TECHNOLOGY: Uncrewed aircraft delivery seems to be working

Friday, April 18, 2025

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/dont-call-it-a-drone-ziplines-uncrewed-aircraft-wants-to-reinvent-retail/

Don’t call it a drone: Zipline’s uncrewed aircraft wants to reinvent retail

  • Ars visits a zipline delivery service that’s deploying in more locations soon.

Tim Stevens – Apr 8, 2025 9:00 AM

*** begin quote ***

The inner portion of the Zipline P2 is lowered to the ground on a tether, facing into the wind, with a small propeller at the back. Doors on the bottom open when it touches the ground, depositing the cargo. Credit: Tim Stevens

The skies around Dallas are about to get a lot more interesting. No, DFW airport isn’t planning any more expansions, nor does American Airlines have any more retro liveries to debut. This will be something different, something liable to make all the excitement around the supposed New Jersey drones look a bit quaint.

Zipline is launching its airborne delivery service for real, rolling it out in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Mesquite ahead of a gradual spread that, if all goes according to plan, will also see its craft landing in Seattle before the end of the year. These automated drones can be loaded in seconds, carry small packages for miles, and deposit them with pinpoint accuracy at the end of a retractable tether.

It looks and sounds like the future, but this launch has been a decade in the making. Zipline has already flown more than 1.4 million deliveries and covered over 100 million miles, yet it feels like things are just getting started.

*** end quote ***

I was especially interest in their description of delivering blood in remote places in Africa.  That could be used to deliver organs with less risk and fewer delays.  A lot can be improved if their service is as promised.  I imagine that some day, I would be able to ship stuff from my doorstep.  Instacart, DoorDash, and UberEats may be in trouble.

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TECHNOLOGY: eSims introduce a single point of failure

Thursday, April 17, 2025

https://www.androidauthority.com/esim-vs-physical-sim-experience-3539851/

I was ready to ditch physical SIMs forever — then my toddler threw my phone off a balcony

  • I was ready to declare physical SIM cards obsolete until disaster struck!

By Adamya Sharma

April 5, 2025

*** begin quote ***

Just before writing that wholly different article, my iPhone 15 Pro, on which my primary number was registered as an eSIM, met a dramatic end. While on holiday, my toddler decided my phone would look cool skydiving from a ninth-floor balcony. Spoiler Alert: It didn’t stick the landing. Not only did the iPhone’s screen shatter to pieces from one corner, but the grade 5 titanium frame literally tore from the antenna band. Not to mention the internal damage to other crucial components.

After mourning the loss and explaining to my child that phones aren’t actually meant to fly, I faced a new problem. I needed a new phone. And fast. Apple told me the phone can’t be fixed and will need to be replaced. Shedding tears of desperation, I swallowed the bitter pill and coughed up to buy the iPhone 16 Pro.

But here’s the catch. You can’t just pop into a store, grab a phone, and swap out the SIM anymore when you’re only using an eSIM. Sure, transferring an eSIM is usually as easy as scanning a QR code, but what happens when your old phone’s display is completely dead?

*** end quote ***

Never thought about this.  Clearly, there needs to be a backup solution for an eSim.

I’m waiting.

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RANT: Let’s record everything

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

FROM TWITTER.

https://x.com/amuse/status/1906860386508230897?s=46&t=fNifJ9M-EU2FgGneNcz51w

*** begin quote ***

DOGE: Once the DOGE team breached the fortress of taxpayer-funded tranquility known as the U.S. Institute of Peace, the accounting firm overseeing its books promptly deleted over a terabyte of financial data—an act as subtle as a burglar torching the crime scene. Fortunately, Big Balls intervened, recovering the lost data and exposing a veritable orgy of fraud, waste, and abuse, including the agency’s peculiar addiction to private jet travel, all in the noble name of “peace.”

*** end quote ***

Why aren’t ALL Gooferment financial records, messages, and memos recorded to a blockchain? What are the bureaucrats afraid of?

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DISCOURAGING: The US defaulted on these bonds thanks to Roosevelt

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2024/12/26/when-the-us-government-defaulted-on-its-bonds/

When the US Government Defaulted on its Bonds
Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2024-12-26>>

*** begin quote ***

The US Treasury called in this Fourth Liberty Bond on April 15, 1934, for redemption. However, the US defaulted on this term by refusing to redeem the bond in gold. They also ignored the dollar devaluation imposed by Roosevelt, which changed the dollar’s gold value from $20.67 to $35. The entire purpose of the gold clauses prior to Roosevelt was to protect against a currency devaluation. The 21 million bondholders lost 139 million troy ounces of gold, which caused the loss in international value terms to be approximately 70% of the bond’s principal.

*** end quote ***

70% loss.

End the end of “sound (hard) money” meant that the Federal Gooferment was no longer held to any standard of “money”.  It became a tyrant.

The plague of “paper money” was now visited upon the USA.

And, things would never be the same again,

Prices now always go up and the value of savings in dollars shrinks.

Any one wonder why bitcoin, gold, and silver are going up?  Can’t print more of them.

Where does this runaway freight train of deficits, debt, and “inflation” end?

We’ll become like the Roman, Spanish, French, and English Empires!  Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe, Argentina, … … 

Argh!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Sounds like this is a BIG mistake

Monday, April 14, 2025

https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/ice-immigration-agents-reported-duson-lafayette-louisiana/article_62c60d8a-2be6-5ab7-857e-d36fe24294d0.html?utm_id=120219929805840177

 ICE agents arrest 73-year-old grandfather in Louisiana who has lived in US for 45 years
  BY CLAIRE TAYLOR | Staff writer Apr 3, 2025 Updated Apr 4, 2025 

*** begin quote ***

Forty-five years ago, Jose Francisco Garcia Rodriguez fled Cuba on a ship provided by the United States for people seeking refuge from the Cuban government.

*** and ***

Rodriguez arrived in the United States with just the clothes on his back, Riggs said, with no education and not speaking English. He struggled and made mistakes, paid for them, and for the next 43 years lived a good life, raising a family and working hard labor for 40-60 hours a week, paying taxes and paying into Social Security, which he never used.

*** and ***

But starting with a 73-year-old grandfather who has a heart condition and who is the primary caretaker of his wife with dementia is not the solution, she said.

“It is a problem that has to be fixed with a surgeon’s blade. Not a machete.”

Riggs asked the public to contact their elected officials to ask for their help in freeing Rodriguez. And she asked for prayers.

*** end quote ***

Who knows what he was told 45 years ago?  Maybe some Gooferment bureaucrats assured him all was Okey Dokey.

And why hasn’t he gotten his Social Security?  Seems like all the con artists are getting it.

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RANT: End “Unemployment Insurance” — it’s a scam

Sunday, April 13, 2025

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/04/whoa-doge-makes-three-major-findings-regarding-unemployment/

WHOA! DOGE Makes Three Major Findings Regarding Unemployment Benefits Fraud, Including One Discovery That Left Elon Musk Shocked: “So Crazy I Had to Read It Several Times”

by Cullen Linebarger Apr. 10, 2025 9:30 am

*** begin quote ***

An initial survey of Unemployment Insurance claims since 2020 revealed the following:

– 24.5k people over 115 years old claimed $59M in benefits

– 28k people between 1 and 5 years old claimed $254M in benefits

– 9.7k people with birth dates over 15 years in the future claimed $69M in benefits

In one case, someone with a birthday in 2154 claimed $41k.

*** end quote ***

Time to end that program.

Or at least reduce eligibility.  Why should “everyone” be eligible?  Maybe a “poor” person with a low paying job should get some “help”.  But that’s NOT what’s happening.

If someone filed a tax return in the past year, then they should be planning on their own.

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INNOVATION: Might cure road rage?

Saturday, April 12, 2025

https://www.boredpanda.com/city-gadgets-convenient-traffic-urban-equipment-msn/

#26 This Hourglass Shaped Traffic Light

Traffic light gadget with hourglass timer in urban setting.

# – # – # – # – # 

I like this.  Why can’t we have them here in the USA.  Might cure road rage?

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MONEY: Nagging everyone about “three silver dimes” again and agian

Friday, April 11, 2025

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2025/04/05/gold-price-forecasts-inching-toward-4000/

Gold Price Forecasts Inching Toward $4,000
Guest Post by Peter Reagan

*** begin quote ***

Already off to a breathtaking start this year, gold’s price continues to climb. Amid fears of a trade war and the global dedollarization drive, here’s how much higher analysts think it will go…

  •     $4,000 gold hints from big institutions are here
  •     Why faith in the U.S. dollar is going on all sides
  •     Gold vs the greenback: who will win?
  •     Bosnia’s central bank now owns the most gold it has since year of establishment

Gold’s unpredictable trend toward $4,000

Axel Merk, CEO of Merk Investments, said a lot in a recent (brief) segment on the relationship between the price of gold and the U.S. dollar.

Merk says we are now seeing perhaps the biggest shift since the end of World War II, one where the U.S. will no longer be the world’s police force. (The turning point was the invasion of Ukraine, when the greatest weapon in our economic arsenal, weaponizing the dollar against Russia, failed spectacularly.)

*** end quote ***

​A silver quarter is worth $6!!! (That’s 24 times face value.)

So my three silver dimes for a 70’s gallon of gas is ~$7.20 today or ~2½ gallons of much “better” gas.

Minimum wage was 5 quarters in the 70’s so that means it’s 30$ in today’s “valueless” money.

When do “We, The Sheeple” wake up?

I’ve been on this since 2009!

Just to refresh your memory:

https://reinkefaceslife.com/2014/07/07/money-those-same-three-silver-dimes/

*** and ***

https://reinkefaceslife.com/2023/02/17/goldbug-when-priced-in-gold-beer-was-3-a-litre-in-301ad/

*** and ***

https://reinkefaceslife.com/2009/10/20/money-dont-save-your-wealth-in-fiat-money/

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POLICY: How about a GOFUNDME style of foreign aid?

Thursday, April 10, 2025

https://www.newsmax.com/murdock/usaid-atlas-network-doge/2025/04/03/id/1205534/

USAID Flops, But There May Be Alternatives
By Deroy Murdock Thursday, 03 April 2025 12:07 PM EDT

*** begin quote ***

Elon Musk is helping President Donald J. Trump rein in profligate, reckless, and corrupt federal spending via the new Department of Government Efficiency.

Democrats are not amused.

Left-wing domestic terrorists have responded by firing bullets into the windshields of electric vehicles at Musk’s Tesla dealerships. They have torched Tesla charging stations, set Teslas ablaze in parking lots, and used Molotov cocktails to ignite multiple Teslas beside a Las Vegas showroom.

Devolving into the party of arson is unwise for Democrats, especially after last month’s Harvard-Harris survey found that 76% of U.S. voters support chopping waste and fraud from federal expenditures.

One need not be Milton Friedman to be enraged by what DOGE uncovered in Haiti: Since 2010, USAID has made some $2 billion in grants tied to that star-crossed Caribbean nation. Only 2% of these funds actually reached Haitian companies and organizations.

Inefficiency is one thing. When Haitians see a mere $40 million of a $2 billion outlay, this smacks of money laundering.

*** end quote ***

I remember CARE packages.  After WWII, Americans sent care package to Europe.  It was used to provide political cover for the Marshall Plan and all sorts of other “foreign aid”.

I have a “new” idea for “foreign aid”.   Let the USA Gooferment identify places that need real help.  Then let the “We, The Sheeple”, aka Taxpayers, decide who and how much.  Americans are very charitable even though the Gooferment “elbows” their way into “charity” and seizes larger and larger portions of the wealth and earnings of ordinary people.  Then, folks can pick and choose what and how much they can afford to donate. 

Last time I looked there is no Constitution justification for the Gooferment to spend on such.

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VETERANS: Wish we could identify and recover all our POWs

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/new-book-reveals-untold-story-gen-wainwright-highest-ranking-american-pow-world-war-ii

World War Two

National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day is observed on anniversary of largest US surrender in history

  • New book reveals untold story of Gen. Wainwright, highest-ranking American POW of World War II

By Dana Perino Fox News

Published April 9, 2025 6:00am EDT 

# – # – # – # – # 

Wish we could identify and recover all our POWs.

Dona Nobis Pacem

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