Drones

At the end of the year, drones made their way into the news several times, and not in a good way.

You had what appeared to be random drones flying over parts of New Jersey, and that started a whirlwind of political puffery and conspiracy theories. You had a few drone shows that had issues - especially one in Orlando where a 7 year old boy was severely injured by a falling drone and was listed in critical condition.  And, you had a few instances of drones being flown too close to airplanes.

These drones are becoming a nuisance.  They are affordable and no doubt fun.  But they are unregulated and it turns out kind of dangerous.  

You have to wonder a bit if we might start taking them seriously before there is a bigger incident of some kind....

Glad we have these protections. For now.

Scaling back regulations and gutting departments like the FTC will mean that companies can do whatever they want, without any repercussions. 

Marriott turned a blind eye and said "what's the worst that can happen?" And then was ordered to better secure their (well OUR) data. 

If there's no governing body then your data will go to anyone for any reason without any constraints. 

https://tristatealert.com/after-344-million-customers-were-hit-by-marriott-data-breach-the-hotel-chain-has-been-ordered-to-implement-better-security-measures/

Who needs clean water anyway?

Thanks flori-duh. 

https://floridaphoenix.com/2024/12/27/floridians-have-no-right-to-bodies-of-water-free-of-pollution-appeals-court-rules/

Sleeping and Alzheimer’s

While there is no certainty about whether taking sleeping pills would affect the onset of Alzheimer's, this study suggests that it "may" help. 

But the finding more broadly shows that there is a link between sleep and the flushing of plaque buildup in the brain. And that piece of information is really interesting and surely will lead to more and better research and treatments for (or more precisely prevention of) Alzheimer's. 

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-common-sleeping-pill-may-reduce-the-buildup-of-alzheimers-proteins-study-finds

I loved this story

Old tech for the win!

https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/a-small-doughnut-shop-in-indiana-is-still-using-commodore-64s-as-register-systems-42-years-after-their-initial-release/

On Elon Musk

During the election cycle, I talked a lot about the prospect of T-rump being potentially influenced by people around him. 

And along came Musk, who was all in on the guy getting elected (and possibly committed election related crimes in order to help, but who cares about that, AmIRight?) 

We knew that Musk is not a natural born citizen and therefore could never be president. But why not let him just run everything without being the elected guy?

So he was put in charge of "the Department Of Government Efficiency" (which conveniently is the acronym for his own imaginary money DOGE). Which of course will hurt many, but will benefit him and those close to him, greatly. 

But there's one other not-so-minor detail that we learned during the election cycle: Musk lied on his immigration papers, and thus is here illegally.  Under the rules T-rump is putting forward, Musk should be deported. But of course he won't be. Because he's wealthy and is now a "friend" … the stupidity boggles the mind. 

T-rump is being manipulated by a foreign national. And no one seems to care. 

But hey, soon our country will be run by ass kissers, boot lickers, traitors, compromised foreign nationals, and assorted others that will run amok. 

"We voted for this"

Book banning and public libraries

As many states do, Idaho has a law that allows for anyone to object to any book in a library because it's offensive. 

There's a process by which the book will be reviewed and removed from the shelves. But that book can be put into a section of the library that children can't access. Call it "the adults only section"…

Here's the twist. There's a small town with a tiny library, which doesn't have space for a separate room. So they simply made the whole library 21+. 

They did and do have story time for kids, but it's held outside. And kids can only enter the library with their parents, and only if the parents sign a waiver. 

What sort of dystopian nonsense is this?

https://youtube.com/shorts/LdAJcwK0heA?si=1moETsqEVm5D4S1F