The return of (drone) robot wars: Beware of low-flying freezers There was a time when I used to spend my free hours looking for a man. Oh yes, many a day I’d hang about aimlessly for hours, just waiting for the right man to turn up. Sometimes I’d look for a man in uniform, other times he’d in civvies, but all I wanted was the kind of man who would – well, how can I put this? – “deliver the …
What's the betting they're unreadable owing to the visceral leakage from the mammalian remains directly beneath which may once have been an urban fox or, possibly, Mrs Next Door in her best fake fur. Still, at least you won't have to dig another hole...
"the UK – a country where gun ownership is tightly restricted and its citizens are happy and willing to have every fucking second of their private lives filmed because they already live in a corrupt police state with the Big Brother-like cosh of closed-circuit TV on every street corner."
Not all of us are "happy and willing", but apparently we live in a democracy and stupid people are entitled to vote too
So you didn't bat an eyelid at the idea that all US citizens are constitutionally bound to shoot each other, but you do take umbrage at the idea of every street corner having a camera?
Perhaps you should avoid any media where they might use exaggeration for comic affect, it clearly doesn't agree with you.
There are reckoned to be over 6 million CCTV cameras in use by the authorities in the UK, never mind the number of personal and business systems. By one estimate people in urban areas of the UK are likely to be captured by about 30 surveillance camera systems every day. That's systems, not individual cameras.
Big brother is in the house.
There are reckoned to be over 6 million CCTV cameras in use by the authorities in the UK, never mind the number of personal and business systems. By one estimate people in urban areas of the UK are likely to be captured by about 30 surveillance camera systems every day. That's systems, not individual cameras.
And not ONE camera pointing the other way. Strange, that, no?
Many of these cameras use Infra-Red - especially the number plate readers/loggers.
The solution to this Big Brother problem lies in the ubiquitous Infra-Red 3 watt LED.
Surrounding your number plate with several of these 3-watt LEDs, with a couple placed in the centre of the plate as 'dummy' mounting screws, effectively 'blinds' IR cameras. Modulating them at 4-10 Hz increases their effectiveness.
Wearing a US-style baseball cap with 5mm IR LEDs scattered around the top of the 'peak' blinds cameras effectively, too. And, being IR, emit no visible light for Plod to see (unless they use a smartphone camera to view you).
Um, the infra-red LEDs are highly directional, so I disbelieve this clever way to fool cameras.
If you want to fool the IR cameras you really need not a ring of LEDs but a ceramic grid overlay heated by about a dozen forced air/gas jets.
Or you could go the other way: drizzle your number plate with liquid helium.
Or just remove the plates and if stopped do the "Cor blimey, I've been robbed!" routine.
> Um, the infra-red LEDs are highly directional, so I disbelieve this clever way to fool cameras.
Might be true for some specific LED, but all (IR) LEDs aren't created equal.
140 degrees isn't what I'd call 'highly directional': http://www.ledfedy.com/products/1w-3w-led/3w-led/3w-ir-led-940nm-double-chip-with-star-pcb-745.html
120 degrees: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-Quality-1W-3W-5W-High_615133918.html?spm=a2700.7724857.0.0.WRBJCg&s=p
135 degrees: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-Supplier-good-price-Epileds-Chip_60376879496.html?spm=a2700.7724857.0.0.WRBJCg
If one wants directionality out of this style of LEDs, there are lenses that fit on top: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-power-and-quality-3w-led_1431620067.html?spm=a2700.7724838.0.0.wQslxx
Many of these cameras use Infra-Red - especially the number plate readers/loggers.
The solution to this Big Brother problem lies in the ubiquitous Infra-Red 3 watt LED.
Ah, the benefit of being a bit older.. I have bad news for you - if the police spots this you'll be facing quite a fine. Someone *way* too smart to work in civil service came up with the bright idea of leaving out any specifics in law, so anything you do that renders a license plate unreadable will get you a fine, including IR blinding. Worse, the chances of you getting caught with such tech are increasing because the number of ANPR equipped cars is going up, and they are unfortunately manned..
No worries, your MP took care of it ... the government does not want you to bother yourself about these minor issues ... you will be given a carefully edited rundown on all that your MP has done for you when the next election is called so you will know how carefully your MP has safeguarded your interests and wishes to continue doing so.
Adults riding bicycles on the pavement is not allowed - unless there is a clearly marked cycle lane.
Note I said "bicycles", I was seen a few twats riding motorbikes on the pavement.
As for fat women in mobility scooters - I agree - 75% of the scooters I see are being driven by fat women in their 30s/40s; who are too lazy to walk to the bus stop.
[Expletive deleted] pedestrians deliberately blocking my path and telling me not to ride a bicycle on the pavement. A few have the grace to apologise when I ask them not to obstruct the cycle path. Lane markings, a picture of a bicycle painted on the path and the white bicycle in a blue circle sign, yet pedestrians still cannot spot a cycle path.
[I know there are inconsiderate cyclists, but there are also inconsiderate drivers and inconsiderate pedestrians. No one group has a monopoly on stupid.]
"No one group has a monopoly on stupid" . hmmm maybe.
Does seem to me that 99.9999999999% of taxi, van, BMW, Audi and name-a-brand-GTi ( especially red ones ) drivers drive like idiots. I never say they ALL drive like idiots just 99.9999999999% of them.
As for pedal cyclists, it usually is the ones in lycra that are idiots.
The issues I have on the pavements up in the City of London aren't cyclists or mobility scooters.
My issues are :
1) Families walking 5 abreast at about 0.000005 MPH
2) Drunken crowds of stationary nicotine addicts entirely blocking the pavement outside pubs, forcing me into the road.
3) Businesses that are allowed to put sandwich boards blocking significant sections of the pavement
So a few drones to sort these issues out would be a vote winner with me ;)
VietNam Post insists on delivery to the recipients hand (bunch of thieves in the streets makes this imperative).
Our local P.O. will send you an SMS if the addressees Cell Number is appended to their name. This is really great for all parties involved.
My unofficial arrangement with the local P.O. Sorting Office, which serves 7,000,000+ people, is that they will leave me a SMS message and I can collect it at the Sorting Office Sunday through Friday!
Better than the (new) Royal Mail.
About 20 years ago at work, of an evening, I ordered an electronic doodad from a company 2,000 miles away. Since it was already late, I caught some winks and woke up the next morning to find the doodad being delivered to the office door. For a while I thought that maybe somebody had spiked my vegetable juice. Honest, ma, I wouldn't ingest any substance that would defile the holy temple of my brain. The brain isn't dead until God says it's dead. Anyway, later I came to understand that vendors may have one or possibly multiple warehouses not at their nominal place of business and that they have doodads delivered from a warehouse that might actually be quite close to your office, sod the 2,000 miles.
Windows (er, the windows that we don't hate) can have a coating that is claimed to reflect IR light but obviously allows visible light to pass. If, of an evening, one wishes to malefact about, but have one's licence plate be invisible to IR cameras, could one not apply a spray-on version of said stuff, and wipe it off later, with the minimum chance of detection? If only one could wipe off all one's miscues with the Minimum Chance of Detection (TM) cloth. Though one supposes that if one is prepared to go to that degree of bother, then other solutions might be more effective.
...direct drone delivery is a still born idea. I much prefer the idea of having delivery lockers at strategic places around when stuff can be dropped off by WVM and I can go and collect, and that's already happening. Drones might replace WVM to get stuff to the lockers, though said drones might struggle to get items into the lockers, but isn't that what university graduates are for?
"I much prefer the idea of having delivery lockers at strategic places around when stuff can be dropped off"
Yes, me too. They've been around for years and new networks are popping up in even more locations.
We experimented with them for field engineers parts maybe 10 years ago. The guys got an email with a code, went to the lockers, entered the code and one would open with their box of parts inside. The downside was that they tended to not be in the places we needed them to be, ie railway stations, city centre petrol stations etc. whereas courier depots tend to be on less congested areas so we went back to sending parcels as "To Be Collected" addressed to the depot. There were also times where the consignment didn't fit in the largest locker or required two or more lockers. It might be time to look again at this.
The other day I ordered a phone battery from Amazon. The battery fits inside my phone and that fits in my pocket, so there should have been no problem getting it through the letterbox. But in the event I had to waste Saturday morning travelling to a depot to collect a 6in x 8in box.
"When are we going to get the underground conveyor belts that Hugo Gernsback predicted more than a century ago in Ralph 124C 41+?"
...and for those of us old enough to remember, also turned up in Rupert Bear, where the country was connected by a secret network of underground conveyors? I remember that from a Rupert Bear annual, as my father wouldn't have the Excess in the house.
Drones. I'm already working on a simple electronic countermeasure, all I need is a big enough capacitor and a big enough magnetron. The Government seems to feel that, rather than expanding Heathrow itself, the benefits of living under its flightpaths should be extended to the whole country.
I take it you are not aware that London's three big Royal Mail sorting offices were connected by a private underground railway. Royal Mail stopped using it when they decided to make its delivery service shit, and I hear that the new owners when the business got sold off (on the cheap) did not even realise they had bought a secret underground railway along with the buildings.
There was talk a couple of years ago about opening it up as a tourist attraction but I haven't heard anything since.
Wasn't just the Royal Mail. Back in the Victorian Era there was an entire railway network dedicated to delivering your coffin (occupied) to the cemetery at the outskirts of London. Said railway line was monikered the Necropolis Line and you could buy 1st, 2nd and 3rd class tickets for it. Check out the amazing song Third Class Coffin by The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing (it's on YouTube and Spotify). Actually just check out the band in general, most of their songs are equally hilarious and educational at the same time.
"my package had been left behind the bins."
They lied. It wasn't behind the bins. It was in the bins. Not your bins, the neighbour's. Now work out which neighbour.
Our standing instructions with Amazon are to leave it in the greenhouse. The greenhouse is perfectly visible across the drive opposite the front door. The last time we had a delivery whilst we were out it was left in the neighbour's greenhouse which isn't even visible from the road.
> They lied. It wasn't behind the bins. It was in the bins.
No such luck. The place I order wine from (boxes prominently displaying their name and that the boxes contain wine) using such a brain-dead courier that he can't even read simple instructions (leave at the side of the house, behind the bins - it would require him to take an extra ten steps or so).
No - instead, he leaves a case of decent wine on my doorstep, in full view of the street. And pushes the aforementioned card through the door (ignoring the post box on the wall - fortunately PostEating dog is no more) to say that the wine is by the front door. The fact that I would have had to either move it or trip over it doesn't seem to have drifted across whatever few neurons he still has functioning..
Not that I'm bitter or anything. Any wine that goes AWOL gets replaced for free by the vendor - I just have to make sure I build an extra week into the order cycle to make sure I don't get left without essential supplies. I did however email the supplier and courier a picture of one of the delivery cards alongside the delivery instructions and invited them to comment. The supplier sent me a £10 voucher..
Amazons current trend for my deliveries (that don't come to work) is to deliver them next door, to the house that has no noticeable number on it, even when I am home, and then not stick a card through the door. More than once, my email has pinged to say my parcel (letter box sized) has been delivered "through letterbox" when it clearly hasn't.
Fortunately, I am good terms with my neighbours, and they seem not to mind playing depot.
as its eight spinning razor-like rotors shredded the cat
Or in the case of my cat and his recent antics in the last few weeks (3 squirrels, 2 pigeons and copious amounts of mice), more likely we'd find bits of the drone in a trail going into the house, up the stairs and into his favourite hidey-hole for munching on stuff he's caught (or probably trying to in this case, as I doubt drones are that appetizing).
Not sure quite what state the local wildlife is in, but he seems to have brought everything bar a Pokémon in over the last month or so...
into his favourite hidey-hole for munching on stuff he's caught
There's a reason my desk bears a Dymo label "Restaurant Les Souris".
(or probably trying to in this case, as I doubt drones are that appetizing).
[x] torn off its wings (rotor blades), [x] ripped open its belly, [x] spread out its entrails over half a square meter and [x] look extremely smug.
he seems to have brought everything bar a Pokémon in over the last month or so...
Have you checked his smartphone?
Let's see. How to design the perfect delivery service.
a) Only deliver between 9 and 5, when no-one will be home.
b) Insist on a signature, but accept a scribble from any semi-sentient being that happens by, with no thought to their actual identity.
c) If no-one is home to accept delivery, attempt again the next day, at the same time.
d) If your company has a nearby retail outlet, refuse to drop the parcel there for pickup, because "only the recipient is allowed to sign for it."
e) Or just return the parcel to the courier depot an hour away at back of the airport.
The sole saving grace for United Parcel Service is our local driver, who cheerfully bends or breaks UPS rules when it helps the customer.
additional for a uk delivery company beginning with 'Y' with delivery staff who only fill in the time on their mostly green delivery cards if you're not there, leaving you to guess who the missed delivery was for, if it was for the address at all, and where the package is now.
Meh, UPS tried that crap on me. They wanted me to drive 18 miles in a particularly bad part of town to pick up my package. Having done it once and been subjected to a complete Laurel and Hardy routine of "whez da box?" I declined to do it again.
They were shocked when I said "no thanks, go ahead and return the package to the sender, since you can't be bothered to do your job and actually deliver it" - shocked enough so that they actually arranged delivery when I was home. They've since dropped the signature rule (at least for me) unless the sender actually insists on it for a particularly valuable package.
"With the increase in drones flying around would you like to protect your property with a local area air defence system?"
"Only if it port-forwards web access via my home router so I can control it with my phone!"
"Of course, and it can link with other systems in your neighbourhood via the cloud to provide an enhanced defence network protecting the skies - we call it SkyNet."
It's a vicious cycle. Customers are unwilling to pay too much for shipping knowing how unreliable all the logistics companies are in general, and the companies are unwilling to provide the promised service to the expected standard because we're all trying to be first in the race to the bottom anyway.
"So Amazon realised it had better run trials in the UK – a country where gun ownership is tightly restricted and its citizens are happy and willing to have every fucking second of their private lives filmed because they already live in a corrupt police state with the Big Brother-like cosh of closed-circuit TV on every street corner."
Whoa! Alistair, be careful. You got serious there for a second. Have a lie-down and it will pass.
"Unfortunately, after the first dozen cats, the rescue centre refused to let me have any more."
OK, that made me snort my tea. Or would have, had I been drinking tea just then and not eating frozen lasagna. (Reheated. Hah, headed that off!) Fortunately I managed to avoid snorting that, it sounds even less fun than the tea. Close call, though.
"Now, of course, with the addition of courier traffic, there is no room left for humans travelling on foot..."
What are you on about? You don't need the sidewalk. Instead of popping down to the local market, you order from the Internet and hang about your house waiting for delivery. Duh. SO much more convenient. You get more exercise anyway, pacing while gesticulating angrily. Though blood pressure could be a problem.
So, do fat birds who are too lazy to walk, buy mobility scooters?
Or, do women who are too lazy to walk, buy mobility scooters and subsequently become fat?
Come Drone World there shouldn't be any fat birds out on scooters, they can order everything by drone and won't have to leave the house.
If ground-based robot delivery systems just barged past cars parked on the pavement*, ripped their entire sides off in the process, shredded their tyres, then I might be inclined to welcome them.
In fact, when I finish my own fridge-styled 'harbinger of death and destruction', I might be inclined to stick an Amazon logo on it and let it loose.
* Sidewalk for our American friends, because I believe "pavement" over there means "road", and I might otherwise seem 'a little extreme' without explaining that. I am not however going to explain "sticky buns" nor "having a fag".
Everything else you can buy at Amazon... zero issues. Auto parts? Nope, not happening, no way, no how. Just don't bother because whomever packs these boxes could give a flying fuck.
Last shipment score was 4-$10 Denso iridium spark plugs cracked, 1 dented oil filter, wrong viscosity Mobil1 synthetic oil, all packed in the same box, loose. Between Amazon India support and Amazon US support 'correcting' the issue, ended up with 7 broken Denso spark plugs, 3 oil filters, one dented, six makeup brushes broken (don't ask me, wife slipped those in there somehow), and one Denso spark plug refunded. I gave up after the next three spark plugs arrived broken, so I packed everything up in one box and shipped it back, which caused issues with their refund system, because you can only have 'X' amount of refunds per shipment, and blah fucking blah...
3 weeks later, everything is straight - Moral of Story: Don't buy auto parts from Amazon.
Why did I tell you all this? How much trouble\laws broken if you detained a drone for improper shipment of paid-for goods?
Asking for a friend...
I remember going "what the hell" and ordering water heaters. Yes, these are the (usually) 55gal 6ft tall 150lb-or-so cylindrical things that supply hot water to the house. That was fun.
They shipped them in a thin coating of cardboard and no actual packing, somehow expecting them to arrive in a roughly cylindrical shape.
I enjoyed the hell out of photographing the resulting carnage and emailing said photos to the Amazon return center.
After about 4 such failures, I notice they're no longer generally available on Amazon.
Yes, I was bored. It was a couple weeks of free entertainment. I did eventually buy a water heater locally.
Do you live in a flat - no drones for you
Do you live in the sticks - no drones for you
Do you live in a 'nice place' where planning is tightly controlled - no drones for you
Do you live near any sensitive building (hospital / school / police station/ prison/ embassy / power station /........ ) - no drones for you
In any case
20 years after we worked out that if you want to call someone, call their mobile, not their house
I hope we are starting to learn that if you want to deliver a package to someone, deliver it to them, not their house.
Instead of drones, that are expensive, complex and prone to self-destruction machines, Amazon should use artillery shells, with containers of various sizes. With this method yo could send anything from a fresh egg to a small car. The cost savings could be spectacular, allowing Amazon to "Create Value For Our Shareholders" (TM).
And a great way of mailing brochures, as well!
But I can imagine the naysayers: ... insurance costs... civil unrest... true mail-bombs... yadda yadda...
Fucking Luddites! It's because of them we don't have flying cars!!!
They claim it's not worth stealing because half the time it's empty, and it has traceability functions. So here's how I'd steal it:
1. Approach it in my modified white van (I dub it the 'Taffermobile.'). The Taffermobile has the guts of two microwave ovens strapped to the inside, pumping out two kilowatts of broad spectrum RF energy at about 2.4GHz. At that power level and close range, it doesn't matter the exact frequency.
2. Verify that the Starship has ceased to move - you don't need it completely fried, just the radio systems so it can't transmit images.
3. Quickly jump out, brave the Zone of Microwave Pain, nab the prize and stuff it in the back of the van.
4. If you get valuable cargo from it, that's a bonus. If not, that thing contains at least a hundred quid worth of eBayable components.
Scheme requirements:
- Two people, one van, £100 worth of investment in the jammer.
Risk: Near-zero, so long as you don't do something stupid like use a van with a tracable numberplate.
Reward: Maybe £200 per Starship - if you make sure to get the ones heading *away* from the depo.
Park bench? No problem. Nearly 4 months ago, DJI, the established multirotor drone manufacturer announced an RTK GPS/GNSS system which is accurate to +/- 5 cms in x,y or z. So provided you were sitting comfortably having accurately established the location of your picnic plate; a suitably equipped drone could plonk a Walkers pork pie on your plate.
Park bench? No problem. Nearly 4 months ago, DJI, the established multirotor drone manufacturer announced an RTK GPS/GNSS system which is accurate to +/- 5 cms in x,y or z. So provided you were sitting comfortably having accurately established the location of your picnic plate; a suitably equipped drone could plonk a Walkers pork pie on it. Postcodes would never cut it for drone delivery... Neither will GNSS alone; there has to be autonomous feature recognition and proximity awareness.
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