Technology Blogs (216)

The subject is Obstacle avoidance. I was reminded about this feature as the Kobe Bryant crash on Sunday January 26 killed all nine aboard a Sikorsky S-76B aircraft.

If I had to do a quick list of advances in consumer drones, I would split them into generations. We're probably in the 4th generation. The 1st generation had simple drones. The 2nd generation added camera drones. The 3rd generation added drones with GPS and had detection on landing where the drone would stop it's descent if it sensed the terrain were higher than where it initially started from.

The latest generation of drones have obstacle detection from the front, rear and below. If you steer one of these drones into some trees, it will halt at a distance established in the avoidance setup menu. Let's say, 10 feet is the setting and you are moving toward a building, the drone will stop at 10 feet away of any unknown obstacle.
Once technology like this was only available on drones costing a few thousand and now the feature is standard on drones down to the $500 price range.

Kobe's multi-million dollar Sikorsky didn't have any obstacle avoidance equipment, nor did it have a 'black box' flight recorder. Regarding the crash, there are several different stories but the official report probably won't be released for 12 to 18 months.

The pilot flew in foggy conditions that were so bad, several police departments in the area grounded their helicopter operations.

I've seen video from China with a dozen or so tractors and earth moving equipment running around the clock and scheduled to build a hospital in 10 days. I keep thinking dog and pony show. Were the plans already made for a soon to open project? Land already cleared? Sewer and drainage already installed in the ground? Fast setting concrete doesn't cure in less than a few weeks, hope they know that.

In the 70's I worked for a company that made prefabricated panels. Their big contracts were for hospitals in Saudi Arabia attached to U-shape tracks bolted to a concrete slab retained the walls around steel columns and joists.

Plumbing, electrical, a/c venting takes time...

Airplane hangars, warehouses in 10 days. Fully equipped real hospitals... I have my doubts.

The wind is down and I'm charging batteries to catch a few model aircraft flights this morning. The batteries I use are lithium polymer or Li-Po for short. They develop lots of power for a short time, so I have several when I go flying.
It's important to monitor the flight time because draining a battery below 3.8 volts will shorten its life. Batteries are pretty expensive, around 25 to $30 a piece for the style I use.
Depending on batteries deserves a Blog of its own!

Star Trek came out in 1966.
Uhura was the communications officer aboard the USS Enterprise.
Her claim to fame is having the first Bluetooth.
It was massive by today's standards and it appeared to have it's own radiator!

Two coworkers were talking about an expensive diamond ring purchased while on a cruise to the Caribbean. I asked if there was a chance of fraud and they both agreed no, because the diamonds where etched with serial numbers.

I'm not into jewelry and wasn't aware of the practice, but I do recall scratching my social number on the frame of my 10 speed bike back in the 1960's

Same concept!

Early in my relation with Amazon, I made the mistake of buying several items in my cart, just after a price increase. Apparently the algorithms decided that price increases were the way to get me to buy, because pretty soon most of the items in my cart were getting their price bumped up. I found that annoying……and expensive.

So I moved items up from my "saved for later" list to my cart; I kept at least 6 items in my cart. Because most purchases are from WANT and not NEED, I am in no hurry. Each time one of them got increased in price, I deleted it from all lists. It only took Amazon about 10 days to notice. Now, when Amazon wants to encourage a purchase, they >decrease< the price, with no more bumping up the price.

Yes, Amazon algorithms study your buying patterns, and price accordingly. Depending on shopping and buying habits, different people get different prices on the same item. You Amazon addicts out there, if you are not in a rush, and if you want to pay less, you might want to give my method a try.

I fight with my phone because it tries to put words different than what I'm thinking.
That was a struggle to say and the rest of this blog will be totally predictive text.

Sunday morning at the age of the United states and the United states and the United nations United nations meeting in Miami this week in the United kingdom Delray police department was the only place where did it come from being late in life and the situation was not immediately clear but the decision to leave the country alone would have prevented him from taking his own trip with the government and he would have been a little less concerned about the possibility of an attack on the country and a few other people who had a problem with his actions as well as the military or the government in the past to be fueled by the association between shit from the war or the military in Iraq to the client of the page and how to get the president to be fueled with a serviceman and the other side by the way he was in the middle of the war.



Google, WTF are you thinking?

....As hinted at, here it is. We all have to thank the founders of this great CS service for making our lives better in lots of ways. And doing so without the shameless direct money grubbing of the paid for sites. World wide coverage---with reasonable exceptions. Fun and practical features. Educational value, and so on. But have you ever wondered, just what type of person(s) might they be? Sure, a sense of business. Perhaps cyber/IT skills. But I'm thinking more about people skills. Psychological insight?. Wife/husband/partner team? Whence the great idea? Craigslist sorts? And so on. THINK.

But the word is finally in, at the "too much money and time on hands" Consumers' Delectronics "group f-ck convention" in LV Nevada. Thank the Goddess, we now have an AI frying pan.That's right peebles. It not only listens and speaks to us, but can guide our culinary skills based on what it hears about the recipe. Forget those earlier front door items that can smell us coming, and critically warm up the musical door knobs, or even the indispensable opera singing his and hers AI plastic back scratchers. No, my vapid CS consumers, this here is the real McCoy in human "must have" survival items. "Tell me, Jimbo, here are the ingredients for roasted garden earth worms---Your thoughts?" Who can really ever exist without these marvels of technology? At the Vierk Institute, the (only 1%) of sucker cash soaked TD-HD Syndrome patients who don't improve, get one of these pans to take home to the little family. And a firm handshake from the Vierk himself. Don't let the door hit on the way out, Friends. Such a deal.

I read a story today that people who charge their cellphones in public places are at a high risk of being hacked... especially if the charging cord or charging adapter isn't theirs.

Hackers have found a way to manufacture iPhone charging cords with microchips embedded in the USB connector. They look like normal cords, but If you plug your phone to charge from one of these cables it can compromise the security of your phone and allow someone to hack into your phone.

One version gets into your phone while it appears to be harmlessly charging the phone. then via Wi-Fi signal a hacker nearby can capture your password, unlock your phone, change the password and steal sensitive information from your phone. All within a few minutes.

Another version uploads an app that essentially does the same thing via your data signal hacked to anywhere in the world.

Rule one. Don't buy charging cables from unreliable sources like a booth at a flea market or convenience store. Typically, they are low quality that you should avoid, but it's an easy way the hacker cables make it into the marketplace.

Rule two. Don't borrow a charge cable at the airport or coffee shop, use only the cable and power supply supplied with the phone.

If you must charge on the go, use your own wireless charger or a 'Power Bank' portable battery charging system.