Hey, thanks for reading my bio. You know, you’re pretty cool. I’m glad we got to share this moment together.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: February 15th, 2024

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  • As much as I like DJI products and FPV drones in general, I can kinda see where the DoD is coming from on this one. DJI drones are particularly capable (which is part of what makes them so awesome) to the point where some are capable of being semi, if not entirely, autonomous.

    Their software is entirely closed source, and thanks to the FAAs own ruling, they are now all equipped with SIM cards and internet access. There’s absolutely a threat model to consider there.

    But banning them is the wrong approach. We can’t keep banning good tech just because we’re scared of it. There are entire domestic industries that benefit from DJI tech, and several that exist almost entirely because of it. The best approach would be to incentivize local competition. But since that takes a while… Why not just write custom firmware? We can’t best China in their manufacturing ability, but we’ve got tons of software talent. Write custom firmware, open source it, all domestic products get flashed before flying. Defence keeps a tighter leash on their airspace, and industry keeps their cheap drones. Win-win.



  • Everyone blames food/diet/portions for this, but personally I think the car-centric culture should also bear a large portion of the blame.

    When I stayed with friends in Europe, they easily ate as much as my American friends, but everywhere we went we were either walking or biking.

    Meanwhile, in the VAST majority of the US, if you so much as want a safe place to walk that isn’t adjacent to the pervasive pedestrian-hostile street design, you need to take a car to get there.

    American car culture essentially turns the average routine into ferrying oneself from chair to desk to chair to bed, intermixed with brief walks throgh scenic parking lots.

    We need to counter the sedentary lifestyle within the design of our actual cities, but its the american way to push societal problems onto the responsibility of the individual… so I do not see this changing within our lifetimes.




  • Voting sites really don’t cost that much money. They probably spent more money putting up this measure than it would cost to just run the damn thing.

    When I work elections, the county pays me roughly 180 bucks for the whole day 6am - 8pm (I dont do it for the money, obviously). The smallest one i worked had around 3-5 people, so less than 1k in labor overall.

    All of the devices and materials aside from the ballots get re-used for each election, unless there are equipment changes. The voting locations themselves are often donated spaces, like churches and schools. There are also election technicians, but they’re serving multiple precincts and dropping one location won’t make much of a difference. Everyone else involved is usually already a salaried government worker.

    All this to say, closing a precinct to “save money” is a pathetic excuse. Everyone has the right to vote. It should be the first thing we make sure we budget for.