What bemused you today?

[anglefire]

Picture itself is far from special. IMHO. But like a lot of things - rarity makes it better

[Hinfrance]

After not being used for a fortnight my drone decided that it would only turn right. In fact turning right was all it was prepared to do, apart from up and down, and the down part was a sudden thump into the ground on 'auto land'. It's rather erratic, or should that be eccentric ?

[Oldboy]

Had an email of a cousin in Canada who complained about the cold. Check the BBC forecast for North America and they have Ottawa and Winnipeg with a temperature of 0' degrees Fahrenheit! 

[Hinfrance]

My own stupidity and assumptions about how the world works - specifically in relation to camera batteries. I took my TG-4 out with me this morning on the school run, thinking to get some shots of the river in flood as the light came up.

But the camera wouldn't turn on. Flat battery I assumed and replaced the dead battery with the spare, making sure in the gloom that I fitted it the same way as the one that I had just removed. Camera as lifeless as a not at all alive thing. Gave up. When I got home, and into some light, I discovered that the batteries for the TG-4 will fit into the camera either way around, and the wrong way was the way that the first battery had been put in. All my other cameras, and just about everything else I can think of that uses proprietary batteries has them handed, so they can only go in one way.

Live and learn I suppose. 

[Jediboy]

That does sound like unusual H.

I can't charge my batteries at the moment because I have lost my charger. Who loses a battery charger??
I'm blaming the kids!

[Reinardina]

Insulting commercial.

Caught a commercial for a scented fabric conditioner recently.

Punch line: "Is it your perfume, or your fabric conditioner?"

[Hinfrance]

Yes, I've seen that one. Why waste money on expensive perfume? Just put yourself through a quick wash cycle . .

What bemused me - the good news, the camera wasn't on it; bad news, my drone went on an adventure all on its own. Controls were ignored and neither the 'return to home' nor auto return to home out of range or with low battery operated. It was in GPS mode with 14 satellites locked. No idea where it's gone. Last seen heading south east at, according to the remote control display, 55 metres up and 8 metres per second.

Time for a new better drone - got to tell SWMBO that more money will be spent. That won't go down well.

[Reinardina]

Sorry about the drone. It's scary these things can more or less do what they want, go wherever their fancy takes them. No chance of getting it back?

I'm not sure about whole families smelling of fabric conditioner. It will overpower any individual scent, put a whole industry out of business, thus depriving the less well heeled of the chance to own a real designer product.

[Hinfrance]

The drone was a £100 starter model, and it is safe to say quality control was not a watchword at the factory where it was made. It has always been inconsistently erratic, it just excelled itself today! 

The good news from my point of view is that I know that I can fly a drone properly: I've also been flying my friend's Mavic Pro - that does what it's told

[StephenBatey]

An extract from an email:

Hi Stephen, you have a parcel coming today.
Scheduled Delivery Date: Thursday, 19/04/2018
Estimated Delivery Time: End Of Day

Well, the parcel arrived (developing tank and reel for 10x8 film). And it did indeed arrive on the date specified. What I did (falsely) expect was that the third line contained different and additional information to that on the first two. The parcel arrived at mid day, and when I queried it, I was told that "End Of Day" means "before the end of the delivery day". It was fortunate that I was there to answer the door, as a few minutes earlier and I would have missed it, being under the false assumption that "end of day" meant - at the very least - late afternoon. The ways of UPS are mysterious indeed.

[Hinfrance]

My UPS guy (always stuff from Thomann ) is 100% reliable - always gets here just after lunch and always greets me with a cheery hello.

Glad you got your stuff!

[Jediboy]

The drone was a £100 starter model, and it is safe to say quality control was not a watchword at the factory where it was made. It has always been inconsistently erratic, it just excelled itself today! 

The good news from my point of view is that I know that I can fly a drone properly: I've also been flying my friend's Mavic Pro - that does what it's told

Sorry to hear about your drone H. What a pain!
I have been doing a bit of research into drones as you know and it certainly seems that the newer ones have more reliable tech and don't suffer from these issues quite as often.
Update for me - decided on a drone, found it at a good price but then it went out of stock so waiting now.

[jinky]

Sorry about your drone H. Is no-one worried about potential stiffening of laws re: drones. When I looked into it for weddings I was advised very strongly by Police about where i could fly it and the added issues of a licence for commercial ie paid work . Once I found that many of the venues I`d expect to use them at banned them I gave up. Seems we are moving ever closer to licences / training in UK - only one near miss event with a plane away I reckon given the issues arising locally here. Neew rules from spring seem to say keep your drone under 250 grammes or you need a competency test and registration - currently 20kg so seems a big fall. Is that heavy or not? Half a pack of pasta it seems. This sort of thing put me off looking into it any further http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/uk-drone-laws-2018-3146402 a nd yet I see evidence of drones breaking all of these rules / laws every time I look at facebook / Youtube.

[Hinfrance]

Yeah, depends where you are. In the US any drone over 250 grams (even a Spark) has to be registered, and DJ I drones are electronically ring fenced. The rules in the UK are actually less onerous than the ones here, but I have no problems with the French ones - they aren't legally enforceable as yet, but they are sensible, and no-one other than a reckless idiot would ignore them. Like don't fly within 5kms of an airport. I can see no harm in registration and formal training to be honest. I'm lucky in that there really isn't anything that I can hit, other than trees 😀 My next drone is going to be a lot more sophisticated, that's for certain. The biggest issue is how much a decent drone costs!

[Hinfrance]

So Chris, what drone are you waiting for?