Coding Copter

Coding, gadgets, hacks, and flying machines

[blewisuk]

What a bizarre but, in some places, beautiful church and mosque here in Córdoba

[blewisuk]

Gladiator

Despite losing my iPad charger yesterday morning and, as such, editing this not with Lightroom from RAW but rather Photos from JPEG on my iPhone; I am still happy with this photo

[blewisuk]

Today I saw many beautiful parts of Tuscany, while we primarily visited Siena, an incredible city with an impressive fortress, huge tower and city building and another impressive Duomo and I see many beautiful rolling hills of green with trees. But I chose a simple picture of a flower with rain on it. Leaning into the bad weather we experienced and showing the beauty in that too!

[blewisuk]

I don't think that I agree with this video... at least I don't feel this way.

I believe that I try to fix the things about the good that I buy that I don't like. This means that less choice is something that I try to work around and I truly do dislike.

However, when I have a choice, I am not crazy enough to think that my current information level was sufficient to make the decision - I seek out advice, do research, ask store clerks for their help, and, as a result, when the good isn't as good as I expected, I do have someone to blame :P This is a funny video, but I'm not sure that it reflects the true world reality. The USA may be famous for giving people too many choices, but it's certainly not a global phenomena to give people more choice than offers value.

[blewisuk]

The Future of Politics: Beyond Divide and Conquer

Modern democratic governments, which as Churchill aptly described, are the "worst form of government, except for all the others", have a major flaw:

We do not vote for political parties or figures based upon our moral/personal values - i.e. what we'd like to occur, but rather based upon a weighted value of what we want - our moral/personal value - and the likelihood of the method proposed by this political party/figure to achieve that.

The combination of voting for strategies is extremely problematic and the solution isn't simply for voters to change their strategy - voters cannot vote for parties based soley on moral/personal values until the parties stop pretending to know how to achieve these values best, and agree to simply debate over the values.

I propose a system whereby we vote based upon our moral/personal values (political philosophy) and utilise the scientific empirical method (political science) in order to achieve the moral/personal values that voters choose.

Much in the same way as science is developed, and applied to engineering. Political science would be considered a major area for government's to invest money and government would utilise the outcome of such research and act as both the test bed and the product for such science.

There are of course, significant caveats. Unlike scientific research, where the outcome of a scientist fabricating evidence or lying, is likely to mostly inconsequential or caught early. Political science would be a big target for criminals or special interests to lie in order to achieve their goals. However, I believe that this could be overcome.

I suggest that all political science research be publically available, and any individual be able to challenge a research paper to claim that their appear to be discrepancies given sufficient evidence that this individual is knowledgeable in this area.

Building an uncorruptible and ideologically ideal political system is impossible. But to end this post by returning to Winston Churchill, I believe that by separating political science from political philsophy, we can consign democratic political science to history.

[blewisuk]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl9TVbAal5s)

Well said. Look after your kids people!

[deactivated-blog]

“I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no Melancholy.” -Charles Baudelaire

[block]

[bismuth-and-succulents]

@blewisuk you 

[upworthy]

Watch: Bob Ross once painted only in gray for a colorblind fan … and it was incredible.

[pbsdigitalstudios]

dawwwww

[blewisuk]

Thank you for explaining this and showing me this astounding product Destin. Not like I'm surprised :P (via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsc-pQIMxt8)

[blewisuk]

Why is the number pad on a keyboard on the right?

Anyone ever thought about this?

You're trying to type numbers quickly while working and switching between numbers and letters (as most people do) on a computer with a GUI and you're force to leave the mouse and move your hand to the right. This change often results in many people using the far less convenient nubmers above their keyboard letters...

Why isn't a number pad on the left the standard given that most of the world uses the mouse on the right?

They should.

(P.S. I'm left handed before you go complaining that it'd annoy the lefties who use the mouse on the left - most don't - myself included; there's no reason I left handed person can't use a mouse with their right hand - I mean touch typers, like me, use both hands to type)

[techcrunch]

Google continues to expand the range of its Street View project. The company launched imagery from the ancient rock-cut city of Petra, in Jordan (and one of the seven wonders of the world, depending on which list you’re looking at), as well as imagery from 30 other historical sites in the country.

Go explore here. 

[blewisuk]

Street View was sent to Petra. Images show a woman rocking the backpack Street View camera walkinga around Petra - beautiful :)

[nevver]

[blewisuk]

History of Spacraft (at least some major bits)

[blewisuk]

This jQuery plugin looks absolutely awesome :)

[blewisuk]

Truly amazing video.

[blewisuk]

Truly amazing video! Superb follow up.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFMZrEABdw4)

[blewisuk]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHB_G_zWTbc)

Yes. Let's redefine a billionaire as someone who affects a billion people. Yes.