First Amendment & defamation lawyer. Free Speech Counsel @TechFreedom (x2) Prev: @theFIREorg (x3), BigLaw Illini/music junkie/oofnik. Tweets are my own.
Chicago, IL
Joined September 2011
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This tweet struck a chord with me, and while I don't often get personal on the Tweeters, given the point made here, I feel it's important. So here we go. Happy #pridemonth. xitter.twitterapi.xyz/jpbrammer/status/87146…
Confession: When I was younger, I never really bought into the idea of "pride."
Again, I have questions about how they could even do this. If prices are changed while customers are in the store, that could theoretically violate state/local laws regarding price tag/ring-up price differences.
Can't say whether the fear of real-time price updates is overblown, but it doesn't seem as simple as some may assume.
Walmart and Kroger are quietly rolling out an internal store technology across America that could either modernize retail or bankrupt the middle-class family budget.
Starting across thousands of locations heading into 2027, traditional paper price tags are being ripped off grocery shelves and replaced with cloud-connected digital screens. Raise the price of bottled water by 20 percent the second the afternoon temperature hits 90 degrees. Surge the cost of ground beef, milk, and sandwich bread between 5 PM and 6 PM when exhausted commuters are rushing home from work. Drop prices at 10 AM on a Tuesday, then hike them right back up the minute the after-school crowd walks through the sliding doors.
Every price change happens wirelessly in seconds from a central corporate dashboard. No store employee has to touch a single shelf.
Walmart has already signed a massive deployment deal with VusionGroup to wire 2,300 American supercenters with EdgeSense digital shelf rails by 2027. Kroger is expanding its own Microsoft-backed system called EDGE across hundreds of supermarkets. Over 60 million digital price tags are already blinking on US grocery aisles right now.
This is not supply chain inflation. This is Uber-style surge pricing built directly into the shelves where Americans buy baby formula, eggs, and medicine.
Last week I sat down for coffee with a former retail pricing director who spent 14 years building supermarket margin algorithms before leaving the industry. What he shared over the table completely changed how I look at a grocery aisle.
"Retailers just turned static shelves into live stock tickers. The question is not whether grocery chains will use instant price changes, because they already spent billions installing the hardware. The question is how much extra money a family of four will lose every week simply because both parents work until 5 PM and cannot shop during off-peak hours."
Here is how the digital grocery pricing system actually works, how it tracks you in the aisle, and the exact phone settings and checkout playbook you need to beat it.
I've taken that opportunity over and over again; it's maybe my favorite scenario.
What's the fun in talking to a room full of people who already agree and just dutifully nod their heads?
More importantly, what's the POINT?
I'm at my best in a room full of antagonistic views.
A candidate the machine ignored emerges victorious in part due to virality enabled by the Internet and social media (not to minimize his work at all)
Remarkable, and a reminder how important it is to not give in to moral panic and eviscerate the benefits of a free, open Internet
In law school I kind of hated reading Posner opinions because I found his empiricism kind of annoying even though I appreciated his obvious intellect.
But over time I grew ever more fond, and Corbin played no small part in my eventual nearly total volte-face.
RIP Richard Posner
Here is my 2023 assessment of his towering life and legacy @LawLiberty. It served as an early obituary.
And it is something of my own magnum opus. A true labor of love to a heroic and romantic judge.
lawliberty.org/the-mystery-o…
What a shameful boor
A group with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was reprimanded by a U.S. Army sentinel at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day after someone in the group appeared to laugh following a photo.
“All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times,” the sentinel said.
“The Secretary and the entire Department have always honored—and will always honor—the sacrifices our military men and women have made to keep America safe," Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. "While commemorating this solemn day, a soldier correctly and respectfully reminded everyone to maintain decorum.”
I certainly would consider a hamburger transporter to be among the coolest gifts this season.
But only if it makes the cool sound too.
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Someone whose entire existence revolves around surveiling and collating data about literally everyone really ought to have a better understanding of how easy it is to find the things he's said and done very recently.
Silicon Valley’s tech right is starting to rethink its alliance with Trump after the Republican midterm wipeout.
In an interview with POLITICO, Palantir CEO Alex Karp, whose company has become a major contractor for the Trump administration, repeatedly described himself as a progressive and said Democrats had done enough to win back his support for 2028.
Karp, who previously called the Democratic Party “totally irresponsible,” said he has been a Democrat his entire life and argued that Palantir’s products are “essentially progressive.”
He also said he could support a Democrat in 2028, as long as the candidate isn’t affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.
No tweet is wokeable if it is built on Elon's servers
No city is walkable if it is built on stolen land. "Walkable city" is an ableist capitalistic term often used for stolen land. Walk to your local educators & beg them for material about ableism, to get serious about your criteria for critical thinking skills.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
In urban planning, "walkability" means how easily people can get around on foot, and is commonly defined to include wheelchair users. Research treats walkable design as improving disability access. The attached definition of ableism doesn't mention walkability.
Sources:
frontiersin.org/journals/built…
ojs.sabinet.co.za/index.php/jour…
talilalewis.com/blog/working-d…
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Drake shouldn't have been booed because he isn't Frank Ocean. Drake should have been booed because he *is* Drake, and sucks.
7 years ago today, Drake was brought out by Tyler, The Creator as a surprise guest at Camp Flog Gnaw 🗓️
Widespread rumors had led many fans to believe Frank Ocean would be the surprise headliner instead. Drake ultimately ended his performance early after asking the crowd if they wanted him to keep going.
Tyler, The Creator defended Drake following the performance:
"I THOUGHT BRINGING ONE OF THE BIGGEST ARTIST ON THE F*CKING PLANET TO A MUSIC FESTIVAL WAS FIRE! BUT FLIPSIDE, A LIL TONE DEAF KNOWING THE SPECIFIC CROWD IT DREW. SOME CREATED A NARRATIVE IN THEIR HEAD AND ACTED OUT LIKE ASSHOLES WHEN IT DIDNT COME TRUE AND I DONT F*CK WITH THAT"
"F*CK THAT, YALL REPRESENTED ME AND FLOG TO MY GUEST AND MADE US LOOK SOOO ENTITLED AND TRASH"
“THAT SH*T WAS LIKE MOB MENTALITY AND CANCEL CULTURE IN REAL LIFE AND I THINK THAT SH*T IS F*CKING TRASH”
Breaking devices out of subscription locks is one of the indisputably beneficial uses of AI
Dude had a NordicTrack treadmill ($2-3k) and wanted to use massive screen to watch Netflix.
NordiTrack locked that option behind $39 a month membership for its iFit app.
Claude figured out screen was Android 9 tablet and “found that iFit’s motor service runs a small server on the console that apps can talk to”.
It disabled iFit’s apps one at a time and the “real fix was removing iFit’s lockdown and updater app for my user (reversible). It turned remote access off after every restart, re-enabled everything I’d disabled, and ate a big share of the CPU. Without it the treadmill boots unlocked and the tablet can finally breathe.”
He can now CrunchyRoll and Netflix without paying an extra $39 a month on top of those streaming subs lolol
"Hiring a gay person is doing culture war"
It did not take long for @RobSandIA to betray his campaign promise that he won’t do culture war stuff. This is his new chief of staff.
At a hearing for FCC nominee Danielle Thumann, @tedcruz -- who hasn't been shy about criticizing the censorial overreach of Brendan Carr's FCC -- leads with the right stuff: noting the unique threat to First Amendment rights posed by the FCC's power when misused.
Pointing out jawboning from both sides of the aisle, he asks Thumann if she will commit to making decisions based only on law and refrain from jawboning, and whether she supports the JAWBONE Act. Thumann answered in the affirmative to both.
For a play-by-play of other salient moments, see my colleague's thread here:
xitter.twitterapi.xyz/BerinSzoka/status/2120…
FCC confirmation hearing about to start for Danielle Thumann Severs. The one question Ted Cruz needs to ask: "Would you agree that Brendan Carr's mafioso threats against ABC were dangerous as hell, like something out of Goodfellas?"
Not holding my breath
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Never let an AI agent touch anything you can't afford to lose. If you're going to have it work on a document or something else mission-critical, have it work on a copy (or back up everything immediately beforehand to a separate location).
