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If you know me, you know I 've often said:
“Finance is 90% getting the accounting right.”
Meet CavalRe Ledger: a standalone service for holding assets and managing accounts, built on hierachical double-entry accounting.
First implementation: @solana 🧵
If you know me, you know I 've often said:
“Finance is 90% getting the accounting right.”
Meet CavalRe Ledger: a standalone service for holding assets and managing accounts, built on hierachical double-entry accounting.
First implementation: @solana 🧵
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🤬 @Samsung , you've got some 'plaining to do.
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 te 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.
x.com/log4j/status/2…
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/char…
[3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar…
[4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/…
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When any political party cannot enunciate why one candidate is preferable over another without resorting to unsubstantiated personal insults, you have to wonder. I'm old enough to remember when there were good and smart candidates on both sides and we could talk to each other.
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Are we going to start seeing insolvency in reinsurers?
I worked in insurance a few years and we ALWAYS assumed reinsurers will always be solvent. Since then, I've said the next GFC will come from insurance.
I worked in insurance a few years and we ALWAYS assumed reinsurers will always be solvent. Since then, I've said the next GFC will come from insurance.
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When I was learning to build Roblox games as an activity with my boy years ago, my first game was "Exploding Brick". A brick fell from some random point in the sky. The objective is to be the first player to touch the brick and explode yourself.
Now, we call that DeFi.
Now, we call that DeFi.
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Never write when you can speak.
Never speak when you can nod.
Never nod when you can meme.
Never speak when you can nod.
Never nod when you can meme.
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Starting at 12 PM ET/16:00 UTC today!
Join @mrkit2u and @tamiljai6p to learn about how red·bridge gives Zodlers a way to borrow against their $ZEC without selling. See you there! 👋
#Zcash #redbridge
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I love this! Compile your code to exact weights with no training 🤯
My dear friends, I’d like to show you my latest toy project
Introducing Handwired: turn your regular JavaScript code into a neural net!
- no training
- exact outputs vs the JS program
- fully differentiable
All runnable in a browser, without GPU
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👊
I feel like the whole BoA money laundering thing should be talked about, but what's left to say?
I spent a year in prison for not filling out a form around selling Bitcoin and got in trouble because someone two degrees separate from me allegedly used it to launder funds. The amount in question was around $30k.
BoA launders $5b and has to give one fifth of it back to the government. No jail for anyone.
This is America.
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It sucks sometimes. I can't read a technical article and "get it". I need to learn enough about what the author is doing until I can put the paper away and work out the main results myself in my own way.
Not very efficient, but it is pretty effective.
Not very efficient, but it is pretty effective.
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In my head, I'm young and strong, but then I catch myself thinking papers published in early 2000s as recent.
Reminds me of when I first heard Van Halen playing on the classic rock FM radio channel.
Reminds me of when I first heard Van Halen playing on the classic rock FM radio channel.
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Man, I'm not having a good day with Overlord today 🤖🤬
Good thing I don't use Claude. I'd be violating their ToS.
Good thing I don't use Claude. I'd be violating their ToS.
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