I'm sitting at a cafe that's directly across the river from a Chinese version of Las Vegas built in Northwest Laos. The city has it's own airport, but it's not near anything else in Laos. This place is apparently one of several Chinese gambling hubs built just across the border from Thailand. The Chinese government cracked down on them a few years back and they turned into crime hubs for human trafficking and God knows what else. Many of the casinos were transformed into call centers where kidnapped people would be forced to scam people in their home countries. This video has a great summary

I almost feel absurd even saying this, but I will likely say it for years to come. Computers are not and will not ever be human. They do not have nervous systems and cannot experience emotions. This is the kind of note someone will dig up in 2050 to call me roboracist.

At a time when AI slop seems to be taking over the media landscape I'm making a point to only post and interact with things created directly by humans with intent. I may not always know the difference so I'm trying to find my discernment now. There will always be ways to tell real from fake, but those clues might be hidden to those who fail to watch the transition closely.

Based on the description It should have been obvious to me before, but it just occurred to me that the people we "follow" on social media have a small part in creating our reality. At the very least they can display us with content that has the potential to shift our moment to moment attention and emotional affect. Upon close inspection, this is all we ever really have. In the past I don't know if I treated those who "follow" me with this level of attention and care... I certainly am not treated that way when I use other social media platforms that force feed me with content I didn't request. I'm going to strive to pay more attention to these things. If nostr is going to be valuable it should be set apart in terms of tone and quality. ..between shitposts anyway 🤙

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I climbed this abandoned building to watch the sunset in Chiang Rai

Humans do some wild stuff

This place was recommended by a friend. The absurdity brought me here, but the food is pretty good.

I'm convinced that if we legalized lane splitting and filtering at red lights in cities in the US it would dramatically reduce traffic as more people would buy scooters and motorcycles. Every Asian country that does this has way less traffic.

Does anyone have a good sat/international currency converter? Every time I want to pay somebody back I need to convert local currency to USD and then to sats.