Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Anti-surveillance tools I saw at Defcon

https://youtu.be/-2uAsJ5EPAw?si=F-4HnpapW8T1bDHe 11 minute video war driving flock camera detector - stingray detector - etc lots of people fighting back against mass surveillance

info about chatGPT and other such items

https://share.google/aimode/Vs9qNrSaOX4BoXopQ there are several free systems to use online - never heard of most of them

Biden admin stopped the Sackler settlement

https://share.google/aimode/7OQs7l64hJdiJryRg - info from Google AI or Gemini or whatever its called the trump settlement got trashed maybe this is why trump hates biden so much now

fema daily headsUp for Tuesday Aug 18 2026

 National Current Operations / Monitoring – August 17-18, 2026


New Significant Incidents / Ongoing Operations:
• Severe Weather / Flooding – IN

Hazard Monitoring:
• Severe Thunderstorms – Central Plains to Lower Mississippi Valley
• Heavy Rain / Flash Flooding – Central Plains to Great Lakes
• Tropical Activity
  ○ Central and Eastern Pacific:
      • Hurricane Lala
      • Disturbance 1: High (80%)
      • Disturbance 2: Medium (60%)
  ○ Western Pacific:
      • Invest 92W: High

Disaster Declaration Activity:
• FMAG Approval: Mukluk Fire – AK
• Two amendments issued

Event Monitoring:
• No new significant events

(final entry for Kaiser Canyon Fire in Okanogan County WA - 138,000 acres - 23 homes destroyed - 24 other buildings destroyed - 0 deaths - no other homes or blds damaged)

Monday, August 17, 2026

update on Columbia earthquake in South America

 from google ai at https://share.google/aimode/71F0mOxvBpfZ7xWsU


294 deaths

300 missing

12,000 homes completely flattened

74,000 homes damaged

18 health centers with heavy damage

(how did they lose 12,000 homes but only 294 people ? - do they use Styrofoam building blocks ?) (do they have a robust alerting system?)

Venezuela - 18,000 to 50,000 still missing after earthquake

 https://share.google/aimode/oqlb0i59BVAYbjhP7 - info from Google AI - with source materials

fema daily headsUp for Monday Aug 17 2026

 National Current Operations / Monitoring – August 16-17, 2026

New Significant Incidents / Ongoing Operations:
• Tropical Storm Lala – HI – FINAL
• Severe Weather / Flooding – IN

Hazard Monitoring:
• Severe Thunderstorms – Northern / Central Plains, Upper Mississippi Valley, and Southern Appalachians to Mid-Atlantic
• Heavy Rain / Flash Flooding – Ohio Valley, Central Appalachians
• Tropical Activity
  ○ Central and Eastern Pacific:
      • Tropical Storm Lala
      • Disturbance 1: High (70%)
      • Disturbance 2: Medium (50%)
  ○ Western Pacific:
      • Invest 92W: Low

Disaster Declaration Activity:
•  No new declaration activity

Event Monitoring:
•  No new significant events


(no major changes on western wildfires - Bug Fire near Reno NV now listed as final with 9 homes destroyed and 1 death)