Day Twenty-Four of ORCA in Switzerland – The Smell of Colza
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Day Twenty-Four of ORCA in Switzerland – The Smell of Colza

Byrichard

Today I walked along roads that would be filled with non-stop traffic if we weren’t in a pandemic. As a result I could enjoy almost the entire walk without avoiding people. In the process I passed by colza fields, an open garden centre and more. The image above is of a colza field, looking towards the lake, the Alps and the Mont Blanc.


I like that flower shops stayed open during the pandemic because it would have been a shame for all those flowers to have been left in the shop to die and become compost without being enjoyed. It’s not that I’m a flower person, but rather that flowers perish, so finding a way to sell them safely makes sense. It also offers moral support for those that need it.


During this pandemic I have hardly used Youtube. It takes so much effort not to watch videos without sensationalist titles that I’ve skipped the network for the most part. I did find some interesting content. The video below is a flight over Petra as a 360 video at 8K resolution. It is worth watching, even if you don’t have a 360 headset.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSiv4TkfSOE


I see people encouraging encouragement to people spending this lockdown in families but I don’t think that spending time with family in a lockdown should be seen as hard or difficult. In fact I think it would be exhausting but it should also be really fun. With to to four year olds you keep them entertained and you keep them entertained. Look at what Jimmy Kimmel and his children got up to.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0xSdI72ZnQ
Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, Family edition


It’s worse for those of us in solitude. Imagine if the only way for you to socialise was to look at your company and visit social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Wordpress or others. They’re filled with impersonal sensationalist content that really does nothing to make you feel happy and content. Social media has not been the parachute that I hoped it would be.


The problem with social media during a pandemic is that you can’t take a break from the pandemic. It’s either pandemic or pandemic. There’s no other topic to read about. I mention this because i just took a break of sorts to watch this joke of sorts.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5CNHDeF2xA


For a few seconds I was relaxed, refreshed and thinking of other things. I then made the mistake of coming back to twitter and it’s nothing but pandemic talk. I don’t want pandemic talk every second I use Twitter and Facebook, as bizarre as this may seem.


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Why the three meter rule? A simple explanation.

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Day Six of Orca in Switzerland – Stricter measures.

Byrichard

Today’ I’d like to discuss stricter measures. Coop and Migros both have online shops set up for home delivery but the system is overloaded by people ordering at the same time. They don’t have the truck fleet or staff to cope with the demand so I suggest a better solution.


Both Digitec and Galaxus allow people to order online and choose which shop they want to pick up their purchases. This idea is relevant today because Migros, Coop and other shops are now forcing people to queue outside shops before being allowed to go in and make their purchases.


Queuing, whilst keeping shops from getting crowded inside, will increase the risk of propagation of the virus outside the shops. People have a tendency not to stand with the minimum of two-meter distance separation. The larger the crowd the longer the queue, and the longer the wait the higher the probability of contagion.


If we could shop online and request distribution from a specific point the time we spend at the shops would be cut down to a minute or two and it would have the added benefit that we would not even need to go into the shop. I don’t want to go to the shops at all if I need to queue but there is no choice.


The system they put in place yesterday will result in more, rather than less hoarding and increase the amount of time people spend in proximity to others.


Vaud has flattened. Source


Having said this the graph for Vaud has flattened but I don’t know whether this is because they ran out of test kits or whether they have failed to update the figures at the time when I wrote this blog post. I hope the worst is over for this Canton.

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.