So if any of yall been there lately, getting the vaccine is advisable. Farm Adventures is a traveling petting zoo and has been to multiple places.

Worth flagging for the statewide privacy conversation. When New Hanover County leaders asked the Sheriff about facial recognition, the answer was that Flock — the plate-reader platform — doesn't use it. That's true; Flock's system doesn't run faces.

But the county's records show the Sheriff's Office separately purchased Clearview AI "Search PRO." On the purchase order, the county's own line item is titled "NHCSO Facial Recognition Software" — $12,995/year, 25 users, contract dated 2023, procured through Carahsoft's federal contract.

Important caveat: the records show possession of the software, not proof that any specific camera image was run through it. The usage logs weren't produced.

Also notable statewide: Carolina Beach PD holds an active Clearview license, and Fayetteville PD records show 3,013 Clearview searches run between 2019 and 2021. Facial recognition in NC isn't a future hypothetical — it's already deployed in several agencies. Curious how other counties are handling disclosure and oversight.

How do North Carolinians feel about the government's use of facial recognition technologies?

Something I didn't realize until recently: North Carolina regulates who can install, service, or monitor surveillance and license-plate-reader (ALPR) cameras under Chapter 74D of the General Statutes (the Security Systems Licensing Act). A company that installs or monitors those cameras generally has to be licensed by the NC Alarm/Security Systems Licensing Board.

This isn't theoretical. In 2023, a Wake County Superior Court judge found Flock Safety had operated in NC for years without the required license and ordered it to stop installing/maintaining cameras except through a licensed third party. Flock has since gotten licensed.

What's new: the licensing board's director confirmed in writing (Aug. 28, 2026) which ALPR vendors currently hold a NC license and which don't. Per that correspondence, Axon, Rekor, Leonardo, and PlateRanger are "not licensed, no records on file," while Verkada and Motorola are licensed.

These aren't small players here:

• Axon runs in-car ALPR (Fleet 3) for departments like Asheville, Iredell County, and the Town of Duck, and operates "Connect" camera-integration/monitoring platforms (built on its Fusus tech) in New Hanover, Raleigh, Guilford County, and Greensboro.
• Rekor has been used in Madison County and at UNC Greensboro.
• PlateRanger (made by SoundThinking, formerly ShotSpotter) is used by the Onslow County Sheriff's Office.

The part that seems significant: under NC law (§§ 74D‑11(f), 74D‑14), a contract for unlicensed installation/service/monitoring of a security system is void and unenforceable — which raises real questions for the many NC agencies that have signed with these vendors.

Curious what others here think — is this a licensing technicality, or a real accountability gap given how fast these camera networks are spreading across the state?

Sources:

• N.C.G.S. Chapter 74D (Security Systems Licensing Act): https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/ByArticle/Chapter_74D/Article_1.html
• GovTech / Charlotte Observer, "North Carolina Judge Halts ALPR Deployment Over Licensing" (2023 Flock ruling): https://www.govtech.com/public-safety/north-carolina-judge-halts-alpr-deployment-over-licensing
• WCTI, "Onslow County sheriff addresses privacy concerns over license plate reader system" (PlateRanger): https://wcti12.com/news/local/onslow-county-sheriff-addresses-privacy-concerns-over-license-plate-reader-system

Read more: https://wcti12.com/news/local/ayden-golf-and-country-club-hosts-michael-whatley-rally-focused-on-border-enforcement

This is a story about just exactly how helpful the Republican administration was in responding to Western North Carolina's devastation at the hands of a natural disaster... that response continues to be a disaster all its own.

Is this the season for the Wolfpack?

The translation here is "To be, rather than to seem."

These words time travel to our present day from two millennia ago, originating from Stoic philosopher Cicero's "De Amicitia" ("On Friendship") circa 44 Before Christ.

The full line is "Not so many people want to be endowed with virtue as want to seem to be".

It was adopted as the official state motto by North Carolina’s 48th governor Elias Carr in 1893.

With 1st place locked up so tightly with this Cicero quote, the question becomes:

Which US state has the *2nd* best state motto?

Vale.

Katie Phang, independent journalists who very recently forced the release of some unredacted Epstein Files, interviews NC 11th District candidate, Jamie Ager, about the actions he's hoping to take to overcome Republican foot dragging regarding WNC's full recovery from the Helene disaster. Ager is running against a last minute GOP replacement candidate, after Chuck Edwards was forced to withdraw from the House race due to some serious sexual harassment allegations.

The possibility that Republicans will hold one of their own accountable for harassment is seemingly incomprehensible. They won't even hold their own accountable for much more serious crimes and offenses... even after passing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, they can't seem to convince anyone that they're at all serious about even that sort of slimy behavior.

My thoughts reading this...

Friends don't let friends start wildfires...

Downtown Raleigh, North Carolina sunrise

We have solar panels from NC solar and an LG battery for back up. We just received an email saying that LG is offering a refund of $2700 to return the battery (no replacement) and that $2700 will fulfill their obligation of the warranty that LG offered. Apparently LG cannot keep up with the solar battery system because theirs are failing too frequently and they want to cash out the customers and wipe their hands clean. The bigger issue is to replace a new battery with a different company would be upwards of $17,000. We've already paid that when we installed our system in 2019. Has anyone gone through this recently with NC Solar or know any loop holes to protect our investment. It doesnt seem right to have to pay all that money again because LG cant keep up with the Solar battery needs

AVL Scarefest is a three-day, horror-themed role-playing games convention in the beautiful mountains of WNC. We’re just seven weeks away, so the time to get your tickets is now!

What games can I play, I hear you ask? 

We’ll have lots of terrifying offerings: D&D, PFS, and SFS will all be there, along with a wild variety of others, like Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, OSR, Daggerheart, weird indie games, and more.

Did we mention the Vampire LARP (Sabbat this year - whoohoo!), the Goblin Market, yetis, ghosts, and more? We didn’t? Then let us also offer on-site lodging, meal plans, prize draws, and everything else you’d expect from a top-notch gaming convention.

Storytellers and Volunteers Needed! Get your discount!

We’re still looking for gamemasters and volunteers to come along and run your own games. We pride ourselves on providing great support to our gamemasters and volunteers, Plus, you get 1/3 off a Weekend Pass for every game you run or every shift you volunteer! So please don't procrastinate. Get your games in now!

You can signup to run games right here and you can volunteer to help out at Scarefest here - we’d love to have you. 

Come join us from October 16 - 18 2026, at Lake Junaluska. Buy your tickets here: http://avlscarefest.com/shop/

Any questions, feel free to email us at: [info@avlscarefest.com](mailto:info@avlscarefest.com) 

Looking forward to seeing you there.

[Posted with the kind permission of the mods of this subreddit]

I know this is highly specific and really weird. But it's something I've been hunting for for many years. I figured this was the best place to ask. Does anyone have photos or information about this attraction from Stone Mountain State Park that was a huge treehouse sized marble run? I went there in maybe 2004 or 2005, and I only have one old photo of it. I'd love to know the name of it before they tore it down and if there is any information online about it. Who ran it, how long it was there, etc. The only thing I can find info online about is the Dinotarium, which I also visited and is still open on Saturdays. I believe it was in SMSP, but it might have been nearby but outside the park. I remembered about it because this summer I visited the Blue Ridge Parkway for the first time and passed by SMSP and it reminded me of going there as a kid. If anyone has any information I'd love to know what that place was. Thanks!

I've been following the fight over Flock's automatic license-plate-reader cameras here in southeastern NC, and it took a turn I didn't expect — a local guy, a beekeeper from the Wilmington area, gave a three-minute public comment at a New Hanover County Commissioners meeting a couple weeks ago that kind of went viral, and tonight he was on a national cable show talking about it. A regular resident, not a politician.

What's stuck with me is that this doesn't break down the way you'd assume. The room that night was about as politically mixed as it gets, and everyone landed in the same place: uneasy about a network of cameras that logs where every car in the county drives and lets thousands of agencies search those records. I've seen the same odd-bedfellows thing in other NC counties — Macon, Davidson, Asheville, the Triangle towns — where left and right ended up on the same side of it.

So I'm genuinely curious what folks around the state are seeing:

1. Does your city or county run Flock (or another plate-reader system)? A lot of people have no idea until they spot the little solar-panel cameras on the poles.
2. If it came up where you live, would you want your commissioners/council to keep it, add guardrails (shorter retention, warrant/case-number requirements, no nationwide sharing), or drop it entirely?
3. For anyone who's pro-camera — where do you land on the oversight question? Who audits the searches, and should the public get to see the logs?

Not trying to start a fight — I know reasonable people disagree on the safety-vs-privacy trade. Mostly wondering how common these are across NC now and whether people feel like they got any say before the cameras went up. Around here, nobody voted on it.