Artemis Update – Rando Round Up – – Weekly Gallery
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Rando Round Up
Artemis Update
Orion has reached the furthest distance from the Earth in its planned flight. Back here on Earth, things roll on pretty much the same way. I have some STEM resources to share. Not that it made a difference here. I got the SPICE, and the SPICE must flow.
Track Orion on the Artemis 1 mission here.
I am recovering from a 3+ week illness. I spent a lot of time in bed, away from my kids and everyone. My lungs are gone. I swear, hugs brought me back. Pissed I could not run a local Turkey Trot. I trained for it.
I watched the launch and lunar flyby from home on an app and local cable.
After the Red Team went in to tighten down some nuts, Artemis I was on its way. Anyone who ever turned a wrench could appreciate the fix, Figure 1 gave us this Lunar Insertion in Figure 2.
The non-inertial frame is approximated by the barycenter of the solar system, and the center of 295 extragalactic radio sources. Thems good points. The position of celestial bodies such as moons and planets are hard-coded into the system. Consider them zero-degree variables. I am not here to elaborate on the tech. My expertise is not in dynamic orbital mechanics and function analysis. I just wanted to enrich my knowledge. The problem, as always, is in inertial guidance accumulations of errors, gravity wells of data slurping up CPU capacity. I grew up in a little town called Nunya. They have a great Chinese restaurant with infinite tables of infinite sizes, and there is a scalar that appears in distribution, sort of like standing waves. These probability distributions can be burned in. When I see these, I see standing waves, a coherent eddy in a river’s flow that stays while the water flows. Anyways, it’s pretty easy for me to lose my readership in this topic, so I’ll switch gears. Check out what Orion is doing instantaneously in Figure 3. And check out how far Orion went in Figure 4.
Guitar Amp Update No One Needed
The software won’t fit in the amp. Exploring a workaround with the community around the Boss Katana 50 amp. I tried dumping the development suite but came up shy. Seeing what else I can cut. Would be nice if the amp had more memory capacity. Still a solid playing experience, but I hate waa-waa pedal effects. I want weird metal.
Drone vs. Anti-Drone
Now that we can build drones to fly black missions and ruin everything, we need to shoot them down. Enter the jammers, the lasers, the high-flying drones outfitted with nets and angry trajectories. Enter the birds, enter the EMPs. Got a drone problem? Call Big Mama.
Link to tactics for anti-drone management. This is just a taste. Here are more RF jammers and broadcast weapons. C/C++ software is cool object-oriented language that can take out the trash. It can handle accruing errors, drift. But can it handle this? Welcome to the persistent police state. Drones in your area. You got a cellie? That’s a tool. We are a hair’s breadth away from Battlebots with AKs storming the local Walmart active shooter environment with thermal, tomography, high-energy microwave devices, and links to artillery. San Francisco needs short robots to get to work.
The threat surface is Swiss cheesing. You want defense, but maybe you get MOVE bombed in Philly because someone had sadface emoji face. The threat posed by Afghani radicalized by collateral drone attacks remains. Drones are a threat that persist over time and space. They are tools. People are the weapons. Ethics remove the bullets. So, don’t fly DJI drones around cell towers, you fools!
Building a perimeter defense is ideal, with a distro of detection equipment, as simple as shot locators modified to detect sounds of a certain frequency. Throw in some radar. Kick it up with artillery. Then allow a Chinese national company to develop the commercial usage layer and defeat all the geofences with a remote instruction. None of these tactics are new. The threat of drones is such a buzzkill. Our world is overrun by egomaniacal freaks with bloodlust.
Speaking of China
China had a moment this week. The “Zero Covid Policy” met its match with a tenement fire. people hold up blank paper to symbolize their voices robbed by the Chinese propaganda machine. Locals believed the “Zero Covid” policy contributed to the death of 10 people, so they protested. They want justice. They want better care, a bit more self-determination. The winds of it carried to universities and cities around the world. China has an emperor Problem. The only cure is for the middle-class to tear the country apart. As is tradition. None of these ideas are new. I was an exchange student to Malaysia about 40 years ago and had chinese friends in high school. May they live long and prosper, for real.
Far-Right Authoritarianism is a rut. “Rogue policymakers and administrators” will be fingered, paraded about and publicly punished. Their shame will be amplified with broadcasts, and under the bus they go. Will the body public be appeased? If not, disappear a few people, keep on rolling. China [policy] sucks. They suck for letting Russia run its poor into the ground. They suck for Hong Kong, for BRICS, for genocide against Uyghurs, for its treatment of Tibet and ethnic minorities. They suck for being predictable pirates and shells of a paranoid system high on its own hubris. Nothing touches President 4Lyf Xi Jinping. Got that Rolls Royce suspension, so smooth its nauseating. DJI announces hardware for BVLOS flights, DJI gets slapped-up by security experts.
I refuse to fly their stuff. We are watching slow-dripping tar on a geologic scale. Tell me how the US and the PROC can avoid a confrontation? Who benefits from such a struggle? They suck for feeding North Korea, and for exporting fentanyl to poor communities in the US. They prey on indifference. They rent our short-term memory, Figure 5.
I Fly American Drones Because China Is Annoying
I have a job lead to photograph some infrastructure over a huge geographical area, something I have wanted to do for a while. I will get information about the occupational field, something I can pass on to the students here in my area. If I get this gig, I can plow the income into a new drone. I think having armies of qualified drone technicians are a good way to defend one’s country against overwhelming odds. If the tactics are defining the strategy, why can’t we try to define some positive outcomes by hiring remote operators that fly American equipment in the NAS?
Weekly Gallery
Rerun from before flu season
I had a chance to fly a couple of places. Nemacolin Castle has a beautiful Ginkgo tree on the grounds. The Birmingham Bridge is simple and beautiful.
Fly Your Ideas
Verticals Community Learning Center
Drone Cinematography Classes!
So, everyone who attempted the test passed and earned an FAA TRUST certificate. We tested through a site administered by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University because I support their UAV technology courses.
The three days I participated as a volunteer instructor at Verticals were as follows: April 28th, May 5th and May 12th, 2022. I guided students through the process of learning how to safely fly drones in uncontrolled airspace. Two students flew my professional drone over the nearby Monongahela River, by an old truss bridge. One landed the professional drone, wow! On the first day! We planned a video with storyboards and a huddle on production elements. They brainstormed, scheduled shots, got gear, and produced the footage. One the last day, students edited and shared footage.
I basically hustled parts, minor repairs, battery charging, and network connections to and from supply to the production locations. I answered questions. One team was outside the building, another inside. I invited students to explore their own styles. They had fun. The teams erupted with creativity and effort. I had hoped to use the course module in a creative writing lesson or a programming lesson. The presentation that I use sort of serves as a class rubric, but I supply the students with worksheets to plan their productions step-by-step.
I learned some crucial limitations and opportunities for the next session. The most valuable thing is to have a report formatted to assign communication channels, teams, roles, and work schedules. Safety issues were routinely handled successfully. All craft and pilots, tablets and other parts of the Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) made it back in the box, so to speak. All inventory recovered, repairs and orders made, all data shared in the cloud, students back in their districts, rooms ready for the next class.
Verticals Plug
Verticals is a local community development center that gives kids a choice of after-school programs that enrich young lives and provide a sense of pride in community. A link to the group is provided. Some school districts, like Monessen and Brownsville, pony up transportation. It makes a huge difference to the kids, and I am grateful to meet the van drivers. They like the class, too!
- How to fly recreational drones with basic and advanced maneuvers.
- How to plan flights for capturing media.
- Get the soon-to-be mandatory – and EASILY OBTAINED – TRUST flyer certificate from the FAA, online for free.
- How to film, edit, and share a video you make with drone footage and apps.
- How to fly a drone with Scratch Python block code.
- Provide information about industrial drone applications and jobs.
Local Resource in Action
Community groups will have some authority to determine the nature of its flight operations in local airspace come this fall 2022. As long as a responsible pilot is connected to the group, the area can develop flight operations that best suits the needs of the group. A FRIA is basically an area supported by a Part 107 drone pilot or more qualified pilots. The FAA determines the location and quality of FRIAs.
I can see a drone academy being a part of an 21st-century community, so I am studying what we need to do to qualify to become a FRIA. I have a break from school in a month, and I like to read legislation. One of the problems is that it’s not 1986 anymore. These rules were written before the Internet absolutely debased the concept of community. It used to involve, at the very least, physical mail for remote correspondence, on land lines, even. Brick and mortar have given way to ones and zeros. The architecture is in an electric field instead of a dirt lot. “Model aviation” was a concept that existed before FPV, before streaming, before smart phones, before laptops. Ridiculous changes continue to occur and need to occur more quickly because of climate change.
- (1) is described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986;
- (2) is exempt from tax under section 501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986;
- (3) the mission of which is demonstrably the furtherance of model aviation;
- (4) provides a comprehensive set of safety guidelines for all aspects of model aviation addressing the assembly and operation of model aircraft and that emphasize safe aeromodelling operations within the national airspace system and the protection and safety of individuals and property on the ground, and may provide a comprehensive set of safety rules and programming for the operation of unmanned aircraft that have the advanced flight capabilities enabling active, sustained, and controlled navigation of the aircraft beyond visual line of sight of the operator;
- (5) provides programming and support for any local charter organizations, affiliates, or clubs; and
- (6) provides assistance and support in the development and operation of locally designated model aircraft flying sites.
Topics in the Verticals Youth Empowerment program include artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, drones, digital fabrication, coding, media production, design studio, blockchain, and crypto. Courses in the topics are presented alongside fitness and wellness resources. The center director is retired NFL pro-football player William James, who stepped off the gridiron and into a new life arena. William has an amazing base of supporters, collaborators, volunteers, and stakeholders who help make this happen. Very grateful.
Verticals Youth Empowerment Center is designed to stimulate young minds, give parents an inclusive environment in which to socialize, and to offer youth a sense of pride in themselves and their community. There are other facilities in the works.
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I became a drone technology service integration researcher in 2017 while in university. I have a passion for drones. Contact me for information about services.
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