Here to talk about fighting games, self hosting web apps, and easy weeknight recipes.

My mastodon account: @tuckerm
My blog: https://tuckerm.us

  • 7 Posts
  • 186 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • They keep using the term “motion sensor,” probably to avoid saying “this device that you will place next to your kid’s bed has a camera and an internet connection.”

    (related community if that makes you nearly have an aneurysm: [email protected])

    edit: OK, it probably doesn’t actually have a camera, see comment below. I assumed it had to, since it mentioned detecting “hand gestures.” However, that could mean that it just roughly detects you waving in front of it, which wouldn’t require a camera. I still hate it.




  • Spelling out all the potential consequences of an unknown party accessing your DNA is impossible, because scientists’ understanding of the genome is still evolving.

    Honestly, this is something that I hadn’t actually considered before. I’m almost embarrassed, since I like to think of myself as someone who is always thinking about how my data can be misused, haha.

    It’s not just about data that can currently be used unethically; there’s also the fact that someone may figure out a way in the future to use today’s data unethically. This is definitely true with something like your DNA, which is so complex that there are infinite things to learn from it. But it can be true of more simple things, too. There’s no way to predict what someone will be able to extrapolate from seemingly harmless information today.




  • Slightly. Not in a terrible, life-altering kind of way, but just enough to make me think, “Oh, that’s what that’s like.”

    I live in condo building and the average resident here is very old, very religious, and very conservative. No joke, several Lyft drivers have asked me, “So, is this a retirement home? I always thought this was a retirement home.” When I moved in as a 26 year old guy with long hair and a ponytail, I did not fit the vibe.

    I was changing my bicycle tire in the parking garage and a woman stormed up to me, absolutely convinced that I did not belong there. She said that I needed to be a resident to be in there (so, assuming I wasn’t one), then started grilling me about what unit I lived in, how long I’d been there, etc. She must have thought I was stealing the bike, but taking a few minutes to change the tire first; you know, as one does.

    It was an irritating but short exchange, and she left quickly. But it still put me in a mood for like half an hour afterwards. And it got me thinking: if you’re a minority, you probably get that all the time. Like, you don’t even have time to cool down from the last exchange before someone does it to you again.


  • I don’t think it’s so clear what some of the money is going to. From the article:

    the package includes $3.5 billion for “essential wartime procurement” […] and a $5.2 billion grant for air defenses. The ministry said the $5.2 billion for air defenses “will significantly strengthen critical systems such as Iron Dome…"

    With Hezbollah launching rockets towards civilians, I am in favor of strengthening the Iron Dome. But it sounds like that $3.5 billion could be to resupply Israel for their attacks on Gaza, thereby enabling new ones.



  • The Juicero was seriously a major point in my personal ideological journey. Around 2013, I was still very convinced that Silicon Valley (and VC-backed startups in general) were a source of innovation that could do a lot of good in the world. I was starting to question that a little bit because I had noticed that every new startup was described as “like Uber for <other thing>,” but I still largely believed that most SV startups were innovative and improving people’s lives, or at least had the potential to do so.

    And then the freaking Juicero came along, and I was like, “What the fuck? Do these people actually have no idea what they’re doing? Oh my god, they don’t.”

    Look, I’m not saying that if the Juicero didn’t exist, that I would be some Elon Musk fanboy right now. Something else probably would have woken me up instead.

    But in this timeline, in this current universe we are in, the Juicero made me see things differently. No one wants to believe that they were changed by the Juicero… but I was. And I… I… I don’t know how I feel about that…





  • That was a great explanation.

    I remember hearing an interview with John Boehner on NPR (former Republican Speaker of the House) a few years ago. He was talking about the government shutdown that happened shortly after far right wing was elected in 2010. Apparently, a few of them barged into his office after the shutdown and demanded to know why the government had actually shut down.

    And Boehner was like, “Um…you said you wanted it to?”

    And the right wingers said, “Well we didn’t think it would work!”

    These are irresponsible people who think they should just get to play games in life.



  • I’ve been loving RFF the last few months, it might be my favorite new thing I’ve found since I switched from Twitter to Mastodon. It also always shows you the artists’ fediverse usernames so you can follow them, and they usually have a Bandcamp link if you want to buy an album.

    They recently said that they could use some volunteer help. I haven’t been able to check out what they need yet, but their matrix channel is #radioFreeFedi:matrix.org, I think that’s where they organize things.