Recent content by franklinskite

What goes up, must come down.

No need to be insulting, friend. I’ve traveled extensively, but I’m willing to take a suggestion. Where do you suggest? I’ve been to India and Britain. Both countries are still hobbled by a class and or caste system. For many people, you are what your father was. France and Germany make it...

These Congress members are citing supposed security alerts dating from 2017. No one, including these same Congress members, appears to have taken these ‘bulletins’ seriously for seven years. You expect average American citizens to take this seriously after one week with little or no supporting...

We're never too far off the mark here in the good 'ol US of A when someone starts quoting HL Mencken. The quote "Whenever someone says 'It's not about the money,' it's about the money," is often attributed to Mencken, but there's no definitive source linking it directly to him. But that insight...

There’s no point in your arguing for the sake of argument. Obviously we don’t have the information we need to make an informed decision on whether our drones, as claimed by certain members of Congress, pose a national security risk. Even the two Congress members linked above are asking various...

Right. This isn't only about our little drones. It's about high tech, politics, free trade and any number of things. What's really getting the goat of many here is that much of this proposed policy isn't sound, isn't rooted in reality, and the supposed reason(s) for this bad policy is national...

We live in a country where we are free to direct our rage, dislike and vitriol at our government. And we have good fun doing it, often for good cause. I’ve met many others who don’t have this freedom.

The letter above references a 2017 bulletin from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which first makes this claim that dji drones ‘register facial recognition data even when the system is off, and upload information to cloud storage.’ In the late 2010s everyone including Facebook was...

‘I genuinely shake my head in disbelief when I read that someone in an elected position of authority distributes statements like this and doesn't end up losing their job.‘ Losing one’s job in the U.S. Congress for blowing hot air and lying for the party line and in order to receive political...

Right. So let’s have the facts.

Yes, there's certainly both incompetence and a touch of maliciousness on view. But there's also a sizable portion of good ol' fashioned capitalist daring-do and legislative campaIgn donation seeking involved. Charles Dickens wrote about this best, in the 1850s. It's right of of Charles Dickens'...

Then there's my favorite: Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence. - attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte

The Congress members here are quoting a 2017 'alert' written by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) —the investigative component of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Which makes it all the more ridiculous, because they're basing their letter on a letter from 2017 warning of a...

In a letter written to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, House Committee on Homeland Security Chair Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) and House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) urged the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Energy (DOE)...

'Further, the bulletin warned that DJI-established applications, when used with their UAS hardware, collect GPS locations and photographs taken by the device, register facial recognition data even when the system is off, and upload information to cloud storage located in Taiwan and Hong Kong, to...