Category: Society

Mastering Cross-Posting: From Facebook Frustrations to Dual Blogging Excellence | May 23 2026, 14:28

I have perfected the cross-posting from Facebook to my two blog sites [which almost no one visits] – beinginamerica.com and raufaliev.com. When a new post is published on Facebook, a mechanism is triggered to translate the post into English, process attached images, generate descriptions for them, create a title based on the text of the post and descriptions of the images, generate tags from the same basis, record the post in turso db – this is a cloud database, free up to certain limits, create embeddings via openai, record in qdrant cloud – this is also a cloud database, but vector-based, and finally, upload images to wordpress via API, and publish the post in English and Russian via API.

All would be well, but of all the APIs, the silliest one is Facebook’s. Firstly, for pages like mine, transitioned to New Experience, it’s almost impossible to use most of this API. Well, it’s possible, but you have to spend a long time proving to Facebook that you really need it, by showing startup documents, demonstrating the application, etc. Obviously, they are reluctant to deal with something that takes content out of their system. In addition, the token that gives access to the latest messages is relatively short-lived (possibly a few weeks), and it needs to be obtained anew through a browser only. So, any automation requires regular attention, otherwise it breaks.

If you mess up and don’t offload the latest posts through this Facebook Graph API in time, they just disappear from the list of recent ones and that’s it, no more API access to them. The only way is to request an archive download from Facebook. This download is also rather silly – it requires a lot of transformations and removing unnecessary stuff. For example, in the file containing posts, which I process, for some reason there are links that I sent in comments without accompanying text. And the comments are in a separate file!

To assign tags, I had to solve a separate challenge. Here’s the thing: there are about 10,000 posts over all time. That’s a big chunk, and you can’t build tags from it because it doesn’t fit into the contextual window of the LLM. But you need to. So, I did this: a script takes random posts from the 10,000 in such a volume that their total size is just below the specified limit in tokens, and at the end of this block, it adds the prompt “generate the most common tags for me, 30 pieces” (I simplify the prompt used). In the end, I ran this 10 times and got 10 sets of tags with 30 pieces each, generated for different slices of the database. That made 300 tags, some of which are complete duplicates, while others are synonyms and closely related in meaning. All this is fed into the LLM, and we get a list of tags and a hierarchy of tags. Now we have a limited set of tags that reflect the 10,000 posts as closely as possible. Turns out, that in almost 20 years on Facebook, my breakdown is as follows:

Tag Posts

==================================================

#Russia 3412

#Thoughts 3146

#Tech 3105

#Culture 2765

#Hobbies 2726

#AI 1603

#Science 1367

#Software 1358

#Travel 1298

#Learning 1138

#Society 1050

#Nature 958

#Education 915

#Business 902

#Art 894

#Programming 889

#Humor 840

#History 807

#Gadgets 750

#Moscow 713

#USA 614

#Cinema 567

#Webdev 493

#Music 476

#Sports 473

#Mindset 443

#Auto 400

#Books 386

…

and so on. This list includes both tags from the limited list and tags that the LLM appointed to content simply because it didn’t find anything suitable in the limited one.

Tags from the limited list became categories on the site. The rest of the tags + these just became regular wordpress tags.

As for image search. I had two ideas on how to do it. The first – OpenCLIP. It’s pretty straightforward but requires hosting the model somewhere. Easy on my machine, but inconvenient to start it each time, plus I planned to move the migrator to a cheap server on Amazon. It’s also okay to calculate in cloud models, but you have to pay a bit, which is yet another dependency. But the main thing – it works quite well without it. I generate descriptions for images using OpenAI, which is used for translating into English anyway, and then create embeddings using a large model. So far, all search tests are a great success. Especially when there’s text on the image, and it’s a big question whether OpenCLIP would have interpreted it successfully.

In the end:

1) wordpress raufaliev.com – free

2) wordpress beinginamerica.com – free

3) turso db where all posts are stored – free

4) qdrant cloud where embeddings are stored – free

5) openai for translation and image descriptions – not free, but inexpensive (cost $30 for post processing over a year).

I attach two screenshots – how the search by images works, and by texts, as well as the migrator dashboard.

The Overmedication of American Children: A Deep Dive into Prescription Trends | May 13 2026, 19:29

Today I dug up something interesting about kids and pills.

Local doctors are somewhat surprised that I’m not on any medication. Recently, an acquaintance of a doctor said in passing that he has lots of young patients who regularly take 12–14 pills a day. I started researching — and my eyes nearly popped out.

I found that according to CDC data, nearly one in five children under 12 years old are on prescription drugs. In the 12–19 age cohort, it’s every third one. Moreover, the rate among boys up to 12 years old is one and a half times higher than among girls, which is largely explained by early ADHD diagnoses. If we’re talking about long-term use (3 months or more continuously), a fifth of all children and teenagers are involved. It is reported that ADHD was diagnosed in 11.4% of children, about 7 million people, approximately every ninth child in the country. Of those with an active diagnosis, 53.6% are taking stimulants (Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta, and equivalents). In terms of the entire child population, this means about 6% of American children are constantly on psychostimulants. Besides ADHD, there are antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and antipsychotics. 9.3% of all children ages 5–17 have taken some kind of “mental health” medication. Among teenagers 12–17 years old — 10.7%.

This is probably the most interesting thing I’ve found. The variability between states is threefold. In Louisiana, ADHD is diagnosed in nearly every fifth child, in California – three times less often. In Louisiana 80.2% of the diagnosed children were immediately put on medication, in California – 66.7%. The southern cluster (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina) consistently shows the highest figures.

Even more interesting is the breakdown by urbanization. In large metropolises, 7.1% of children take psychotropic drugs, in small towns — 8.5%, in rural areas — 12.1%. Yet, the proportion of those receiving psychotherapy is the same everywhere — about 11–13%. Why is that? Because rural areas disastrously lack psychologists and behavioral specialists, and the pill becomes the only alternative.

There’s a separate phenomenon — polypharmacy. This is the simultaneous use of 2+ drugs for over a month. Growth from 1.8% in the early 2000s to 3.3% today. About 300,000 American children regularly take three or more classes of psychotropic substances at the same time. And for children with complex chronic conditions (Children with Medical Complexity), the situation is completely off: 52.7% take 5+ medications daily, and 19.5% take more than 10 medications per day. Thus, the stories about 12–14 pills a day. Reports say that approximately every 12th child in the USA, taking multiple drugs concurrently, risks serious drug interaction. For teenage girls on combination therapy, this risk reaches 20%.

Reading why this has happened.

It turns out that here the child’s psyche is increasingly perceived as neurochemistry that needs to be corrected with a pill, rather than as a result of sleep, stress, family environment, and a heap of other factors. Or at least the parents understand that since the rest is not fixed, the pills are an easy way out. Deprescribing (planned drug withdrawal) is hardly practiced — it’s easier to prescribe than to take off.

Secondly, rates for commercial insurance visits to a psychotherapist are on average 22% lower than for a visit to a somatic specialist. As a result, 18.2% of psychologists operate outside insurance networks (compared to 1.7% of somatic specialists). Our family pays an average of $1507 a year for psychotherapy on top of the insurance. But the pill is covered by the formulary, and the prescription copay is minimal. What choice will a tired family make? Why we are unable to raise children without mental health issues is another big topic.

Well, and another interesting point. According to our laws, an official ADHD diagnosis requires the school to provide the child with “Sec 504”: double time on tests, reduced homework, a separate quiet room for exams, allowed breaks during lessons. In the race for college admission, many parents from affluent layers consciously go for a diagnosis — it’s a legal way to give a child an advantage. And here’s the delicate part: Sec 504 specifically forbids the school from considering the effect of “mitigating measures,” which the law counts as medication. Meaning, even if the child on medication is fully functional and excels in studies — their privileges are maintained. There is simply no incentive for the family to decrease the dosage or get off the drug. The system is set up to keep the child on medication until graduation.

Human Behavior Under Isolation: Lessons from the SPHINX Experiment | May 10 2026, 18:01

In the book Project Hail Mary, Stratt tells Grace that in the USSR there was supposedly an experiment where people were locked up for several months to see what would happen, and that the people almost killed each other, leading to the experiment being halted. That wasn’t the case, but I googled and found there was another experiment – SPHINX in 1999.

There were several groups. In the first, there were four Russians and during the New Year celebrations with alcohol, they beat each other up (10 minutes, blood, they had to be pulled apart). Another group had three guys and a girl (Judith Lapier) and the mission ended because during the New Year’s celebrations, driven by excitement, Judith was attempted to be kissed twice, leading to the mission being terminated.

As VICE reports, the dialogue was “We should try kissing, I haven’t smoked for six months. Then we can kiss after the mission and compare. Let’s experiment now.”

The team included doctors with degrees (Lukyanuk, Karashkin, Murashov) and Haider Hobikhozhin, who essentially was a randomly included technician with secondary education, taking the place of the Japanese man to the right in the photo and who was first in the second photo. Who beat up or kissed whom is now somewhat forgotten.

Vadim Gushchin, a coordinator from IMBP, after the scandal stated that the fight was “friendly,” and that Lapier “ruined the mission, the atmosphere, by refusing to be kissed.”

At the Canadian Space Agency, Lapier was told that such behavior is normal for Russians and that public complaints would be considered taboo in the culture of the host country.

Taste and Protest: Unveiling the Symbols at an Iranian Restaurant | May 03 2026, 19:40

A very tasty Iranian restaurant. Perhaps you didn’t know, but there are two flags of Iran. This one – the historical flag, used before the Islamic revolution of 1979, and today its use inside Iran itself is a political crime. The main difference from the official one is the emblem of the lion and the sun. Therefore, when Iranian protesters in Washington hold demonstrations, it’s interesting to see which flags they carry. If there’s four crescents and a sword in the middle, those are protesters from another camp 😉

Rethinking Karma: A Crafted Tale of Redemption and Survival | April 27 2026, 21:37

An interesting interview with Ilya Remeslo by Sobchak. But if I were Ilya’s political technologist, I would have suggested a much more coherent story: as if, one morning, he woke up, looked back at the past, and decided to fix his karma, rather than drown. Everything I did before that morning – my past life. We can talk about it, but for me, it is a closed page, I am ashamed of it, and if someday they decide to punish me for it – it would be fair, I am ready. If they punish for today’s stance – it would be unjust, but I am ready nonetheless. Either option is better than drowning, hence the boldness. Such a story would have been much more coherent, and it doesn’t matter if it has anything to do with reality.

From realistic explanations, I keep to myself that the guy was genuinely threatened with death, someone close to the powers that be, unclear why, the reasons could be numerous, and from all the options on what to do, this one had the best chances of staying alive because if the threat is realized now, the ratings will drop even more. Well, if he is jailed, it’s almost state protection from threats.

There’s one more thing. Possibly, this individual made it known to the right people that if he is locked up, some very serious dirt will immediately go to the media, but if nothing happens to him, there will be silence.

The Art of the Unresolved Finale: Viewer Frustration as a Narrative Tool | April 20 2026, 13:27

We finished watching the series “Pete”. It seems like TV directors do everything to ensure that the last episode offers no answers, resembling just a regular mid-season episode. In many TV shows, the second-to-last or third-to-last episodes answer the questions, while the final one rarely satisfies, always adding a multitude of hooks and new questions, probably serving as an invitation to a next season that may never come. Or it might, but for now the director doesn’t know what it will entail and leaves much unsaid. However, the likely goal is to irritate viewers so that they flock to Reddits and Facebooks to discuss what they’ve seen. A logical end was only seen in the series Chernobyl, it seems.

Sky-High Prices at the CIA-Adjacent Gas Station | April 11 2026, 21:16

We have one gas station near the CIA that simply sets gas prices 40 percent higher than anywhere else. Just an ordinary shabby station that follows the principle of “if it works, don’t fix it.”