Paul Knightly

As if we needed more evidence to demonstrate how ill-conceived it has been to deploy Flock cameras at a large scale.

Cities aren't sure what their contracts with Flock state in terms of their ability to remove or even turn off the cameras, much less ensuring that the cameras are actually powered off and where the data is being sent when not in use. So now they are covering the cameras with trash bags until Flock removes them.

https://www.404media.co/cities-are-covering-flock-cameras-with-trash-bags/

While I get the fundamental underlying point, there's a massive difference between people purchasing, owning, and carrying devices that they can control privacy settings on versus an unavoidable surveillance dragnet in public spaces.

For those of us who care, no we don't carry our phones everywhere, or we power it off when not in use or in situations where we'd rather not be getting tracked. Mine is powered off anytime I'm in a store to avoid Bluetooth and WiFi geofencing, for example.

@pietkuip@mastodon.nl I'm not too big on listening to the news while I'm at home, but I do listen to NPR and BBC programming at various times when I'm traveling or driving.

Falling back on my original statement, I don't have enough money to pay for all of this. Ballpark is probably around $350 annually to access my most frequented outlets. That's equivalent to:

• A week of childcare
• Two larger trips to the grocery store
• More than half a car payment

Pretty much have to pick one or two news sources and hope they aren't lying to me. Restricted access to accurate information will be the death of free society.

Latest update to the subscription news saga - it looks like some point recently (for me in the past week) the BBC now requires a subscription to access any of their content - $9/month or $50/year. The BBC has been my primary non-American news outlet for the better part of the last decade plus. It looks like the CBC is still available, at least for now.

The kicker is that I have *some* disposable income that I can put towards this, but many people don't. There have been warnings about this for several years now, but the risks of a tiered media ecosystem developing seems more and more likely. Do we want an information ecosystem that's defined by those who can afford to pay for the news (and consequently, who they are paying), and those who cannot afford to pay for their news and are fed whatever AI or misleading slop is produced 'for free'?

It looks like NBC is the latest major news network to paywall articles in recent weeks (and a substantial volume of them at that).

I'm willing to subscribe and pay for good journalism, but I can't pay for everything. So, I'm increasingly forced to one of two options:

1. Subscribe to selected outlets, but with the result of being siloed.
2. Don't pay for news, but have access to an increasingly limited supply of free/poor quality journalism/articles.

@User47@vmst.io the condition of that Obama sticker looks like how I feel after weathering the past decade of national politics.

There are other similar events that have happened over the past year, and I've noted a sharp drop in forecast quality and accuracy where I need it the most to perform my job duties. The culprit here appears to be rooted in balloon launches that have been shifted, delayed, or eliminated, reducing input data that supports numerical weather models and provides critical observational data for meteorologists to review. It's a key broken chain in a system that was once the envy of the world.

I hadn't had time to follow up on this. We used to be able to say that if a tornado hit without warning, it was a pretty good chance that you just weren't paying attention. But a localized tornado outbreak south of the Kansas City metro on Monday evening was not captured in severe weather outlooks issued earlier in the day. And while the NWS ultimately issued a tornado watch once they realized what was happening, it happened suddenly enough to catch people by surprise. https://www.nbcnews.com/weather/tornadoes/tornadoes-kansas-concerns-changes-national-weather-service-rcna331826

Ars sat down with Andrew Guthrie Ferguson to discuss his new book, "Your Data Will Be Used Against You".

Really insightful interview and I'll add this to my reading list.

https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/04/how-our-digital-devices-are-putting-our-right-to-privacy-at-risk/

Working at a somewhat feverish pace getting new additions to the garden and yard established over the coming weeks in anticipation of a likely warmer and drier pattern that will persist throughout the summer due to El Nino.

Arkansas is already entrenched in statewide drought conditions, so I'm trying to take advantage of 'cooler' temps and the current precipitation pattern.

The award for creepiest new cars goes to Subaru. All of their new models appear to have a 'driver assist' system called EyeSight built-in, which includes driver monitoring and facial recognition built into the dash, and that you can't disable.

The salesman was gushing over how great it is and when he asked us if we were interested in looking at one more seriously we were upfront and said finding a car that wasn't constantly looking at us and storing biometric data was a non-negotiable.

Followers in the U.S.:

I frequently bemoan the state of new cars on the market. Too much invasive vehicle telemetry and "safety" features that are more hazard than help because they aren't ready for prime-time.

Starting to look into replacements for my wife's car, which has become a money pit rather prematurely (only 140k miles and scheduled for a new transmission).

I know most cars are awful, so Im looking for recs if you've bought a car in the past few years that you're actually happy with.

We are here: October 5, 1938: "the Reich Ministry of the Interior invalidates all German passports held by Jews. Jews must surrender their old passports, which will become valid only after the letter “J” has been stamped on them." https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/timeline-event/holocaust/1933-1938/reich-ministry-of-the-interior-invalidates-all-german-passports-held-by-jew

Kansas sent a letter dated Feb 23 (Monday) that effective Feb 26 (today), driver's license holders with genders that do not match what was assigned at birth will have their licenses invalidated today without a grace period.

Many people have not received the letter, and with less than 3 days notice, many trans Kansans have been immediately forced into having "illegal" IDs that in addition to barring them from driving, prevents them from accessing other services as well.

https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article314844596.html

RE: @briankrebs@infosec.exchange

This is a really good rundown on the types of data sharing that occurs around biometric verification services, and why requests to share biometric data always give me pause.

I felt motivated this morning to revisit my photo catalog from Iceland, including re-touching some edits that were lost to an older computer years ago. This is my new spin on an old photo of Kirkjufellsfoss from 2019.

#Iceland #Photography #LandscapePhotography

"Corn sweat" is real, and something I was first introduced to about 11 years ago. I had just moved back home to Kansas City after spending a year working in Phoenix. A few of my first jobs included collecting soil and groundwater samples in corn fields in east Missouri along the Mississippi River.

Not only was I not fully re-acclimated to working in the heat + humidity, but it was some of the worst kind of humidity possible under the prevailing conditions.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humidity-from-corn-sweat-intensifies-extreme-heat-wave-in-midwest-u-s/

I joined the Fediverse a year ago today, deactivating the bird a couple weeks later, and my relationship with social media has improved significantly over that time.

I checked in on the other space several times before allowing my accounts to be permanently deleted earlier this year, and it felt like a fever dream.

I wish more people realized that social media (er, networking) doesn't have to be that way. Bluesky, Threads, etc still miss the boat.