I just found out that AT&T bought Quantum Fiber. And with fiber, I can get 2 GB service, better than the 1 GB I am getting with xFinity. And I can get WiFi 7 broadcast, instead of just WiFi 6. Competition is great!
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Amazon Ring has a Search Party system designed to help find lost dogs. Hopefully cats, too. I don't know how they trained their AI. Of course, this means that Amazon has access to all your camera feed. You decide if that's OK.
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Yesterday, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) released new guidance on Tuesday cautioning physicians against performing gender-transition surgeries on minors. Now the AMA meekly says something in support of that stance. "Surgical intervention in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood." Generally? How about deleting that weasel adjective? And what about puberty blockers? Comment on that, too, would you?
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Mamdani is also telling the Queens DA not to prosecute a knife-wielding criminal. It reminds me of when writer David Sedaris was mugged in Portland, and he was shocked when his friends were upset at him for reporting it, instead of letting it slide.
Then MSN runs this article: Downtowns are dying, but we know how to save them. Yeah, fix crime. The article concludes:
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Of course, even those who yearn to visit or live in a walkable, dense neighborhood are not going to flock to a place surrounded by a grim urban dystopia. Efforts to address downtown’s dysfunctions will elicit the usual cries from progressives, who seem unwilling to carry out the necessary policing. But if L.A. and other cities want their downtowns to survive, this should be the first order of business.
The Skanner Ceases Operation After 50 Years. It started as news outlet for Black people, just like Asian Reporter is for Asians. I remember people at street corners trying to push the paper on me. But clearly there is a need for investigative journalism, like the kind only WWeek seems to be doing. The Oregonian sure isn't, anymore.
And Washington Post is laying off a third of their workforce. Good! That place was just woke central. I'm glad Bezos is cleansing that institution. Hopefully, it'll be a respectable paper once again. At least less obviously biased.
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Perplexity was my favorite AI tool. Then it started lying to me. Recently Perplexity did hallucinate to me. I had to re-ask the question, and then it admitted that it had fabricated the first answer. But that was just once. I guess it's happening more to other people. Sounds like Perplexity is trying to skimp on services due to being short on cash. It might need to start charging people, or at least charge more for premium service.
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I haven't jumped on the Clawdbot ship yet. I don't need personal AI in my life. So I came across this post, and wanted to see what sort of things I'm missing out on. Check this guy out:
Family document filing. I send a PDF or photo via WhatsApp. Lollo analyzes it with vision-document type, date, sender, amount if applicable. Photos get converted to PDF, then run through OCR. Files are renamed according to a consistent schema (’YYYY-MM-DD [Sender] [Type] [Details].pdf’) and sorted into the appropriate folder. The whole pipeline-vision analysis, format conversion, OCR, renaming, filing-happens automatically.
But filing is only half of it. The retrieval is where it gets interesting. “What insurance policies do we have for our toddler?” “How much did we spend on contractors in 2025?” Lollo searches the archive, reads the relevant documents, and gives me an answer. The documents aren’t just stored—they’re accessible in a way that actually matters.
Personal color consulting. I had professional color analysis done. The results—which colors suit my skin tone, which to avoid-now live in a dedicated skill. I send a photo of a sweater I’m considering: “Does this work for me?” Lollo checks it against my profile and gives me a straight answer. The knowledge persists. I don’t have to explain my color type every time.
Proactive scheduling. Every morning at 7:45, Lollo sends me a briefing: today’s calendar, weather for dog walking times, anything that needs attention. I didn’t ask for it. It just happens. The night before trash collection, I get a reminder which bins to put out. Once a week, I get a summary of local news, filtered by our interests and delivered with a Rhine-region commentary—my wife and I are expats from the Rhineland living in Bavaria, and Lollo knows to add the appropriate sardonic undertone.
Ideas and todos. When I have an idea, I say “new idea about X” and it goes into my Obsidian vault, properly formatted, synced. When I need a todo, same thing. The knowledge doesn’t get trapped in a chat history I’ll never scroll back through. It flows into real systems where it belongs.
Watch history and taste. Lollo has access to my Trakt.tv data-everything I’ve watched, when, how I rated it. Over time, this becomes a taste profile. Recommendations get better because they’re based on actual behavior, not a cold-start conversation.
Meal planning and culinary consulting. Forget smart fridges. I tell Lollo what’s in our pantry and fridge-on the go, via voice, whenever I remember. Not everything, but ingredients that survive a week’s cooking cycle. Based on what’s actually there, it suggests dishes that match our preferences.
Contact management. After meetings or on the go, I can quickly dictate the people I just met. Mixed with photos of business cards, LinkedIn profile links, whatever I have. From this mess, Lollo creates clean new contacts or updates existing ones.
Sheesh. This guy needed a color consultant? My life must be so simple. I put my ideas and todos in a text file that's simple to manage.
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One-third of dementia cases are linked to non brain-related diseases. Yup, you must take care of the body, as well, or the brain will rot.
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