wcchandler

Level 2 stocks, usually includes GameStop. Often the chat is the more interesting part. Lots of eyes, people watching and spotting trends and anomalies. I’ve learned a lot and it pays for my hobbies but if I wasn’t invested or already had a good idea of how markets worked, I’d likely be disinterested.

I’m a working professional but going back to school for my Masters. The amount of students using GenAI for everything is mouth gaping. At first I thought it’d be popular in the work force, partly through forced usage. But students (those just out of undergrad) are eating it up. Hitting their limits. Scheduling their work around it. And turning in the slop straight from the outputs. Nauseatingly, the instructors aren’t discounting their work. Our grades show averages, and it’s obvious those with AI answers are receiving high marks.

Surprisingly, instructors are also leveraging it. For their grading. For their feedback. For their communications. I even got a note that had the heading “here is a ready to post announcement for canvas, written in your voice”

I’m floored. This is the next generation of workers. It reminds me of those who started using Google correctly, back when I was in undergrad, ~20 years ago. AI is here and it will be dominant, no matter how bad it becomes.

Thanks for sharing what platform you’re using to run your blog! Been meaning to message you about it and ask. I see this model being quite attainable as somebody looking to advance myself professionally, following a similar approach.

Privacy, identity, and more importantly, anonymity are one of those things I keep thinking about. A few months back I had this idea of comparing the need to that of credit reporting agencies. You have the big 3 - Equifax, Experian, TransUnion. They provide credit information to companies that want it. You request the info, they provide it. There's a fee for retrieving it. I think our personal identities should be treated similarly. We sign up for various online services and provide some PII, but not much. Why should the website be able to store that information? Maybe they shouldn't be able to. Instead, lets permit these identity brokers to control our private information. Name, address, email, etc. Then whenever a companies needs that info, for whatever reason, they query the identity broker, get select info they need and be done. Token based access could permit the site to certain data, for certain periods of time. You can review the tokens at a later date and make sure only the ones you care about get the info. Large companies that already participate in this space (Google, Microsoft, etc.) can separate out this business function and have it be isolated from their core products. I was thinking it'd require an act of congress to get implemented, and that may be possible. But instead of having that as a hard requirement, maybe just a branding/badge/logo on services. Say your product respects your privacy and uses data brokers for your privacy.

Going a step further, how do we encourage use? Aside from personal privacy, what if social media sites allowed us to use our identities to validate comments or attachments? Similar to the idea of a token, we upload a photo of our cat. We permit FB access to that cat pic, generate the token, say it's good until we revoke it. We revoke it, and now that picture will fail to load. We can also restrict access to our cat picture. By requesting access to the cat pic, another user provides their identity as well. If their identity is allowed to view it, then it can render. Similar to comments. It's just a string, but we can invalidate a token and make access to it no longer possible.

What about digital hoarding? Can't we screenshot everything or scrape the website and store it for later? Yes. But that's no longer a trusted source. Everything can be faked, especially as AI tools advance. Instead, by using the identity broker, you can verify if a statement was actually said. This will be a mindshift. Similar to how wikipedia isn't a credible source in a term paper, a screenshot is not proof of anything.

Identity brokers can also facilitate anonymous streams. Similar to a crypto wallet, separate personas can be generated by an identity. An anonymous comment can be produced and associated with that randomized persona. The identity broker can store the private key for the persona, possibly encrypted by the identity in some manner, or it can be stored elsewhere, free for the identity to resume using should they want to.

It's an interesting problem to think about.

Pretty simple, really. Cloud native app that scrapes job postings for higher ed institutions, then send me a daily summary based on a handful of keywords. Mostly targeting something to find remote jobs offered through schools. I like working in Higher Ed and my wife is looking for a remote job. Seems like it should be easy to vibe code and run in a free tier.

Anecdotally speaking, I believe many of these to be largely true and a good respresentation.

I never thought about the machinescapes visual and that is very spot on. That was over 20 years ago on Salvi. I was in a basement and visualized a train driving through the wall. The thing that stood out the most is the detail of the train. It looked like an old steam train and nothing like I had ever seen before in person. Was really cool and fun experience and really short lived. All done in like 15 minutes. Never really noticed the level of detail that was present until just now looking back on it.

Another great experience I had that was captured well in this was on LSD at a competitive paintball event. I could visualize the paintball streams coming at me as solid lines. I knew exactly where people were shooting at. It stood out very prominently. But also, I could “feel” an opponent moving on the other side of the field. We were ~20 meters/yards apart behind opposite bunkers but I knew exactly where and when he was moving. I could feel his moves through the ground. Like we were both remotely connected like the mycelium of a mushroom. His left movements pulled me to the right. We were connected together.

I’m really grateful to have experienced these things.

Do they offer a swag store like OpenBSD or FreeBSD? I realize they only get pennies from those sales but that’s typically my approach, buy a shirt for $30 and make an extra $20 donation.

This is usually something I see on Reddit first, within minutes. I’ve barely seen anything on my front page. While I understand it’s likely the subs I’m subscribed to, that was my only reason for using Reddit. I’ve noticed that for the past year - more and more tech heavy news events don’t bubble up as quickly anymore. I also didn’t see this post for a while for whatever reason. And Digg was hit and miss on availability for me, and I’m just now seeing it load with an item around this.

I think I might be ready to build out a replacement through vibe coding. I don’t like being dependent on user submissions though. I feel like that’s a challenge on its own.

I was just exploring Pi’s and AI hats, so this post is appreciatively timely.

I’m finally at the point where I can dedicate time for building an AI with a specific use case in mind. I play competitive paintball and would like to utilize AI for a handful of things. Specifically hit detections in video streams. Pi’s were my natural choice simply because of low cost of entry and wide range of supported products to get a PoV running. I even thought about reaching out to Jeff and asking his input.

This post didn’t change my direction too much, but it did help level set some realistic expectations. So thanks for sharing.

I've been a linux desktop user for a long time now (~25 years?). I generally don't talk about it, as it's not a suitable environment for a lot of people. So I'm always surprised when I stumble upon somebody using it. Just recently I took a Google Cloud training course and the instructor used it as his daily driver. Not only was this impressive to see "out in the wild" but it was nice to see all the tools needed to lead a remote training course worked in his setup. He had a webcam working great (even focused/panned on him as he moved). He had a powerpoint/slideshow going. He had zoom/teleconferencing software working. And it all worked through the course. There was never 10-20 minute pause because something wasn't working right. Having this level of viability and operability is something I never expected to see.

I looked and there were some in the $22k-$26k USD range. Locations were mostly Orlando, Portland, and somewhere in Maryland I didn't bother to remember. If that's your idea of "cheap" then have at it. The last time there were articles about their selloff, I recall some around $14k-18k USD.

We already use shade clothes for certain times of the year and plants. It’s foreseeable to use mesh screens to filter the air if that’s necessary. Although more likely to have a closed greenhouse using filtered air to control for other pests and pathogens. Rain would be similar. Cistern capture and filter before applying. You’d also use that to add fertilizer for targeted feeding.

Traditional farming should be for non-human ingestion. There’s too much “bad” in it through normal conventions. And this isn’t even talking about our dependence on fertilizers and the growing threat of a next dust bowl.

It is labor intensive but not that much. When I tried before the pandemic the routine was very dialed in and mostly starting the seed then harvest. Using targeted water and feeding schedules, it was mostly set it and forget it with ample excess.

Finally, the more control we have of the process and the inputs, the ability we will have to eliminate microplastics from the end product. Specifically, my butter and romaine lettuce growing hydroponically in my basement would not have shown traces of microplastics. If it did, I would’ve quickly altered the necessary piece of the puzzle.