I’ve learned a lot since embarking on the journey to get my private pilot certificate. The most enlightening is how controlled our airspace is, why it’s controlled like it is, the limitations on our ability to see obstructions and other vehicles in flight, and what happens when any of our failsafe measures actually…

Same here.

Alright, this is just semantics. The process of a stone attempting to pass through an orifice is painful. The point was that my mom claimed the gall stones were worse than the kidney stones. I don’t have a point of reference, so I have no idea.

My mom has suffered through some intense pain, including childbirth (of course), kidney stones, and the pain of endometrial cancer. This is a lady who popped her own knee back in place when the cartilage tore and dislocated it. When she entered hospice care, we had to have a conversation about pain meds. She generally…

You assume that the person knows that there is a security problem in the first place and knows how to fix it in the second place. It’s arrogance like that which causes the problem. Keep your hands to yourself and off of other people’s stuff - another lesson people are supposed to learn as children. “Sorry, officer, I…

Expedition unknown did an episode on this. They show the water-mining practices and discuss the trade in their bid to get a specimen from which they can sample the DNA.

“I have one thing to say to that, it’s not his fault. Blame all those people who for no reason are exposing their Chromecasts, or printers, or cameras, whatever!”

I’ve been working on a contract for about a year now. They set us up with conference tables in an old storage room. On busy days, we have up to 15 people in the same room. Sharing the same WiFi. Between the slow internet and general chatter, it’s a miracle anything gets accomplished on those days.

I remember lusting after that Alpine. I ended up with a Sony instead. I eventually paired it with a Pyramid EQ/Amp, which was crap on the sound side, but put on a hell of a light show!

No kidding. I wonder how many times rotary phones were used as weapons on TV. 

I was about to post the same thing. I HATED rotary phones. Having a nine in your phone number made you a social pariah. My phone number had two nines and two sevens just for good measure.

I watched a guy climb onto a railcar with a tracked hoe, but I’ll admit that I didn’t believe what you wrote. Then I found the video. Turn seat, adjust bucket, turn seat, adjust hoe, adjust stabilizers, turn seat, adjust bucket, turn seat, adjust hoe.... wow.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have excavators unloading gravel. This takes some real talent.

That solution has been attempted. There are reasons it hasn’t been implemented everywhere. I’d bet the first hurdle is getting enough birds trained. It’s not like falconry is a popular hobby. There’s also a lot of risk to the birds. Let’s not forget that most of those birds are endangered.

Yeah, I just love the other folks who insist that shooting a rifle into the air at a moving target is a good idea.

In theory, but also at the risk of frying the electronics of the aircraft in the area.

There’s a reason that most ground-based drone protection solutions rely on nets fired from a gun. Hitting a moving target is hard, even more so one shot at a time, and damn near impossible with a sniper rifle with a scope unless the target is hovering.

Even your basic DJI can fly at 45 mph. Run-of-the-mill racing quads are flying near 100 mph. A fast airplane-based model can fly in the 150 mph range. I think the electric-powered record is over 200 mph. The turbine-powered record is over 400 mph.

Small aircraft are extremely difficult to shoot down with a rifle. Just ask these guys:

To compensate for loss of signal, a controller can be programmed to switch to stabilize mode and fly a straight and level path until the GPS signal is reestablished. Stabilize mode relies on gyros instead of GPS.