(Photo: KENS5)

Goofing off on standardized tests can be a high school rite of passage, but we don't recommend publicizing photos of your test answers unless you want to end up in the principal's office. Kyron Birdine, a junior at a high school in Arlington, Texas learned this the hard way when he tweeted a photo of his essay for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR).

What's more, he sent the picture of his essay answer to test officials. His thoughtful essay response? "YOLO :)"

Mr. Birdine was given a four-day in school suspension for the "breach of security," and school administrators made him delete the tweet.

"I was being a high school kid getting on Twitter," he told the local news station. YOLO :(

No pictures, please, no pictures. (Photo: flickr.com/adactio

The drone invasion is practically upon us: The FAA is authorizing various police departments to fly unmanned aerial vehicles; Chris Anderson left Wired to focus on his drone hobbyist startup. But it seems some folks are none too keen on the idea of eyes in the sky surveying their yards, and you will probably not be too surprised to learn some of those opponents live in Texas.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be drone-operating snoops.

Popular Science reports that the Texas State House is currently considering a bill which would prohibit using drones to take snapshots of private property. As written, it's pretty stringent:

It’s unique because it criminalizes taking any data--photos, sound, temperature, even odor--of private property using an unmanned aircraft without the permission of the property owner. Law enforcement officers could only use drones while executing a search warrant or if they had probable cause to believe someone is committing a felony, and firefighters can only use drones for fighting fire or to rescue a person whose life is “in imminent danger.”

That'd sure help anyone with a pot-growing operation sleep easier at night.

The Republican sponsoring the bill, Lance Gooden, says he doesn't want to ban drones outright. He just doesn't want them taking a bunch of pictures that could be handed over the authorities who could then, hypothetically, tip off someone like the EPA or the DEA or whoever. Says Popular Science:

Gooden said he doesn’t want to limit beneficial drone uses, from law enforcement pursuing criminal suspects to power companies checking downed lines. “But under no circumstances, ever, should people lose their right to privacy just because people want to take pictures,” he said.

This guy is really going to flip when someone tells him about Google StreetView.

(Screencap: Yahoo)

FYI: Anyone looking for a good Apple deal this holiday season should probably steer clear of Texas gas stations.

Yahoo reports that a woman in Arlington, Texas purchased what she thought was a new iPad at a gas station. The man claimed to be selling the device--which normally retails for $800--for just $200.

Jalonta Freeman thought the deal was "too good to pass up," but after she handed him the cash, he drove off. Then, when she opened the iPad box, it was actually just a tablet-sized mirror with a picture of the Apple logo and the iPad homescreen taped to it.

So... it was a Microsoft Surface, then? (Zing.)

Ms. Freeman isn't the first person to be taken in by a fake iPad ruse. According to a police officer Yahoo spoke to, scams like this always increase around the holidays, so we should be extra vigilant about the kind of electronics we purchase at gas stations.

Street View UFO (Google Street View)

Andrea Dove, who lives outside Houston, Texas, was using Google Maps to get directions to a relative's house when she made an interesting discovery on Street View: something that resembles a fading, pinkish UFO straight out of cartoon sci-fi.

KLTV-TV sent a reporter after the story, who went full man-on-the-street in tracking the alien image:

I looked up a dozen different cities and didn't find any similar anomalies. That must make Jacksonville special.

"Do you see anything?" I asked a couple residents.

"Not yet," they replied.

The KLTV reporter seemed to be unaware that finding anomalies on Google Street View is a cherished Internet past-time. Other high strangeness captured by Street View cameras includes:

• Ghosts--several ghosts, in fact
• Randomly levitating children
• And to bring things full circle, the likely pilot of the Texas UFO, ET, the extraterrestrial.

Of course, Street View is also good at capturing scary slices of real life, as we recently discovered when the Google cameras captured the business end of a gun.

As for the UFO in Texas, chances are good it's an artifact of light refracting inside one of the many lenses inside the Street View car's Death Star-shaped camera.