Where I grew up in rural texas: these are current times as I still go there regularly to visit.

Convenience store: 10 km down a major highway

Market: 20 km

The nearest Walmart : 58 km <-- this used to be the only option until they built … The nearest chain grocery: 21 km

Train: 60 km (Amtrak)

Park: 8km. Down a road with a 60 mph (96 km/h) speed limit. But definitely walkable.

Bus stop: ??? There is no public transportation in the town of under 2000 people. Google maps won’t even give me a suggestion so…I have no idea. Does a greyhound count?

Library: 21 km

The only things I see that have a visa logo on it, are those prepaid cards. Out of all the cards I’ve ever had, bank or credit, I’m pretty sure only 1 has ever been visa, and that was like 15+ years ago, everything else is, or has been MasterCard.

Idk, ask the Texas Tribune, haha.

I feel people have made the same mistake before, and confused crowdtangle, which is a disinformation tracker, and tangles, which is a “surveillance-for-hire outfit.” Meta probably felt the need to clarify, at least once time before.

One point of contention. I dont think tangles is some defunct meta app. Texas has recently acquired a contract with a law enforcement surveillance tool called tangles.

Tangles is a product offered by the cybersecurity company Cobwebs Technologies, which was founded in Israel in 2014 by three former members of Israeli military special units. The company has said their products, which are marketed as open source intelligence (OSINT) tools, have been used to combat terrorism, drug smuggling, and money laundering, but Meta has accused the company of operating as a surveillance-for-hire outfit. In 2023, Cobwebs Technologies was acquired by the Nebraska-based tech firm PenLink Ltd.

This tool is out there, and still being used.

Per the article

The resolution simply requires the hand counting of physical paper ballots at the precinct level to ensure it matches the total reported by the tabulators. This does not involve a hand-count tabulation of the vote totals but rather simply the total number of physical ballots cast at that particular precinct.

So, because in Tennessee, a QR Code error created a mismatch between the number of physical ballots vs tabulated ones, and they found the same code error in 64 out of 66 counties in Georgia’s tabulators, they are going to hand count the number of ballots to make sure it matches the number the tabulators counted. Especially, since they apparently found a bunch of additional ballots in some counties, as well…

I mean, this seems reasonable on the surface. But, considering the situation, it seems like it could all go really sideways.

Isn’t there another way they could count just the number of paper ballots? Like, as they come in, instead of later on, by hand? I’m not sure of the way thier system / machines work, or of a way that would convince everyone of privacy, but…like a laser counter that counts every time its broken, or something…Idk, there just seems like there has to be a better way.

Edit: so really, objectively speaking, this is an issue. One that wouldnt be caught unless they ordered a hand recount after the fact. I mean, obviously, this isnt an objective source, but, unless theyre just straight up making this up (which I suppose is a possibility), how is not having every ballot counted OK? Isnt there a better suggestion than breaking the seal immediately, counting everything by hand, and inviting all the issues that come with that? Something that could even be presented to the court or something as an alternative, that everybody could agree with. At least people could say they tried to solve the issue another way. If it gets rejected, then it would be plainly obvious there were ulterior motives. At this point, it sounds as if theres some plausible deniability behind the reasoning for hand counting.

Right. I dont know why everyone assumes its a dead body.

Are you actually referring to 1971?

Theres a link to the other article, in this article. Says Kristin Houser wrote it…although you may have a point about the rest.

That happen to a person in our group in Australia, but with cocaine. We were waiting to collect our baggage before customs. The officers told them to put it in thier waistline and see if the dog would sniff it out. Pups was sucessful and got some pets. He didn’t have a Kong tho.

Bet they use this case as reason to ban abortion pills instead.

Syphilis can hang out for something like 30 years. Maybe they were on a break, or he got infected before they got together.

Wow! Thank you for such a detailed answer. Even without some weird law, it’s good information to have, and with a little elbow grease, it sounds completely doable. And if it keeps people from getting in trouble / protects privacy, I’m all for it!

I find this interesting. Does one just install software and buy a domain? I would assume theres somewhere you have to register with in order to federate. I mean, if theres no one to go after, this would be a nice work around. At least, until theres a site for every Texan that figures it out.

I think semi public would be like setting your facebook profile to private. It shows your name, and basic details, but doesn’t show all your posts or interactions.

Edit: haha, you kinda answered this somewhere else as I was typing.

Or, like, not allow registration for under 18s at all, I suppose.

Problem is, one would still have to find a way to verify the registrant is over 18.

Its getting more dystopian by the week. I would say day, but a lot of brains don’t move that fast here.

That’s the vibe I’m getting. No problem.

This is a fair view. I’m not sure anyone has gotten that far, especially outside the country.

Heres an article about a similar bill in Utah, that hasn’t gone into effect yet.

What’s not clear from the Utah bill and others is how the states plan to enforce the new regulations.

I mean if the general consensus is that it doesn’t apply, then, cool.

Maybe someone is better equip to answer this question. As far as I understand, it is up to the social media company, as it is operating in the state. Sort of the way the corporate office of a national grocery store can be sued.

https://www.texaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/2023-05-BillAnalysis-HB18-Updated.pdf

First, it prohibits digital service providers from entering into an agreement with a known minor unless they have verifiable parental consent.

It seems its up to whomever is registering the account. If the person is under 18 they see a scrubbed version, of the person is over 18 they have full access. I’m not sure an ISP has control like that. I could be wrong.

I know with pornhub, the ISP didn’t block the site, pornhub itself did.

Someone can correct me if im wrong, but, pretty sure its any social media. Similar to what happened with pornhub.

According to the Texas Office of the Attorney General, this new law will primarily “apply to digital services that provide an online platform for social interaction between users that: (1) allow users to create a public or semi-public profile to use the service, and (2) allow users to create or post content that can be viewed by other users of the service. This includes digital services such as message boards, chat rooms, video channels, or a main feed that presents users content created and posted by other users.”

Iol, I have no idea why this popped up on your feed either.

So, no. No resolution. We’ve never found anything, in or around, that could remotely be used in this manner. We could never replicate it.

I do understand where your coming from. I do, also, understand where everyone else was coming from as well. It seemed pretty wild, even to us. I admit, I was slightly suprised at the mental illness suggestions, but not totally taken aback. I expected people to think more along the lines of what you’ve brought up. That I’m trying to use a device like this, on someone else. Which I wasn’t and I’m not. Nobody really stood to benefit from this. There was no large sum of money, we all got along for many years, and we were always on relatively good terms. It was just thier mental decline that made them act in ways we really never expected.

Some type of conformation bias may possibly be the closest reason, second to it just really happening, and we did consider that, but it just got way to specific way to many times. Hell, at the beginning of the whole mess, they made some off handed comment that they were “a little psychic,” lol, So who knows. We really thought it was the radio, but like I said, we couldn’t replicate it. I just thought I would try my luck and see if anyone might have had some answers.

I will add that, a friend did get me some CO2 detectors. Mostly cause they noticed there werent any fire detectors either. They haven’t gone off yet, so…

This person was really close to us for a really long time. I may have changed some “names” for privacy reasons, but the situations and conversations are truly the way it all played out. In the end, they never came back and everything was left in limbo. We never got another change to recreate the situation and we never got any answers. I do admit, we haven’t made a huge super thorough sweep of the place. We figured that anything being used that frequently would be easy enough to find. The place has just been left, mostly as is, just like everything else that came out of this crazy situation. I wish there was something more final to offer, but there just is not. Maybe one day, when we finally get brave enough to clean it out, proper, and we’ll stumble across something. But until then, its just one of life’s mysteries, I guess.