Day Two of ORCA in Switzerland

Day Two of ORCA in Switzerland

Byrichard

We are in ORCA day two in Switzerland and I crashed the drone. I also avoided the shops because of the behaviour I witnessed yesterday.


The weather is excellent at the moment. Sunny, warm, and without wind. These are perfect conditions for drone flying so I thought I’d take advantage. I forgot to put an SD card in the drone so instead of flying and trying to get video I put it in sports mode. I played in the field, flying forwards, backwards, going up, down and more. Eventually, I flew towards the trees and decided that I would get the drone to fly in between trees as I have done in the past.


Previously I put the drone back into normal mode and this time I forgot so the drone hit something and “bounced”. I’ve seen this type of bounce before so I decided to put full throttle upwards. Instead of flying up and clearing the branches it got unstuck and fell to the ground. I thought that it would fall through and hit a few branches and land in the mud. The issue is that the drone was further forward than I thought and it fell through the branches and hit an asphalt road. This broke the rear right arm and loosened that motor. Other than that the battery fell off.


Some people fly their drone and crash during their first flight, or after ten flights. It took 166 flights before I had a serious crash with this drone. Before this crash, I had knicked the propellers on branches or other branches but nothing serious. If it had been above the forest floor it would have been fine. The fall was slowed down the whole way. Mud would have saved the drone.


The break is clean so I can try fixing it with the right kind of glue. I also need to find a way to get the affected motor back into its housing. The second option is to buy the plastic component that houses all the engines.


We will see if I find a way to resolve this issue.

Twitter is broken and I want an alternative

Byrichard

Twitter is a great idea poorly executed as a result of which I wish there was an alternative. It’s a chatroom that can be used on multiple platform which is what makes it so interesting. The managment however have decided to cancel Api support, or at least throttle it. As a result of this conversation is floundering.
As a result of this action twitter has become notoriously unreliable and people are no longer able to keep up to date with what people are doing quite as easily. This has resulted in many of my favourite tweeters being far more quiet. Others have felt the need to leave the service.

I would love an alternative to help me keep a constant wave of consciousness of what friends are doing. The 140 character model is good. It’s a very efficient way of dealing with information. We’ve got many alternatives but none are conversational yet.

I love the conversations and how you overhear so many things. I would pay for an alternative that has a far more stable track record. Give me that alternative.

I’m disappointed not angry.  There’s a really good product there but it’s so badly implemented I’m losing interest in twitter.

Looking out of a window at traffic

Byrichard

I’m on the second floor of a home which looks out onto a busy road which means there’s a lot of traffic passing by but wait there’s more. Road works are taking place. Traffic must stop. Stopped traffic means hours of entertainment from the comfort of your room.


So far I saw one van back into the car that was sticking to the back. The guy got out and started to yell whilst another was less annoyed. In a second case I saw one-car crash into the back of the second and this was amusing. The guy who crashed was relaxed, almost joking whilst the over was really angry, as most people would be. Two cars were behind this crash and they grew impatient, started beeping, and more. The guy who was crashed into started yelling abuse at them as they drove away.


In other cases you see the large trucks trying to negotiate the bend and that’s impressive. You see some people struggling to park a fiat 500. They find it easy to move their truck although it takes wide turns and some back and forth.


Today I watched out of the window as one of these large trucks was waiting for the road to be clear so that it could negotiate this bend yet no one was courteous enough to wait. They could have and the road would be easier to negotiate for all to use.


There is one thing that annoys me more than anything else with traffic outside a window. People beeping. If you’ve ever lived roadside you know the sound. One person forgets to pay attention to the light and someone behind decides to beep. As a result everyone in the area hears this. It’s annoying because simply flashing your headlights at the person in front is enough to get them to continue on their absent-minded way. This is not a value judgment. They weren’t paying attention to the light therefore my remark is justified ;).


Now the last element, loud music s sometimes nice and other times not quite. I’ve never heard someone drive through a city with the BBC world service blaring out of their speakers. I’d find that interesting and intriguing at the same time. Most of the time its hip hop, R&B, and such. That’s just part of life.


Skidding tires are another amusing feature. You know how it goes. You’re in your car and you’ve been driving it so much your clutch control is fast, almost perfect. Sometimes though your foot presses on the accelerator just a little too hard and your tires lose traction causing a nice little screech and the sound of slipping tires as you attempt to move off. I watched as someone in a delivery truck did that. What surprised me is that he just let the tires screech until they got traction rather than let go of the throttle and move off normally.


All this to say that aside from wanting to throw water balloons through the car window at the idiot beeping traffic doesn’t bother me.