Field Notes
The Cameras Blink First
A paper log of every plate reader in three counties, and what it has done to the man keeping it.
Do not photograph my face. Amy already knows. If this magazine runs a byline photograph that includes a nose I will consider it a hostile act and I will be correct.
Flock Safety will sell a city a camera that reads every plate that passes a stop sign and then sell the city the comfort of having done something. The comfort is the product. The plates are the inventory. I have the locations. I have them on paper because paper does not update itself when a lawyer calls. The log is in a binder. The binder is not in a cloud. The cloud is how you lose an argument with a company that has a better lawyer than your county.
I used to fix networks for people who thought a password was a personality. I was good at it. Something happened involving a workplace and a hard drive and I will not litigate it here because the magazine cannot afford the letter. What I will say is that I was right early and being right early is indistinguishable from being ill until the rest of the room catches up. The room has caught up. Nobody wrote.
A mesh network is just neighbors agreeing to carry each other's packets. It is not a militia. It is not a bit. It is how you talk when you do not want a firm in California to invoice your conversation. I can draw you a map. I will not mail you a map.