One reason DJI sells the Mavic Mini for less than its other drones is that it doesn’t have as many autonomous features. However, they recently published an SDK do a number of 3rd party companies have added the Mavic Mini to the list of drones that can be controlled by their existing software. I ended up paying $20 for a hobbyist license to Dronelink. The price was low enough that it seemed like it was worth a try.
The main customer of the software seems to be companies who need to get aerial photos of buildings, bridges, etc but they don’t have a stable full of expert drone pilots who can quickly get the shot perfectly every time. With the software, the route planning can be done completely from a website and then executed via a phone app connected to the controller. You can also create simpler programs out in the field directly from the phone.
My old S7 was woefully underpowered and while it would run the software, the drone had barely taken off before it complained about the lag and refused to continue. My new Pixel 4a does a much better job but for a complex curving route where the gimble is constantly adjusting to keep pointed at a specific object, there are noticeable glitches. For simple routes, it seems to do a good job.
Here’s an example of a “trucking shot”. Imagine someone driving along in a truck with a camera pointed out the side. I didn’t make a perfectly straight path so you can see some points where it turns but overall, there isn’t stuttering to the movement.
Now here’s an image of a more complicated route followed by the video that resulted.
You can see the stuttering as my phone tries to chug through all the commands in real-time. I suspect that if I had one of the flagship phones, that stuttering would go away.
For $20, I’m still happy with this purchase. I want to try to plan out a route that is simple enough to capture smoothly and then run it every week or so and try to stitch it together into a timelapse after the construction is complete. I’m guessing I won’t be successful but I suspect I’ll learn a lot in the process.
Last weekend was our second camping trip of the summer. I was a little nervous going into the weekend because it looked a bit wet, but if it had to rain, it worked out perfectly. It rained Friday night but didn’t start until around 10:30pm and stopped before we got up. It was wet when we woke up Sunday morning too, but other than giving us a messy tent to clean when we got home, it didn’t impact our plans at all.
This was a pre-COVID-planned trip with Tim, Chelsea and the girls. It’s hard to believe that it has been over 9 years since our last camping trip with them! Our two families have added three kids since then.
Since then, Tim and Chelsea’s have also added a fantastic new camper. We’re still rocking the Cabela’s tent but it was good to us yet again. It rained quite a bit on Friday night but we stayed dry. 5 stars. Would recommend. I also recommend camping in a site next to someone with a camper. Ha!
We headed to the beach early on Saturday and then left when it started getting too busy for our liking. We spent the rest of the time talking by the fire and enjoying delicious food.
Camping can be a lot of work, but I’m so thankful for these trips. It feels like a responsible way to stay within the current guidelines, socialize with a small group outside, and get away from the house. We’re already thinking about what to book for next year and wishing we had more land to park a camper on.
I’m very thankful that we added air conditioning to this house. This last Sunday it was in the mid-90s and we burned that sucker all day long. But I’m also a cheapskate at heart. I haven’t yet figured out exactly how much energy it consumes, but it’s far from free to run so I try to use it as little as possible. Here’s our basic strategy if it’s going to be warm:
Leave windows open the night before to cool the house down as much as possible.
In the morning, leave the windows open until it’s the same temperature inside as it is outside. Then close every window and close all of the blinds on the south side of the house. Turn on the AC.
In the evening, once the outside temp is the same as the inside temp, turn off the AC and open everything up to get free cooling from outside.
Run the house fan to keep the air circulating. Our vents pump more air downstairs than upstairs (they were designed for heating) so even just running the fan can cool it off upstairs.
We are PacNW wimps so we run the AC if it’s 80 or higher and we have it set to keep upstairs at 76 degrees. Our EcoBee thermostat supports multiple thermostats which is really handy in situations like this. It also has an API so I can connect to it and pull data off. I have logs of the indoor temp from each sensor along with the outdoor temp so I wrote a quick program that helps us remember when we should close the windows or open them back up. Now we get a text reminder when we need to make changes to the windows/blinds.
Here’s an example of what it looks like on a day that got up to 84 degrees. The night before, it got down to 59 degrees outside and inside it got down to 69. Around 10:30, the outside temperature got up to the same as the inside temp so we shut the windows, closed the blinds and turned on the AC. The house coasted until 5pm before the AC finally kicked on a few times until 8:30 when we shut it off and opened the windows.
Here’s a comparison to show how much of a difference this strategy can make: On Sunday, it got up to 96. By cooling the house down a lot the night before, the AC didn’t kick on until 2:35.
That night it stayed very warm so I never opened the windows until 6:30am when I got up. The house barely cooled off at all before I had to shut things up again. Monday only got up to 87 but the AC ran almost exactly the same* amount of time as the day before!
This works really well around here because even on hot days, we get a “marine push” that brings cool winds in the evenings. Another key is that we have low humidity so I only remember one or two days where we ran the AC more than normal because of high humidity.
* On Monday, I shut the AC off at 8:40pm. So to compare the two days, I took all of the AC usage up until 8:40pm on both days. Sunday’s usage was only 20 minutes less than Monday’s usage even though it was 10 degrees warmer.
Here are some common questions and statements that you might be hearing these days:
It’s probably not going to impact me personally.
I don’t feel the need to modify my behavior to help to global situation.
Can you even prove that this is really a problem?
Making these changes will be more detrimental then just letting it run its course.
Maybe we do have a problem, but who cares? Technology will save us.
Oh, did you think I was talking about COVID? No, those were about global warming. Pretty early on it struck me how this pandemic is a different version of the global warming problem on a very accelerated scale. I hesitated to mention it much because people are instantly divided into camps as soon as you mention global warming and I didn’t want to do that with the pandemic but that ship has sailed.
Both issues are these global, long-term, large-scale problems where a single person’s actions have very minimal impact, but it’s very hard to solve the overall problem without help from every individual making changes in their lives.
I realize that the comparison falls apart in many places too. For example, it’s a lot easier (but still difficult) to gather data about COVID. We know how many people are dying with COVID. The problem expands and contracts more rapidly and we’re able to measure it more effectively. We can try different approaches and see results in months instead of decades.
The problems are not the same and many people will have opposite opinions about the two issues, but you have to admit that core conundrum bares a strong resemblance: How do you get people to change their own behavior when they might never personally experience the rewards from their change? It ends up dividing people into angry, dug-in positions where they’re so busy yelling that they’re missing the reality. The truth is out there in no-man’s land and it’s hard to stand up in the middle without getting blasted by both sides.
Ok, enough with metaphors and similes, let’s circle back to that CDC graphic from last time. Remember that image that was going around social media showing how even the CDC says that the death rate is plummeting? I posted a copy of the image in the last post and said we should revisit it in a few weeks. The image was being misused because the posters failed to read the part which said that it takes weeks for the data to arrive. Well the data has arrived and now look at the data from July 4 and the data from August 8 on the right.
You can click into those images to see the timelines but even from a glance you can see how the numbers for July 4 are way higher then when the internet was claiming victory over the pandemic. Unfortunately I don’t know how many people will ever go back and notice the full dataset.
As you’re trying to internalize these numbers and what they mean for you, consider checking out this event planning tool from Georgia Tech. You tell it what county you’re in and tell it the size of your gathering and it gives you the odds that someone with COVID will be present. It’s a tad bit rough around the edges so it’s worth reading through some of the documentation before you have a reaction to it. But as an example, if I go to a gathering of 25 people in my county, there is a 1 in 5 chance that someone with COVID will be in the group. The big question in this data is how many people have COVID but never know it or get tested for it, but the site does allow you to adjust for that if you disagree with the 10 to 1 ratio that scientists estimate today.
Here in Washington, we seem to be plateauing after a second rise in cases started a month or two ago. I pray that people can actually stick with the guidelines and get a better grip on this situation instead of relaxing and letting it creep up again.
Nationally, the anger continues to build. Social media a dumpster fire, and even though we’re making slow progress, our country is falling behind other countries because we can’t get our act together. One of you told me you were at work wearing your mask and someone drove by on the street swearing at you for being a sheep. Even if that was more visible than most emotions, who doesn’t feel judged for the simple act of living their life these days? The mask has been turned into a visible pronouncement of your viewpoint.
Our sinful natures love the feeling of superiority. We love to see somebody doing something wrong and then act like we are able to withhold forgiveness. A recent episode of No Dumb Questions compared that feeling to black magic. You start off with a little taste of it, but you want more. As you get more comfortable with it, it feels better and better. Eventually your heart is consumed by it and you’re angry at everyone. The devil gives you that sweet little taste of hatred and self-righteousness and fans it into a roaring fire. The Bible speaks out against this in many places. For example:
Remember this, my dear brothers: Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Certainly, a man’s anger does not bring about what is right before God. (James 1:19-20)
It’s possible to be informed about the pandemic without getting sucked into either angry trench but it’s impossible to do it alone. Thankfully, we don’t have to do it alone. God is still in control and he will guide us through this. Don’t let the devil strengthen his foothold in your life through fear and anger.
Getting a couple camp site reservations at a state park in Washington generally requires booking very far in advance, so late last year, we booked two sites for a camping trip with Tyla’s family.
Fast forward to now and, well, COVID. Don is still quarantining out of state. We talked about canceling the trip but we were all jonesing for some time away from our houses so we went for it as planned.
The campsites were at Seaquest State Park which is on the road to the northwest corner of Mt. St. Helens. The main observatory there is closed but we were able to do a hike up in that area and get some great views of the mountain on a clear day. We also spent some time down by the river at a nice spot called Harry Gardner Park.
It was different just having Logan and Megan there without Don and we missed him, but I think we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The weather was perfect and the park was really nice. I had been there before but had forgotten many things about it. Elijah had a blast riding his bike around and driving his remote controlled car. Since we had planned to have a camper there, one of the sites had electric and water hookup so he was able to recharge the car.
There had been some concern before the trip about how busy the bathrooms would be or what the rules would be for distancing. I don’t know about the other bathrooms, but the one we chose to use was always empty. I was never in there when anyone else was there so that worked out nicely.
We have one more pre-planned camping trip this year and I’m already looking forward to the break. It’s so nice to see something other than our house!
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I like to keep track of what permissions various apps have on my phone and I like to keep them as limited as possible. The Bouncer app is awesome for this and even though I’ve used it for a couple years, I don’t think I’ve ever written about it here.
When an app requests permissions, you can configure bouncer to automatically remove those permissions immediately when you’re done with the app, after a fixed amount of time or never. So for something that I use all the time like Google Maps, I never remove the permissions, but for something like Untappd or Instagram, I make it request camera permissions from me each time and then Bouncer removes those permissions when I’m done.
The removal happens by automating your user interface so you need to stop touching it for a couple seconds. It can be annoying, but generally it makes me happy because I don’t have to wonder what those apps are doing with my camera or location information in the background.
It’s a free app so it’s worth a shot if you’ve ever had similar concerns.
It started after I got to Thursday and realized that I hadn’t been outside since Sunday except to put up the flag and take out the trash. That can’t be healthy. So I set a goal of running once a week for three weeks. And I use “running” loosely. I decided it was ok if I didn’t run the whole way and I’d only go down to the stoplight and back (1.6 miles.) Even a brisk walk would be healthier than nothing, right?
Let’s back up even more and talk about my previous experiences with running. It started my freshman year of high school when our baseball coach would make us run around the border of our big high school property. If the entire team didn’t do 8 minute miles then the entire team had to run again. Clearly that was just a gimmick to make us run until he got bored. Miserable. We got a new coach sophomore year and that promptly ended but I’d still end up running laps around the field every day after I pitched to theoretically speed up recovery. In college, I thought I’d be healthy and I went out running around campus. I ended up feeling like I was going to vomit. Then I tried it again when I lived out in Jersey with pretty much the same reaction. So no, I don’t like running.
But I knew I could walk that far and jog part of it so why not. My main excuse for not doing stuff like this before was that I didn’t know where it would fit in my day, and now that I’m working from home, it’s a lot easier. So I got up and went for it.
And you know what? It wasn’t that bad. I was super tired and sweaty and sore and embarrassed at the extent of all that considering I only ran/walked 1.6 miles and my form is probably all wrong and I wonder what people thought when they saw my goofy excuse for running… but I was proud of myself for actually doing it. I did it again, and again (in the rain!), and then today I finally did the whole distance without walking and I didn’t feel like I was going to die at the end.
I’m not going to win any races with a pace up close to 10 minutes, but I’m doing it and each time it gets a little easier. Plus it’s also really nice to be out in this beautiful summer weather instead of stuck behind my computer.
I don’t know if I’ll ever fall in love with running, but I think we are making a truce for a while and who knows, maybe I’ll even run an 8-minute mile. (Just one though. I’m not delusional.)
I’m plowing my way through the Jon Schmidt piano book and the next one was “Song of the Ocean”. I probably didn’t polish this one as much as I should have, but I never got totally hooked on this one and I’m ready to move on.
I’m changing the title of this series to give a better idea of how long we’ve been in the slog. I’m marking March 13 as the start of our lockdown. I started working from home on March 5 and March 13 was Elijah’s last day of in-person classes.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve done one of these posts, and frankly that’s because it feels less and less safe to document my thoughts on the topic. I talked previously about how we all started off in the same boat, then we we were just in the same storm, and now I’m not even sure we’re on the same planet. As with most topics on 24-hour news channels, it feels like we’re taught that if you’re not screaming the same thing as me then you must be my mortal enemy. Can we just agree that the truth lies somewhere (undefined) in between the two extremes? Isn’t that almost always the case?
I timed my last post right at the bottom of the trough for Washington. Since then we’ve been climbing very steadily. If you look at the raw diagnosis numbers, it looks like we’re getting infected at a much higher rate than we were in March and April. But the other side screams, “It’s just because we’re testing more!” Look one step further and realize the truth is in the middle. Yes, the numbers are going up, but no the virus isn’t spreading as fast as it was in March and April. So much is unknown about the actual spread back then, but the best estimates show we were at an R (reproductive rate) of 2 back then in King County, and we’re probably around 1.4 now. So should we be concerned about this regression? Absolutely! But do we need to lock everything down as drastically as we did back then? No, not yet anyway. Very early in this series, I wrote that we’re going to go through a series of ups and downs as we figure out the right level of safety precautions to balance a functioning society with not killing off 2% of the population. We’re in for a roller coaster ride of these infection waves because there is no magic cure out yet. We’re just as vulnerable as we were on March 6, but the good news is that we’re in a better position to analyze the spread and jump on it sooner.
It’s encouraging work at a company that is so heavily involved in analyzing the data. There’s obviously a tight partnership with the Bill Gates Foundation and their jobs all revolve around fighting disease on a global scale. Combine the two groups and you have a real powerhouse. Some of the information is still being vetted and worked on but I’ll give you four solid links to peruse if you want to focus on the data and not the media’s interpretation of it:
That first link is probably my favorite as it gives you an apples to apples comparison of the infection rates by US county (or by country). Even that can be a little misleading when you look at very sparsely populated counties where a single case can change the color of the county, but still, when you hear a friend across the country say things are good or bad, you can compare the infection rate in their county per 100k people with your own and compare their statement with your own personal feelings.
The other link that caught my attention this week is the COVID-19 Survival Calculator. As we collect more and more data about the virus and about the people catching it, these kinds of statistical models get more and more accurate. My odds of dying this year (without COVID-19) are around 1 in 700 according to the CDC. My odds of catching COVID-19 and then dying from it are 1 in 400. So while that’s not going to cause me to hide under my bed for the next year, it’s a significant increase. If you’re elderly, lower income, etc those odds can get horrifically bad to the point where if you get COVID-19, it’s like sticking a revolver to your head and being forced to play Russian Roulette.
Getting a good handle on the raw data is an important step in arming yourself to not be taken in by bad information. The internet is aflame with people using “data” to argue their point. For example, this chart was floating around the internet recently.
That one comes from the CDC so it must be legit, right? Sure, the data is right but read the fine print and you’ll see that it can take weeks for the data to roll in and even if the data was instant, people don’t die from the disease as soon as they get diagnosed with it. So this chart is very much a lagging indicator of what’s going on. Go back and check that chart when you we get into late August and see if it still looks as rosy. You have to be so careful whenever you read the news or peruse social media.
The first step in the battle is just knowing when you’re being manipulated either directly or via a share of a share of a share of a share. I wish I could give more details but we get some incredibly interesting security talks inside the company and they go into great detail breaking down misinformation campaigns post by post and tracing it back to the bad actors running those campaigns. I’ll summarize with this: assume that everything you read is fake. It’s almost impossible that in your internet browsing today, you haven’t read a story, post or comment that is written by someone explicitly trying to game your emotions to push you to one side of the war or the other. Be on the lookout especially for “us vs them” talk. Once they get you screaming at the other side, nothing productive will happen. They want us to hate each other. Destin from Smarter Every Day had some a nice Instagram story about this exact topic the other day. I’m paraphrasing but he said “Don’t let this affect your heart. If you met someone on the street, would you run up to them screaming? Wouldn’t you be able to have a polite conversation even if you disagreed with them? Remember Proverbs 15:1: A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” (Now’s a good time to rewatch his great series about disinformation on the internet.)
We’re in this for the long haul. We could be 6-12 months or more away from a vaccine but there is still question about if we can produce a vaccine or if it will be effective for more than a few months. And even if we can make the vaccine, how long will it take to distribute to everyone in the world? And how many people are going to refuse it? Sure, 2020 is bad, but it’s not like 2021 is going to be all sunshine and roses. This is going to take time.
So woooosahhhhhhh. Be kind. Seek the truth in the middle ground. Be wary of information presented in arguments. Show grace to those who are struggling with this on both sides. But most importantly:
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.
I turn 40 this year. While it doesn’t feel nearly as weird as I thought it would, for years Tyla and I have talked about doing an uncharacteristically big gift for our 40th birthdays. Some ideas I’ve had are going to Maker Faire in California (but that got canceled even before COVID-19), watching a SpaceX launch, renting a vacation house for a weekend, or taking a rally racing day class at Dirt Fish. Once the lockdown started, I started thinking about other options. The original goal of this was to have an experience that we wouldn’t normally have, not to just buy something expensive and throw it in the house.
Ever since Kevin opened his taproom, he’s had a limited number of lifetime membership spots available. It has always seemed like a great way to support a friend, but it also felt extravagant. So… it’s a perfect fit for this 40th birthday experience!
Thankfully he had a spot left for me, so after years of thinking about it, I’m happy to announce that I’m a Good Brewing Co. Lifetime Member! What does that mean? It’s mostly me showing my support for Kevin and his wife and what they have started, but it does get me some nice perks like a buck or two off beer purchases, free merchandise each year, a private party with annual members and a more private party with the lifetime members.
I never imagined that I’d be a lifetime member at a brewery, but I’ve never seen a brewery like Good Brewing!
COVID-19: Day 157
Here are some common questions and statements that you might be hearing these days:
Oh, did you think I was talking about COVID? No, those were about global warming. Pretty early on it struck me how this pandemic is a different version of the global warming problem on a very accelerated scale. I hesitated to mention it much because people are instantly divided into camps as soon as you mention global warming and I didn’t want to do that with the pandemic but that ship has sailed.
Both issues are these global, long-term, large-scale problems where a single person’s actions have very minimal impact, but it’s very hard to solve the overall problem without help from every individual making changes in their lives.
I realize that the comparison falls apart in many places too. For example, it’s a lot easier (but still difficult) to gather data about COVID. We know how many people are dying with COVID. The problem expands and contracts more rapidly and we’re able to measure it more effectively. We can try different approaches and see results in months instead of decades.
The problems are not the same and many people will have opposite opinions about the two issues, but you have to admit that core conundrum bares a strong resemblance: How do you get people to change their own behavior when they might never personally experience the rewards from their change? It ends up dividing people into angry, dug-in positions where they’re so busy yelling that they’re missing the reality. The truth is out there in no-man’s land and it’s hard to stand up in the middle without getting blasted by both sides.
Ok, enough with metaphors and similes, let’s circle back to that CDC graphic from last time. Remember that image that was going around social media showing how even the CDC says that the death rate is plummeting? I posted a copy of the image in the last post and said we should revisit it in a few weeks. The image was being misused because the posters failed to read the part which said that it takes weeks for the data to arrive. Well the data has arrived and now look at the data from July 4 and the data from August 8 on the right.
You can click into those images to see the timelines but even from a glance you can see how the numbers for July 4 are way higher then when the internet was claiming victory over the pandemic. Unfortunately I don’t know how many people will ever go back and notice the full dataset.
As you’re trying to internalize these numbers and what they mean for you, consider checking out this event planning tool from Georgia Tech. You tell it what county you’re in and tell it the size of your gathering and it gives you the odds that someone with COVID will be present. It’s a tad bit rough around the edges so it’s worth reading through some of the documentation before you have a reaction to it. But as an example, if I go to a gathering of 25 people in my county, there is a 1 in 5 chance that someone with COVID will be in the group. The big question in this data is how many people have COVID but never know it or get tested for it, but the site does allow you to adjust for that if you disagree with the 10 to 1 ratio that scientists estimate today.
Here in Washington, we seem to be plateauing after a second rise in cases started a month or two ago. I pray that people can actually stick with the guidelines and get a better grip on this situation instead of relaxing and letting it creep up again.
Nationally, the anger continues to build. Social media a dumpster fire, and even though we’re making slow progress, our country is falling behind other countries because we can’t get our act together. One of you told me you were at work wearing your mask and someone drove by on the street swearing at you for being a sheep. Even if that was more visible than most emotions, who doesn’t feel judged for the simple act of living their life these days? The mask has been turned into a visible pronouncement of your viewpoint.
Our sinful natures love the feeling of superiority. We love to see somebody doing something wrong and then act like we are able to withhold forgiveness. A recent episode of No Dumb Questions compared that feeling to black magic. You start off with a little taste of it, but you want more. As you get more comfortable with it, it feels better and better. Eventually your heart is consumed by it and you’re angry at everyone. The devil gives you that sweet little taste of hatred and self-righteousness and fans it into a roaring fire. The Bible speaks out against this in many places. For example:
It’s possible to be informed about the pandemic without getting sucked into either angry trench but it’s impossible to do it alone. Thankfully, we don’t have to do it alone. God is still in control and he will guide us through this. Don’t let the devil strengthen his foothold in your life through fear and anger.