We flew the quadcopter with the video cam operating. It seems to have a fisheye lens that distorts the edges and it will not work in low light. One cannot but suspect this is an intentional performance downgrade. The expert operators are able to really move along viewing only the video screen, but we novices have a hard time not looking up to see the action. There is a joystick controller for another $60. We’ve decided to remove the on-board camera and use the helmet cam I took to St. Augustine. That’s the [same] helmet cam that eats batteries and tends to stop by itself with no warning beep. The quarter-hour endurance of the copter should be compatible, though we can only record to memory card. We’ll figure something out. The Arduino will work a Bluetooth, but I am still seeking the person who will describe that entire process to me in a fashion that I understand. (I’ve had so many people fail such an explanation that I know when they are talking in circles, which pisses us both off. They think they got it spot on while I know they are leaving out an important step because I’ve been along that path before.)
Nobody listens until too late. How many times did I warn you about Google? The video of last week’s meteorite was blocked in Germany (Google owns youTube). The accidental recording by the dash cam of the Russian car radio made it a “music video”. And which three credit agencies did I warn the world against in 1996? Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion? That if you dealt with these people, they would eventually control your life. Oddly, though I’ve never filled out a credit application, they have a file on me. I’d like to think that was illegal, but it isn’t. My “credit report” shows these agencies know my bank balance.
My shoulder kept me home again, so I studied that failure of the Tacoma Narrows bridge, made famous in the 1940-ish newsreel as it whips around in the wind. I noticed since then, the bridge decks have a familiar truss structure of triangular beams. Who remembers Petrofski, the author on design engineering? I’ve read some of his books and noticed in one that the newer suspension bridges lacks the stiffening deck trusses. I found a documentary on youTube where he explains that newer bridges have an aerodynamic shape to the road bed that slices through the wind. Um, after you, professor.
Folks all over town (say they) wave to me on my bicycle, but I never see them. That’s because one does not dare take eyes off the traffic in this town. There record of Florida prosecuting drivers that kill bicyclists is confined to the most horrific cases. But some instances I remember, like Saturday coming home in the dark. This guy on a skateboard not only kept up but passed me several times down 18th Avenue. The eBike will do around 12 mph on the old batteries, so this guy was clipping along at better than 16 mph. Turns out it was my neighbor, the one I like to poke fun at because he is over 50. Then again, look how I was until that fateful day in 2003.
Get ready for another round of Internet controls. The politicians, most of whom are fogies and greybeards, do not understand the Internet. But they certainly grasp that it is powerful. That alone assures the Internet is a target for control. Power is power, and some men cannot bear to see it in the hands of ordinary people. Since SOPA and other legislation to allow blanket monitoring of communications were opposed, these backdoor brokers know exactly how to force their agendas into law without allowing a vote.
What’s this Washington Post item about civil servants facing a 20% pay cut in the budget battle. Gee, won’t that break all our little hearts. Mind you, it is not like their pay rates will be cut. Instead, they get furloughs (unpaid days off). The real answer, of course, is to reduce the size of government and kick the able-bodied off welfare. How can we ever get by with staff cuts at the Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, Forestry, and both last and least, the Department of Commerce?
On the other hand, we could just stop shipping money overseas for five years and find out who our real friends are. Bring all the troops home, cut off foreign aid, fire the diplomats, stop spying, seal off the borders and deport the illegals. But all that would be radical, so I won’t say anything. How do you like that idiot McCain saying we can’t deport? Hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, Bubba. So what if the program fails after we've only shipped a few million back?
