I hadn’t heard of the Xreal Air before. How is the resolution on it? Can you use it comfortably as a monitor replacement for work?

I rarely lose my temper, but whenever I do a couple times per year, my writing gets 10x as much reach and likes and shares, and gets basically immortalized. But I'm rarely happy about it when it does.

I still think about this a lot in terms of how I choose to use social media- with reach comes responsibility.

It's both a bad thing and a good thing. On one hand, it's not great that posts based on a combination of emotion and reason get *way* better reach than ones based on more pure reason alone. For "clicks" the best thing I could do for a given post is lose my temper and go all-out on something.

On the other hand, the rare cases where I lose my temper are based on serious built-up frustrations over months. I'm frustrated about something, keep holding it back, and then something becomes intolerable. My socially-compliant self-censorship all unravels at once, not perfectly, but with a clear aspect of *deep* honesty. And people see that honesty because it reflects their own. So it spreads.

So, most of the time, I write carefully, and I know my audience comes from multiple different backgrounds, literally from Indonesian farmers to Wall Street institutional billionaires, and I try to politely move the Overton window from within the Overton window. But a couple times per year, I lose my temper and post my emotional thoughts, which in some ways are more honest, but are also not exactly my ideal self-actualized self.

I end up being grateful for both my constant attempt at control and my rare tempers, because somewhere in the middle is my truth. That blend between controlled reason and built-up emotion is really hard to manage in an era of digital media and semi-immortalized content.

Anyway, I'll post this random stuff on Nostr, not Twitter. You guys and girls get the real thoughts because you're here.

I hadn’t heard of the Xreal Air before. How is the resolution on it? Can you use it comfortably as a monitor replacement for work?

One thought I can’t shake after watching Apple’s VisionOS stuff is how much I want the eye tracking functionality in their headset. From what I’ve heard from the few people who have actually tried the device, it works amazingly well and some described it as the most magical part of the whole experience. For anyone who hasn’t seen it there are four infrared cameras on the inside of the headset that are pointed at your eyes. They can very precisely track exactly the point your eyes are looking at in the VR/AR world. In VisionOS to click on something you look at it and then touch your thumb and pointer fingers together to “click”.

I don’t want the whole headset, or a whole new OS. Just give me some eyeglasses with the infrared cameras and let me replace my mouse with them. Imagine a world in which your hands never have to leave the keyboard because left and right click are just keys on your keyboard and your computer knows which element you are looking at to click on. You can sit with better posture because you don’t have to move your arms between the mouse and keyboard. You can fly around your operating system with incredible speed, because your eyes move way faster than your arm and fingers. You don’t need to learn as many keyboard shortcuts because looking at something and pressing one key is much faster than contorting your hands to get that arcane shortcut. It feels like a desktop power-user’s dream.

Apple made a good point that what your eyes are looking at is traditionally private information, and they took pains to conceal what your are looking at from the applications your are interacting with (of course their closed-source OS has access to that data). In my ideal device I think I’d be ok with forgoing the “hover effect” on the element or button you are looking at in exchange for my eye position only being transmitted to the operating system when I click.

I did some web searching for people working on this and found a few products, but the consumer priced ones like the Tobii Eye Tracker 5 are apparently not accurate enough to replace a mouse. There is some medical-grade hardware aimed at making computers accessible for those with motor disabilities that looks better but it costs around $15k. I also found that Apple has a head tracking mouse built into macOS as an accessibility feature, but it wasn’t precise enough to be quicker than a mouse in my testing.

I think it will take a couple years but surely this is the future of pointer devices for general computing. The unfortunate casualty will be FPS games, but it’s a tradeoff I’m willing to make for the greater good.

Imagine your government built upon open protocols that they can’t own, control, or manipulate…every interaction visible to all. What changes? What fails?

what does it say about me that i’m downloading instagram threads and trying it out anyway lol

#instagram #threads #socialmedia #bluesky #nostr

(Pretend this isn’t a day late lol.)

#Nostriches I’m 6 months sober today :)

I made the decision to try out sobriety cold-turkey at the beginning of 2023 and it’s been one of the best decisions I could’ve ever made.

I feel healthier in mind and body. I’ve experienced consistent clarity. And I’ve exercised a level of discipline that I’m proud of.

As someone who goes to music and tech events rather frequently, alcohol is unavoidable. It’s available at every turn. Bartenders are perplexed when I ask for virgin versions of whatever is on the happy hour menu. I get asked all kinds of inappropriate questions when I opt to drink water. Seltzer on ice with a slice of lime has since become my default mocktail of choice.

I never had a drinking problem or any issues with alcohol prior to making this decision. I solely decided to do it because I wanted to try something that I knew would be a bit of a challenge for me and that would require me to make conscious decisions to resist temptation. It’s summer, and as a former tequila enthusiast, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t crave a margarita every now and then. I told myself I’d give this at least a year though, so I’m sticking to my guns.

I’m looking forward to the next 6 months. And maybe the next 6, and the next 6 after that. Who knows—maybe I’ll never drink again.

Regardless of what the future holds, I’m grateful for this period of time.

Thank you to everyone who has respected my boundaries and shown any support on this journey.

What are some life changes you’ve made recently?

#health #wellness #sobriety #discipline #grownostr #sober