I have a temporary dream (as in we’ll see how long this lasts…) of building a database of legislation by state that can easily be queried.
I think a lot of people rely on the news to tell them how to interpret legislation when it’s actually really easy to figure it out for yourself if you know where to look. And with the proliferation of AI, it should be even easier to know what legislation is without some political analyst with an agenda.
Anyway, the idea is to have all this available on one website that uses open source code for the underlying database.
it’s actually really easy to figure it out for yourself if you know where to look.
Yeah, but different people interpret legislation differently, and the gramatically literal interpretation isn’t always the “right” one. So it would be smart to also include links to any cases or precedents based on them.
That would be a great project indeed… just a heads up:
I was part of a group exploring to do something similar a couple decades ago. The main problem we found, was dealing with those first two points: by the time we figured out all the places a single “state” (this wasn’t in the US) stored all their legislation, they had already changed some of them. We realized that it would take either: collaboration from the government in terms of standardizing how they store things… or a constant game of chasing around the changes they made. At the time, we concluded it wasn’t practical to do it for free, and indeed some paid services have emerged offering something similar, but they’re not open.
My suggestion: if you managed to find a way for governments to make legislation accessible in a standardized way, that would be a HUGE success. Ideally, have it written into constitution, and/or use the constitution to beat government bodies into compliance.
Also a warning: the messy state of things, seems to be a sort of “job security” for some lawyer firms and companies offering the consolidation services, so taking that away may not be easy.
Organic Maps currently only supports metro/subway navigation, not buses, trains or other types of PT (although they are planning on introducing a new map layer for that). Bike routing works, although only fully separated bike paths are rendered.
@JohnDumpling oh, I see. I thought only my city was not supported. OsmAnd does have on the ground transit routes though. And there's also Transportr and Offi, but they do not support all the cities (and clearly not bike paths).
Playing DND for the first time in months so I’m in an excellent mood. I wish it wasn’t so hard getting people together, and I know I’m definitely part of the difficulty in making that happen.
I’d like a functional local LLM app for Android. I tried MLCChat, but it just spat out gibberish. I tried installing llamafile on a Linux VM with Termux, but it didn’t work.
Originally reddit was a niche site with few visitors that was full of knowledge and a strong sense of community.
Then during Gamergate (2014), several organizational subs were created by rancid basement dwelling mysogitrolls that soon found that not only did they not get banned for doxxing and harassing people, that they gathered even more rancid basement dwelling mysogitrolls to their ranks and realized they weren’t as rare as they worried.
Then 2015 rolled around and a SHITTON of alt-right wastes of their own father’s protein came around for the whole trumpfest that reddit became at the time.
And they never left.
On the other hand, a ton of people who created content and supported other users with meaningful replies all decided it wasn’t worth the constant harassment, doxxing, malicious reporting, bigotry, botting and refusal of the admins to address said behaviors.
And we left.
So the only redditors still there are either shitstains or too emotionally invested to leave yet.
And that latter group will get smaller and smaller as the shitstains become louder and more emboldened.
Seriously though, I’ve been using Reddit since probably about 2012. I never really put time into analyzing it’s demise. I didn’t care enough. Thanks for the information. 🙂
ever since kagi expressed that they’re not interested in caring about the effect of LLMs on the environment (kagifeedback.org/d/…/2), i had already hopped off because i could see their talk about “making the world a more humane place” was just talk. so i’m not really surprised to see this shit unfolding either
i’m surprised to see that the dude who replied on my post is actually the kagi guy, though. that’s surprising, i took him for some q&a support mod lmao
but yea i’m trans so i do my best not to support transphobic (or otherwise bigoted) people. seems like it’s in my best interest y’know. and sometimes i don’t know! i was pretty excited for kagi at first blush, it’s really a shame they’re not worth the time or effort
It’s been pretty nice so far. Last weekend I finished a project I’ve been working on since April last year so I’ve finally been able to relax over the weekend for maybe the first time in ~3 months. In related news: I also finally got to start Spider-Man 2 and that has been a lot of fun too.
It was a personal project. I was planning a party, which doesn’t sound like a lot; but I really wanted it to go well, so I was putting in a lot of work on decorations, goody bags, catering, etc. (Plus I’ve never planned a party before)
Barbershop. I know, weird, right? It gets weirder. This is a weekend event - a “brigade”. The best way to describe it is like a pick-up basketball tournament. 100 guys show up, they get randomly (by position forward/center/guard or bass/bari/lead/tenor) into 25 “teams”. Instead of basketball plays and general sport, we all learn - note perfect - twelve fairly complex songs. Each team gets assigned one of the songs and, after an hour of rehearsal, compete against one another (we have voice judges, like the Olympics have gymnastics judges). It’s all for shits and grins, but mostly for the brotherhood* of shared song. We split up and do programs for local school music departments, and all get together to form a 100 man chorus for a benefit concert the second nite. Unlike most choral events, we all know the same songs, so you find three others and go. All day and all night for two days. Lunches or dinners at local restaurants often turn flash-mob performance.
Again, it’s weird from the outside. From the inside it’s like 99 friends best friends or family members, but without the family discord.
*There has almost always been women in barbershop, but we were officially separated into our own societies/organizations until recently. Falling numbers will do that - it’s an old art form and the men who were around when it is popular are passing on. Anyway, several of these weekends are now gender inclusive and, from what I understand, awesomer as a result. I’ll get to go to my first in two months. We’re also adding semi-modern repertoire. Sugar (maroon 5) and Feel it Still (Portugal The Man) are on the song list, for example. Last weekend they threw in a Garth Brooks and Joe Diffy songs. Not 2023/24, but not 1923/24 either.
Wow. That sounds like a blast. Have heard some Barbershop & knew it is a US college tradition, but had no idea about the brigades.
As a curious aside, saw a thing on television just this evening about a Portuguese musical tradition which exists in their universities. The style & tunes are very different to Barbershop, and they make use of string instruments as well (though everybody has to sing) but they too have familiar repertoire and appear at various events on campus, as well as competing with other university troupes.
I’ve heard of that in Portugal! Barbershop is actually an art form that was appropriated from African slaves who brought an oral tradition with them to America and morphed from the spirituals they sang; it was developed more though the Vaudeville practice and modern barbershop (the organization and preservation of the art form) started as a lark in the 40s. The less I sing it, the more I enjoy it when I do - it’s very distinctive, so a little goes a long way.
A book/movie/object collection shelf app that has barcode scan, ISBN search, and custom database entries like money spent. They were really popular in the early 2010s but mostly subscription based and Mac only. I could probably repurpose something like Calibre to do similar things but that’s a bit overkill and a lot of non-book entries would take too long to setup.
busy, busy weekend. took coco (foster dog) to the community garden volunteer day on saturday morning. my partner had his birthday bash at a local music venue where his band and his friends’ bands played. came back to our house for a garage after party. drove to the adjacent city to hang with folks sunday morning, then came home and watched the extended edition of the lord of the rings: the two towers. i fell asleep during the last hour or so, but i just watched it last weekend, so i’m okay with that. (my partner missed watching it, which is why i rewatched.)
going alcohol-free until valentine’s day, which should be a good little reset.
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