You don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate. Don't be afraid to ask.
O.C, D.C. and sometimes Taiwan
Joined July 2009
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Saad retweeted
This is my family. I refused warrantless entry because the Fourth Amendment still applies when CPS shows up with armed deputies. I offered a welfare check without police; they refused.
The next day they returned with emergency removal orders and took both of our daughters, including our one-month-old breastfeeding infant, and placed them in a foster home with a single father of 3 boys 😠. There was no criminal charge against us and no emergency. After an emergency hearing the court dismissed the removal order. Every major finding was later reversed as unfounded, and DFS abandoned its appeal. The damage—especially to a nursing mother and newborn—was already done.
I have since filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit (Yazdani v. Mieszala et al., EDVA 1:26-cv-03365) over separate LCSO misconduct. Accountability for the CPS side is next.
We are not the only Loudoun family to raise these issues. Sarah Legg (@sarahgracelegg) posted a detailed personal statement describing her own experience with the same worker: she alleges Kelli Hedrick abused her position, coordinated with law enforcement to have her arraigned while eight months pregnant (threatening jail, a fine, and re-education), and showed a pattern of manipulative conduct and poor judgment toward families. She specifically called out “deep concerns about Kelli Hedrick’s judgment, conduct, and influence on families and the local agencies of Loudoun County.”
Read her full statement here:
xitter.cf/sarahgracelegg/status/…
The highlight of those years for me as a laker fan was hearing Chick Hearn call the play by play on AM radio and then away games in KCAL9
Saad retweeted
Two Saudis named Muhammad used Jared Kushner to funnel money to Donald Trump, the Russians hacked his phone the Dutch flipped a Russian agent and the story broke. The American media says nothing and bashes El Sayed all day for wanting to help America.
Saad retweeted
Reading Cory Doctorow's Enshittification
"When ICC issued a warrant for Netanyahu's arrest ... Microsoft turned off the court's Outlook service. Without warning the justices lost their email, their documents, their calendars, their address books... "
Microsoft claims this was a coincidence. Doctorow does not believe them
Saad retweeted
ערב טוב סכנין! שמענו שנתניהו מתבכיין שאזרחים ערבים מצביעים, אז באנו לתת לו עוד כמה סיבות לבכות
Saad retweeted
It’s truly wild how the only thing they are running on against Abdul is unvarnished racism.
Vance on El-Sayed: We have to understand what happens when our nation gives into these kinds of people with zero attachment to its land or to its history.
What we saw in France, the hatred, the ingratitude, the desire to destroy rather than a desire to build, that exact same cancer that has corrupted El-Sayed.
Saad retweeted
Alex Pretti's father: Our son was shot and killed by the government, federal immigration agents, on January 24th, 2026. We learned about his death from the media as we saw him being shot repeatedly in the back after helping a woman from his community. This was not a protest that Alex was at. His hands were in the air, and his face was on the ground when he was executed by ICE agents. We know exactly what our eyes saw. No one from the federal government called us on that day. But they did go on TV to tell lies about Alex. No one has called us since. No one has recanted those lies.
Saad retweeted
Okay, I thought this had to be fake. But, a three year old in Winter Park, Florida, playing soccer against five year olds was so good that the other parents thought it was a crime and that his play was unfair.
The league issued a trespass notice. The police arrived and the 3-year old boy (Nevada) and his parents were escorted from the field.
Excuse my French, but how F*cked up do you have to be as a parent to call the police on a three year old?
Saad retweeted
A 3 year old named Nevada was kicked out of his i9 Sports soccer league in Winter Park, Florida, and police escorted his family off the field. His parents say the opposing team's parents complained that none of their 5 year olds could take the ball from him and accused him of "trying to put on a show." "They really called the police on a 3 year old because he had the ball too much," his dad said. The family says they got a refund, and neither the league nor police have commented.
balleralert.com/ph2g
Saad retweeted
FLORIDA — Insane: Winter Park police called on 3 year old for being too good at soccer because 5 year olds couldn’t get the ball from him.
More: blacksportsonline.com/2026/1…
Their TikTok account: tiktok.com/@nevadaney10?_r=1…
Saad retweeted
This is what Israel is doing in Hebron: Collective Punishment.
Collective punishment is a penalty or sanction applied to a group, family, community, or entire population for an offense committed by an individual member or a small number of people.
Article 33 of the Geneva Convention (IV) on Civilians explicitly states that no protected person may be punished for an offense they did not personally commit, and bans all measures of intimidation or terrorism.
Imposing collective punishment during an armed conflict is classified as a war crime under customary international law.
Saad retweeted
We finally have an explanation for “Facebook is listening to me through my phone”. They’d never do that (and it’s not really possible).
Turns out literally everyone else was — and then selling that to ad data brokers.
WTF, $3000 Samsung TV has an always-on mic, automatic content recognition, geo tracking, network mapping, and ships your data to Samsung + 400 partners.
Bro Rooted a brand-new 2025 Samsung TV after noticing absurdly targeted ads.
Firmware was locked down, so zero-days it was.
Got a root shell.
then found: always-on voice service, ACR, geo, full telemetry pipeline, and four separate DRM systems.
This isn’t a bug, It’s the product bro.
Saad retweeted
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 blocked in <15 min, wrote 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.
xitter.cf/log4j/status/211376224…
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/chart-of-t…
[3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/…
[4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/new…
Saad retweeted
“You will not speak Arabic here. Get out of our country.”
These were the words that sparked a violent attack on three young Arab men at a nightclub in Tel Aviv yesterday. All three are Israeli citizens. The confrontation continued outside the club, where one of them was stabbed and rushed to the hospital with serious injuries.
I keep thinking about these young men. I keep thinking about what must happen to a society before the language a person speaks becomes a reason to reach for a knife.
Such a moment does not create itself. Years of nationalist incitement and racism have helped make it possible. When Palestinians and Arabs are continually portrayed as threats, no one should imagine that the consequences will remain confined to Gaza or the West Bank.
In Gaza, we have endured years of bombardment, displacement, starvation, and the destruction of our hospitals. I have witnessed firsthand what political and military decisions mean for the people who must live with them: dead bodies, wounded children, entire families wiped out.
In the West Bank, settlements continue to expand, settler violence persists, and Palestinian lives become increasingly restricted as more of their land is taken over.
And now, in Tel Aviv, three young men are attacked for speaking their mother tongue.
I cannot regard these events as disconnected. Nor can I believe that replacing a single government will, by itself, undo what decades of political decisions and incitement have created.
In three days, Israelis will go to the polls.
For everyone who feels ashamed or outraged by what Israel’s political and social landscape has become, this moment demands an honest examination of what those feelings require of you.
You may condemn racism in a conversation. You may condemn incitement in a post. But what does that condemnation accomplish if the policies that continue to fuel them remain unchanged?
I have no illusions that a single election will end extremism. But political change does not begin with silence. And outrage that never moves beyond our phone screens leaves the people who suffer its causes exactly where they were.
The question is no longer simply whether you oppose what is happening. It is what you are prepared to do to prevent it from continuing.
The consequences of political decisions do not end at the ballot box. They enter people’s homes. They shape the futures of their children. For many, they determine whether there will be a future at all.
What you decide today will shape more than your own future. Its consequences will reach millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, people who have had no voice in those decisions but who may nevertheless be made to pay for them with their homes, their freedom, and their lives.
#Israel
Saad retweeted
4 months ago I cloned Airtable for a client in 5 days because they refused to pay Airtable $500/mo
months later, I’m still maintaining it
every two weeks it’s another edge case, a UI tweak, or a "quick 10-minute request." They’ve easily spent 10x more in headaches than the $2,000 they would’ve paid Airtable
just proving that SaaS isn't dead. Cloning isn't enough, if you want it to be same quality as original it becomes a full time job
and at this point isn't it easier to just pay?
