Oh, I skip FB and IG ads completely. It’s crazy: I didn’t even have to install anything, and the ads just disappeared one day.

But seriously, the “your attention is being monetized” model makes for such an awful experience for me. I’m envious of people who can enjoy the world and the Internet when ads are everywhere.

It came from a speaker a few years ago at the Davos World Economic Forum. Davos is where the ultra rich gather each year to plot out how to be even more evil.

Fake it til you make it!

Ya Kid K’s Congolese accent definitely has some of that marbles-in-the-mouth Staten Island sound. I was also surprised to learn she wasn’t from the Burroughs.

I see Robert Evans, I upvote. Really folks, Jobs was such a piece of shit that he got a 4-parter of coverage on Behind the Bastards. Highly suggested. https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=aEv08Zzunfc&si=xGHOjTXfizCplLDp

I want to know who the hell downvoted Freddie.

Oh, right! I forgot about all of the LIDAR-equipped planes in maritime communities! Those are way more economical to fly than any sUAS. /s in case that wasn’t obvious.

In case you, or anyone else, were vaguely interested in learning:

-kelp extent mapping needs to be done in repeatable fashion, specifically at low tide; we can put up an sUAS any time

-the communities most in need of monitoring absolutely cannot afford to send planes up monthly

-many of the kelp beds in the PacNW are in restricted airspace; it is much easier to get an FAA clearance to perform low-altitude surveys using sUAS

-that restricted airspace I mentioned? Some of these kelp beds are on approach paths for the airspace. Even if a plane were the preferred choice for surveying, the planes are unable to fly in the pattern we need

-(drifting a touch off your point of LIDAR-equipped planes) satellite imagery with the required resolution is prohibitively expensive

-most construction projects wouldn’t use a plane for tasks such as volumetric or area analysis

Consumer drones are quickly becoming the preferred, economical means for kelp health analysis, especially for communities that can’t afford planes or purchasing satellite imagery.

This “lonely adult” uses drones for aerial mapping and survey. This Summer’s huge project is a workflow I developed to map the extent of PacNW bull kelp forests in order to provide year-over-year health metrics. Using sUAS for this is way more automated, economical, repeatable, and granular than using airplanes and satellites, therefore within reach of those communities monitoring kelp health.

DJI hits the sweet spot of capabilities, compatibility, and cost. Skydio (go USA!) has abandoned the consumer/enthusiast market that built their business. And even before they turned their back on the consumer market, Skydio couldn’t come close to DJI’s hardware. Additionally, Skydio, in true capitalist fashion, locked capabilities away behind software licenses, capabilities that are already built into the drone.

It’s important for countries to have domestic drone manufacturing in the current conditions. But the USA’s actions here smack of protecting companies that just can’t hang.

I hate them because the last four times I ate there, I had diarrhea for days, all different locations. The last time I ate there, it all came out 12 minutes later. So yeah, four for four is enough to establish that their “food” is just toxic.

I was looking for someone to reference Brooks’ Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law). Thank you for fighting the good fight.

For anyone who hasn’t read The Mythical Man-Month, it is a timeless, compelling, relevant book on software engineering and project management. It is also accessible to non-technical audiences with lessons that apply across much of modern workforces.

Stainless steel that gets coated is no longer stainless steel. Stainless steel requires exposure to sufficient oxygen in order to maintain the protective oxide layer.

These are rudder bolts from the same gudgeon on my sailboat. The black stuff is anoxic corrosion.

In most jurisdictions, a note could be put on the driving record. If a pattern on aggressive driving were to be established, a prosecutorial or civil suit effort would have an easier time of litigating against that driver.

In my case, yes, there was paint damage from my bike, which would be evidence.

Edit to add: this was a bit before camera phones.

Fear indeed. I went to college in a very… provincial small city. Riding my bicycle around, I was regularly harassed by insecure assholes in pickup trucks, and run off the road twice. The one time I managed to get a license plate, the police claimed that without witnesses, they couldn’t do anything. ACAB.

I added my 1911 to the strap of my messenger bag, at the top of my left shoulder, where the stainless frame would be plainly visible. I was suddenly given plenty of space on the road and even got occasional compliments when waiting at stoplights. It’s disgusting that I would be a target for bullying without my pistol, but suddenly I was an okay guy with my penis extension where douchebag drivers could see it.

So yeah, I’m living proof that non-military open carry is only for scaredy cats.

The Blue Dot Effect (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap8731) demonstrates that when stimuli, especially negative stimuli, become rare, human brains broaden the accepted criteria for those stimuli.

Why do some social problems seem so intractable? In a series of experiments, we show that people often respond to decreases in the prevalence of a stimulus by expanding their concept of it. When blue dots became rare, participants began to see purple dots as blue; when threatening faces became rare, participants began to see neutral faces as threatening; and when unethical requests became rare, participants began to see innocuous requests as unethical. This “prevalence-induced concept change” occurred even when participants were forewarned about it and even when they were instructed and paid to resist it. Social problems may seem intractable in part because reductions in their prevalence lead people to see more of them.

Yes, someone please come free us! I am being held hostage by Windows and Autodesk Inventor.

In my case, Inventor and AutoCAD. I hate AutoDesk with the fury of a thousand suns, but FreeCAD just isn’t stable enough.

Oh, and currently needing .NET automatic source generation (long story), which is very difficult to develop on anything other than Windows.