Timeline
Every post and feed across this instance
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New Frontier example. I'm working on the menubar we're going to ship with in Atlantis. Came across an ancient bit of code. Symbolic of the whole project, code written in 1997, still useful in 2026.
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Following 404 Media Investigation, Senator Demands Info About White House's License Plate Surveillance Program
Sen. Ron Wyden is seeking a privacy review report about the HIDTA license plate program. -
Same Water, Three Different Stories: What Our Soil Probes Learned in a Rainless Summer
No rain fell on the farm from May to September, and three garden beds got the same irrigation. Soil probes at four depths show three very different fates for that water: held deep in a hügelkultur bed, kept in steady reserve under an alley-cropped bed, barely past the surface in our control. Next: let the soil set the schedule.
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I just went down a rabbit hole of incense seals. So cool.
I just went down a rabbit hole of incense seals. So cool.
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The Social Reckoning’s Real-Life Whistleblower
Sponsor: Take back control today: go to incogni.com/404media and use code 404MEDIA for 60% off an annual plan. That's incogni.com/404media, promo code 404MEDIA—risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen became one of the most important tech whistleblowers in 2021, when she exposed how Facebook’s algorithm was pushing people toward hate groups, showed Instagram was making teen girls feel worse about themselves, and showed that the company knew about its detrimental impacts on society. Haugen’s story is the basis for Aaron Sorkin’s new movie ‘The Social Reckoning,’ which follows her evolution from model employee to leaker to formal whistleblower. Jason and Frances discuss what the movie got right about journalist-source relationships and how AI is supercharging privacy concerns. YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/oB3IxwCfP7M Subscribe at 404media.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicespdst.fm -
Behind the Blog: What Would the Pope Do?
This week, we discuss AI and spirituality. -
On the home AI front, I decided to get the Beelink EQi. Transferring the brain of my OpenClaw to it today. I wish this could be a Mac mini, but the cost of Apple storage is ridiculous. Much easier to drop a 4 TB SSD in this.
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Neat example from Simon Willison of using voice to develop a feature for his blog while cooking, talking and watching the preview on his laptop:
We went on like this for about half an hour (the time it took to cook dinner). The model would reply and occasionally ask clarifying questions, then get to work modifying the code.
As much as everything has been turned upside down, the flow is the same: make a change, see how it looks, make another change.
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Bill McKibben: I’m Exhausted. You’re Demoralized. We...
Bill McKibben: I’m Exhausted. You’re Demoralized. We Weren’t Built for a World Like This. The human nervous system wasn’t designed for the polycrisis. “Among all the other dangers these developments represent, they’re simply wearing us out.”
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I keep thinking about this story I read on NPR yesterday about a chance encounter and a stranger's kindness. 一期一会. "One time, one meeting." We're all just passing briefly in and out of each other's lives.
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L'éducation
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A new feature for my blog, built using my voice
I shipped a new feature for my blog today: the Newsletters page, which offers an index of all of the newsletters I've sent out, both my free weekly Substack and my monthly sponsors-only updates. I built the feature almost entirely using my voice, chatting away to my laptop while I cooked dinner.
Codex voice mode
I used the ChatGPT desktop app for this, in the Codex tab, using the voice conversation mode, running against a local development environment. Here's what that looks like:
I started the session against my local simonwillisonblog checkout by typing:
Start dev server and open in browserThis gave me a preview of the site that it would be working on, and meant that I could later ask it to show me the new pages so I could visually track its progress.
Then I clicked the "Start new voice chat" button - that's not the microphone button, it's the one to the right of it - and set my laptop up in the kitchen so I could talk to it while I cooked.
Talking to my computer
I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to build, and it's a simple enough Django feature that I was certain the model (in this case GPT-6 Astra High) would be able to do it. A new model, a migration, some view code, templates, and a couple of import functions to populate the database from external sources.
Here's an extract of my voice transcript that was captured by Codex:
Um, they do not. Um, this is going to be a new type of content. Um, it's not going to show up... Oh, hold on. Yeah, no- I do not want this to show up in my, um, tag pages and date archive pages and... Actually, no, I think... I don't want it on the tag pages. I don't want it on the, um, blog index page. But I think I do want it to show up on the date-based pages. You know, if you navigate to September the 19th, and I sent a newsletter on that page, I think I want that to show up. So... this is- so I think we probably need a new model. The other thing is that I want them searchable, uh the Substack ones are not searchable, because those are actually just copies of other s- on content on my blog. These monthly ones do contain unique content, and spe- and once they're... published, like once they're made public a month after they've gone out, I want them to show up on my search results.
Apparently this was clear enough that the model knew what I wanted to build! You can read the full transcript, disfluencies and all, in this Gist.
We went on like this for about half an hour (the time it took to cook dinner). The model would reply and occasionally ask clarifying questions, then get to work modifying the code.
What we built
We got a surprisingly long way entirely by voice:
- A new model and migration to represent imported newsletters in Django, plus Django Admin configuration for that
- Four working imports:
- The most recent Substack items via RSS
- Every other Substack item via their undocumented API, which GPT-6 Astra knew about (it tried
/api/v1/archivedirectly) and then ran a search to figure out how to paginate it and found this article by Karen Spinner - All of my published monthly newsletters from my simonw/monthly-newsletter-archive GitHub repository
- My most recent private sponsors-only newsletter from a private repository
- The /newsletters/ and /newsletters/2026/ public archive pages
- Newsletters showing up on day and month archive pages too, but not on tag pages or my homepage
- Weekly Substack newsletters link to Substack; archived monthly newsletters have their own pages
- Integration with my site search engine
It was almost ready to ship. The catch was the imports: Astra offered to export data from my local copy so I could import that into production, but I wanted it to work like my other import scripts. Since some of the data lived in a private GitHub repository, this would involve creating a new API key, and for that I knew I'd have to sit at the keyboard for a while.
Finishing it with a review
Once I had finished cooking and judged it mostly feature-complete, I had Codex create a branch and open a pull request.
I reviewed the code in the GitHub PR interface. It was nearly what I needed, except it had chosen to use Git in a subprocess for one of the import scripts. I needed one of the imports to pull from a private Git repository, so I figured the API would be a better bet. I switched to typing and had Codex swap that out for an API-based import instead.
You can see the changes I made during the review in the extra commits on the PR. I fixed the import mechanism and made a few tweaks to the display of those public pages. It took an additional half hour of typing-based prompting to get to the point where I was happy to deploy it to production by landing the PR.
The end result
You can see the end result at the new newsletters index page, or view the page for a previous monthly newsletter.
The index page shows my most recent Substack weekly newsletters and GitHub sponsors monthly newsletters mixed together in reverse chronological order. Further down the page are links to my by-year archive pages.
GPT-6 Astra designed the page, and then tweaked that design based on my vocal feedback from glancing at the local preview across the kitchen.
Better for multi-tasking than as a daily driver
OpenAI love using voice-driven demos like this one for things like DevDay - and they do work well in that environment. I don't think this is going to be a daily driver for me though.
I've written before about how much "work" I get done using ChatGPT voice mode on my phone while walking the dog - mostly research and brainstorming, but occasionally actual development work by having ChatGPT write and test out snippets of code.
This feels different. The addition of the visual preview, plus being able to type or paste things in via the keyboard when I need to communicate something that doesn't work vocally, makes this a much more powerful way of interacting with a coding agent.
I still switch back to typing once I get down to the details of things though. Being able to paste in examples and error messages, or directly highlight the code or feature that needs changing, remains more efficient than trying to describe it in words.
I mainly work from home, which is good because there's no way I'd want to talk to my computer like this in a shared workspace!
The killer feature for me is the ability to multi-task. I usually cook with a podcast or TikTok running; now I can actually build stuff instead.
You are only seeing the long-form articles from my blog. Subscribe to /atom/everything/ to get all of my posts, or take a look at my other subscription options.
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Cable Giants Ironically Plan To Sue FCC For Illegally Killing Media Ownership Limits
I’ve explored how Trump FCC Boss Brendan Carr has been working tirelessly to illegally destroy what’s left of already shaky U.S. media consolidation limits. He’s particularly interested in helping Trump-friendly local broadcasters like Sinclair, Tegna, and Nexstar merge and dominate what’s left of broadcast TV “news,” as a very obvious reward for their loyalty to […] -
MAGA's Big Fat Greek Scandal
The Wall Street Journal reveals brazen corruption by Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former Fox News host (and Don Jr. fiancée) now serving as ambassador to Greece — and the Daily Mail piles on with eye-popping reports about misbehavior on the job. Jon and Dan react to the brewing scandal and take a look at Trump's closing message: medals for himself and his tech billionaire friends, an empty promise to hand out $5,000 checks and pretending that James Talarico has meat poisoning.
Then they turn to the latest in the key Senate races: Mike Rogers's attempt to break with Trump on Canada tariffs, Susan Collins's embarrassing remarks about healthcare coverage, and Ken Paxton telling donors that he wants to cut funding to Social Security and Medicare. Finally, Lovett sits down with Angie Nixon, the Democratic Senate nominee in Florida, to talk about how she can win in a state Trump calls home.
Hate listening to ads? Become a Friends of the Pod subscriber for ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Lovett or Leave It, Runaway Country, Offline with Jon Favreau, and more—plus exclusive content, including bonus episodes of Pod Save America. Subscribe now at crooked.com/friends, on Apple Podcasts, or through the Pod Save America YouTube channel.
To watch this episode with subtitles, click here and turn on closed captions (CC).
You can request a transcript by emailing transcripts@crooked.com. Include the podcast name, episode title, and air date. Please allow 48 hours for delivery.
clrtpod.com -
FOR FUCK SAKE - but then consider the source:
On the click through …
Green Party leader Zack Polanski has failed in his bid to become an MP, with a narrow loss in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.
Narrow!
Victorious candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali, the leader of Camden Council since May, secured 12,292 votes to Polanski’s 8,928.
27,309 ballot papers were cast in Holborn - some 97 of which were spoiled.
• Abdi-Wali: 45.17% (roughly; see spoiled papers)
• Polanski: 32.81% (ditto)Votes were cast and Zack was cast out and thrown off the island.
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Partout, les convulsions du vieux monde ne sont que les spasmes d’un ordre en fi...
Partout, les convulsions du vieux monde ne sont que les spasmes d’un ordre en fin de course, incapable d’offrir à sa jeunesse les conditions pour s’épanouir. Alors il frappe, réprime et s’accroche. Mais cette génération en a assez de prendre des coups tout en se voyant confisquer son avenir.
Le monde de demain commence par ce que nous refusons d’accepter aujourd’hui.
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🎵 4 Additions to the library this week - thank you @lmika for the first three. The images only worked on 4 - Samplextra by Lee Rosevere wasn't coming up (attempting to discover in 🍎 Music) - what else am I missing.
The other album is the artist I mentioned to you that sits atop my heap.
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📸 Talk about throwback Friday ... took me back a bit. I had this exact one in my childhood bedroom.
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Pete Hegseth Pretends Pentagon’s New ‘Religious Affairs’ Office Isn’t Christian Nationalism
There’s a certain segment of the American population that likes to really bang on about the importance of the First Amendment to our rights to free speech and the freedom of religion… right up until that includes speech and religion they don’t like. This same segment also tends to make a lot of noise about […] -
🔗 The Pain Is Coming. Choose When You Pay.
People who look straight at a coming loss don't hurt less when they lose someone, but they often have fewer regrets, because they said what they wanted to say and showed up while they could.
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🔗 A quote from Ben Affleck I did not expect to read … 🤯
..and then again … this one not via Simon Willison, Ben on Social Media …
“He credited Daniel Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep, Viola Davis, and Denzel Washington as ‘brilliant actors’, noting that “
It doesn’t help me appreciate their movies to see what they had for lunch.
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AI is solving math problems faster than humans can understand the solutions
OpenAI’s math breakthroughs may trigger an identity crisis for mathematicians. Who’s next? -
🔗 Daring Fireball: Jaguar Type 01
I agree about the logo, though not convinced my feelings would stop me buying a beautiful car - which this one - based on the images in the click through - is not. So moot?
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🪦 🔗 Thank You Mark Stephens, aka Robert X. Cringely
.. sorry to read this ‘Bob’ - always enjoyed your work when I saw it. Have to say, you kept quiet - but I had this feeling. Hope your son gets that `Product out the door’.
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The first Spurs preseason game is tonight! They've changed the streaming provider yet again, now on DAZN. 🏀
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The Metric Is Not The Mission: The Illusion Of Knowing Us
The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions around […] -
Thoughts❓
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Vous avez sauvé Méta de Choc ! — SCOOP #13
Je suis heureuse de vous annoncer que, suite à l’appel que j’ai lancé fin août, l’objectif de dons récurrents a été atteint ! Vous avez sauvé Méta de Choc ! Comment s’est déroulée la campagne ? Quels postes de dépenses seront couverts par l’argent... -
1910 "Media Murder"
No Agenda Episode 1910 - "Media Murder"
Media Murder
Executive Producers:
Kim Keeper of the Nutty Fluffers
Sir Grumpy Old Boomer & Dame Zelda of the Turtle Realm
Jennifer Taylor
Jalal Williams
Sir Andrew Walker
Todd Usnik
Jason Summers
Peter Boyle
Erich Kessler
Ara Derderian
Sir Walkman Duke of Buckeye State
Jonathan Batteas
Cody Dowd
Knights and Dames:
Erich Kessler > Sir Erich Kessler
Cody Dowd > Sir Doader, Commodore and Protector of the Round Down
Anna > Dame Nan Adams of the Texas Twilight Zone
Title Changes:
Sir Andrew Walker > Baronet
JCD Challenge Coin:
Kim Keeper of the Nutty Fluffers
Sir Grumpy Old Boomer & Dame Zelda of the Turtle Realm
Jennifer Taylor
Jalal Williams
Sir Andrew Walker
Todd Usnik
Jason Summers
Peter Boyle
Erich Kessler
Ara Derderian
Sir Walkman Duke of Buckeye State
Jonathan Batteas
Cody Dowd
End of Show Mixes:
Jus Baker (Conversation with a voter (V4V Intro))
Jus Baker (Dana Brunetti Intro 1910)
Jus Baker (JCD Challenge Coin - Short)
RocketBoy333 (Ghosts In The Broadcast)
Sir Jeramey Johnson (The Best Podcast In The Universe, Country)
brunetti-show year-jingle (artist not named in the file)
Mark van Dijk - Systems Master
Ryan Bemrose - Program Director
Back Office Jae Dvorak
Chapters: Dreb Scott
Clip Custodian: Neal Jones
Clip Collectors: Steve Jones & Dave Ackerman
No Agenda Peerage
RSS Podcast Feed
Last Modified 10/08/2026 16:43:19 by Freedom Controllerop3.dev -
In 1996, the Blondin family drove all around the US,...
In 1996, the Blondin family drove all around the US, blogging about it all before “blog” was even a word. “We were doing something that had no name and no manual, and we were doing it over a dial-up modem while living in a motorhome.”
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Recorded a short video to explain a new batch selection interface for uploaded photos, just rolled out today in Micro.blog.
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DNC Sues Trump For Wasting $20 Million In Taxpayer Dollars On Ineffective Midterm Propaganda
The Democratic party has announced they’re suing Donald Trump for his recent attempt to flood the midterm airwaves with propaganda he’s falsely claiming are “public service announcements.” The DNC complaint was filed in federal court in Washington, and names the White House, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and US Department of Homeland Security […] -
How Every State Voted In 1924 vs 2024
This post is a work in progress showing how voting patterns in America changed over the course of 100 years. I’ve compared the results of the 1924 US Presidential election to the 2024 one for each US state. Note in 1924 there were only 48 states, not 50! I’ve also included videos below each state […] -
Chasing a Plane Across the Moon
Agustín Ferrando Trenchi became a little obsessed with the moon as a kid. As an adult, he’s taken tons of photos and hundreds of hours of footage of the moon. After seeing an airplane fly close to the moon while he filmed, Trenchi began a quest to capture a plane flying across the face of the moon.
Over the course of 10 years, he took photos and videos of birds and statues silhouetted by the moon, but planes eluded him.
I realized if I wanted to film this, I was going to have to try a different approach. It wasn’t just going to happen by accident. So in February of this year, taking advantage of being in London, I decided to go near one of the busiest airports in the world to maximize my odds as much as possible.
But while we were on our way, I had second thoughts. I felt like it took the fun out of it. It didn’t make sense to force it that much either. So we got off.
I’m not going to spoil the video, but the whole thing is just so lovely — a meditation on obsessions, journeys, and finding meaning in your life. (via virginia)
Tags: Agustín Ferrando Trenchi · Moon · photography · video
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Abolish Frat Culture. “This is going to be uncomfortable...
Abolish Frat Culture. “This is going to be uncomfortable for anyone with a kid in a fraternity to hear: If your son finds himself in a group that would send a ‘free pussy’ text, it’s too late. The group is the disease, the text is the symptom.”
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J’échange beaucoup avec ma fille sur ce qu’il se passe en France et en Belgique...
J’échange beaucoup avec ma fille sur ce qu’il se passe en France et en Belgique et ailleurs (Palestine, Iran, etc) et honnêtement je suis fier d’elle, fier de cette génération politisée, fier qu’ielles ne baissent pas les bras, moi je dis la relève est assurée et les gouvernements vont se ramasser une leçon magistrale, car dans la guerres de communication qui fait rage, ils ont déjà perdu et ils ne s’en rendent même pas compte.
Il y aura beaucoup d’encre versée sur cette période et autant de critiques de canapés, mais cette jeunesse ne vas pas se plier devant le neofascisme qui vient, devant les mensonges d’une caste politique aveuglée par sa propre bulle coupée de la réalité.
Il faut tous les dégager, on le pensait déjà il y a 20 ans et de fait rien n’a changé, la génération militante d’avant s’est peut être rangée, voire assoupie, mais elle sent d’autant plus fort le vent qui se lève porté par une génération qui n’a pas froid aux yeux et qui va découvrir dans les luttes sociales et politiques, les graines des mouvements politiques de demain, adapté au monde de demain, celui qu’ils et elles voudront bien construire.
Chasser le vieux monde ne se fera pas sans effort, persévérance, il y aura des bras cassés, des éborgnés, voir pire, car les forces du désordres n’ont plus qu’une obsession en tête : mater, tuer, noyer, toute forme de remise en cause du désordre établi.
Ça ne passera pas.
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FBI Whistleblower Says Emil Bove Directed Agents To Investigate Anti-ICE Protesters
Hey, this guy is a judge now! Let that seep in for a bit. Emil Bove used to work for the DOJ. Then he went to work for Trump, acting as his personal lawyer starting in 2023. Upon Trump’s return to office, he was brought back to the DOJ to serve as an “associate deputy […] -
Daily Deal: The iPhotography Training Course
From exposure to shutter speed and everything in between, this award-winning training walks you through the nuts and bolts behind capturing truly stunning photos. iPhotography is the leading online photography choice of aspiring photographers worldwide, and it’s easy to see why. Each of this course’s 18 modules has been carefully constructed and feature personal mentorship […] -
'It Is Done. Hail Satan:' City Immediately Regrets New Religious Liberty Law That Allows Prayer at City Council Meeting
Iowa city council debates proper time in meeting agenda to "undo the curse that was just put on our city." -
Any Human Ever randomly picks an average person from some...
Any Human Ever randomly picks an average person from some point in human history and tells you about what their life was like. Mine was a woman born in 1547: “Of all the sounds of her life, the loudest were thunder and the church bells.”
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Poking around in WordPress because I wanted to see how they handle something in the UI, and I just noticed the "Create AI Podcast" sidebar menu item:
Pick a date range or a few specific posts and we’ll generate a two-host conversation, complete with narration and a ready-to-publish draft. Edit, refine, and hit Publish when you’re happy.
I want more people to podcast, but creating a podcast with multiple fake hosts (for what is likely a solo personal blog) is weird and unnecessary. This is why so many people hate AI.
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Élections en Israël : « La majorité des israéliens considère qu’il n'y a pas d’innocents à Gaza »
Le 27 octobre auront lieu les premières élections législatives en Israël depuis le 7-Octobre et le déclenchement de la guerre génocidaire à Gaza. Benyamin Nétanyahou, très contesté, passera-t-il la main ? Qu’est-ce que cela changerait réellement pour les territoires palestiniens ?
Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.
audio.audiomeans.fr -
💬 me … many many years ago.
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💬 There is something called bad revenue. This avoids some of it … but as Charlie says .. it’s a floor. I will drop some other issues in the comments later.
In case you were wondering …
- CAC is Customer Acquisition Cost
- LTV is Customer Lifetime Value
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Love this Apple video of embroidery for the logo to announce the October 13th event. 🧵
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💬
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Podcast: Leak Show Cops Can Break into Locked iPhones
Cops are getting around a very important iPhone security feature; someone made an LLM torture chamber; and lawyers going wild with ChatGPT. -
Mamdani’s “Richard Scarry Socialism” Can Make City Life...
Mamdani’s “Richard Scarry Socialism” Can Make City Life Simple Again. “It is an astonishing indictment of our times that the cities of our picture books can seem like a radical utopia.”
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Watch an Unconstitutional Flock Search
We got the bodycam and in-car footage from the unconstitutional Flock search. Also now you can basically have sex with Claude Code? -
Watch Footage of the Flock Search a Judge Ruled Unconstitutional
"I saw her go by, and I just started running her info on Flock."