Them slutty, overdramatic-as-shit Anne Rice vampires of course. Join me up in the Talamasca, hunt me down a gay bodychanging lover, all the things.

Just tell them you don’t want it and they will almost certainly accommodate. Most therapists are still trying to get a sense of the tool and how their patients will feel about it, they won’t be looking to fire patients over it.

I’ve been looking at the SimplePractice tool as I am IT guy for a couple of therapy clinics, plus my own therapist wanted a guinea pig. I am not thrilled by the terms of service, which allow the company to do whatever they want internally with your data. But the tool is legit useful for therapists (it’s to help them justify your ongoing care to your insurance company, who wants specifics on the how but not the what you’re discussing. The therapist winds up reviewing the summarization before it’s sent to the insurance company. It won’t affect your care. The LLM is supposed to be HIPAA compliant, but I am really curious about how that works.

I am looking more at on-device models for the future. Notetaking is a big burden for therapists, who often wind up keeping multiple versions of your notes: one for you (you have the right to request them), one for insurance which is coded to their treatment plans, one for the court or judge if there’s a divorce or other proceeding involved. One for the parent if it’s a teenager. So a tool like this has the real power to cut back on a therapist’s weekend admin time. There’s just no reason it can’t be a local model. A Mac Mini sitting in the corner, with a mic input switch for clients who don’t want it on.

It’s worth researching a therapist’s credentials, some states allow “pastoral counseling degrees” and so on to be a path to “mental health therapist.” You want LISW, a licensed social worker. I’m not saying there aren’t weirdos, or that your experience wouldn’t happen with a social worker… just that many folks don’t realize some therapists went to theology classes instead of psychology classes, which is a prime setup for problems.

Himbos

Yes, but with hundreds of millions of people online, they still need ways to cut and sift the data as they identify… well the “demographics” they want. So using a VPN might make you stand out as more technologically included, or more likely to be hiding something. Either way things they might like to know as they build profiles on all Americans.

I’m surprised they’re not just buying the data but it’s nice that our taxpayers are footing the bill either way for this little service.

From what Elon says to shareholders, Tesla is going to pivot to becoming a humanoid robot production company anyway, the cars are just a sideline. They axed two models when they announced that.

There’s a box in my kitchen I can put dirty dishes and tomorrow morning they’re clean

Skincare now mandatory

Weight management efforts now mandatory

Weight training now mandatory, just to stop losing muscle… even more if you want to improve

Quality sleep, consistently timed

Switch to whole foods based diet

Form working relationships with my doctors

Just speaking for myself, as a systems administrator, I am actively pursuing my backup plans to get out of IT ASAP. What’s coming is topsy-turvy and will be dog eat dog.

Dammit, Obama maybe - the act was passed by Congress in 2013.

The average American feels an unmet need for connection. Social media immediately fills that need, exactly like a drug. For a few minutes anyway. You don’t get the benefits of a real connection, just the dopamine. Pretty soon you feel worse, and the best way to stop feeling bad is to hit refresh or keep scrolling. I’m glad we’re finally looking at the consequences of social media for kids, then we can look at what it does to adults.

The point of capitalism isn’t “make a widget/sell the widget/to a customer” anymore, it’s “create market value/sell the value/shareholders are the entire point.” The widgets are just a prop in a way, the customers an abstraction. If it’s making money, if it’s growing above 3.5, we worship it. If it’s growing at thousands of percent, then it’s a god who cannot be stopped. Everything else just supports this - government, social programs, people’s life and death and joy in between - that’s all an abstraction. Shareholder value is the only thing that matters.

This is why we must restrain capitalism with regulation, but it’s too late, it’s metastasized into its final form now.

The disease is late stage capitalism, the symptom is a mad dash to trade our natural resources for energy and pollution. The mad dash will continue as long as we’re bleeding humanity to keep the shareholders high and dry.

Only during specific times of the year, it’s a supplement not a main diet. If you notice your colony doesn’t have enough honey for the winter, or it’s a new colony, or needs medicated, then yes. Otherwise they should be eating their own stored honey made the way they like it.

You can’t put a shareholder in jail, they’re the entire point of the system gestures broadly

I had one disable my car in rush hour traffic in another city on a roadtrip, they had no way to do anything to get me back up and running. I assume this is for those kinds of cases. I was taking up a lane on the interstate with a cop staring at me, trying to hum the little fucker back to life while a tow truck came.

I live in one of my state’s few walkable neighborhoods adjacent to a downtown core, when I try to explain to others in the area what it’s like, well, they’ve never had any reason to use sidewalks besides the yearly trick-or-treat around the cul-de-sac. Vaguely know their neighbors as they wave in passing.

For me the best part was getting a job downtown, by a park, so I can exist almost feeling like a much larger city proper. Main library, tons of restaurants, shops. Historic homes. Neighbors who care for each other and feel like extended family. This is what ‘urban’ can and should feel like - community.

Tow company has to have a contract with the city, they can’t just randomly go abduct cars without it. So you have to know which companies have that contract.

Usually bike lanes are tacked on as a “can we shut them up without making too many changes”

It seems like thoughtfully designed and implemented bike lanes are the exception to the rule

Without a network of super expensive proprietary sensors that need replacing every time it rains? How on earth will you manage?