Posts by Jess-- 369 posts • joined 18 Nov 2009
I recall speaking with someone involved with early terrain following attempts and being told of a slight error that they ran up against.
A few tests had been performed during the autumn / winter and everything had worked perfectly but on the day in january when it was demonstrated to the bigwigs it took off perfectly and went into a straight level flight as planned and then flew (perfectly straight and level) into the side of a mountain.
The final cause was found to be that the terrain wasn't being recognised any more because it was covered in a couple of inches of snow.
around here all the fttc connections fall over with the first flash within 5 miles from a thunderstorm.
it then takes 4 minutes with no further strikes to reconnect.
since a decent storm could take us offline for hours at a time we added a 4g dongle to the router as a failover, now we only notice if the fttc connection is down by the increased speed of the 4g connection.
You would almost think that these companies have furloughed most of their staff. Of course less people around means less chance of someone walking past a failing UPS and thinking that seems hotter than usual, we should check that it's ok.
DJI will be against it as it will deter people from flying drones due to ongoing costs even when the drone is gathering dust on a shelf.
With the added costs if people buy less drones DJI as (seemingly) the largest well known maker will be the hardest hit.
The cost to DJI to add the capability would be under $10 (probably nearer $5) per new drone, for them it's a one time cost.
for the consumer they have the cost of registration (presumably renewed annually per drone) and the cost of maintaining the data connection.
Running an IBM Model M keyboard (still with manufacturing label 1986 on the back) and it's still solid. A few keys have lost some of their texture (but not the lettering), it gets stripped every year or so and the keycaps take a trip through the washing machine & dryer (tied in an old football sock).
when it finally dies I will have to replace it with one of my 1987 ones.
the only downsides are that it can sound like a machine gun and there are no windows keys for various shortcuts.
I had to manually spin up a 2.5" external hard drive with the top cover removed recently (1Tb).
It had been dropped while running and the power had disconnected at the exact moment it hit the floor meaning that a combination of g-forces and lack of power left the heads on the platters rather than retracted.
when it tried to spin itself up it couldn't retract the heads (because they weren't floating) and it couldn't turn the platters because the heads were stuck.
A well timed spin of the spindle got the platters moving (with a screech) and the drive came back to life with everything apart from a couple of files intact.
once copied the drive was destroyed with a hammer.
I would love to know how much damage you think can be caused by the drone I have been flying around (for a bit of fun in the wind) this morning, it's a little over 2 inches square and an inch high.
I suspect the only other things in the air that it represents a danger to are insects.
my planes and helicopter on the other hand are seriously dangerous but aren't drones so from your point of view require no license or training
used to be duplexed with the base station operating around 451-453 Mhz and mobiles operating 13.9 Mhz higher (so if you hear the base on 452.8 the mobiles were on 466.7).
then they added a pitch inversion system (low audio frequencies become high and vice versa) which was referred to as Crypton.
then they switched to tetra and I gave up listening
I once had a spare nokia that had been deep fried (literally in a chip fryer) for 10 minutes.
after opening it up and mopping up the oil it powered up and worked perfectly, the screen looked a bit odd thanks to the oil between it and the backlight but it was perfectly usable.
never did get rid of the smell though.
They call you to try and sign you up for a new shiny & another 2 year lock in.
when it becomes clear that you aren't going to bite they offer to switch you over to sim only with a 12 month lock in.
only if you really insist do they switch you to a sim only monthly rolling contract
I think the last time I bought a complete system was somewhere around 1994, everything since then has been bits and pieces.
I tend to replace bits at 4 year intervals so...
year 1 : new motherboard / cpu (ram if required)
year 2 : new hard drives (the old ones are 4 years old and probably fairly full)
year 3 : new video card(s)
year 4 : anything else that needs replacing
current system..
I7 4790k (water cooled)
32Gb ram
nvidia gtx970 driving 3 23" ips screens @1920x1080 (5760x1080)
1tb SSD + 2x4tb spinning rust
It seems a lot of places with decent engineering capabilities churned out some variation of the 50P coins when they were first introduced, a "rumour" I heard was of a large facility near Hemel that dedicated almost an entire week of night shifts to mass producing passable copies and that at the end of the week all of the dies and cutters set up for the job were destroyed.
of course the fakes absolutely flooded the local area but were being accepted everywhere (because the fake coins outnumbered the genuine coins the genuine coins were suspected of being fakes).
About a month later the police visited the facility with a message along the lines of "We know it was you, You know it was you, but we can't prove it.... just don't do it again"
A distant relative was stationed overseas after the end of ww2 and ended up where the german subs were being decommissioned.
On his return to the UK a lot of his friends had souvenirs confiscated (guns etc) but all he had on him were a standard kit bag (no extras), 1 packet of cigarettes, 1 lighter and one matchbox.
The matchbox bought a farm outright and paid for livestock.
It was packed solid with platinum contacts that had been removed from switchgear on the german subs
I only have four here, all with manufacturing stickers from 1988 on.
one in use and three in case I ever actually manage to wear one out or break it.
since I've been trying to kill this one for 30 years I suspect someone will be gaining 3 boxed model M keyboards in my will.
looking at mine a little more closely it's now due for a decent clean...
this involves popping off all the keys, sticking them in a pair of old football socks and putting them through the washing machine
this talk of encryption that can be accessed by the owner and law enforcement make me think of locks that can be opened by 2 different keys.
Key 1 is owned by you and is relatively unique, Key 2 is on the keyring of every member of law enforcement worldwide.
of course nobody could ever possibly get a copy of Key 2!
I can't help thinking of luggage locks.
almost as bad as the nokia with the spring loaded sliding mic & cover.
you pressed a button and the cover flicked down answering an incoming call, to start with.... eventually you pressed the button to answer the call and send the cover / mic flying across the floor
I think the efficiency will come from running the single generator engine at it's most efficient speed / loading, where it can provide enough power for flight and some battery charging.
if we assume that there will be on generator per electic motor on the plane we may end up with a plane flying on 4 electric motors but only running 2 generators rather than 4 jet engines
with regard to the electric motor the plan is for seimens to build a 2MW motor (assuming 2MW = 2 MegaWatt rather than 2MW being a model No)
I suspect the jet powered generator will be running at a fixed speed / output and anything not consumed by propulsion will be dumped into batteries.
for takeoff I would guess power would come from both batteries and direct from the generator but once airborne (where the power would usually be dialled back) the generator will provide enough power for flight and recharging of batteries (ready for the next takeoff or high power demand time)
basically it's the plane version of a prius
logic should dictate that if the vehicle is in use when it is aware an update is available (critical or not) it should delay installing the update until the current journey is complete.
by all means download the update while in use but don't try and apply it until the vehicle is not in use.
so after leaving the car underground for a month it pulls out and gets notified of an update
this displays an icon to the user and a time (the approx time it will take to install)
the user then know that the next time the vehicle stops (and they get out) the vehicle will be unusable for that time and can plan accordingly (they may decide to go straight to work rather than stop at a coffee shop on the way)
the non dyed diesel was known as DERV (Diesel Engined Road Vehicle) and gets charged extra tax
the dyed version is intended for non road vehicle use (agricultural vehicles / plant generators etc)
an oddity in the law is red diesel is used in boats and it up to the boat owner to declare what percentage of the fuel is to be used for propulsion (taxed) and the proportion used for other purposes like charging batteries or heating (untaxed)
Three want some more of the lower frequency spectrum as that has better building penetration. (900-950mhz from memory)
originally only Cellnet and Vodafone had these frequencies, T-Mobile and Orange had higher frequencies (1800 mhz from memory)
Three originally only had 2100mhz available.
I see that Three now have some spectrum at 1800 mhz (presumably freed up by the combining of Orange and T-mobile into EE) and some at 800mhz
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