Re: Industrialise

And in an unlikely resurgence on the part of Detroit, here's a sell-out con with no burning man required. No mistake the aforementioned Y Combinator is increasingly selecting material bits over bytes, now we're waking up to the fact that nations producing little or nothing are on the road to perdition in an unstable world... which judging from the UK government's DMs, doesn't seem to be bothering anyone here.

HyLight

If you like drones, and you like airships ~ I like both ~ then you (like Y Combinator) will like these inflatables that are designed to cruise around inspecting power-lines and so forth. They're from France, and where else could they be looking at the iron-work?

We're Going UP, UP, UP...

I like to review UP partners' annual 'state of the nation' report because it's as good a round-up as any as to where tech ~ and drones in particular ~ is headed.

I've taken screen-shots of various slides that make up the report, which we shall go through together and I've given each a pertinent heading... so sit back, relax and shut the fuck up.

Influencer: in 1971 most young people wanted to be an astronaut (in my day, train driver), whereas now they want to be an influencer. Well welcome to my world, mwah-ha, mwah-ha, mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Solo Founder: Given all of the tools available, it is possible for an individual to build a unicorn practically single-handedly. In fact I've done so myself, though it's eating the geraniums.

Drone Dominance Program: The US War Department has one (and so does the UK, though we call it the DJI store).

72 Hours: about as long as the Department took from bid to acquisition of Skydio's drones... nearer 72 months in the UK am thinking?

Maritime Action Plan: They've one of those too. Ours is 'how do we get that three billion pound aircraft-carrier out of Norway, where it's broken down again?

Steve Jobs: said tech only worked when married to the Arts and Humanities, when it 'makes our hearts sing'. He was not wrong, but needed to see a cardiologist.

$250 million: Messrs Patrick and Tyler are offering grants up to the amount to those redefining how the future should look. These guys have more money than sense.

The Kinetic Age: is what UP define it as being, and who's to say they're wrong?

The Long Tale

T-P was the nomenclature as I recall for a turning point in the flight management system on either the Airbus or Boeing ~ I can't remember which ~ and that's where we find ourselves around about now. We were all upset at being ripped off by Faulty Towers last month, but you have to choose your battles and mine won't be with Vulture Capitalists who've more experience than I have at screwing people over... so let's move on.

But I look at the stats pertaining to the website, and the message coming over loud and clear is "Your inventions suck." The one visit the website got this month was mine, and how sad is that?

In contrast the blog has risen like Dr Frankenstein's monster and now leads a life of its own (see below), whether I feed it or not. Bizarrely too, there aren't many more visits to each of its individual posts either... though there are exceptions featuring 'one-offs' like aircraft crash analyses that garner 1000's of views in days.

But that's not what we're about, is it? And so the question arises as to where all of those views come from and 'bots aside I think it's from a modern phenomenon in the form of the 'long tail', which broadly speaking says that much revenue accrues to platforms from a back-catalogue that consists of sales here-and-there which together amount to more than the occasional best-seller.

So let's run with it and see where it takes us, shall we?