with family members' unpleasant deaths.

Read the safety statistics and let it override the anecdotes. Colon cancer is easy to prevent and a horrible way to die.

Might try that this time. OTOH, I get the greatest nap of my life shaking off the sedative (get the lighter, cheaper option like Versed instead of anesthesiologist-administered propofol) and my spouse makes me a milkshake.

And Lake Michigan, as it’s connected to international water. Suppose next they’ll claim all rivers as borders.

If Shot Spotter is bad at merely identifying the source of a gunshot, I'm not going to trust our security tech bros to cut through all the environmental noise and provide trustworthy identification among 10,000 different Teslas.

I'm guessing license plate takes precedence over all those things. On the other hand, Flock hasn't shown any particular competence, and is happy to flag a bunch of false positives (look at all those criminals!).

Note that Flock says it can identify a car by physical characteristics from dents to bumper stickers.

> Violence is not the answer.

Okay, but what about destruction of property?

On voting harder, see the lead incident mentioned: "This happened weeks after the city council voted to keep the cameras despite overwhelming public opposition." I also advocate patiently working through the process, but people are not blind to the trends: the democratic process is failing as government increasingly sidelines voters and the richest have the levers of power.

AirTag but for dashcams would be cool. The trick is to make a popular product without being a company that's going to gatekeep that data.

And Michael Spindler’s mental health. https://lowendmac.com/2013/michael-spindler-peter-principle-...

I dunno, I hated how the Apple ][ forced a case on you. Had more choice before.

The hackers did the work for free upfront. In return they only expect that everyone could share the fruit.