"When you turn on the engine, the plane phones home and checks your software update"
You've flown a DJI drone then?
143 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Oct 2013
"Some people would wait until they were on a truly solid commercial footing with their main business before starting on glory projects with no obvious way to pay for them"
And some people would be working an average job, living an average life in an average suburb making an average contribution to the world.
Between you, me and Musk only one of us has built an orbital launch business and it's not you or me...
"Also, what I am saying is that relying on wireless kit underwater (which all Suunto integrated computers use) without having an SPG and depth gauge is stupid."
Except for the one that is in the article that is an air integrated computer that is not wireless and happens to be particularly common in these parts.
Auto-rotation requires variable pitch propellers which have a major weight penalty compared to the fixed pitch units currently installed on multi-copters. It also requires higher inertia (longer and heavier) rotors than currently used. If you were going to do that you'd be better off with a traditional 1 or 2 rotor helicopter.
Better option would be to put a ballistic parachute on it.
"Not the ELECTION budget, which is usually FIXED..."
It's not like the election budget has remained fixed since 1950. Budgets get revised every year. But let's assume that they don't get looked at for a full presidential election cycle. How much has the US population changed in 4 years? About 3% from a quick look. If you can't tolerate 3% more people you've got issues. Hell, US voter turnout swings by more than that from election to election. Australia's population increased by 4.5% over a federal election cycle. Every vote is counted by hand and the AEC is one of the best in the world at running elections. The US issues are purely their own making.
"People don't find such ID offensive. Why does the US left?"
Because the US has a long and proud tradition of voter suppression. The issue is not having to have a card; the issue is that it's too easy for local authorities to decide that the card will cost you $50, or is only available if you have a drivers license, or if you have a clean criminal record, or are paid up with your taxes any of which would mean a huge population of low income (and generally Democrat voting) people can't get one. Same reason the right don't want voting age lowered to 16... the majority of kids will vote democrat.
The US loves the idea of local control (to save us from the big bad feds) but the by-product is you get lousy governance.
"Are you thinking that space exploration and launches should be shut down do to "environmental impact"?" Slow down, tiger, you can be interested in the impact without wanting to shut the whole thing down. I once looked at how many calories in a hamburger but that doesn't mean I intend to starve myself to death.
"BTW, in a lot of countries parents pay for their kids textbooks - over five years of secondary school that can add up to the same as two or three iPads. Also an iPad is a lot easier to carry than a rucksack full of books..."
You still have to pay for the books, though, just because you own the device doesn't mean that the content is free.
"The question is though, who pays? Tax payer?"
Put a tax on it when it's sold, if you return it then you get that money back. Companies selling plastic products will want to keep the sale price down so they will reduce the amount of plastic in their products (if it's done by weight) and collecting discarded plastic can become a profitable exercise if you can do it at scale. Plenty of places currently do that for aluminium cans and there are vanishingly few that make it through to landfill since there is cash to be had for collecting it.
"Imagine a Speed Camera like device"
Alas, the RAF used to have a device that achieved somewhat similar functionality, it also happened to be rocket powered and instead of just taking photos it could rapidly relocate itself, complete with explosive payload, into the vicinity of the jammer. Unfortunately it was retired a few years back so you might need to ask the USAF to help instead.
"I'm not even sure anything illegal is happening by using the jammer"
From memory any transmission on a frequency you're not permitted to use is illegal. I can't imagine OFCOM are handing out licenses to transmit on the same frequencies as GPS and I'm certain they are not listed in the ISM bands that are a bit of free-for-all.
As someone who currently flies drones in a country with rules that are effectively identical to the EASA rules I can confidently say that the biggest issue is the requirement to remain clear of people. Where I am that requirement is to stay at least 30m from anyone who is not directly operating the drone. If my kid is standing next to me watching me fly I can't fly it within 30m of me. That starts to really limit your ability to take pictures of your family on holiday and starts to bring into question the reason why you would consider buying most camera oriented drones that are on the market now.
"I know hardly anything about drones, but I have a feeling they use metres as their preferred vertical units." It's the beauty of having purely software defined instrumentation that changing between one and the other is just a matter of changing a setting in the config menu. I dare say people just change that to what they are comfortable with.
Our work PCs have one of those nice setups with a bunch of USB ports, headphone and microphone jacks on the top edge of the case. Very convenient. Except the power button is directly below the headphone jacks so when you're poking around under the desk to get the cable in there's a decent chance you're going to have windows asking if you want to start saving things before shutting down.
@Kiwi
"I learnt to drive, and make sure I drive well. I also work at watching the road and things around me to be able to see trouble before I'm in it.
That way, I don't need things like roll cages."
Your hubris is truly awe inspiring. "I can keep myself safe by my own actions, everything that happens to me is under my control".
Good luck with that bud!
The threat is that in the time it takes for their VC funders to run out of cash, a whole load of low-middle class drivers will be driven to the wall and go broke. I'm not talking about the Uber drivers who are getting short changed by 10 or 15 percent. I'm talking about the minicab drivers who are losing 50+% of their income.
"Fuckwit.
But, thanks for the laugh."
Calm down, sunshine. Perhaps you had some really insightful things to say, perhaps you know all about this stuff. But all of that is overshadowed by a direct and personal attack on the OP. I come to these forums to learn from people who know interesting stuff. Go somewhere else if you feel the need to sling insults at people.
"As opposed to enough time to read and comment on random articles on El Reg, I see. The Twatter generation at its best."
I was torn between replying with
a) a quip about the dismissive older generation that has to hide behind the anonymous coward veil in order to sling insults with impunity at random strangers on the internet
b) noting that if I hadn't been reading random articles on El Reg I never would have seen a reference to the report and hence would never have read it anyway, and
c) pointing out that you can often get better information in the comments than you can in the article itself.
As is the case with my generation we frequently struggle to make decisions so you can have all three
I always wondered, if the majority of cars end up with LIDAR systems that run on the same wavelength, what are the chances of those LIDARs interacting in the same way the researchers found? Provided your vehicle density is low enough the chances of getting interference would be pretty low, but what about in peak hour traffic where you could have multiple cars blasting away with multiple LIDARs in a confined area?
Or it's just a matter of risk/reward. The state pays the legal bills, the worker just has to testify. The state gets most of the money, the worker gets the rest. If the legal action fails, the state still pays the legal bills and the worker doesn't pay a cent.