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City okay with cops spying on people
The records Hunyar obtained, however, show that some of the cameras that were accessed were in sensitive locations, including the pool at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (in Dunwoody), the children’s gymnastics room at MJCCA, and several fitness centers and studios. The access logs obtained by Hunyar show at the very least how expansive Flock’s surveillance systems can be in a single city, encompassing not just cameras purchased by the city but also cameras purchased by private businesses.
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THE FUTURISM YOU WERE SOLD WAS A WEAPON
I really enjoy Monika Bielskyte’s ideas and futurist critiques. They’re nuanced, well researched, and contain a pragmatic depth to our current path. She goes long on “THE FUTURISM YOU WERE SOLD WAS A WEAPON“, deconstructing a vision for the future that isn’t healthy.
Futurism did not emerge from neutral curiosity about tomorrow. It came wrapped in the aesthetics of domination: speed prized above reflection, homogeneity above plurality, command above reciprocity. Inside that grammar, the body is an obstacle, connection reads as weakness, dependence as a humiliation, and the living world merely as raw material or enemy terrain. The techno-centric futurist tradition has spent a century projecting a dead mechanical fantasy as an account of life.
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The real disaster prep is the friends we made along the way
No amount of preparation can get you through a disaster alone. Creating a community of people with complementary skills can increase those chances.
When the water is rising or the wildfire is spreading, you will need to make crucial decisions with rapidly changing information. Every decision you make in a disaster comes down to two questions: Is it safe where we are now? Will we be safe if we try to evacuate?
More often than not, answering those questions means relying on the people around you.
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The human networks of famous people
Before Facebook became synonymous with social networks, the concept was illustrative for showing how any group of people relate. Think string connecting pictures on police bulletin board. Here is an interactive site showing connections of famous people.
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AI glasses kinda suck
At some point AI glasses will be a worthwhile device, right now, they still kind of suck at doing things correctly. Such a true for any new technology, but this year amount of money and hype putting into these kinds of devices, a healthy amount of skepticism it’s worthwhile.
So what do my miraculous sunglasses tell me? Many things. They inform me, in the voice of Princess Anna from “Frozen,” that my dog is a golden retriever mix (he is not) and that a tree I am looking at is probably an oak (it is not). They tell me to walk north when I know I should be walking south. One afternoon, on a sunny stroll, I stop to admire a bright red cardinal singing its heart out in a tree.
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Russians surrendering to robots in Ukraine
Russians surrendering to robots in Ukraine. Nice harbinger of doom.
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AI hasn’t earned its social and political capital
Nilay Patel of The Verge makes the case that AI hasn’t earned its social and political capital because technologists confuse application of technology and law governing society..
But law isn’t actually code, and society and courts aren’t computers. I have to remind our fairly technical audience on Decoder and at The Verge all the time that the law is not deterministic. You simply cannot take the facts of a case, the law as written, and predict the outcome of that case with any real certainty, even though the formality of the legal system makes people think it works like a computer — that it’s predictable.
But at the end of the day, it’s actually ambiguity that’s at the very heart of our legal system. It’s ambiguity that makes lawyers lawyers. Honestly, it’s ambiguity that makes people hate lawyers because it’s always possible to argue the other side, and it’s always possible to find the gray area in the law. That’s why prosecutors end up working as defense attorneys and why our regulators tend to end up working for big corporations.
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Video game company gets fan mail
Pictures, wedding invites, dead flies. All things sent to Panic after playing their games.
Since mid-2024, Panic had been receiving bundles of mail from players of several Panic-published games, including the British comedy Thank Goodness You’re Here and the South American adventure Arco, as well as users of the Playdate.
The mail has arrived in piles, turning part of Panic’s office in Portland, Oregon into what the company’s head of marketing, Kaleigh Stegman, told Game File “feels like a Christmas mailroom.”
It’s all the result of a customer rewards program that has turned unexpectedly rewarding for Panic and its game makers themselves, as fans send expressions of their appreciation for Panic’s games.
