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| From 2025 09 17 Khiva |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from Ulli Hovli ("Big Yard"), a restored 17th-century Turkmen fortress-settlement located in Uzbekistan’s Khorezm region. Originally built by the Khan of Khiva as a fortified outpost to protect trade caravans, it has been transformed into a living museum and popular tourist complex. We stopped for lunch...and camel rides.
Bonus photos are after the jump.
The Richardson City Council approved the Greenwood Park Planned Development (ZF 26-02) application. It will raze a nursing home and build 40 single-family detached homes. The City received 5 statements in support of the request and 3 that were neutral. No one spoke in person for or against. That sounds like a nothingburger matter for a city council. And in the end, it was a unanimous yes vote, but one that several council members seemed less than completely happy with.
Flock Safety is a growing surveillance company. They are growing by selling their mass surveillance camera system to cities around the country. The sales pitch on their website entices cities with, "Join the Largest Fixed LPR [License Plate Reader] Network. With billions of monthly plate reads, Flock connects communities, businesses and law enforcement in a shared network built to stop crime." LPR is a bit of a misleading term. The technology does a lot more than read license plates. Elsewhere in the sales pitch, it says, "No Plate? No Problem. Capture more detail with Vehicle Fingerprint® and Flock FreeForm®. Turn images into actionable evidence — no plate required." Flock's website even includes a helpful webinar: "How to Speak to City Councils: Meeting the Moment with Confidence." That gives me a sinking feeling that cities across America stand little chance against Flock's smooth-talking salesmen. You see, fighting crime is a higher priority for voters than protecting privacy. Because council members have to, in turn, sell the systems to voters, they end up talking like Flock salesmen themselves and maybe even believing the sales pitch wholesale.
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Netflix
Source: City of Richardson.
May 11, 2026, marks one year since the current Richardson City Council was sworn in. That's the halfway mark of the 2025-2027 term. It's time to look at how this City Council is working. So, I asked ChatGPT to analyze the votes taken by the council, looking for coalitions and opposing factions. There were only nine contested votes all year. That's a small sample. Any analysis is subject to swings on the very next vote. Nevertheless, I found ChatGPT's interpretation of the voting results to be worthy of consideration. The following was written by ChatGPT.
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| From 2025 09 17 Khiva |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from the ruins of Toprak-Kala (1st-5th century CE). A thousand years before Marco Polo journeyed the Silk Road, ancient cities like Toprak-Kala flourished. Wikipedia calls it "an ancient palace city and the capital of Chorasmia in the 2nd/3rd century CE, where wall paintings, coins and archives were discovered." The city was built from sun-dried mud bricks (adobe).
Bonus photos are after the jump.
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| From 2025 09 15 Tashkent |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from an underground train station in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The trains are clean, frequent, and fast, one of the good legacies of Soviet times.
Bonus photos are after the jump.
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HBO
From The Trouble with Heroes, by Kate Messner:
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Graphic by City of Richardson.
The City of Richardson is rightly regarded as having some of the best and most diverse dining options in north Texas ("Eat & Drink"). But that doesn't mean every restaurant in Richardson exceeds in every measure. Here is a list of the worst places to eat in Richardson last month, based on the City of Richardson's Health Department Restaurant Scores from inspections last month. Not all Richardson restaurants are inspected each and every month. Only those inspected last month are ranked here. Only the lowest scores are shown.
