Status-Q

On the one occasion, many years ago, when I tried to fly a radio-controlled plane, I found it extremely difficult. It was OK when the plane was flying away from me, but when I wanted to bring it back towards me, the left/right controls were reversed. It was most counter-intuitive and the landing was far from elegant.

Recently, though, I’ve been thinking that it ought to be straightforward to mount a wireless camera on a small plane. A view of the transmitted video signal ought to let you fly the thing as if you were sitting in the cockpit of a real plane, something I know how to do.

I haven’t, alas, had a chance to try it, but it turns out that lots of other people have. It’s called FPV (for ‘First-Person View) and there’s lots more about it on this site. Here’s a nice example:

My brother Simon pointed out a wonderful use for YouTube tonight: finding those great comedy sketches that you remember from days of yore. So I went off searching for Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and came across an old favourite – the art gallery sketch:

Cook was absolutely brilliant at improvisation, but Moore had many other talents. I love his parody of Beethoven:

Lots more good stuff where they came from!

The NYT’s David Pogue has done a fabulous little video about the process of reviewing the iPhone. Very nice!

Many thanks to John for the link.

Many thanks to Frazer for the link to this rather sweet binary adding machine:

Not quite sure why, but I find this rather appealing. An interesting mix of cultural influences.