Who could stand up to an Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant? No one, that’s who.

I recently got into some scientific literature that explains a lot of my personal experience. Somatic anxiety (the anxiety symptoms one feels in the body) is common in people who have trouble with interoception (sensing internal body states).

My anxiety has become so much more manageable since I started a yoga teacher training. Yoga (the physical poses, hatha yoga, technically) and pranayama (the breathing exercises) have always helped, but the intense and focused practice has really made a huge difference.

I see anxiety now as a clear signal I am neglecting some aspect of self-care and I’ll be damned if it isn’t helping quite a lot. Instead of ‘episodes’ lasting days or weeks without end, anxious symptoms come and go throughout the day, and stuff is just a lot easier to handle.

I am so grateful and it is clear now how unrelenting anxiety can degrade overall health.

I suppose what I am railing against is the fait accompli of it all. Meaning the idea that the way we do things now is the best possible way.

It isn’t and the best way to get my dander up is to hand-wave away concerns, as if the problem is solved and we can’t question it any more. This is why people hate the tech-bro archetype.

And even more maddening is the attitude that these ‘features’ are for users benefit.

The TV series Silicon Valley and their Pied Piper product seems so much less funny now that Peter Thiel has unmasked himself as a wannabe anti-christ. (PTs response to this accusation? ‘no u’)

This guy fucks!

Yeah, it fucking hurts! Get mad, nerd! The object of your desire cannot recognize you until you punch-dance your feelings.

I am rooting for the one on the loose. I want to name him Luigi.

I prefer to chew my own food as do most adults.

You can’t claim it’s objectively better user experience, we haven’t really tried other alternatives. You made that up. It comes from a place of contempt for the mythical ’user’ that is unwarranted and distasteful. People are not as stupid as you think they are.

There a many work flows that would protect privacy and require no additional steps or unfamiliar actions most consumers of robo vacs already know.

Users have to clean and handle a robo vac frequently. Make an app that guides them in the clean out and does the firmware update by bluetooth (which is only on when the dirt trap is open) AFTER asking permission and explaining the update.

Once more, there is no compelling use case for constant internet connection for these types of appliances. The only reason to include it is to invade privacy for Silicon Valley reasons, which are evil.

People plug devices into their computers daily for charging and updates.

They can visit websites. They have a robot vacuum ffs, they have a computer.

And firmware can be updated by Bluetooth from a phone and BT on the vac can be turned off when unneeded.

This reasoning is specious. There is no intrinsic reason for any home appliance to need unfettered internet access. Tech bros may want 24/7 upskirt photos of their users, but we don’t have to accept their requests.

We give up nothing by insisting on privacy in our homes. We can have all the cool things without giving it up.

USB port.

Internet access is absolutely not required for any technical reason

Why the fuck does a vacuum cleaner need internet access!

And I loved Godus. Such engaging gameplay

This suggestion depends on your skill level and desire to be completely free of corporate bs.

The ‘smart’ is already in home assistant. You do not need a smart thermostat at all. Instead you need temperature/humidity sensors and actuators for your HVAC system. There are several decent smart climate control integrations already and a library for PID control if you want to make your own control automations.

Of all the smart things out there, a thermostat is completely unnecessary. The only solid reason to buy one is convenience, if one is just not into thinking about it too much.

If privacy and autonomy are a priority, however, this is low-hanging fruit to declare independence from corporates who like to rummage through your underwear drawer.

Exactly and single use plastics are the largest problem we face. Medical and food handling would be much more difficult and expensive without single use plastics, so a good-enough plastic say for gloves that get changed really often would be a huge win.

I added it because it is the subject we are discussing. Your comments are vaguely coherent but have no real point.

Unchecked corporate power is THE problem and corporations are a small club of people of a specific demographic with a history of protectionism and shady dealings to protect their power.

It is perfectly valid to point out the root cause of problems, in this case the corporate cabal that needs to be dismantled.

CEOs are factually and demonstrably overwhelmingly white males, far out of proportion to general demographics. Since when did pointing out a statistical fact become divisive?

Awesome, thanks. It feels so good to be hip once more!

And this isn’t even really a great application for RAG. Papermaps just goes off of references and citations. Perhaps a sentiment analysis would be marginally useful, but since you need a human to verify all LLM outputs it would be a dubious time savings.

The system scores review papers very favorably and the “yes/no/maybe” conclusion is right in the abstract, usually the last sentence or two of it. This is not a prime candidate for any LLM, it’s simple database operations on srtuctured data that already exists. There’s no use case here.

It is easier to intimidate voters when they gather in one place on one day. It’s just good time management!

🤮(these fucking people…)

I must be so old.

“My mango is to explode then <shrug> next question?”

Yea, child abuse is horrible. Intentionally setting your child up for lifelong risk of avoidable sickess or early death is clearly child abuse.