I was looking into the MCP route too, and found some libraries abstracting mavlink for this use case (there’s at least one white paper documenting failure modes of LLMs trying to issue mavlink commands without an abstraction), but realized that autopilot like PX4 exists. My use case was more about autonomous flight, and it seemed better to just set waypoints and put some guards on other inputs. When paired with QGroundControl plans, all I needed to do for most flight paths was generate or update a .plan file using an LLM and other methodologies. I wasn’t super happy with the QGroundControl -> Gazebo rendering (no tie into real world terrain out of the box), but it did sort of work out of the box without too much effort!
Interesting. I've been building around that MCP abstraction and have had some early success flying in Cosys-Airsim (and Gazebo before that): https://github.com/jakedcmp/droneserver . I am starting to realize I need to break apart the MCP interface from all the other pieces of the stack for cleaner architecture but thats pending work. My flow goes like this: LLM -> MCP tools -> droneserver -> MAVSDK/MAVLink -> PX4/Ardupilot -> Cosys-Airsim Software in the Loop testing. What is novel for me is not having to learn how to fly a drone and bringing that capability into already existing technologies like PX4 autopilot. I have been attempting to code my own mission planning so I will check out QGroundControl as that might already be a solved problem and not worth building from scratch. I have also built the foundation of video streaming back from the drone so I can run video/image perception. Once I get perception working I am hoping I can build intent level autonomy where images are analyzed according to high level mission plan and potentially re-task the drone based on that. For example, the user issues simple command to fly around the property and scan for broken parts of the fence. During flight if an image of a broken fence is perceived, then the drone stops its flight and goes closer to capture additional imaging/video and document a gps location. Still hacking things together towards a real demo so the code probably wont port over well but idk. To anyone in this thread who wants to discuss further or collaborate let me know, it seems we are all working in a similar domain but from slightly different angles. Exciting area to build, I know there is big demand for solutions in this space over the next decade.
The video/image perception is why I started looking into this domain in the first place, but I haven't gotten there yet. I hadn't seen Cosys-Airsim! I bet it could work in tandem w/ QGroundControl just like Gazebo does. Might be looking into that :)
I see quite a lot of "violence is never justified" sentiment throughout the comments. I ask as a "thought experiment" - why? At least from my understanding, the history of America is riddled with working class uprisings that resulted in the use of force (violence) attempting to make their lives less insufferable. If your government has failed you because it is a plutocracy enriching itself off of enacted hardships (the most general way I can put it), is force not the only thing left? You could argue that there are other possibilities - general strikes et. al. - but those often end in _the state using force_ against you. If the law allows for the use of force in certain circumstances (stand your ground), and there is an analogous situation at hand where there is no concept of justice (justice serving those in power), certainly one has to consider it as a tool for use _outside the law_? The "violence is never justified" comments read more like thoughtless propaganda to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Obviously a person's life is involved, jesus, so certainly there is an opposite camp we don't want to get to: "just nuc 'em". But it seems strange that you wouldn't debate the use of force, even if the answer is "the only winning move is not to play".
First, not sure where you live that you believe general strikes will result in the use of force against? certainly not in most civilized societies, no? Second, while US history has provided examples where use of force might have been necessary to bring about the change same history does not have (m)any examples where such violence wasn’t preceded with long attempts at bringing about needed changes without violence. also, violence against human beings is different from setting shit on fire, if violence against human beings is justifyable (regardless of how vile the said person/people are in your and even some majority opinion) who is to say that someone tomorrow might decide that same violence is justifyable against you or even worse - someone in your family?! think of it this way - if your claim is that violence is justifyable - who makes the determination for such justification?
I live in the US. There is a history of armed forces being used against the people generally striking. If you include large protests, even more.
> If your claim is that violence is justifyable - how makes the determination for such justification?
We authorize people in governments to make this determination, and increasingly machines. Should we? Do you think that it is acceptable to let a police officer justify force on behalf of the state? How about a machine? Mostly just trying to understand what you think is acceptable here.
But to answer...violence against human beings is indeed different than setting shit on fire, though the law certainly does not allow for the use of force against personal property either. And this difference is indeed the crux of the issue, depending on what your values are (though we seem to be in alignment on "life is valuable"). If for example (probably a bad one, but hopefully it gets the idea across), a group of people is committing a genocide, and you ask them to stop, and they do not, and so you interfere with the use of force...limited at first, maybe, but they do not stop: is their continued involvement not the justification for use of force, assuming other strategies are off the table? Different example than the thread, I realize, but my thought experiment is not tied directly to it, just at the sentiment.
> I live in the US. There is a history of armed forces being used against the people generally striking
[citation needed]
> a group of people is committing a genocide
if you are asking if violence is OK to fight violence, it always is. I guess I personally did not think that needs justification but 100% you can (and should) fight violence with violence
> if you are asking if violence is OK to fight violence, it always is. I guess I personally did not think that needs justification but 100% you can (and should) fight violence with violence
I wasn't asking that, but you were (sorta) vis-à-vis the justification question ;) My main point was to say that it seems strange that a crowd of folks that consider themselves "thinkers" would simply table the discussion of the use of force. I do not like discussions tabled simply because they seem indecent - that tells me they're probably important to have.
But to your point: if it is ok to 100% use force against force, why? If a federal agent were to show up at someone's door to and force them into a labor camp, where they would probably meet their death slowly - if the person decided to try to use force to fight the federal agent and take a chance on a better life than the camp, would their use of force be justified in your eyes? And taken a bit further and sort of building on the first example, what is the difference between someone using force against an employee of a company pursuing a goal whose technology is being used to aid in the use of genocide against others for reasons _the company can justify_ (money) but they can't? Are they not complicit in the devaluation / loss of other people's lives? In Grug's terms, "why ok for us to hurt people if we think we right, but not ok for people to hurt us if they think they right?" (or something like that)
I find this quite cynical, but I also can't speak to half of your family, ha!
I am one of the folks who, in my youth, purchased land in between Fort Garland and San Luis, with dreams of off-grid living. I succeeded, mostly, but not without many hiccups - the locals being one of them.
For me, "off-grid" was about _control_: control over my mortgage (none!), bills (no monthly subscriptions to privatized power companies generating profit!), and, well, life in general. I'd say the general theme wasn't so much about "sticking it to the man" (what's to stick and who?) or "being self reliant" (impossible), but about fighting classism _to some degree_ via a veritable case of civil disobedience.
To my understanding, it is basically illegal OR extremely difficult to find a living situation where someone else (bank, etc.) isn't profiting off folks, and I find that, well, avarice. But you could find a situation like that out in the valley, because land was cheap and you could "get away" with a lot out there, which basically is just another way of saying folks could _afford_ to be poor.
America is entrenched in classism, and everywhere I look someone with less money getting fucked. And this is ESPECIALLY true when it comes to building code enforcement: wealthy folks pay the same amount as poor folks for things like permits, et. al. ($$), code means nothing when you can afford to hire engineers to prove its safe, pay for costly zoning variations, etc. So as harsh as the valley was in climate, it was basically an oasis of sorts to younger me for all those reasons.
All that to say: there are other genres of fiction worth exploring :)
Don't feel like a noob, SketchUp's interface and controls are AMAZING (or were in 2016, which is where I am stuck because I do not want to "upgrade"). I have tried many modeling tools over the years, but always come back to using SketchUp for moderately complex designs. I haven't seen a CAD tool that does exactly what I want yet, which is to be able to define geometry either via a GUI or code (e.g. build123d), but then to easily go back and forth between the two, say adjusting some geometry output manually with my mouse by dragging it, and having the code update as well (which I acknowledge is difficult).
The Einstar Vega goes for $1,799 USD, which is about 2x the price of a standalone iPhone. The scans will be better than anything you can get using a mobile phone (though it's essentially just that?). Lots of videos on YT comparing the Vega and OG Einstar, especially for automobile scanning.
The downsides of the Vega I mostly didn't see mentioned on YT:
- Required an account to use
- Required WIFI to setup (don't need WIFI past that except when updating)
- Required an app to get scan files off it, but will work for your OBJ use case
Battery life has been a few scans. Do the processing later and get the scans up front.
The other thing is you'll need markers. At least in my experience. I think if you don't need precision photogrammetry and AI will get you the results way faster
(To be clear I love my Vega. Game changer. Just a bit heavy handed if you're not making car body parts)
100%. Lots of things work as markers, too! I ended up substituting markers for taped-on construction paper when scanning stainless steel surfaces with curves, the tape serving as feature for the scanner to pickup...worked well enough :)
A complaint from 2001 regarding the addition of the abstract stained-glass Windows of Cefalù in a Sicilian cathedral:
> In most countries, this kind of modification, based on artistic whim, ceased to be a serious social force by the 1980s. Even allowing for delayed reaction and effect in Sicily, it is surprising that such a proposal could have been taken very seriously in a place that boasts a great historical and artistic heritage.
> With these newest "additions," Cefalù Cathedral is being deprived of that opportunity. The scarlet beast has reared its ugly heads.
I never thought I would see the SLV in the New Yorker!
A friend and I purchased 5 acres in the SLV around 2008 from a guy on Craigslist for 5K. We had no serious intentions at the time. But I was laid off from aerospace in 2009 after the crash, and so I moved out there for a summer, living in a conversion Astro van (before #vanlife, and definitely still van-down-by-the-river and not cool), and started to build a cabin. I didn't finish it that summer, but I eventually moved out to Colorado the next year to do so.
I lived there for about 8 months straight in my longest stretch. It was the kind of difficult I wanted. I (and every one else living in the mountains) had major issues with theft, though. There were multiple break-ins, and the last time I visited, just a flat-out smashing of windows and stripping of siding. I never finished the cabin and abandoned the project after I moved from Colorado. It was perhaps one of the few times I utilized the sunk cost fallacy and didn't dig deeper :)
When I left the SLV, the folks I knew living in RVs were being pushed out for land use violations (or at least that's how I remember it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec8M2bZNEac . Most folks I knew moved out in RVs/vans first and then attempted to build after they were there (this includes me as well!). To my knowledge, RV living is "illegal" past a certain number of days on most residential properties in the US, but I do not know what prompted the code enforcement (if anything).
In the book, as far as I've read, the focus on septic violations was an effort by the county to get people off the land. They often gave 10 days to get a septic in place and daily fines after that, when getting someone to put one in if you had the money would take months and you needed a permit to do so which was often denied.
The reasoning was the people who lived in the towns around there didn't like off-griders buying the land on the flats and moving in, so were trying to push them out however they could.
In the book there is a group suing the county for it, but they can't really afford lawyers and also are sort of free-men-on-the-land loons, so it doesn't go well.
I’ll read the New Yorker for off-the-grid Intermountain West living info the same day I read the Alamosa News for insights into the latest Israeli elections.
Saying that, in NM in the 1980s, off-grid living was perfectly feasible with some of the same caveats you mention. If the local community accepted you (Latinos, First Nations), you could easily make it happen (and I assume you still can). If you get crosswised with the autochthonous spirits, you could find yourself burned out of your half-built cabin pretty quickly.
Communes help, but come with their own problems. Don’t know whether the Intentional Community movement has solved those problems yet.
The restrictions on indefinite RV living center around habitability. Sewage is a big part. Off grid sewage needs to be managed properly to avoid spreading disease. For example, you might need a proper leach field, which is addressed as part of building code.
Everything I’ve read leads me to believe theft will remain a problem- it’s a very poor area, with limited employment options and a weak law enforcement presence.
I agree with you to some degree, but if your statement were 100% true, you would be able to do both of these things below in my area:
- Store (not live in) an RV on an empty lot you own
- Use composting as a primary means of sewage disposal
Where I live now, you can do neither! This leads me to believe that _some_ building codes - and enforcement of them - is classist in nature.
Heck, even with blackwater tanks...people are capable of emptying them at an RV disposal etc. If this were just about management of cleanliness, we could all find a way to make it work.
How many RV disposals are nearby? Do they have the necessary volume? Will anyone pack up their entire permanent home once a week to tow it to the dump station? Composting is not sufficient to destroy human pathogens, and prohibiting storage of an empty RV on an otherwise empty plot of land prevents people from bouncing back and forth between two permanent RVs on two different plots of land (never permanently resident in either).
I agree the laws could be changed to provide more options instead of blanket bans, and choosing not to do so is probably somewhat classist, but as far as I can tell they are going after real problems. (Even if bluntly)
> How many RV disposals are nearby? Do they have the necessary volume? Will anyone pack up their entire permanent home once a week to tow it to the dump station?
Those are great questions! And those are the questions the local government should be asking, and working with those folks to solve waste management issues, not prevent them from living a certain way. House more, not less?
> prohibiting storage of an empty RV on an otherwise empty plot of land prevents people from bouncing back and forth between two permanent RVs on two different plots of land...
It prevents that (which I would argue is problematic because it sounds classist? - again, house more, not less!), but it also prevents someone from just storing an RV on a plot of land they own.
> Composting is not sufficient to destroy human pathogens.
The thing about composting..it's a system, just like septic, just like centralized waste management. Things can go wrong. And it is legal in some places (which suggests efficacy), but not accepted as a "primary" system where I live (or in the SLV to my knowledge), which I take issue with given that the current legal primary systems are not always sufficient to destroy human pathogens in practice (either because the systems lack capacity, aren't properly maintained, or both). Flush toilet waste management overflows into the local water systems when it rains or is over capacity. Septic systems also do environmental damage since a lot of them are not maintained (need a source, there was a book recently that came out). Septic systems are also not inspected by the government after they are built where I live (they tried to charge residents for inspections at one point and they said no).
>Everything I’ve read leads me to believe theft will remain a problem- it’s a very poor area, with limited employment options and a weak law enforcement presence.
