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Joined 10 months ago
Cake day: July 13th, 2025
  • Absolutely bullshit in a headline, but also potential mamas will probably use this often. The value in hearing your baby’s heartbeat is probably a huge reassurance to many.

    Having said that, as a hardware professional, when could we see a consumer accessible mobile ultrasound? I don’t have a spare $2-5k for what they use in ambulances, but I am hoping something low res low quality is accessible in a few years. (Having just read about the open source phased array, I have new hope for many things).

  • I think we’re aligned on the core issue but with nuanced perspectives. Regulatory capture is indeed the established academic term for the phenomenon you describe, precisely capturing how agencies meant to protect public interest end up advancing industry priorities through mechanisms like the revolving doorbetween Boeing and Congress.

    Where I’d argue the Starliner narrative: While Boeing’s participation provided political cover for Commercial Crew legislation, SpaceX’s 2010 Falcon 9 debut and subsequent rapid repeatability fundamentally reset industry expectations. The success of fixed-price cargo contracts demonstrated reusable rockets and rapid iteration were possible, proving cost-plus models weren’t inevitable. This technological inflection point–not Boeing’s involvement–created the political space for NASA to demand accountability in human spaceflight.

    Boeing’s Starliner struggles directly stem from its post-1997 merger culture shift, where McDonnell Douglas’ profit-focused management supplanted engineering excellence. This same culture produced both the 737 MAX flaws and Starliner’s valve failures, showing how regulatory capture enabled systemic safety failures when oversight bodies delegated excessive authority to Boeing.

    The breakthrough came not from Boeing’s inclusion but from SpaceX proving fixed-price development could work, breaking the cost-plus mentality that had entrenched inefficiency for decades. Had Commercial Crew relied solely on legacy contractors, the same capture cycle would likely have persisted. SpaceX’s existence changed the incentive structure, not Boeing’s participation

  • All valid points, and yes SpaceX is a demonstration of how privatization can be more innovative. The challenge is that the counterpoint of Boeing culture change causing things like the Starliner is about as valid when regulatory capture happens.

    I’m not saying nationalizing companies would help, but a government with good oversight (which is more and more of a question under Trump) could also help.

  • Based on the article they are using the 920Mhz range which would imply a 10m range if current standard continue.

    So active sensors for a warehouse (or house) to cover 10m bubbles would be pretty useful. Especially when you add something like an Bluetooth/WiFi/Z-Wave/Matter/etc bridge/mesh.

    There is a very scare element to this though, as these chips could easily be used nefariously too though.

  • Your correction is accurate. I should have been more specific.

    Discord announced on Monday that it’s rolling out age verification on its platform globally starting next month, when it will automatically set all users’ accounts to a “teen-appropriate” experience unless they demonstrate that they’re adults.

    Users who aren’t verified as adults will not be able to access age-restricted servers and channels, won’t be able to speak in Discord’s livestream-like “stage” channels, and will see content filters for any content Discord detects as graphic or sensitive. They will also get warning prompts for friend requests from potentially unfamiliar users, and DMs from unfamiliar users will be automatically filtered into a separate inbox.

  • While ridiculous as it feels like an insane person doing the same thing, it does actually have impact in several ways. One thing is that they lack a law that explicitly covers the face mask, and ID, as well as some of the other items. So if they make a law, then they can be sued, by parties outside of the government. Or investigated by congress and held in contempt of congress, in prison.

    Second, right now this is mostly about purse strings. If they write it into the appropriation, it’s law with funding attached. So if DHS fails to comply they won’t have a budget to have employees, etc. Not quite that direct normally, but it can force them to behave until the next funding cycle.

    Third, Congress actually has quite a bit of power in the checks and balances. Including oversight, investigation, and more… But a strict law actually makes enforcement mandatory, rather than discretionary.

    Having said that, yes ICE is basically ignoring laws often and that is the what many of the lawsuits they are being inundate by are about.

  • https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/lawyers-leaving-us-government-drive-workforce-shift-2026-01-29/

    Figures from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management show that 8,599 licensed attorneys left the federal government between Trump’s inauguration and November, for a net decline of 6,524 accounting for new hires. The drop follows annual increases nearly every year over decades — the second-largest net decrease since 2005 was 389 lawyers in 2022

    Including lawyers and other workers, the Justice Department has lost a net 8,900 employees since Trump took office, according to OPM, which is set to release December’s data next month. The DOJ figures include 2,526 lawyers who retired or quit, 261 who left via force reductions, transfers or “other separations,” and 503 lawyers who were hired. The overall federal workforce has fallen to its lowest level in at least a decade.

    So 16 to 22 times the last recorded number left in a single year. Guessing more than a few of them have started filing suits against the government in the intervening months.

  • Jumping in. You’ve had a conversation with Vintage, but I just want to add that boundaries are okay. Compassion fatigue is understandable. Giving a damn about a world that feels like it’s hurting you is hard and overwhelming. I sympathize.

    I hope you hear that not everyone you meet or who engage with reflects you. Some of us care about you because you are human. It is okay not to care in the same way.

    It is also okay to dissent, and be against the crowd. It is good for us to listen and engage with things that we don’t like, we need the challenge. So I thank you for that as well. I might not agree, but I appreciate the discourse and helping keep us grounded.

  • Think of it less as bad people, than individuals drawn into self-reinforcing belief systems through algorithmically amplified echo chambers. Modern technology—primarily smartphones and platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but also cable news (Fox/NewsNation) and podcasts—systematically exploits cognitive biases such as confirmation bias and correlation neglect to isolate users from dissenting viewpoints. This creates environments where belief and exclusivity override rational discourse, mirroring historical patterns where economic distress fueled extremism.

    Just as post-WWI Germany’s hyperinflation and reparations under the Treaty of Versailles bred widespread anger and desperation—enabling extremist movements like the Nazis to gain traction by scapegoating minorities—today’s algorithmic ecosystems channel similar frustrations into polarized identity politics. Users aren’t merely “gullible”; they’re trapped in feedback loops where platforms prioritize engagement over truth, reinforcing preexisting narratives while filtering out complexity. This isn’t unique to the U.S.: Brazil’s Bolsonaro movement, France’s National Rally, and Italy’s Brothers of Italy all leverage these dynamics to mobilize bases through emotional appeals to victimhood and exclusion.

    The core issue isn’t malice but structural amplification. Social media’s profit-driven algorithms curate content that deepens ideological divides, making users perceive opposing views as existential threats. Fixing this requires confronting how technology reshapes human cognition—not blaming individuals for succumbing to systems designed to exploit their biases. As one study notes, these echo chambers don’t just reflect polarization; they manufacture it through recursive reinforcement of extreme content.