“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
America
Joined November 2011
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Salesforce? The defense logistics company?
Congrats to the Rune team (from our very first Cohort!) on the acquisition.
Much more to come!
And shout out to @CalebJohn24 for the intro to Peter a while back!
Colton Cray retweeted
every launch vid now is like
*cavemen making fire*
*model t*
*wright bros*
*moon landing*
*nuclear bomb detonation*
“every great innovation was once called crazy… that’s why today we’re launching AI-powered automated accounts receivable for operationally complex services businesses”
Colton Cray retweeted
Delighted that my Freedom's Forge (originally published 2012) is now the #1 bestselling book in economic history on Amazon:
amazon.com/Freedoms-Forge-Am…
This thread about insane clown posse as a Christian heresy emblematic of American folk religion is a trip
Consumer manufacturing is finally headed home @PalmerLuckey
Colton Cray retweeted
This Friday, I’ll be giving a talk on the historical case for the resurrection of Christ.
Several years ago, I began looking into the historical evidence as an atheist to prove that Christianity was nothing but a therapeutic superstition. What I found completely changed my life.
Over the course of a year, I spent nearly every waking moment reading whatever I could find on the subject. My entire life was suddenly reorganized around answering this one question: did Jesus Christ actually rise from the dead?
There was a time when I thought this question was too ridiculous to even consider. But looking back, it was by far the most important question I've ever asked.
If you're interested in learning more, check out the link to the event page below. All are welcome to join regardless of religious background or lack thereof.
Colton Cray retweeted
For months, everyone has been talking about Peter Thiel’s secretive Antichrist lectures in Nashville. @gb_rango attended all four off-the-record lectures, held inside the historic Grand Lodge of Tennessee Free and Accepted Masons.
Now, with Thiel’s blessing: a comprehensive, firsthand reconstruction of his sprawling theory of the end times, from AI doomers and one-world government to the fate of America.
piratewires.com/p/inside-pet…
Colton Cray retweeted
A jet engine that has spent 10 of the last 30 years in the air.
The fan blades spin ninety-four times a second, the blade tips at 1,070 miles per hour.
28,800 g's of centripetal acceleration
For a decade.
Fewer countries have built a commercial airliner than gone to space.
Colton Cray retweeted
Founders Fund II is in a league of its own
a $220m fund from 2007 that has created $37.4bn
that's 183.5x per dollar at risk. The median across 408 ranked funds is 1.3x
1️⃣ Founders Fund II, 183.5x, @SpaceX
2️⃣ Bullet Time Ventures I, 53.3x, @Uber
3️⃣ Founders Fund III, 52.2x, @PalantirTech
more than 3x any other fund on the list. INSANE
Source: @JoinOdin via @hkanji
Is this skill or one SpaceX-sized bet? @foundersfund
If you've ever wondered why smart TVs are so cheap, this is why.
@log4j rooted his Samsung and found an always-on hot mic, automatic content recognition, geolocation, network mapping, ad targeting and user profiling, shared with Samsung's "400 partners".
A lot of it can be blocked in <15 min, wrote a basic guide below.
What your TV is doing
The main culprit is ACR (automatic content recognition). Your TV screenshots what's on screen, fingerprints it, and sends it home to build your ad profile. Samsung does it every 500ms, LG every 10ms [1].
What is insane: it happens on connected devices too.
Plug in your laptop, your console, your work machine, and your TV can fingerprint that via HDMI [1].
He also found that if your Samsung doesn't have a mic, it'll look for one from a connected soundbar or bluetooth device.
nitter.cf/log4j/status/211376224…
It's on by default, and you likely agreed to it on the setup screen you clicked through in 10 seconds.
Step 1: Turn off ACR
Samsung: Terms & Privacy → Viewing Information Services
LG: Live Plus
Vizio: Viewing Data
Roku: "Use info from TV inputs"
Sony/Google TV: Samba Interactive TV
Menus vary by model, but those are the names to look for. While you're in there, opt out of interest-based ads, reset your advertising ID, decline every optional privacy agreement, turn off voice recognition, and delete apps you never open.
Step 2: Give smart devices their own network
Put the TV, cameras, speakers and vacuum on your router's guest/IoT network. The logic is simple: these devices rarely get patched. If one gets compromised (getting drastically more frequent with AI), it shouldn't be able to see your other devices or home network.
Step 3: Block trackers for the whole house with DNS-level filtering
NextDNS (cloud-based) is easy and has a solid free plan. Pi-hole is a little bit more work if you prefer self hosting. For simplicity we'll focus on the former.
1. Sign up at nextdns.io (free tier is plenty)
2. Privacy tab: add a blocklist (OISD is a good bet) and turn on Native Tracking Protection for Samsung, LG, Roku, Amazon (see attached image)
3. Setup tab: copy your endpoint
4. Paste it into your router's DNS settings as DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS (or use the IPs + "Link IP" if your router only does plain DNS)
5. Bonus: block outbound port 53 except to your router. Some devices hardcode their own DNS to get around you
Then open the NextDNS logs and watch how often your TV phones home. It's eye-opening. If an app or update breaks, find the domain in the logs and allowlist it.
Why they do this
TV prices are down 97% since 2000 [2]. Most of that is better manufacturing and brutal competition. But once margins on the hardware hit zero, the cost moved to you.
In Q3 2024, Vizio lost $6.7M selling TVs and made $115.8M in gross profit from ads and viewing data [3]. They've said on earnings calls that they keep TV prices low to grow the audience they sell to advertisers. Walmart bought them in 2024.
This isn't a conspiracy theory either. Vizio paid $2.2M to the FTC in 2017 for tracking 11 million TVs without consent. Last December, Texas sued Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL over ACR. Samsung and LG have since agreed to stop collecting that data without explicit consent [4].
TL;DR
1. ACR off
2. Ads + voice off
3. Smart devices on their own network
4. NextDNS filtering on the router
Sources:
[1] ACR study: arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203
[2] Cost of US consumer goods: aei.org/economics/chart-of-t…
[3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/…
[4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/new…
