There is a sweet spot, since I'm at the far extreme other end of the spectrum, and have my own regrets.

I don't take pictures. I just looked, and there's probably between 10 and 20 a month in my phone over the last few months, but the vast majority of those are for stuff I got or sent in an message from my wife or a family member, and a few I took to document my MPOE after new equipment was installed.

I used to just say to people that I don't really see the point of pictures to remember something. Then I got a little older and realized that I have a crap memory for events, but unfortunately my ways are mostly set, and I'm just not the kind of person that thinks to take a picture (and I'll never post it on social media, that's for sure).

The downside is that unless someone else is around to document it for me, there's not much visual evidence to remind my of past events or help me reminisce. I've missed it at times.

They have the photo, I have the memory, I think I prefer my way.

Lol the one to respond to my comment might be the 1/100 ppl that actually print their photos and hang it in their house.

This is true even in things as routine daily chit-chat and conversation. Think about how often tacitly express your opinion through the way you frame a discussion and how often those environmental cues bias other parties to respond in particular ways. Then, consider how often marketers, salespeople, and other manipulators intentionally frame interactions to provoke a specific biased response.

The light touch and the small nudge are grossly undervalued.

If you use the heavy battery you go over 249g I’m also not sure if their flight stats were measured with the heavy one or the light one I’ll bet that they are with the 100g battery.

This means that under most conditions you’ll likely have 8-10min of flight time with the light battery since the advertised max flight time is often 30-50% over real world scenarios with these drones.

"Capitalism" as in "corporatism" (or "state capitalism") is in the same bin as all other "-isms", which all require the routine use of violence against innocent people (who may merely want not to participate) to function. (Socialism is the worst, having killed 200+ million people already, among its various international and national sub-species). If institutionalized violence is one's idea of morality, his moral sense needs to be seriously recalibrated.

It's possible for the maneuver to require so much sideways thrust that you will bleed some altitude and start to fall to the ground (granted on a racing drone this is probably measured in centimeters for most maneuvers, but you get the idea)

Racing drones usually have a thrust:weight ratio of 8:1 or so, but the large Mavik Pro has a thrust:weight of 2.5:1, and their smaller Spark a ratio of ~2:1. You need a minimum TWR of about 2:1 to be flyable.

If the Mavic Mini has a similar TWR as the spark, then it's very unlikely you'll be able to fly it in any sort of windy conditions.

A simpler way of stating it is that when you have a heavy drone and a light drone with the same thrust to weigh ratio, the heavier drone will be able to hold its position much easier than the lighter drone in a gust.

Theres a certain predatory element to the flying the Skydio does while operating in trees that is awesome and creepy at the same time.

Edit: video in question - https://youtu.be/2UbRP5YsjuY

Flying starts around 4:30. Definitely watch it negotiate through the trees a bit then fast forward to the riding at the end if you get bored.

I think what we're running into though is the sheer size of North America. Even within the city here, there are a fair number un(der)developed areas with no/few people around. Out of the city, there rest stops or sometimes even just viewpoints. For all of these, with a bit of walking I can avoid annoying anyone.

Somewhere like Switzerland, that might not be possible.

But for a while, GoPro had fairly explosive growth, in my perspective anyway. But after some time they stopped really innovating and some other brands with cheaper products but similar quality began getting some traction. So GoPro kind of dropped the ball. I think they've been getting better again the past year though.

But again, not a market expert; this is just what I can remember seeing and reading about.

Quite false. Although the resolution isn't different, the camera sensor in the phantom is twice the size and has better optics on it. In terms of photography, it's a no-brainer.

We still use a Mavic however due to the ability to upload a CSV of coordinates and camera angles, which is a much better fit for the photogrammetry we use it for.

Too bad, I was considering one in lieu of a full frame dslr. Looks like hi-res, poorly shot photos are back on the menu.

I've been flying various multicopters for a decade and the mavic pro was the last DJI product I'll ever purchase. Every software update for DJI products restricts their functionality to a subset of what they shipped with. This has been going on for years. People buy dedicated phones/tablets for their DJI product and keep them in airplane mode to prevent this. That's nuts.

Otherwise it’s not my tool, it’s in service to the manufacturer, the government, or some shade in between. Those aren’t good tools, because they can only be used for certain purposes, in certain circumstances.

I prefer tools that do exactly what I wish them to do, for better or worse.

as a matter of principle, I don't accept that a device I own should do anything more or less that what I tell it to do.

I don't expect HN to agree with me on this principle, so I will also present a practical argument. these kinds of controls that protect users from wrongdoing tend to be implemented incredibly crudely. my house is close enough to a major airport that it triggers DJI's flight restriction. if the drone happens to get a GPS fix inside my house it will deactivate itself and land. there's no way a small drone can be a threat to the public when it's hovering inside my living room, and I'm pretty sure the legal restrictions don't apply inside of a structure anyway.

In most jurisdictions, the regulatory burden of a small quadcopter is significantly greater than that of an AR-15. The potential harm vs utility argument doesn't even register here.

There have always been tools of mass destruction available in our society. You can buy unlimited quantities of gasoline and propane without the nozzle tips doing a cryptographic handshake ensuring that you’re putting it into a car and only a car. Same goes for explosives. They’re readily available, without scrutiny. It’s sufficient having laws against murder and blowing things up.

We don’t need technological restrictions. Indeed, the law does not require them for drones. This is purely DJI being proactive and fucking their customers.

Then why is it entirely legal for me or anyone else without a prior criminal record to buy a machine gun? Why, despite that fact, are no mass murders committed with machine guns?

There is a large body of evidence and experience that refutes your claim.

I am complaining about the equipment, not the NFZ. You would, too, if your aircraft ignored control inputs under certain opaque, manufacturer-supplied (and signed) network-updated conditions.

The hardware’s job is to obey the operator. The operator’s job is to obey the law.