Ever vanish mid-conversation? We debate the ethics of ghosting, and Chris confesses he’s an accidental serial offender. Plus, why he's a big fan of these Flock cameras monitoring everything you do.
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- 🌊 Grab Sats with River!
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- Use of Flock Safety cameras growing across western Washington, raising privacy concerns - YouTube
- Flock Safety - Wikipedia
- Shaping the Future of Safety, Together.
- How Elk Grove PD Is Using Drone Technology to Transform Public Safety | Flock Aerodome DFR Spotlight - YouTube
- Flock Safety | Sumner Connects
- Mountlake Terrace approves Flock camera system after public pushback | HeraldNet.com
- Example of Coverage:
- 'Flock safety' cameras give police extra help - YouTube
- Impact of Flock Cameras on Public Safety - YouTube
- Bay Village Police Department adds Flock camera system - YouTube
- Mountlake Terrace to put up controversial flock cameras to analyze license plates - YouTube
- Increased Crime Solving with Flock Cameras - YouTube
- Kechi police lieutenant’s arrest puts Flock technology under scrutiny
- License plate cover leads to traffic stop mishap
- Washington state agency is sharing private driver data with ICE - YouTube
- Seattle "Spite House"
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This is The Launch, episode 27, for July 15th, 2025. Streaming from the beautiful Pacific Northwest and the mighty American West Coast, We greet you all a good morning, a good evening, or whenever your timeline may fall, time-appropriate greetings to one and all. This is The Launch. My name is Chris. And I'm Angela. Hello, Angela. We got a good show today. Just a few things everybody needs to know before we get started. You can always call us live or after the fact with a voicemail. The phone number is 774-462-5667. That's 774-462-5667. The show is streamed live Tuesdays at 11.30 a.m. Pacific, 2.30 p.m.
Eastern, 7.30 p.m. UTC, in your podcast app of choice over at jblive.tv. And, of course, you can join us in that mumble room. You can join us in that matrix. And everything we chat about, we'll link to at weeklylaunch.rocks. Go check it out. There's always more resources over there, including our song of the week and more. But we're back. had a week off while did a little family road trip took Brent back home up to his Canadian homeland brought the kids with us it was hot but we're back now, and I believe while I was road tripping you were experimenting with how many cats remember you brought it up last episode yeah.
I think it was last episode. How many cats there's too many cats and you were experimenting with this how many animals. Right because we also have this dog. Right But yeah. So I had an opportunity to adopt one of my existing cat's sisters, right? Gypsy and then her sister Penny. And I decided to try to make that happen. Now, you had the kids on a trip when I got Gypsy originally. And it worked out really nicely. I was able to bond with her and keep her in a room. And, you know, the house wasn't chaotic or anything. I decided to implement that same thing. So I picked her up a couple of Sundays ago and I thought it was going to go well.
She was she's a really good cat. She's super nice. But unfortunately, it only lasted three days before I returned her to my friend. Well, three days is a pretty quick turnaround. It is. So day one, she doesn't want anything to do with other cats. Oh, including her sister, her blood. Both Gypsy and Rocky were great. Well, not great. They were hesitant, but Penny was just hissing and scratching. Like, my banister up on the second floor is all scratched up from her. He's upset. Yeah. Angry. Yeah. But on her own, like, she's super affectionate and talkative, and she loved the dog. Like, her and the dog got along. They played together. So it was really crazy.
But so day two, she pooped on my bed. Oh. Even though I had two litter boxes available. No, it's a message when they do that. It's funny how they figure that out. Like, I'm going to go poop where they sleep. Like, they understand. Yeah. So then the third day, she, you know, that brown chair that I rocked all three kids in that I haven't been able to let go, even though the metal, what is it called, has broken. Like, it is broken in so many ways. Anyway, she peed on it. Wow. So now it's for sure done for, and I can't do cat pee. I can't do cat pee. tactical use of. The poop and pee.
Right i have i i did everything i could to to make this a good experience and it just didn't it didn't work out and i just can't do the cat pee so yeah i returned her uh as soon as i figured out about the cat pee i was just like yeah so um so that's too bad the kids didn't get to meet her which is good because she was so sweet you know they would have fallen in love yeah right they would have been totally attached so an interesting change has occurred in the house since getting rid of Penny or giving her back. Rocky and Gypsy are getting along better and both of them are getting along better with the dog. Huh.
Like they now appreciate each other more? Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, maybe we should get along so they don't bring home another stupid cat, you know, or something like that. Like it's so cool and it's nice. Last night I had a dog sleeping on my left side and Rocky sleeping on my right side in bed. Like they became allies against a common enemy. Yes. Well, except Moose was totally friends with the enemy. So, yeah, that is interesting. I think, you know, for me to like the cat pee stuff is such a hard line. I just can't stand it. It's such a pungent smell. So awful.
I wonder if this is true. I'd like you to boost it and tell me if your experience has been like this listener. But I've been told by someone we both know that the boy cats tend to be a little bit more likely to get along like when you introduce them. They make peace easier. That's funny. Rocky was more accepting of Penny than Gypsy was. He was also more scared, but Gypsy was puffing up and everything, and Rocky was just like, yeah, I'm just going to leave. Huh. And then he left for like three days. I didn't see him for three days. I'm out.
Yeah. Protest. Oh, jeez. Three days is enough to make you a little nervous. Uh-huh. Yeah. Definitely. Okay, so the experiment didn't go great. Yeah, and it was around the 4th of July, too, with the fireworks. because I don't want to go there. Yeah, like, yeah. Would you try again with a different cat? I don't think so. There's enough chaos going on in the house with these three. I mean, it's better that they're getting along now. Like that, maybe that, you know, maybe I'll forget. This doesn't open a door to a rat, does it? No.
Okay. Definitely not. I want to make sure we're not going in that direction. Mm-mm. Tell you what. Well, anything else? No, I saw you were contemplating a new diet. Is it a lifestyle? Yeah, right. A lifestyle change. Yeah. Yeah. Dylan's so frustrated by that phrase. Yeah, well, I was trying the OMAD, which is one meal a day, but it wasn't working out. But the meal a day that I was choosing was the Jack in the Box T-Pain Munchy Meal Burger Tater. Come on. No, come on. Okay, so for those of you that maybe haven't seen it, it's available till July 27th. Okay, sorry, I got to look it up. T-Pain.
Oh, okay, yeah. T-Pain. Yes. What's it called? T-Pain what? Munchy meal, burger tater. Berg-R-tater. Burger tater. Melt. There's a melt on the end of it, too. I got to be honest with you. The term melt actually makes me kind of hungry. I wasn't into it, and then I heard the term melt, and I'm like, oh, God, that actually sounds good. Okay, so I'm trying to pull it up here. Yeah. Oh, they got a whole page. It's taking a minute. Jack in the Box and T-Pain team up to unleash the ultimate late-night gaming munchy meal. What's inside the T-Pain Munchie Meal? Well, your choice between a burger tater melt or a chicken tater melt, one of Jack's iconic tacos, a medium curly fry, a stuffed cookie, a small drink, and an exclusive T-Pain air freshener.
And sticker. Does it really come with an air freshener? So in the dozen that I have had since this promotion started. You've got to be kidding. I have never gotten an air freshener. What? It says it comes with an air freshener. While supplies last. Oh, well, I guess they would go fast. Okay, do you see the picture of it? Yeah, I did. It's got a big old. Like, potato slab on there. So it's a croissant with a white cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, cheese sauce, hash brown, burger, ranch. Oh, whoa. And it is a mess to hold. Like, it's one you don't put down until you're done eating it. I see. I mean, the whole, that looks like a, is the hash brown as big as they make it look in the pictures?
Really? Yeah. Yeah, they have big hash browns. Yeah, way bigger than McDonald's. T-Pain will also host a live stream Fortnite event from his pro gaming studio to let fans jump in, squad up, and compete in real time with Jack and the man himself. Wow, it's only available until July 27th, so you better keep going. You better keep going because they're pulling it after that. I know. I know. They used to have the wakey-bakey. Yeah, yeah. And I refused to say those words. Right. Wakey-bakey. So I'm like, oh, that hash brown thing with the cheese. What do you say when you order this one? Are you all in?
Oh, I am all in. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I am all in. I'm like the T-Pain Munchie Mill Burger Tater. I will say when they add cheese, I do tend to like a cheese sauce. Yep. I do like those cheese sauces. Ah! I do have one other follow-up. Oh, yeah? So I had gotten a speeding ticket back in March. Yeah. When uh bella was having a concert and i just wasn't paying attention going up a hill on a street didn't i had no idea it was a 25 mile per hour zone but it's kind of obvious you know after the fact oh anyway i went ahead and asked for a deferral because it has been more than seven years since i've had a ticket and or a deferral actually it's not that was strike that so you can do.
A deferral every seven years. Okay yeah, And so I just wrote on the back this situation. I was just on cloud nine, you know, driving my daughter. Having a good day and you screwed it up. Yeah, basically. But, you know, checked the deferral box, said, you know, I'd appreciate consideration for a deferral. Well, I got I finally got they give you eight weeks to wait. It's a virtual hearing. Right. So they just read it and then. Yeah. Talk about taking something that should be a really minor thing and just make it into a whole life event because they stretch it out.
Yeah. I've been watching my USPS daily mail scan for it. And then I finally saw it. I'm like, OK, I got to go get the mail. So I got the mail and the letter just said committed. And that I owe one hundred fifty dollars. Right. I'm like, OK, well, that's definitely less than the ticket. But where's the we considered your deferral and we do or don't accept it because I mitigated the ticket, which means I admit I did it. In fact, the first row, the first sentence was, unfortunately, I was speeding. You know, like I'm not going to deny that I was. And so I went straight to the courthouse and said, well, I need to pay this, but I am unsure.
This is unclear whether or not I was actually considered for a deferral. So she's like, oh, well, you still can file a motion. I'm like, to do what? Well, to ask for a deferral. But I've already done the official process. Yeah, that's what this whole thing was supposed to be. So she printed it out and she said, well, hang on a second. She tracked down that judge and got him to approve a deferral. Wow. Yeah, because I think he just didn't consider it. Wow, that's like an unusual going above and beyond moment. It is. It is. And of course, so I got there at 1150 and I had to wait for her to go talk to him and stuff.
And so when she got back, it was 1159. Why is that important? Because they shut down the courthouse at noon for lunch. Jeez. So I paid the 150, which was the cost of buying my deferral, apparently. And of course, they've already reported it to my driving record. So I'm probably going to have a future fight here. But she couldn't do everything. She couldn't process that deferral right away. So she's like, I'm going to put your money in a savings account. And then when I get back from lunch, I will update everything and apply the $150. So I get home and I'm looking at the receipt.
And it says I posted bail for me. She used the bail savings accounts to hold my money. And it's just funny to have a receipt saying I posted $150 bail. For myself you could post just a picture of that to social media and really bait people yeah right that's wild yeah wow yeah I think my defense would be yes I was speeding but it was awesome you know that would be and I don't think it would go over well yeah. No can you imagine my grandma reading that. Yeah my grandma. Was a judge. Yes I was speeding but it was really awesome yeah I'm so good at it but this. Man had a pizza to deliver.
Yeah hey you never know now it would be a door dash guy right oh yeah sure, Okay, I realized a bad trait about myself. I'm a serial ghoster. It's accidental. It's accidental. You know, like, and I would define when you ghost somebody as, like, cutting off communication without explaining to them why. You know, maybe it would happen with somebody you're dating or a friend or family member. Or, like, you quit a job and you've got, like, good work friends, but then you quit that job and then by, like, a month later you're not really talking to most of any of them anymore.
Or they, like, because we just had layoffs. And like, am I ever going to talk to these people again? I don't know. Right. I realized I do it all the time accidentally, in part because I'm just like a forgetful person and I'm very focused on work. And so if somebody kind of falls outside that kind of laser focus I have on work, I tend to just lose track of people, family members, friends, all kinds of stuff. and I was wondering if you think it might be a more common trait amongst men than women, generalizing of course but like I think that there are certain guys that are more inclined to they won't see each other for a year and then they get together like hey bro how's it going and they're good buddies for like the 15-20 minutes they're together again and they don't see each other for a year and that's pretty normal where I feel like, Probably more common, at least like when I when I with you and I observe a deal, like you seem to be more actively maintaining networks and friendships.
And I wonder if that's part of it, too. And I just like I want to like solve this about myself because it feels like in 2025 with all of the technology we have with social media, DMs, text messages, emails, phone calls. There's really no excuse. Reminders. But yet I still fail at it. Am I is this making me a bad person? Am I just a bad person? No, we're just inundated with stuff all the time everywhere. One thing that I use to hopefully avoid this is I hate the red notification counts. So I'll leave something unread so that I can respond to it. But then it turns into a chore that I avoid.
And I dig in my heels. I still do the same thing. But I do read messages and then forget to respond. That's the problem. Mostly because it's not a good time. It's not a good time. Right. Yeah. Because they come in at any time. Right. Yeah. I feel like too there's different levels of it. Like it's probably worse to do it with family or somebody you've been dating. Like a longer term relationship. Yeah. And I feel like it's a little more acceptable in the professional setting where I don't really stay in contact with very many people that I used to work with even if we were really good work friends.
Yeah. And I think that's just kind of more accepted. This is really interesting because my mentor, Stan, I haven't talked to him since last October and he called me randomly today and today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just before the show. So I caught up with him just a little bit, but like, I'm not intentionally not calling him. I just, he's, it's not part of my daily anything right now. Was he offended? Was he just like checking in? Yeah. I mean, he just, yeah, basically just checking in. Yeah, and it never feels good to be ghosted, too. That's the other thing that I was like, I hate this. I hate that I'm doing this because I know how that can feel on the other end.
So I guess, I don't know. I wanted to hear your thoughts out there, audience. Give us a ring or send us a boost. Are you a serial ghoster on accident? Have you been ghosted? All of that. Let us know. I want to, I guess, not just to make me feel better, but to know if this is something other people struggle with and where you would think it would be better with all these ways to stay in contact. it somehow seems to have gotten worse. Send us a boost. Let us know. Well, I'm really excited to talk about this growing trend that initially I was really against, but, you know, after weighing the pros and cons, I'm a big fan.
And I tried to warn the world a year or two ago about this, and thankfully I was unsuccessful in my attempts. I want to talk a bit today about the Flock Safety Cameras. The Flock Safety System, which is owned by Flock Group Incorporated, specializes in surveillance hardware and software. Started in 2017, they've been rolling out automated license plate readers, cameras, gunfire detection systems, and a whole lot more. We use them heavily here in the Washington state, and they're getting used throughout the United States. And it's some pretty exciting technology that I'm really thrilled to tell you about.
And our local news covered the exciting possibilities recently and how safe it makes us all. A growing number of communities throughout western Washington are turning to high tech to meet their public safety needs. While these camera systems have helped police with a wide range of investigations, they also raise significant privacy concerns. Camel's Joel Marino looks at when added security measures need their own safeguards. the positioning of this camera at the city limits of normandy park gives police a way to monitor vehicles that come and go well.
One of the things they do which is really ingenious is they look at the traffic flow patterns and the maps and they determine sort of the choke points where they where you have to get in and out of a town and they'll identify the four or five spots where you can get in or out and then they just deploy these there and the brilliance is is that there's no infrastructure required because they run off solar panels and they use LTE for internet. So there's no infrastructure you need to worry about. You just throw a pole down, make sure it's got a good camera shot, and you can start surveilling everybody that drives by in real time.
Officers focus on other priorities. The downtown area of Des Moines has high traffic. So if ever there was an incident, there's only a couple of roads or ways that you can get in or out of. The cameras by Flock Safety read license plates, but can also identify unique features such as bumper stickers. Compare that to a database of vehicles of interest to law enforcement. As long as you're not breaking the law, you shouldn't have a problem. Yeah, if you're not breaking the law, Ang, you don't got nothing to worry about, right? Oops.
This is a pretty interesting deal. So there's, as of right now, according to Wikipedia, it's active in over 5,000 communities in 49 U.S. states. So just about gosh darn everywhere. And Phlox cameras perform 20 billion vehicle scans per month. Their technology integrates artificial intelligence, image recognition, and vehicle fingerprinting, allowing them to identify even little things. Like if you've got like a funny little Calvin peeing on something sticker on the back of your window, they will identify that and tag it to your car, your make, your model. And that's one of the things they can use to make sure they're actually tracking you.
Of course, you know, some yokels like the EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union have worried about, you know, mass surveillance and a private company having all of this data. But they haven't thought about the convenience this brings to officers, you know, just making solving crime so much easier. And really, Flock wants to help shape the future of safety together. And you can check them out if you go over to FlockSafety.com. And they're expanding into new areas, too, which are really exciting. So let me just give you an idea, Andrew, price. Okay.
Maybe this is something you might be interested in because you can actually sign up for Flock Systems. You don't have to be a cop. Yeah, any business could do it. Oh, yeah, for sure. Oh, did Costco? They sure can. Walmart can. Now, one of the things that's really nice is when you sign up, they cover all the ongoing maintenance, the repairs, automatic upgrades. They host the search engine, the AI platform, the real-time alerts. They build you a mobile app you can use. Now, I couldn't get exact pricing for us because you got to have a call with a sales rep. But Perplexity was able to dig up some good numbers.
The annual subscription price per camera, depending on your setup, is somewhere between $2,500 to $3,000 per camera. And there's also a $250 to $650 one-time fee per camera. when they install it. And so I went and got some real world data. Sumner, Washington has 12 cameras right now and it's costing them about $39,000 annually to operate and run that. Mount Lake Terrace has nine cameras and they're spending about $54,000 for a few years. But it's great because they have a pretty nice structured billing program. So if you want to add a whole bunch more, they'll put some discounts on there for you.
So if you want to surveil like hundreds of people at once they'll give you a great discount but also which this is pretty exciting is they're expanding into new areas so instead of relying on stupid old fixed cameras that can only monitor certain points they're going to take the forward leap and expand into drones so you can also you can monitor by deploying one of their drones it's pretty nice dfr. Is definitely a force multiplier for us so what happens is we get the call from our dispatch that goes to our cad our cad automatically talks with the Flock program, which gives us the GPS coordinates of where that drone's going to go to that call-per-service.
From there, basically, the pilot just has to hit launch. Once that launch button's hit, the drone will automatically fly to its coordinates, and then you can have an aerial platform view of what that call-per-service is. If I'm in the same room hearing what they're working on, and if I can launch the DFR drone and assist them in any way, it really just goes hand-in-hand and just makes both of our lives a lot easier. See, that's really what's important, is making the cops' lives easier. I mean, that's what we need to focus on here. For a typical size U.S. town with approximately 10,000 homes, a Flock safety camera system would likely cost around $649,000 for the first year.
And then, you know, because it costs a little more for installation. And then after that, the maintenance cost would be around $550,000 annually to keep the system running and have support. So half a million dollars to monitor your entire population. And if you want access, no problem, because Flock offers access to any business. Now, you need to own the property the cameras are on unless you qualify for research or law enforcement. Then you get access to all the cameras. Oh. Yeah. And Flock offers special programs at a discount price for HOAs. So if an HOA wants to deploy these all over their entire gated community, absolutely can.
And then one of the things that's really nice and really smooth is law enforcement can just log in with their little user ID and password and they can override anyone's camera and get access to everything. Wow. It's almost that reminds me of that mesh networking where like the police could have their own cameras, but then also you utilize the network of other available cameras. That's interesting. Is it really good, though? Oh, it's great, Ange. It's really exciting the way they're using this technology. And I think, you know, one of the reasons why I've changed my opinion is I didn't appreciate how important it was to make the cops job easier and how much safety this brings to the community.
But then once I witnessed the coordinated media campaign, I began to understand a little better. Here's an example of a lot of the local coverage. There's a format. When Flock engages with a local town, they initiate a PR campaign and they provide talking points and experts to the local news affiliate. And they all seem to kind of go about the same direction. They generally have the same flavor. I'll give you a couple of examples. Driving across Hampton Roads, you may have noticed more and more of these popping up. They're black poles with cameras attached to them, typically seen on the side of several busy roads or near some city borders.
And Chesapeake law enforcement officers report the devices giving them a boost with police investigations. Angelique Arintock has more from Great Bridge where one of those stands. A Chesapeake police spokesperson says there are 43 flock safety cameras citywide. They read license plates and store that information along with other details about cars that pass by. It categorizes vehicles by different characteristics. So things like the make, the model, the color of the car. Being able to help the police solve crimes, I think it's a good thing. Yeah, if you got nothing to hide, what's the problem? And one of the things that I think is really smart, so that way we all feel really comfortable with this, is you'll notice that none of these news reports, not a single one of these news reports, will point out that Flock's a private company.
They mention Flock cameras, But they kind of make it sound like it's run by the police. They don't really mention that it's run by a private corporation. And you'll see each local news will kind of have a similar format. Here's Oklahoma right here. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Naomi Kitt. Karen is off tonight. Calling it the biggest advancement in policing here in Tulsa in decades, Mayor G.T. Bynum and Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin touted the success of the city's new FLOX safety cameras. 2 News Anchor Sharon Phillips joins us now with a look at how these cameras are having a major impact on public safety.
Naomi, Mayor G.T. Bynum says there isn't a doubt in his mind that Tulsa will be a safer city because of this technology, and they are already seeing the fruits of it. You may have spotted these flock safety cameras stationed in various areas around the city. They are used to capture a license plate number, and that information is sent to a real-time information center. If a known stolen vehicle or wanted person is in the area, the system will send an alert to police. So you can put in like the license plate and characteristics of a car that you're looking for, and they will get real-time alerts to their phones. The cops will.
I'm going to play just a couple more because the format, I just think it's fascinating. They all follow the same format because they're all from the same PR agency. Communities across Northeast Ohio are turning to a high-tech device to help crime. Several police departments in our area are now using surveillance tools called Flock Cameras to support their work. Neil Fisher explains what they are, how they're being used, and the latest community to jump on board. Tonight, Bay Village is the latest community in Northeast Ohio to install software to protect against crime.
See, they didn't install software either. They went to a website. You get these flock systems, they're all integrated, then you just get a login to their portal. Within the last two years, we've kind of been inundated with auto thefts. Flock cameras are designed to identify license plates associated with crimes. The cameras are set up at the entrance to communities and are solar powered. The Bay Village Police Department will spend roughly $25,000 this year. The cost is outweighed by the benefits of the community. And the benefit is, it's easier for cops.
I could play more and more. Mount Lake Terrace, our local one, of course, you get increased crime solving that it will be a result. If you increase surveillance, you will see more more crimes getting solved. You will see more stolen cars recovered. That's sort of going to be the nature of the beast. If you're watching everybody. Continues to track the number of crimes solved with the help of flock cameras. Our Lee Searcy shows us how it's making a difference in Lexington and how another central Kentucky county is working to expand the cameras reach. Flock cameras, they're all over. They read license plates and take photos, alerting police to stolen vehicles or those on a so-called hot list that may be tied to other crimes.
In Scott County, flock cameras have been helpful to the Sheriff's Department and Georgetown Police. In fact, the Sheriff's Office is hoping to add specialized flock cams to north and southbound 75 on the Grant and Fayette County lines to capture license plates on vehicles going faster. Yeah, that's right, because they're expanding into traffic enforcement as well. It's a slippery slope here because when you have this data, it eventually does get abused. And there are reports of it already getting abused. A catchy police officer was using it to stalk his ex.
Wichita Police Department has revoked access to its flock license plate reading camera system to the entire Keechai Police Department. We're learning that from the interim Wichita Police Chief today, it's after a Keechai Police Lieutenant was arrested for illegally using the system to stalk his estranged wife. WPD is now looking at other ways to add safeguards to the system. Sean Logging spoke with the department about what other changes they're considering. So you have examples of people stalking their exes. There was also a really awful story about a gal who got stopped leaving her friend's house.
The police believe that she was driving a stolen car because a flock notification said they picked up. a stolen license plate on this road but it missed a digit and they went and started to arrest just an innocent person. A license plate mix-up in northern new mexico angers one family sasha leniger explains the confusion comes over the last number on the plate and a plate cover, it's just before one in the afternoon on july 28th and two sisters in espanola are heading to the park it is i like drove out of her driveway drove up the street here on durand street in McCurdy.
Three cops surrounded me, one in the front, one on the side, and one pulled up in back of me. Those officers looking for a car with a stolen license plate reading BLGP07. The license plate on the car they stopped is almost identical except for the last digit. It's going to be Boy Lincoln, George Paul 02. Boy Lincoln, George Paul 02. Keep your hands up. Looks like occupied by two. 21-year-old Jacqueline Gonzalez and her 12-year-old sister are inside. Body cameras capture officers with their weapons drawn, asking them to get out. Oh my gosh.
Can you imagine? She did absolutely nothing wrong. That's crazy. The camera just couldn't quite read the last digit, so it had a false positive. Wow. Yeah, so according to the report, officers received a flock notification, said it was on southbound on State Route 68, so they went there and they pulled her over. And there's also an example of another type of data that starts to get a little bit too tempting to resist, and it's our cell phone data. This is another common way we're getting monitored right here. I-5 through Joint Base Lewis-McChord is infamous for its traffic slowdown, but it's also one of the worst spots for speeders, at least according to data from the cell phones of South Sound commuters.
This is so exciting to be using data that we haven't had access to before. The state's Traffic Safety Commission purchased data collected by apps like Google Maps or Waze. It's so exciting. It's so exciting to have access to this data. So this is what's happening is these private companies are creating these treasure troves of data. And then you really only just need to be a paying customer to get access to it. So that means governments can do it. That means your state patrol can do it to figure out where you're at, to figure out where you're speeding. It means that different law enforcement agencies like ICE can do it to figure out where you're at and if you're maybe here illegally, which is happening.
Despite being a sanctuary state, the King 5 investigators found the Department of Licensing, where you get a driver's license or register your car, is sharing private information with Homeland Security, ICE and Border Patrol. Is it concerning to you? Yeah, it's concerning to me. And when you bring all of this together, monitoring cell phone data while going down the road, the flock cameras that have you coming and going from every town, and additionally, state agencies sharing the information they already have with other state agencies without you having any information, we have really backed ourselves into a corner.
So I've decided the best thing to do is to just love how safe it's going to make us and how it's going to save cops time. That's just a great thing. Just a great thing. What do you think, Andrew? Yeah. No, you're not on board? No. All right. Well, we got a call coming in. We could take that here in a moment. I think it's time we do our weekly song just to change things up. But I would love to hear your thoughts if you've been noticing these Flock cameras. Boost in, call in, let us know. But now it's time for Cool Summer by Tony Salamone. See you on the other side.
Oh, and it looks like we do have a call. How exciting is that? Let's bring them in. Let's pull them in right now. Caller, you're on with Andrew and Chris. Are you there still? Are you there still? I don't know if they're there anymore, Andrew. I think they left, or maybe they fell asleep. You know, depending on where they're at, that could be a real problem, too. All right, well, Caller, you can call back if you'd like. All right, well, yeah, I'll return them to... Well, how do I know? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I get them.
I could ban them. How about that? Moja, you upset me? Bam! All right. There we go. Well, we do have some voicemails. We have a first-time listener caller. Long-time listener? First time? I wasn't clear because it happened so fast. Hey, Chris. Long-time listener. First-time caller. Just want to let you know I'm at 615, even at 2.4 speed. Can't get them all in. 2.4. Have you ever tried listening to a podcast at 2.4 speed? Oh, wow. Yeah. that's bonks right that's bonks that's crazy I wonder yeah. I think when I when I consume plural set content the max I do is two. Here's what it would sound like just a 2x and here's a 2x okay here's a 2x sample, music holds up actually yeah it does what is that even 2x that's not, no here we go oh.
There we go okay sounds like a jack in the box you know. That's that's pretty rough that's pretty rough I don't know why I don't know I don't think I could do that it would stress me out alright we got our caller back hello caller are you there hello hello. Ooh did caller check their inputs. Who knows and microphone we don't generally have a problem that's why I went with With the old phone calls. Could be on us. All right. Well, we're going to move on. We're dropping that call. We have a voicemail from Hybrid Sarcasm, though. Hey, everyone. It's Hybrid Sarcasm here. And just listening to that member's bootleg, and I couldn't even finish the episode before I wanted to give you a call and give you sort of my take on that certification discussion.
Oh, my goodness, kind of hitting home right now. I am an old dog trying to learn new tricks. My IT career has been very scattered and obviously not very focused. And you get started out of college, you get the general support job, and then you start doing this and you start doing that. I landed in a company that does business-to-business, like business analyst kind of stuff, ERP, purchasing, all of that. And so I ended up for a very long time on the upper levels, right, in that application sphere as opposed to down in the guts, right, down in the networking and the OS and all the stuff that we talk about on Linux and unplugged and self-hosting and all that, all the stuff that really captures my attention.
And so now I'm in a position where I am taking advantage of my customer-centric skills as opposed to my technical skills. And the more I rely on my customer-centric skills, the more out of touch I get with my technical skills. And now I'm trying to play catch-up. And this was emphasized for me when I tried to go for a technical job that a couple of years ago, so it's pre-sales, right? So it's a little salesy, a little technical. and a couple years ago I was told I wasn't salesy enough well I stepped up my customer game and I thought okay I'll try it again now they tell me I'm not too technical enough and I'm not technical enough and now I'm like alright screw all you guys I'm just going to get all the certs my company has a, enterprise subscription to Pearl oh cut off.
You know, I was just thinking too recently, like, if I had to go get a day job, what would I go do? And, well, first of all, I haven't properly applied for a job in probably over 20 years, right? It's probably been that long, which is crazy. And then, like, what would I even do? I think, unfortunately, the thing I'd probably be able to do, like, day one, like, just step right into, and I'm not proud of this, I think I could do sales. Level one tech support. Well, definitely could do that, but it would drive me crazy. Yeah, it would.
RV sales is what I think. Oh. I think I could do it. Oh, my gosh. But I could do it. That's funny. Yeah. No, you totally could. I'd get in there. I'd sell those RVs. Let us know how it goes, hybrid. Let us know. And watch out for that two-minute cutoff. Yeah. It sounded like he was about to say Pluralsight. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Didn't it? Mm-hmm. An attempt was made on this next call, but sometimes you can't control your pets. Petunia, no. Stop. I'm trying to call the launch. Oh, my God. Petunia, that big. That, no. I'm trying to call the line. Stop it, Petunia. I don't know what happened.
Petunia? Yeah. Petunia's not letting him make the call. Or Petunia just wants to be a podcast star. And then our very own editor, Drew, comes in with some deep thoughts. Hey, guys. I just wanted to share some thoughts on moving. Just fucking don't do it. I'm in the middle of moving right now. I hate it. Just stay where you are. Just don't move. Those are wise words. Absolutely. Yeah. I hate moving so, so much. Did a lot of it early on, and I just burned myself out on it. Gosh, yearly. We were moving yearly. It was horrible. Always during the peak grass season. I'd have a box of tissues.
Yeah. Sneezing like crazy. Bad allergies while moving. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Editor Drew. It's always nice to hear from you. We'd love to have you all call us. Leave us a voicemail. We'll play it on the next show. Yeah, do something like that, would you? Call us over there. And we'd love to either play it live on the show or when you call live. Or you know what? Get your voicemail. We'd love that too. All right, Andrews, it is time to get into the boosts. We have a batch this week. Not a big batch, but our podcast came in to help us make up for the dip. And I came in with a big baller boost of 95,000 sats.
Yeah. Yeah. Very very nice very much appreciated he's listening live too he says welcome back chris and angela my family's favorite place for a summer road trip is my parents cottage on the beach of lake michigan one small problem can i get great cellular signal there even after i tried one of those expensive signal boosters oh well my youngest son is a huge fan of the show and loves the music uh why does he like linux in his words quote tux is a penguin he likes tux a lot i get that i get that it's a pretty cute mascot now you know what i'm gonna say our podcast is you should watch for a deal on the starlink mini you know you could put in your laptop bag and sometimes they have it for less than 200 bucks and they have some plans where you can you pay for like kind of more mobile use and not full-time use could work really well as long as you have a good clear shot of the northern sky if trees are in the way it's gonna be a problem but thank you for that baller boost really appreciate that, Hybrid Sarcasms here with 35,000 sats.
That was just a random clip. Didn't really seem to fit. No. Yeah, I was wondering. I like that one better. I like that one better. Hybrid writes, just some sats to help you enjoy that family time away. And use some sats to get some more Red Bull. That's funny. That's wise. That's it, though. That's all our boost this week. We took a week off, and, well, I think we're paying the price for it. Podbun did send a boost in under the 2,000-sat cutoff, 1,000 sats, but no message. We also had 12 of you stream sats as you listened along and stacked 11,220 sats. And not a strong showing there, really. When you combine it all, really thanks to our podcast, Big Baller Boost, the show stacked 142,220 sats.
It's not a blow-away episode. But we'll take the L on that one because we were off. That's on me. If you'd like to support the show, keep us going. Fountain FM is probably the easiest way to send a boost. Of course, there's a lot of fun options. You can get an Albi Hub and self-host the whole thing and use Podverse, which is GPL. That whole path starts at newpodcastapps.com. But Fountain FM gets you started. Or become a Jupiter.party member. Not only do you support the entire network, but you get the special bootleg version of the show. that's at jupyter.party thank you everybody who supports us with a boost or a membership.
Okay Andrews I did not slack on my time off I continue to look for great investment ideas I got some good ones. Now, I was thinking, you know, any pleb could get a house for an investment. But what if you got a house that's a brand? So it's not just a house. It's a house that's a brand. The Seattle Spite House is officially for sale. It's going for $799,000. It's 15 feet wide on one side and only 55 feet wide on the other side. The entire purpose of the house was to spite somebody who made a lowball estimate on the property and the land.
So the person built a house there to spite them and show them it could be done. It looks like a wedge of cheese. If you've maybe could picture like a wedge of cheddar cheese, a triangle wedge of cheese placed on a piece of land right next to another house, right between the road and the house. And what's wild is if you look at the pictures, which we'll have linked in the show notes, one area of the house gets so narrow that I think I could touch it from end to end with my arm span. Pretty unique, right? A real winner. I thought that there was more of a story behind it about the, like a husband-wife thing.
Oh, maybe. Maybe that's a different one. It could be. I think there's two. Because that one was more boxy. This one's more wedge-shaped. I was thinking that too. Yeah. But, you know, like a house with a story. That's crazy. Even if it's called the Spite House, right? That's crazy. I wonder, do you see the wedge picture? There's the address of the next house. I wonder what that one would go for in comparison. Right. If this one's going for $800,000. Yeah. Jeez, you're right. I wonder. That's a good question. I thought, okay, I thought maybe if small wasn't your thing.
Okay. I have another one for you. This one's called The Rock House, and that's because a portion of the house is actually built into a rock. Yes. Yep, and this one is a million-dollar home, so this one gets the full production treatment. Every now and then, a property comes along that reminds you how incredible this place we call home really is. And this, this is one of those places. Welcome to The Rock House. So it's red rock too i believe it's in colorado, It looks kind of like a Flintstones house, only expensive. It looks like a house with a growth.
And perfect lines. Sometimes the greatest luxury is nature itself. The rocks just like come all up in this place to like into the space. It's a Minecraft builder's dream. Totally, totally. Some homes are built to impress. This one was built to inspire. If you're ready for something truly different, I'd love to show you. I mean, if you're going to spend a million dollars on a house, it might as well be unique like this. Because you could here in the Pacific Northwest drop almost a million dollars on a house and you get a wedge of cheese. But here in wherever this Laxburg, Colorado or whatever it is, you get a huge house attached to a rock.
Yeah. And that's the thing, though, is that it is just attached. Some of the rock is inside there's no tunnel there's no sound dampening recording space it's just literally you can see some rock, built in your house I admit maybe not my best find yeah if it had like a studio cave this would be a real winner, really all you do is you look at the rock a lot and then it's got a deck where you look at the rock and it's not that I don't mind looking at rock but they don't really have a view of like water or mountains. It's just you're looking at the rock. Yeah.
Okay. All right. Well, you know, maybe the wedge house, the spite house, maybe that'll work out. I try. I try. If this inspired you, I'll have a link in the show notes at weeklylaunch.rocks. In fact, links to everything we talk about are over at weeklylaunch.rocks. And you can always join us Tuesday to catch the show live in your podcast app or over at jblive.tv. And of course, we'll release it on Wednesday after Editor Drew's had a chance to go through it and make us sound better. And you can get it on demand whenever you like. There you have it. Send us a boost. Let us know what you thought of the show and any stories you have with the cats and the ghosting.
Because yes, I'm a serial ghost offender. Thank you so much for joining us from the beautiful Pacific Northwest and the mighty American West Coast. Thanks for listening. to this episode, and we'll see you right back here next week.
This is The Launch, episode 27, for July 15th, 2025. Streaming from the beautiful Pacific Northwest and the mighty American West Coast, We greet you all a good morning, a good evening, or whenever your timeline may fall, time-appropriate greetings to one and all. This is The Launch. My name is Chris. And I'm Angela. Hello, Angela. We got a good show today. Just a few things everybody needs to know before we get started. You can always call us live or after the fact with a voicemail. The phone number is 774-462-5667. That's 774-462-5667. The show is streamed live Tuesdays at 11.30 a.m. Pacific, 2.30 p.m.
Eastern, 7.30 p.m. UTC, in your podcast app of choice over at jblive.tv. And, of course, you can join us in that mumble room. You can join us in that matrix. And everything we chat about, we'll link to at weeklylaunch.rocks. Go check it out. There's always more resources over there, including our song of the week and more. But we're back. had a week off while did a little family road trip took Brent back home up to his Canadian homeland brought the kids with us it was hot but we're back now, and I believe while I was road tripping you were experimenting with how many cats remember you brought it up last episode yeah.
I think it was last episode. How many cats there's too many cats and you were experimenting with this how many animals. Right because we also have this dog. Right But yeah. So I had an opportunity to adopt one of my existing cat's sisters, right? Gypsy and then her sister Penny. And I decided to try to make that happen. Now, you had the kids on a trip when I got Gypsy originally. And it worked out really nicely. I was able to bond with her and keep her in a room. And, you know, the house wasn't chaotic or anything. I decided to implement that same thing. So I picked her up a couple of Sundays ago and I thought it was going to go well.
She was she's a really good cat. She's super nice. But unfortunately, it only lasted three days before I returned her to my friend. Well, three days is a pretty quick turnaround. It is. So day one, she doesn't want anything to do with other cats. Oh, including her sister, her blood. Both Gypsy and Rocky were great. Well, not great. They were hesitant, but Penny was just hissing and scratching. Like, my banister up on the second floor is all scratched up from her. He's upset. Yeah. Angry. Yeah. But on her own, like, she's super affectionate and talkative, and she loved the dog. Like, her and the dog got along. They played together. So it was really crazy.
But so day two, she pooped on my bed. Oh. Even though I had two litter boxes available. No, it's a message when they do that. It's funny how they figure that out. Like, I'm going to go poop where they sleep. Like, they understand. Yeah. So then the third day, she, you know, that brown chair that I rocked all three kids in that I haven't been able to let go, even though the metal, what is it called, has broken. Like, it is broken in so many ways. Anyway, she peed on it. Wow. So now it's for sure done for, and I can't do cat pee. I can't do cat pee. tactical use of. The poop and pee.
Right i have i i did everything i could to to make this a good experience and it just didn't it didn't work out and i just can't do the cat pee so yeah i returned her uh as soon as i figured out about the cat pee i was just like yeah so um so that's too bad the kids didn't get to meet her which is good because she was so sweet you know they would have fallen in love yeah right they would have been totally attached so an interesting change has occurred in the house since getting rid of Penny or giving her back. Rocky and Gypsy are getting along better and both of them are getting along better with the dog. Huh.
Like they now appreciate each other more? Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, maybe we should get along so they don't bring home another stupid cat, you know, or something like that. Like it's so cool and it's nice. Last night I had a dog sleeping on my left side and Rocky sleeping on my right side in bed. Like they became allies against a common enemy. Yes. Well, except Moose was totally friends with the enemy. So, yeah, that is interesting. I think, you know, for me to like the cat pee stuff is such a hard line. I just can't stand it. It's such a pungent smell. So awful.
I wonder if this is true. I'd like you to boost it and tell me if your experience has been like this listener. But I've been told by someone we both know that the boy cats tend to be a little bit more likely to get along like when you introduce them. They make peace easier. That's funny. Rocky was more accepting of Penny than Gypsy was. He was also more scared, but Gypsy was puffing up and everything, and Rocky was just like, yeah, I'm just going to leave. Huh. And then he left for like three days. I didn't see him for three days. I'm out.
Yeah. Protest. Oh, jeez. Three days is enough to make you a little nervous. Uh-huh. Yeah. Definitely. Okay, so the experiment didn't go great. Yeah, and it was around the 4th of July, too, with the fireworks. because I don't want to go there. Yeah, like, yeah. Would you try again with a different cat? I don't think so. There's enough chaos going on in the house with these three. I mean, it's better that they're getting along now. Like that, maybe that, you know, maybe I'll forget. This doesn't open a door to a rat, does it? No.
Okay. Definitely not. I want to make sure we're not going in that direction. Mm-mm. Tell you what. Well, anything else? No, I saw you were contemplating a new diet. Is it a lifestyle? Yeah, right. A lifestyle change. Yeah. Yeah. Dylan's so frustrated by that phrase. Yeah, well, I was trying the OMAD, which is one meal a day, but it wasn't working out. But the meal a day that I was choosing was the Jack in the Box T-Pain Munchy Meal Burger Tater. Come on. No, come on. Okay, so for those of you that maybe haven't seen it, it's available till July 27th. Okay, sorry, I got to look it up. T-Pain.
Oh, okay, yeah. T-Pain. Yes. What's it called? T-Pain what? Munchy meal, burger tater. Berg-R-tater. Burger tater. Melt. There's a melt on the end of it, too. I got to be honest with you. The term melt actually makes me kind of hungry. I wasn't into it, and then I heard the term melt, and I'm like, oh, God, that actually sounds good. Okay, so I'm trying to pull it up here. Yeah. Oh, they got a whole page. It's taking a minute. Jack in the Box and T-Pain team up to unleash the ultimate late-night gaming munchy meal. What's inside the T-Pain Munchie Meal? Well, your choice between a burger tater melt or a chicken tater melt, one of Jack's iconic tacos, a medium curly fry, a stuffed cookie, a small drink, and an exclusive T-Pain air freshener.
And sticker. Does it really come with an air freshener? So in the dozen that I have had since this promotion started. You've got to be kidding. I have never gotten an air freshener. What? It says it comes with an air freshener. While supplies last. Oh, well, I guess they would go fast. Okay, do you see the picture of it? Yeah, I did. It's got a big old. Like, potato slab on there. So it's a croissant with a white cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, cheese sauce, hash brown, burger, ranch. Oh, whoa. And it is a mess to hold. Like, it's one you don't put down until you're done eating it. I see. I mean, the whole, that looks like a, is the hash brown as big as they make it look in the pictures?
Really? Yeah. Yeah, they have big hash browns. Yeah, way bigger than McDonald's. T-Pain will also host a live stream Fortnite event from his pro gaming studio to let fans jump in, squad up, and compete in real time with Jack and the man himself. Wow, it's only available until July 27th, so you better keep going. You better keep going because they're pulling it after that. I know. I know. They used to have the wakey-bakey. Yeah, yeah. And I refused to say those words. Right. Wakey-bakey. So I'm like, oh, that hash brown thing with the cheese. What do you say when you order this one? Are you all in?
Oh, I am all in. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I am all in. I'm like the T-Pain Munchie Mill Burger Tater. I will say when they add cheese, I do tend to like a cheese sauce. Yep. I do like those cheese sauces. Ah! I do have one other follow-up. Oh, yeah? So I had gotten a speeding ticket back in March. Yeah. When uh bella was having a concert and i just wasn't paying attention going up a hill on a street didn't i had no idea it was a 25 mile per hour zone but it's kind of obvious you know after the fact oh anyway i went ahead and asked for a deferral because it has been more than seven years since i've had a ticket and or a deferral actually it's not that was strike that so you can do.
A deferral every seven years. Okay yeah, And so I just wrote on the back this situation. I was just on cloud nine, you know, driving my daughter. Having a good day and you screwed it up. Yeah, basically. But, you know, checked the deferral box, said, you know, I'd appreciate consideration for a deferral. Well, I got I finally got they give you eight weeks to wait. It's a virtual hearing. Right. So they just read it and then. Yeah. Talk about taking something that should be a really minor thing and just make it into a whole life event because they stretch it out.
Yeah. I've been watching my USPS daily mail scan for it. And then I finally saw it. I'm like, OK, I got to go get the mail. So I got the mail and the letter just said committed. And that I owe one hundred fifty dollars. Right. I'm like, OK, well, that's definitely less than the ticket. But where's the we considered your deferral and we do or don't accept it because I mitigated the ticket, which means I admit I did it. In fact, the first row, the first sentence was, unfortunately, I was speeding. You know, like I'm not going to deny that I was. And so I went straight to the courthouse and said, well, I need to pay this, but I am unsure.
This is unclear whether or not I was actually considered for a deferral. So she's like, oh, well, you still can file a motion. I'm like, to do what? Well, to ask for a deferral. But I've already done the official process. Yeah, that's what this whole thing was supposed to be. So she printed it out and she said, well, hang on a second. She tracked down that judge and got him to approve a deferral. Wow. Yeah, because I think he just didn't consider it. Wow, that's like an unusual going above and beyond moment. It is. It is. And of course, so I got there at 1150 and I had to wait for her to go talk to him and stuff.
And so when she got back, it was 1159. Why is that important? Because they shut down the courthouse at noon for lunch. Jeez. So I paid the 150, which was the cost of buying my deferral, apparently. And of course, they've already reported it to my driving record. So I'm probably going to have a future fight here. But she couldn't do everything. She couldn't process that deferral right away. So she's like, I'm going to put your money in a savings account. And then when I get back from lunch, I will update everything and apply the $150. So I get home and I'm looking at the receipt.
And it says I posted bail for me. She used the bail savings accounts to hold my money. And it's just funny to have a receipt saying I posted $150 bail. For myself you could post just a picture of that to social media and really bait people yeah right that's wild yeah wow yeah I think my defense would be yes I was speeding but it was awesome you know that would be and I don't think it would go over well yeah. No can you imagine my grandma reading that. Yeah my grandma. Was a judge. Yes I was speeding but it was really awesome yeah I'm so good at it but this. Man had a pizza to deliver.
Yeah hey you never know now it would be a door dash guy right oh yeah sure, Okay, I realized a bad trait about myself. I'm a serial ghoster. It's accidental. It's accidental. You know, like, and I would define when you ghost somebody as, like, cutting off communication without explaining to them why. You know, maybe it would happen with somebody you're dating or a friend or family member. Or, like, you quit a job and you've got, like, good work friends, but then you quit that job and then by, like, a month later you're not really talking to most of any of them anymore.
Or they, like, because we just had layoffs. And like, am I ever going to talk to these people again? I don't know. Right. I realized I do it all the time accidentally, in part because I'm just like a forgetful person and I'm very focused on work. And so if somebody kind of falls outside that kind of laser focus I have on work, I tend to just lose track of people, family members, friends, all kinds of stuff. and I was wondering if you think it might be a more common trait amongst men than women, generalizing of course but like I think that there are certain guys that are more inclined to they won't see each other for a year and then they get together like hey bro how's it going and they're good buddies for like the 15-20 minutes they're together again and they don't see each other for a year and that's pretty normal where I feel like, Probably more common, at least like when I when I with you and I observe a deal, like you seem to be more actively maintaining networks and friendships.
And I wonder if that's part of it, too. And I just like I want to like solve this about myself because it feels like in 2025 with all of the technology we have with social media, DMs, text messages, emails, phone calls. There's really no excuse. Reminders. But yet I still fail at it. Am I is this making me a bad person? Am I just a bad person? No, we're just inundated with stuff all the time everywhere. One thing that I use to hopefully avoid this is I hate the red notification counts. So I'll leave something unread so that I can respond to it. But then it turns into a chore that I avoid.
And I dig in my heels. I still do the same thing. But I do read messages and then forget to respond. That's the problem. Mostly because it's not a good time. It's not a good time. Right. Yeah. Because they come in at any time. Right. Yeah. I feel like too there's different levels of it. Like it's probably worse to do it with family or somebody you've been dating. Like a longer term relationship. Yeah. And I feel like it's a little more acceptable in the professional setting where I don't really stay in contact with very many people that I used to work with even if we were really good work friends.
Yeah. And I think that's just kind of more accepted. This is really interesting because my mentor, Stan, I haven't talked to him since last October and he called me randomly today and today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just before the show. So I caught up with him just a little bit, but like, I'm not intentionally not calling him. I just, he's, it's not part of my daily anything right now. Was he offended? Was he just like checking in? Yeah. I mean, he just, yeah, basically just checking in. Yeah, and it never feels good to be ghosted, too. That's the other thing that I was like, I hate this. I hate that I'm doing this because I know how that can feel on the other end.
So I guess, I don't know. I wanted to hear your thoughts out there, audience. Give us a ring or send us a boost. Are you a serial ghoster on accident? Have you been ghosted? All of that. Let us know. I want to, I guess, not just to make me feel better, but to know if this is something other people struggle with and where you would think it would be better with all these ways to stay in contact. it somehow seems to have gotten worse. Send us a boost. Let us know. Well, I'm really excited to talk about this growing trend that initially I was really against, but, you know, after weighing the pros and cons, I'm a big fan.
And I tried to warn the world a year or two ago about this, and thankfully I was unsuccessful in my attempts. I want to talk a bit today about the Flock Safety Cameras. The Flock Safety System, which is owned by Flock Group Incorporated, specializes in surveillance hardware and software. Started in 2017, they've been rolling out automated license plate readers, cameras, gunfire detection systems, and a whole lot more. We use them heavily here in the Washington state, and they're getting used throughout the United States. And it's some pretty exciting technology that I'm really thrilled to tell you about.
And our local news covered the exciting possibilities recently and how safe it makes us all. A growing number of communities throughout western Washington are turning to high tech to meet their public safety needs. While these camera systems have helped police with a wide range of investigations, they also raise significant privacy concerns. Camel's Joel Marino looks at when added security measures need their own safeguards. the positioning of this camera at the city limits of normandy park gives police a way to monitor vehicles that come and go well.
One of the things they do which is really ingenious is they look at the traffic flow patterns and the maps and they determine sort of the choke points where they where you have to get in and out of a town and they'll identify the four or five spots where you can get in or out and then they just deploy these there and the brilliance is is that there's no infrastructure required because they run off solar panels and they use LTE for internet. So there's no infrastructure you need to worry about. You just throw a pole down, make sure it's got a good camera shot, and you can start surveilling everybody that drives by in real time.
Officers focus on other priorities. The downtown area of Des Moines has high traffic. So if ever there was an incident, there's only a couple of roads or ways that you can get in or out of. The cameras by Flock Safety read license plates, but can also identify unique features such as bumper stickers. Compare that to a database of vehicles of interest to law enforcement. As long as you're not breaking the law, you shouldn't have a problem. Yeah, if you're not breaking the law, Ang, you don't got nothing to worry about, right? Oops.
This is a pretty interesting deal. So there's, as of right now, according to Wikipedia, it's active in over 5,000 communities in 49 U.S. states. So just about gosh darn everywhere. And Phlox cameras perform 20 billion vehicle scans per month. Their technology integrates artificial intelligence, image recognition, and vehicle fingerprinting, allowing them to identify even little things. Like if you've got like a funny little Calvin peeing on something sticker on the back of your window, they will identify that and tag it to your car, your make, your model. And that's one of the things they can use to make sure they're actually tracking you.
Of course, you know, some yokels like the EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union have worried about, you know, mass surveillance and a private company having all of this data. But they haven't thought about the convenience this brings to officers, you know, just making solving crime so much easier. And really, Flock wants to help shape the future of safety together. And you can check them out if you go over to FlockSafety.com. And they're expanding into new areas, too, which are really exciting. So let me just give you an idea, Andrew, price. Okay.
Maybe this is something you might be interested in because you can actually sign up for Flock Systems. You don't have to be a cop. Yeah, any business could do it. Oh, yeah, for sure. Oh, did Costco? They sure can. Walmart can. Now, one of the things that's really nice is when you sign up, they cover all the ongoing maintenance, the repairs, automatic upgrades. They host the search engine, the AI platform, the real-time alerts. They build you a mobile app you can use. Now, I couldn't get exact pricing for us because you got to have a call with a sales rep. But Perplexity was able to dig up some good numbers.
The annual subscription price per camera, depending on your setup, is somewhere between $2,500 to $3,000 per camera. And there's also a $250 to $650 one-time fee per camera. when they install it. And so I went and got some real world data. Sumner, Washington has 12 cameras right now and it's costing them about $39,000 annually to operate and run that. Mount Lake Terrace has nine cameras and they're spending about $54,000 for a few years. But it's great because they have a pretty nice structured billing program. So if you want to add a whole bunch more, they'll put some discounts on there for you.
So if you want to surveil like hundreds of people at once they'll give you a great discount but also which this is pretty exciting is they're expanding into new areas so instead of relying on stupid old fixed cameras that can only monitor certain points they're going to take the forward leap and expand into drones so you can also you can monitor by deploying one of their drones it's pretty nice dfr. Is definitely a force multiplier for us so what happens is we get the call from our dispatch that goes to our cad our cad automatically talks with the Flock program, which gives us the GPS coordinates of where that drone's going to go to that call-per-service.
From there, basically, the pilot just has to hit launch. Once that launch button's hit, the drone will automatically fly to its coordinates, and then you can have an aerial platform view of what that call-per-service is. If I'm in the same room hearing what they're working on, and if I can launch the DFR drone and assist them in any way, it really just goes hand-in-hand and just makes both of our lives a lot easier. See, that's really what's important, is making the cops' lives easier. I mean, that's what we need to focus on here. For a typical size U.S. town with approximately 10,000 homes, a Flock safety camera system would likely cost around $649,000 for the first year.
And then, you know, because it costs a little more for installation. And then after that, the maintenance cost would be around $550,000 annually to keep the system running and have support. So half a million dollars to monitor your entire population. And if you want access, no problem, because Flock offers access to any business. Now, you need to own the property the cameras are on unless you qualify for research or law enforcement. Then you get access to all the cameras. Oh. Yeah. And Flock offers special programs at a discount price for HOAs. So if an HOA wants to deploy these all over their entire gated community, absolutely can.
And then one of the things that's really nice and really smooth is law enforcement can just log in with their little user ID and password and they can override anyone's camera and get access to everything. Wow. It's almost that reminds me of that mesh networking where like the police could have their own cameras, but then also you utilize the network of other available cameras. That's interesting. Is it really good, though? Oh, it's great, Ange. It's really exciting the way they're using this technology. And I think, you know, one of the reasons why I've changed my opinion is I didn't appreciate how important it was to make the cops job easier and how much safety this brings to the community.
But then once I witnessed the coordinated media campaign, I began to understand a little better. Here's an example of a lot of the local coverage. There's a format. When Flock engages with a local town, they initiate a PR campaign and they provide talking points and experts to the local news affiliate. And they all seem to kind of go about the same direction. They generally have the same flavor. I'll give you a couple of examples. Driving across Hampton Roads, you may have noticed more and more of these popping up. They're black poles with cameras attached to them, typically seen on the side of several busy roads or near some city borders.
And Chesapeake law enforcement officers report the devices giving them a boost with police investigations. Angelique Arintock has more from Great Bridge where one of those stands. A Chesapeake police spokesperson says there are 43 flock safety cameras citywide. They read license plates and store that information along with other details about cars that pass by. It categorizes vehicles by different characteristics. So things like the make, the model, the color of the car. Being able to help the police solve crimes, I think it's a good thing. Yeah, if you got nothing to hide, what's the problem? And one of the things that I think is really smart, so that way we all feel really comfortable with this, is you'll notice that none of these news reports, not a single one of these news reports, will point out that Flock's a private company.
They mention Flock cameras, But they kind of make it sound like it's run by the police. They don't really mention that it's run by a private corporation. And you'll see each local news will kind of have a similar format. Here's Oklahoma right here. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Naomi Kitt. Karen is off tonight. Calling it the biggest advancement in policing here in Tulsa in decades, Mayor G.T. Bynum and Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin touted the success of the city's new FLOX safety cameras. 2 News Anchor Sharon Phillips joins us now with a look at how these cameras are having a major impact on public safety.
Naomi, Mayor G.T. Bynum says there isn't a doubt in his mind that Tulsa will be a safer city because of this technology, and they are already seeing the fruits of it. You may have spotted these flock safety cameras stationed in various areas around the city. They are used to capture a license plate number, and that information is sent to a real-time information center. If a known stolen vehicle or wanted person is in the area, the system will send an alert to police. So you can put in like the license plate and characteristics of a car that you're looking for, and they will get real-time alerts to their phones. The cops will.
I'm going to play just a couple more because the format, I just think it's fascinating. They all follow the same format because they're all from the same PR agency. Communities across Northeast Ohio are turning to a high-tech device to help crime. Several police departments in our area are now using surveillance tools called Flock Cameras to support their work. Neil Fisher explains what they are, how they're being used, and the latest community to jump on board. Tonight, Bay Village is the latest community in Northeast Ohio to install software to protect against crime.
See, they didn't install software either. They went to a website. You get these flock systems, they're all integrated, then you just get a login to their portal. Within the last two years, we've kind of been inundated with auto thefts. Flock cameras are designed to identify license plates associated with crimes. The cameras are set up at the entrance to communities and are solar powered. The Bay Village Police Department will spend roughly $25,000 this year. The cost is outweighed by the benefits of the community. And the benefit is, it's easier for cops.
I could play more and more. Mount Lake Terrace, our local one, of course, you get increased crime solving that it will be a result. If you increase surveillance, you will see more more crimes getting solved. You will see more stolen cars recovered. That's sort of going to be the nature of the beast. If you're watching everybody. Continues to track the number of crimes solved with the help of flock cameras. Our Lee Searcy shows us how it's making a difference in Lexington and how another central Kentucky county is working to expand the cameras reach. Flock cameras, they're all over. They read license plates and take photos, alerting police to stolen vehicles or those on a so-called hot list that may be tied to other crimes.
In Scott County, flock cameras have been helpful to the Sheriff's Department and Georgetown Police. In fact, the Sheriff's Office is hoping to add specialized flock cams to north and southbound 75 on the Grant and Fayette County lines to capture license plates on vehicles going faster. Yeah, that's right, because they're expanding into traffic enforcement as well. It's a slippery slope here because when you have this data, it eventually does get abused. And there are reports of it already getting abused. A catchy police officer was using it to stalk his ex.
Wichita Police Department has revoked access to its flock license plate reading camera system to the entire Keechai Police Department. We're learning that from the interim Wichita Police Chief today, it's after a Keechai Police Lieutenant was arrested for illegally using the system to stalk his estranged wife. WPD is now looking at other ways to add safeguards to the system. Sean Logging spoke with the department about what other changes they're considering. So you have examples of people stalking their exes. There was also a really awful story about a gal who got stopped leaving her friend's house.
The police believe that she was driving a stolen car because a flock notification said they picked up. a stolen license plate on this road but it missed a digit and they went and started to arrest just an innocent person. A license plate mix-up in northern new mexico angers one family sasha leniger explains the confusion comes over the last number on the plate and a plate cover, it's just before one in the afternoon on july 28th and two sisters in espanola are heading to the park it is i like drove out of her driveway drove up the street here on durand street in McCurdy.
Three cops surrounded me, one in the front, one on the side, and one pulled up in back of me. Those officers looking for a car with a stolen license plate reading BLGP07. The license plate on the car they stopped is almost identical except for the last digit. It's going to be Boy Lincoln, George Paul 02. Boy Lincoln, George Paul 02. Keep your hands up. Looks like occupied by two. 21-year-old Jacqueline Gonzalez and her 12-year-old sister are inside. Body cameras capture officers with their weapons drawn, asking them to get out. Oh my gosh.
Can you imagine? She did absolutely nothing wrong. That's crazy. The camera just couldn't quite read the last digit, so it had a false positive. Wow. Yeah, so according to the report, officers received a flock notification, said it was on southbound on State Route 68, so they went there and they pulled her over. And there's also an example of another type of data that starts to get a little bit too tempting to resist, and it's our cell phone data. This is another common way we're getting monitored right here. I-5 through Joint Base Lewis-McChord is infamous for its traffic slowdown, but it's also one of the worst spots for speeders, at least according to data from the cell phones of South Sound commuters.
This is so exciting to be using data that we haven't had access to before. The state's Traffic Safety Commission purchased data collected by apps like Google Maps or Waze. It's so exciting. It's so exciting to have access to this data. So this is what's happening is these private companies are creating these treasure troves of data. And then you really only just need to be a paying customer to get access to it. So that means governments can do it. That means your state patrol can do it to figure out where you're at, to figure out where you're speeding. It means that different law enforcement agencies like ICE can do it to figure out where you're at and if you're maybe here illegally, which is happening.
Despite being a sanctuary state, the King 5 investigators found the Department of Licensing, where you get a driver's license or register your car, is sharing private information with Homeland Security, ICE and Border Patrol. Is it concerning to you? Yeah, it's concerning to me. And when you bring all of this together, monitoring cell phone data while going down the road, the flock cameras that have you coming and going from every town, and additionally, state agencies sharing the information they already have with other state agencies without you having any information, we have really backed ourselves into a corner.
So I've decided the best thing to do is to just love how safe it's going to make us and how it's going to save cops time. That's just a great thing. Just a great thing. What do you think, Andrew? Yeah. No, you're not on board? No. All right. Well, we got a call coming in. We could take that here in a moment. I think it's time we do our weekly song just to change things up. But I would love to hear your thoughts if you've been noticing these Flock cameras. Boost in, call in, let us know. But now it's time for Cool Summer by Tony Salamone. See you on the other side.
Oh, and it looks like we do have a call. How exciting is that? Let's bring them in. Let's pull them in right now. Caller, you're on with Andrew and Chris. Are you there still? Are you there still? I don't know if they're there anymore, Andrew. I think they left, or maybe they fell asleep. You know, depending on where they're at, that could be a real problem, too. All right, well, Caller, you can call back if you'd like. All right, well, yeah, I'll return them to... Well, how do I know? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I get them.
I could ban them. How about that? Moja, you upset me? Bam! All right. There we go. Well, we do have some voicemails. We have a first-time listener caller. Long-time listener? First time? I wasn't clear because it happened so fast. Hey, Chris. Long-time listener. First-time caller. Just want to let you know I'm at 615, even at 2.4 speed. Can't get them all in. 2.4. Have you ever tried listening to a podcast at 2.4 speed? Oh, wow. Yeah. that's bonks right that's bonks that's crazy I wonder yeah. I think when I when I consume plural set content the max I do is two. Here's what it would sound like just a 2x and here's a 2x okay here's a 2x sample, music holds up actually yeah it does what is that even 2x that's not, no here we go oh.
There we go okay sounds like a jack in the box you know. That's that's pretty rough that's pretty rough I don't know why I don't know I don't think I could do that it would stress me out alright we got our caller back hello caller are you there hello hello. Ooh did caller check their inputs. Who knows and microphone we don't generally have a problem that's why I went with With the old phone calls. Could be on us. All right. Well, we're going to move on. We're dropping that call. We have a voicemail from Hybrid Sarcasm, though. Hey, everyone. It's Hybrid Sarcasm here. And just listening to that member's bootleg, and I couldn't even finish the episode before I wanted to give you a call and give you sort of my take on that certification discussion.
Oh, my goodness, kind of hitting home right now. I am an old dog trying to learn new tricks. My IT career has been very scattered and obviously not very focused. And you get started out of college, you get the general support job, and then you start doing this and you start doing that. I landed in a company that does business-to-business, like business analyst kind of stuff, ERP, purchasing, all of that. And so I ended up for a very long time on the upper levels, right, in that application sphere as opposed to down in the guts, right, down in the networking and the OS and all the stuff that we talk about on Linux and unplugged and self-hosting and all that, all the stuff that really captures my attention.
And so now I'm in a position where I am taking advantage of my customer-centric skills as opposed to my technical skills. And the more I rely on my customer-centric skills, the more out of touch I get with my technical skills. And now I'm trying to play catch-up. And this was emphasized for me when I tried to go for a technical job that a couple of years ago, so it's pre-sales, right? So it's a little salesy, a little technical. and a couple years ago I was told I wasn't salesy enough well I stepped up my customer game and I thought okay I'll try it again now they tell me I'm not too technical enough and I'm not technical enough and now I'm like alright screw all you guys I'm just going to get all the certs my company has a, enterprise subscription to Pearl oh cut off.
You know, I was just thinking too recently, like, if I had to go get a day job, what would I go do? And, well, first of all, I haven't properly applied for a job in probably over 20 years, right? It's probably been that long, which is crazy. And then, like, what would I even do? I think, unfortunately, the thing I'd probably be able to do, like, day one, like, just step right into, and I'm not proud of this, I think I could do sales. Level one tech support. Well, definitely could do that, but it would drive me crazy. Yeah, it would.
RV sales is what I think. Oh. I think I could do it. Oh, my gosh. But I could do it. That's funny. Yeah. No, you totally could. I'd get in there. I'd sell those RVs. Let us know how it goes, hybrid. Let us know. And watch out for that two-minute cutoff. Yeah. It sounded like he was about to say Pluralsight. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Didn't it? Mm-hmm. An attempt was made on this next call, but sometimes you can't control your pets. Petunia, no. Stop. I'm trying to call the launch. Oh, my God. Petunia, that big. That, no. I'm trying to call the line. Stop it, Petunia. I don't know what happened.
Petunia? Yeah. Petunia's not letting him make the call. Or Petunia just wants to be a podcast star. And then our very own editor, Drew, comes in with some deep thoughts. Hey, guys. I just wanted to share some thoughts on moving. Just fucking don't do it. I'm in the middle of moving right now. I hate it. Just stay where you are. Just don't move. Those are wise words. Absolutely. Yeah. I hate moving so, so much. Did a lot of it early on, and I just burned myself out on it. Gosh, yearly. We were moving yearly. It was horrible. Always during the peak grass season. I'd have a box of tissues.
Yeah. Sneezing like crazy. Bad allergies while moving. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Editor Drew. It's always nice to hear from you. We'd love to have you all call us. Leave us a voicemail. We'll play it on the next show. Yeah, do something like that, would you? Call us over there. And we'd love to either play it live on the show or when you call live. Or you know what? Get your voicemail. We'd love that too. All right, Andrews, it is time to get into the boosts. We have a batch this week. Not a big batch, but our podcast came in to help us make up for the dip. And I came in with a big baller boost of 95,000 sats.
Yeah. Yeah. Very very nice very much appreciated he's listening live too he says welcome back chris and angela my family's favorite place for a summer road trip is my parents cottage on the beach of lake michigan one small problem can i get great cellular signal there even after i tried one of those expensive signal boosters oh well my youngest son is a huge fan of the show and loves the music uh why does he like linux in his words quote tux is a penguin he likes tux a lot i get that i get that it's a pretty cute mascot now you know what i'm gonna say our podcast is you should watch for a deal on the starlink mini you know you could put in your laptop bag and sometimes they have it for less than 200 bucks and they have some plans where you can you pay for like kind of more mobile use and not full-time use could work really well as long as you have a good clear shot of the northern sky if trees are in the way it's gonna be a problem but thank you for that baller boost really appreciate that, Hybrid Sarcasms here with 35,000 sats.
That was just a random clip. Didn't really seem to fit. No. Yeah, I was wondering. I like that one better. I like that one better. Hybrid writes, just some sats to help you enjoy that family time away. And use some sats to get some more Red Bull. That's funny. That's wise. That's it, though. That's all our boost this week. We took a week off, and, well, I think we're paying the price for it. Podbun did send a boost in under the 2,000-sat cutoff, 1,000 sats, but no message. We also had 12 of you stream sats as you listened along and stacked 11,220 sats. And not a strong showing there, really. When you combine it all, really thanks to our podcast, Big Baller Boost, the show stacked 142,220 sats.
It's not a blow-away episode. But we'll take the L on that one because we were off. That's on me. If you'd like to support the show, keep us going. Fountain FM is probably the easiest way to send a boost. Of course, there's a lot of fun options. You can get an Albi Hub and self-host the whole thing and use Podverse, which is GPL. That whole path starts at newpodcastapps.com. But Fountain FM gets you started. Or become a Jupiter.party member. Not only do you support the entire network, but you get the special bootleg version of the show. that's at jupyter.party thank you everybody who supports us with a boost or a membership.
Okay Andrews I did not slack on my time off I continue to look for great investment ideas I got some good ones. Now, I was thinking, you know, any pleb could get a house for an investment. But what if you got a house that's a brand? So it's not just a house. It's a house that's a brand. The Seattle Spite House is officially for sale. It's going for $799,000. It's 15 feet wide on one side and only 55 feet wide on the other side. The entire purpose of the house was to spite somebody who made a lowball estimate on the property and the land.
So the person built a house there to spite them and show them it could be done. It looks like a wedge of cheese. If you've maybe could picture like a wedge of cheddar cheese, a triangle wedge of cheese placed on a piece of land right next to another house, right between the road and the house. And what's wild is if you look at the pictures, which we'll have linked in the show notes, one area of the house gets so narrow that I think I could touch it from end to end with my arm span. Pretty unique, right? A real winner. I thought that there was more of a story behind it about the, like a husband-wife thing.
Oh, maybe. Maybe that's a different one. It could be. I think there's two. Because that one was more boxy. This one's more wedge-shaped. I was thinking that too. Yeah. But, you know, like a house with a story. That's crazy. Even if it's called the Spite House, right? That's crazy. I wonder, do you see the wedge picture? There's the address of the next house. I wonder what that one would go for in comparison. Right. If this one's going for $800,000. Yeah. Jeez, you're right. I wonder. That's a good question. I thought, okay, I thought maybe if small wasn't your thing.
Okay. I have another one for you. This one's called The Rock House, and that's because a portion of the house is actually built into a rock. Yes. Yep, and this one is a million-dollar home, so this one gets the full production treatment. Every now and then, a property comes along that reminds you how incredible this place we call home really is. And this, this is one of those places. Welcome to The Rock House. So it's red rock too i believe it's in colorado, It looks kind of like a Flintstones house, only expensive. It looks like a house with a growth.
And perfect lines. Sometimes the greatest luxury is nature itself. The rocks just like come all up in this place to like into the space. It's a Minecraft builder's dream. Totally, totally. Some homes are built to impress. This one was built to inspire. If you're ready for something truly different, I'd love to show you. I mean, if you're going to spend a million dollars on a house, it might as well be unique like this. Because you could here in the Pacific Northwest drop almost a million dollars on a house and you get a wedge of cheese. But here in wherever this Laxburg, Colorado or whatever it is, you get a huge house attached to a rock.
Yeah. And that's the thing, though, is that it is just attached. Some of the rock is inside there's no tunnel there's no sound dampening recording space it's just literally you can see some rock, built in your house I admit maybe not my best find yeah if it had like a studio cave this would be a real winner, really all you do is you look at the rock a lot and then it's got a deck where you look at the rock and it's not that I don't mind looking at rock but they don't really have a view of like water or mountains. It's just you're looking at the rock. Yeah.
Okay. All right. Well, you know, maybe the wedge house, the spite house, maybe that'll work out. I try. I try. If this inspired you, I'll have a link in the show notes at weeklylaunch.rocks. In fact, links to everything we talk about are over at weeklylaunch.rocks. And you can always join us Tuesday to catch the show live in your podcast app or over at jblive.tv. And of course, we'll release it on Wednesday after Editor Drew's had a chance to go through it and make us sound better. And you can get it on demand whenever you like. There you have it. Send us a boost. Let us know what you thought of the show and any stories you have with the cats and the ghosting.
Because yes, I'm a serial ghost offender. Thank you so much for joining us from the beautiful Pacific Northwest and the mighty American West Coast. Thanks for listening. to this episode, and we'll see you right back here next week.