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holy hell google cloud is so confusing i just ended up using (a much more expensive) digital ocean droplet instead for a little project. I guess they only really care about enterprise customers who can burn tons of money figuring it out, but it made me never want to use it again.

Same with google ads - super fuckin shit UI/UX, super confusing to understand what is going on.

companies like digital ocean, supabase, etc can make money (from people like me) because they just circumvent the bullshit or wrap the dogshit experience (aws) into a much better experience. bless supabase.


DigitalOcean is such a dream to use. I also really appreciate all their guides for almost everything web server related.

I really really hate the term "troll farm" it completely minimizes nation state level propaganda machines down to something that sounds like its just one big internet joke for gags.

The cutesy 'fun' language of 'troll farm' itself deflects accountability from what are coordinated psychological operations. It makes it sound like some rambunctious kids in basements having a little weekend fun.


https://paperright.xyz

A simple 50/30/20 budgeting app built on manual entry.

I found AI/automated trackers just meant i started to ignore everything. Research also suggests manual tracking trumps automated/ai tracking. You actually need to do the manual work to understand your finances well.


https://paperright.xyz

A simple 50/30/20 budgeting app built on manual entry.

I found AI/automated trackers just meant i started to ignore everything. Research also suggests manual tracking trumps automated/ai tracking. You actually need to do the manual work to understand your finances well.


yung leans interview on nyt popcast is good https://youtu.be/p1FF3r6raSc?si=Yq4kxIuQCUkW8IBr also his doc on Noisey years back was really good https://youtu.be/6wgFliyJ4Bk?si=B1DdlOQZH9NBsve1


It is a great interview, thanks. Never heard of him, he's a smart young person. Goes hand in hand with Charlie's post. Hey it's Saturday night we can talk about culture stuff, right? Edit to add: young prodigies in artistic pursuits have similar choices as young tech prodigies.


>young prodigies in artistic pursuits have similar choices as young tech prodigies.

How so?


Values - I'm not judging.

Do you want to be the best rapper in Sweden? Do you want to be the best engineer at EA? 2 million a year to work at Palantir? Sign with a label and get 2 million a year to live in LA and have your music in Pepsi ads? Start an open source greenfield passion project that has only your vision as the runway? Work your own musical genre even if your audience isn't there yet?

As a talented young person (or at least you believe in yourself!) it's early in your life/career where you can sculpt and morph yourself while you are still formable.


no it doesnt. this data is public all over the place. most notably https://www.flightaware.com/


Cool. And yours is simpler and doesn't require looking up what the identifiers are for LAPD in particular. Just own it.


I found the list of identifiers with a single google search. For any criminal who cares, it is a tiny amount of additional effort.


sorry probably got covered by the ad - data source is the hourly from the city controller https://controller.lacity.gov/landings/lapd-helicopters which says $2,916 per flight hour


why LA is spending thousands/hour when drones exist is crazy.


You're talking about technology that's only become realistic in the last couple years. Even then, there's probably nothing off-the-shelf that would serve the current need.

LAPD has been patrolling with helicopters for decades. I have yet to see a drone follow a car in high speed pursuit down the 5 at 100+ MPH.


On the other hand, I have seen drones chase down F1 cars at 100+ MPH...

Realistically though, I agree with your sentiment. Solving this would drones would require a constant flock of something more akin to Predator drones.

The better question is - why do we allow high speed pursuit chases in the first place?


As far as I'm aware, high speed drones tend to have quite short flight durations due to battery limitations. Drones that have the range to follow a fleeing suspect for a long time would probably have to be big enough that they could cause a fatal accident if they crash, and in that case I'd rather have a pilot on board. Better reaction time, no risk from jamming, much better field of view/awareness, decades of testing, etc.


Most of the small high speed drones are that size to fit under professional licencing requirements, often so that one racing spec can be viable across a wider area. Leading to significant competition in that size pushing down prices.

Rather than some inherent sized for safety idea.

Jamming might be interesting, I suspect that it's easy enough (and a much bigger crime) to follow a very loud jamming signal though.

Every practical metric a drone surpasses a helicopter; they are so much simpler to operate that you can easily offset any perceived downside with more drones. And you don't get a tested solution without trying it out.


> why do we allow high speed pursuit chases in the first place?

AFAIK they've changed their tactics in recent years, but growing up around LA these we're like sporting events on TV. It's a guilty pleasure, but almost everyone I know tuned-in and watched the chase.


Their popularity for viewers (even more so now with YouTube, but they’re long been a staple of live news and late night tv) and the fact that police like any excuse to do “badass” things are big parts of why they still happen. They’re a pretty bad idea. Endangering lives (including bystanders) over mostly relatively-minor crimes.

But people love ‘em, and if you point out what a bad idea they are people label you “soft on crime” (as happens with a lot of plainly good policy)


Why do we need to follow a car in a high speed pursuit and force it to go 100mph on uncontrolled streets is the better question


The person “forc[ing] it to go 100mph” is in the car being chased.


Chased by what? It isn't a lion they are running from. It is a police interceptor egging them on to go 100mph.


I think they’re overwhelmingly being chased by a police vehicle after a lawful request to pull over and stop.

The fleeing driver is choosing to turn that lawful stop into felony fleeing/eluding if they choose to attempt to flee at triple digits.


This is very much an “it takes two to tango” situation.

Without both of:

- A driver willing to flee the cops.

- A cop willing to chase at dangerous speeds

The high-speed chase doesn’t happen. Both make it happen.



In what way would that be cheaper to operate? You'd just replace a pilot with a few pilots and a few teams of software engineers. Maybe fuel savings?


Pretty sure these can't be bought by municipalities. Would make more sense to operate them though.


sort of different but I built https://paperright.xyz budgeting app to address some of my frustration with budgeting apps, bank connections, ease of use, privacy, etc. It doesn't connect to your bank or take any info other than your email (+stripe if you sign up for pro). I built it because i needed a budgeting app for my brain. Also research shows AI/automated financial management doesnt work you need to manually track things to really understand whats going on.


Ya absolutely wild take.

can the world and tech survive fruitfully without AI? yes. can the world and tech survive without electricity and transistors - not really. the modern world would come crashing down if transistors and electricity disappeared overnight. if AI disappeared over night the world might just be a better place.


That might be because AI is new so we don't rely on it. The world got on for a long time before electrical engineering came about.


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