I started over doing entry level spray tech work treating exotic plants through americorps and worked my way up. I do a lot of field data collection and gis work now. So, I still utilize my old software skills. I work for my local government doing environmental land management.

GIS is definitely a software adjacent job that is utilized a lot in land management. But that isn’t the initial route I took. I really did just kind of started over.

I did this 9 years ago. I make 2/3rds of what I did in software, but I don’t regret it. pivoted to environmental work. My job satisfaction is like, a thousand percent better.

Where did you get this picture of me 😅😅😅

😂 girl, I’m not a cop!

God I wish they’d stop putting cameras in these and just make a nice pair of prescription glasses with good integrated headphones, a heads of display, and some basic touch controls on the stem.

I would genuinely enjoy this for easy listening and maps.

Has there actually been evidence of Alexa or Google homes being used for government surveillance?

I usually give up or find a free alternative. Typically, if something is available at a good price I won’t bother trying to get it free to begin with.

I’m sure a lot of very smart people thought of it for perhaps 30 to 40 minutes before deciding never to speak of that bad idea every again.

Yes, sorry, where I live it’s pretty normal for cars to be diesel powered. What I meant by my comparison was that a train, when measured uncritically, uses more energy to run than a car due to it’s size and behavior, but that when compared fairly, the train has obvious gains and tradeoffs.

Deepseek as a 600b model is more efficient than the 400b llama model (a more fair size comparison), because it’s a mixed experts model with less active parameters, and when run in the R1 reasoning configuration, it is probably still more efficient than a dense model of comparable intelligence.

Yeah, I was thinking diesel powered trains

This article is comparing apples to oranges here. The deepseek R1 model is a mixture of experts, reasoning model with 600 billion parameters, and the meta model is a dense 70 billion parameter model without reasoning which preforms much worse.

They should be comparing deepseek to reasoning models such as openai’s O1. They are comparable with results, but O1 cost significantly more to run. It’s impossible to know how much energy it uses because it’s a closed source model and openai doesn’t publish that information, but they charge a lot for it on their API.

Tldr: It’s a bad faith comparison. Like comparing a train to a car and complaining about how much more diesel the train used on a 3 mile trip between stations.

http://archive.today/2025.01.31-010309/https://www.theverge.com/command-line-newsletter/603754/mark-zuckerberg-tells-employees-to-buckle-up-in-leaked-all-hands-meeting

This is not a service I personally use, but I’ve thought about it: services like mysudo let you select and create new phone numbers. https://anonyome.com/individuals/mysudo-plans/

In your situation I might research and select a service like this. Then create a few disposable numbers. Give one to your trusted friends and family, another to employers and banks, etc, and the third to anyone else you need to contact.

Once you’ve transitioned everything important to the new numbers, get yourself a new phone number, and don’t give it to anyone. Maybe just your parents, for emergencies.

This has 2 downsides and 2 big advantages I can see.

Cons:

1, it cost you monthly. I think 3 numbers from mysudo is like $5 a month

2, it’s a pain to transition folks to your new number.

Pros:

1, if your stalker finds one of your new numbers, it’s easier to change them.

2, you can narrow down who it might be. Like, if you have a number dedicated to work contacts and the stalker starts texting it, you know they either are a coworker or got it from a coworker.

I think Google voice can also give you some free numbers, so look into that. Good luck!

I’m not a medical expert, but typically your skin is pretty good at keeping pathogens out, at least when you clean yourself regularly.

Keeping your hands clean (and thus your eyes and mouth) should be a priority. A relatively cheap and easy thing to focus on would be cheap, disposable gloves. Buy them in bulk, and carry a wad in a pocket. You can turn old ones inside out and use them as little trash bags. Change them out whenever you feel like it.

If you don’t have a clothes washer at home, consider buying a cheap portable unit that can drain into the shower or sink. I have one, and it rocks.

You might feel a little crazy, but if you have the spare cash, buy some bleach spray and paper towels and wipe down the elevator. It should only take 5 minutes. It could be the case that it only needs to be cleaned every few weeks.

Remember that by keeping your space and person clean, you are doing a lot to stay healthy. People work draining septic tanks for a living and are exposed to sewage, but stay healthy because of good hygiene habits in the long term. I don’t mean to minimize your situation, because I’d feel crazy too, but just keep in mind you’re already doing a good job.

https://openai.com/index/how-openai-is-approaching-2024-worldwide-elections/

Here is a direct quote from openai:

“In addition to our efforts to direct people to reliable sources of information, we also worked to ensure ChatGPT did not express political preferences or recommend candidates even when asked explicitly.”

It’s not a conspiracy. It was explicitly thier policy not to have the ai discuss these subjects in meaningful detail leading up to the election, even when the facts were not up for debate. Everyone using gpt during that period of time was unlikely to receive meaningful information on anything Trump related, such as the legitimacy of Biden’s election. I know because I tried.

This is ostentatiously there to protect voters from fake news. I’m sure it does in some cases, but I’m sure China would say the same thing.

I’m not pro China, I’m suggesting that every country engages in these shenanigans.

Edit it is obvious that a 100 billion dollar company like openai with it’s multude of partnerships with news companies could have made gpt communicate accurate and genuinely critical news regarding Trump, but that would be bad for business.

Perhaps now it is, but leading up to the election, I found gpt would outright refuse to discuss Trump in voice mode. Meta ai too. It was very frustrating. It would start, and then respond with something like, “I’m not able to talk about that, yet.”

https://www.wired.com/story/google-and-microsofts-chatbots-refuse-election-questions/

There are plenty of examples of Ai either refusing to discuss subjects of the elections (I remember meta ai basically just saying “I’m learning how to respond to these questions.” Or in the above case, just hand waving away clear issues of wrong doing.

Chat gpt advanced voice mode would constantly activate its guardrails when asked about trump or “politically charged” topics.

Incidentally, no Western ai would make a statement on Donald Trump’s crimes leading up to the election. Ai propaganda is a serious issue. In China the government enforces it, in America, billionaires.

They shared the chat using Google’s built in sharing feature, so it seems legit.

Many ancient practitioners of stoicism were wealthy statesmen, including emperors. And, the literate elite were certainly enamored with it. I’m not a historian, but stoicism was shaped by wealthy and powerful people, as was every popular philosophy.

I’m not opposed to it. I like aspects of Stoicism. But, When it comes to wealth, it always rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed so often to me that wealthy stoics make a virtue out of possessing, but not coveting wealth, and in doing so make a vice of dissatisfaction with one’s wealth. For a rich man, this is reasonable. However, a poor man is correct to be dissatisfied. Poor men need to be angry, and to rise up and demand wealth (in my opinion), their pain and anguish is meant to be felt and to stoke action.

Stoicism is not often presented as compatible with this mindset of mine. I’m sure there are types of stoicism which address this, but most influencers seem to present Stoicism though a relatively uncritical lense.