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paulhansel.com
paul
@paulhansel.com
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paulhansel.com
How can one lawmaker be responsible for both of these bills?

HB2332: "surveillance via automated license plate readers (ALPRs) is an unacceptable privacy violation"

HB2321: "3D printers and CNC machines must be required to surveil their operators to make sure they're not making dangerous objects"
screenshot of instagram post from @repsalahuddin: 1w When surveillance goes unchecked, immigrant communities pay the price 🚨 That’s why I introduced HB 2332 (alongside Senator Yasmin Trudeau’s SB 6002) to establish common-sense, statewide regulations around automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) like Flock and Axon. ALPRs collect data on thousands of Washingtonians every day, yet our laws haven’t kept pace. With more than 80 cities, 6 counties, and 3 Tribal governments using this technology in our state, we’ve seen what happens when there are no clear rules: data shared beyond local control, eroded trust, and real public safety risks. And when guardrails are missing, immigrant and refugee communities are the first to feel the harm. I’ve seen both the promise and risk of this technology firsthand as a former Councilmember in Redmond. WA needs a clear framework that protects residents and protects data. HB 2332 sets reasonable limits on who can use ALPRs and for what purposes, prohibits immigration enforcement use, establishes retention limits, and requires accountability. These are mainstream, bipartisan policies already adopted in many states. Public safety depends on trust, and trust requires clear, fair rules. When communities fear their data being shared, that trust breaks down. HB 2332 is about protecting our communities, our values, and the safety of all Washingtonians. screenshot of Instagram post with comment by @alwaysdavictor highlighting the contradiction of proposing two bills that advance and intrude on citizens' privacy: 1w HHB 2321 is stupid. You know what district you're in, right? I live in your district. I 3d print. The Bellevue public library has 3d printers. Are you going to buy them new printers to satisfy your stupid unenforceable law? You think every 3d printe company is going to make a special model for Washington, or are high school kids robotics teams going to lose access to cool tech because they won't ship to our state? Are you going to make every 3d printer require an internet connection? Are you going to make me connect my printer to the internet just to make it get the updated algorithms for the illicit devices I'm still not printing? You're going to make it illegal to flash my 3d printer with custom firmware? You have so many tech people in your district you should know better. I agree, people shouldn't be printing things in the bill. But you're going to make it illegal to use any custom firmware? Are you going to check my printer? In my house? This bill is stupid. I look forward to lambasting it in the local newspaper. This is is as stupid as those "you wouldn't download a car" ads in the early 2000s. I've got the Washington voter registration database. I'll be calling other folks in the district and asking them if they plan to vote for you next cycle when you keep pulling up his nonsense. But first I'm going to check your donor list and call them.
February 3, 2026 at 11:17 PM
paulhansel.com
Have you submitted your public comments on the unbelievably bright LED headlights being put onto our roads yet?
www.regulations.gov/document/FDA...

via www.softlights.org
February 3, 2026 at 7:57 AM
paulhansel.com
New York is quietly planning to impose fines and potential criminal penalties for the sale of 3D printers without "gun blocking software."

It's not just Washington state.

A working group is planned. @adafruit.com should get on it

www.nysenate.gov/legislation/...

www.nysenate.gov/legislation/...
Portions of NYS Bill A10005, highlighting firearm prevention technology requirements, including the formation of a working group to determine feasibility of such "blocking software" to be mandated for all printers. Section of NYS Bill A10005, highlighting details of "blocking software": resolution of working group theory within nine months, proposed creation of a library of firearm blueprint files, maintenance of said library (implying mandatory cloud service for all new printers sold, and likely upload of all print job g-code), and fines proposed for any violation: up to $5,000-$10,000 per violation. bizarre typo within bill A10005: "ninety-six-eeee". Perhaps this bill was generated with the help of ChatGPT?
February 2, 2026 at 1:56 AM
paulhansel.com
Limax maximus, the leopard slug.
#slugs #slugsofamerica
A leopard slug curled into a ) shape on some wooden planks. It has two areas on its body: the head, which is spotted, and the tail, which is similar but a bit darker.
January 30, 2026 at 9:04 PM
paulhansel.com
Myrtillocactus geometrizans f. cristatus.
#cactus
Crested blue flame cactus. It has long, almost vertical, segmented leaves, with curled, hammer-like tips that look like flames.
January 28, 2026 at 11:46 PM
paulhansel.com
Re-sharing a thoughtful video from The Steady State:

xcancel.com/steadystate2025/status/2015163848483918244#m
January 28, 2026 at 6:00 PM
paulhansel.com
These organs also enable chemotaxis: motion towards sources of chemical emission.

By sensing CO2 and water vapor gradients in the air, ticks can hunt their prey: mice and other mammals, including humans.

But there's a weak spot. Microscopic amounts of DEET, an insecticide, fully confuse the organ!
Repellents abolish tick thermotaxis Because of the clear importance of thermotaxis in host-seeking, we ran thermotaxis trials with unfed virgin adult female A. americanum ticks in air containing DEET, picaridin, 2-undecanone, citronellal and nootkatone, to determine whether these commercial repellents disrupted thermotaxis. Scoring final position after 5 minutes as a choice assay, 50 ng•cm-3 DEET, 54 ng•cm-3 picaridin and 42 ng•cm-3 2-undecanone completely abolished thermotaxis, and the effect was completely reversible within 15 minutes (Fig 7, S3 Fig and S1 Movie). Thermotaxis was also disrupted by citronellal and nootkatone, but because of the difficulty in removing the odor of these compounds from the arena, only the highest concentration of each compound was tested, with only eight and 24 ticks, respectively (Fig 7B).
January 28, 2026 at 4:28 AM
paulhansel.com
Did you know? Ticks have sensing organs on their front arms that work just like ranged infrared thermometers.

Ticks use them to sense warm bodies as far away as 4 meters, or 13 feet!

Hungry ticks run towards targets between 37-40C—human body temperature—and mostly ignore hotter and colder targets.
A hungry adult deer tick captured in an RMS lens tube. It is the size of a sesame seed. Quote from paper: the remainder, 31, were thermotaxing. Since 31 of the 43 ticks that were not moving spontaneously, or 72%, began thermotaxing immediately from 1m away, we can conclude that at least 72% of adult A. americanum females can detect the 10X10 cm plate at a distance of 1m, just as many as a t 0.5 m. A longer arena or smaller target is needed to precisely assess the range of tick heat detection, but we can conclude that since an adult human torso is approximately 4 times the width of our target, a tick could detect an adult human at a distance of up to 4 meters under ideal conditions. A cartoon of the test arena used to evaluate thermotaxis and chemotaxis in ticks. There are hot and cold plates on the left and right sides and a circulation fan that pulls air from the edges near the targets and blows it out at the center. Various data plots showing thermotaxis (movement towards heat sources) by ticks in a laboratory test. The ticks prefer walking towards hot plates around human body temperature (37-39C).
January 28, 2026 at 4:28 AM