Some cops can’t resist the temptation to misuse Flock license plate readers for personal reasons. Here’s an example in a town that isn’t too far from here.
MIT Technology Review has some insights and suggestions regarding the Flock system.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/17/1142200/what-flocks-defenders-are-missing/
Tomorrow, I’ll be visiting a new wing at the Museum of Science to participate in sound system testing. Here’s a PDF about the as-yet-unopened space.
https://dograt.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Boston-Globe_BPSC-Article-8.19.26.pdf
For the second time, I have enjoyed seeing and hearing the fantastic ‘Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon – Official Planetarium Show’ at this venue.
I wasn’t able to confirm the model(s) of the two video projectors, but they’re the JVC DLA-NZ9 and/or the newer NZ900 model. Special lenses are used to fill the image across the huge dome ceiling.
The audio quality was just as good as the image, and easily the best I have ever heard playing The Dark Side of the Moon. An album that was released — ulp! — just as I was about to graduate from high schoool.
The sound was effortlessly loud and completely free of harshness in the way that professional grade systems can be. The bass was massively powerful and deep, with no breakup whatsoever. Such an audio/video treat!
I was thinking of taking my Samsung Galaxy tablet with me to Columbus. So, I set a 4-digit pin for it, which tested fine. At first.
Later, I checked the tablet again, and was informed that the pin I entered was invalid. What the FU*K!
When setting up the tablet I hadn’t integrated it with Samsung. Which seemed, after some digging, to be the cause of the problem.
The pin is stored locally, and Google knows what it is, but if it isn’t registered with Samsung it becomes inaccessible locally. I’m going to be charitable and say Samsung has a bug it needs to fix.
So, I left the Samsung Galaxy tablet at home, and took my old, reliable Amazon Fire tablet with me to Columbus. Today, I tackled bringing the A9+ back to life.
After much effort and frustration, my only option was a remote factory reset with Google Find Hub, using the same 4-digit pin the Samsung tablet refused to accept locally.
Attaching a USB-C cable to my Pixel phone for a data transfusion made restoring the tablet relatively easy. This time, I reluctantly registered my Google account with Samsung. What a frickin’ gawd awful pain in the butt.
Long ago, working with minicomputer makers DEC and DG, I was very involved with the specifications and preparations for computer rooms. Today’s massive data centers are no different in one significant regard — they need electricity to power the equipment, and they need cooling for the heat the electricity generates in the equipment.
I recently mentioned the Colorado River’s drop in water level that, if it continues, will result in the Hoover Dam being unable to generate hydroelectric power. Which leads me to wonder why greater Phoenix is such a popular location for both data centers and chip fabrication facilities.
Other regions of the country are trying to promote themselves as good spots for data centers. At the same time that protests against them are becoming louder and more forceful.
Crypto was the big data center thing before AI, and NVIDIA is riding the peaks of both waves. AMD is in the troughs, trying hard to catch up. The data center featured in this report is outside of Austin, Texas.
With AI now cranking out a lot of the code that used to be written by hand, seeing IT infrastructure as a specialty taking the lead in tech hiring is no surprise to me. If I were to rejoin the workforce, I would definitely look for a data center job. It’s always been my thing, installing, configuring, optimizing, and troubleshooting systems.
These new data centers are being built with borrowed money by competing AI software companies. Will they pay off, or will some of them be abandoned before they’re even brought online?
Anyone who is actively seeking an online audience can’t just choose between platforms, they must have a presence on all of them. This is especially true for those who are hoping to “monetize” themselves, which I am not.
“Everybody” is on Substack, leading me to wonder if it’s possible to cross-post from my WordPress installation onto Substack. Alas, no can do, because Substack doesn’t allow it, much as Epic Systems doesn’t like to exchange patient data with other medical records systems. This kludge approach from WordPress parent company Automattic isn’t something I’m going to bother trying.
https://specialprojects.automattic.com/2025/08/27/posting-from-wordpress-to-substack/
