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camachameleon · 7 years ago

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Cam’s Voltron Fic Rec 3/∞

VLD Rec Lists: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Here’s a Fic Masterlist for my other fandoms. ( ** = favorites )

**Recoil/Release by Cheshyr

Word count: 22,387 (13/13)

Summary: When Keith is bitten by an alien creature with venom that causes your dominant emotions to be amplified, the team is ready for a day of dealing with an incredibly angry paladin.

Which means they’re not ready at all for what actually happens.

Comments: The almost stream-of-consciousness writing of Keith’s parts are really gut-wrenching because it’s as if you are experiencing it with him. (Warning for panic attacks- if you are triggered at all by that sort of thing you may want to sit this one out, it gets pretty graphic). A couple good song pairings for this fic to set the tone are Broken Crown and World Gone Mad.

**Synergy by Kokochan & Spanch

Word count: 74,064 (10/10)

Summary: The vines were large, stiff, gnarly, and thick-stemmed, with blue leaves as big and round as dinner plates, but Shiro’s battle-arm was able to sever several long straggles with ease. The vines draped easily enough over the shuttle and hid it quite handily from view. “Good enough, I suppose,” Shiro said, glaring at the empty greenish-blue sky. “Come on, let’s… Hunk? What’s the matter?”

Hunk was staring at something behind him. “Shiro, don’t make any sudden moves just now, but there’s a really big lizard thing standing right behind you. Um. Two of them.”

Surprised, Shiro turned, albeit carefully. He’d never even heard them approach. That was rather impressive, considering the size of the beasts. It was as though someone had taken a pair of Arizonan horned lizards and rebuilt them more on the lines of a tiger without leaving out any of the spikes, then expanded them to about the size of an Indian elephant and added six large, intelligent blue eyes. Understandably, Shiro froze in place.

Comments: OH. MY. GOSH. OK. SO. This bad boy is Part 1 of 3, so far, with a total series word count of 241,404 at the moment. This beautiful titan of a series is named Of The Pack, and it updates with great speed, considering it has two top tier authors working on it. The several OCs in this story are so lifelike and realistic and fit so well into the universe that I forget that they aren’t actually canon and I kind of miss them when I’m reading other Voltron fics. My favorite part is the world-building it does. Everything about this fic is so dynamic and multi-dimensional, from it’s characters to the epic plot - this is the exact opposite of lazy writing. I am so here for badass Pidge, and the matriarchal Galra culture and the dragons. I��LOVE👏THIS👏FIC👏

Also there’s magic! (with a scientific explanation, of course)

A cool song that I think goes nice with this fic is Heroes by Måns Zelmerlöw.

The Kids Are Alright by pugglemuggle

Word count: 10,430 (3/3)

Summary: Three Garrison Cadets Missing After Freak Satellite Crash

By Mara Garrett, News Editor | The Guardian | Monday, June 13, 2103 7:40 A.M. ET

Two seventeen-year-olds and a fifteen-year-old went missing Friday night after a rogue satellite crashed into the desert a few miles away from the Galaxy Garrison Training Facility, reports say. Garrison officials were quick to cordon off the area, claiming many of the remaining satellite fragments were dangerous and unstable. Government search parties have been sent out into the surrounding desert areas. Details are forthcoming.

—

Her brother is missing. Lance’s sister isn’t about to sit quietly while the Garrison keeps lying to the press. No—she’s going to get to the bottom of this.

(Or: The paladins’ families team up to find their kids and overthrow the corrupt Garrison regime. Told through news articles, prose, the internet, and art.)

Comments: The format of this is very intriguing and fresh. We get to see scenes of our favorite paladins through the eyes of their friends and families, from before they disappeared and the aftermath. The open ending is still satisfying and leaves you with a sense of determination and hope for these characters that you just couldn’t help but get attached to. If you’re big on government conspiracies then this is the fic for you!

**Patty Cake by Froldgapp

Word count: 7,829 (6/6)

Summary: Quiet, aloof, and alone, Keith is distant from the rest of the team. Hunk begins to suspect why, and it’s only when the red paladin pushes himself too far, the Voltron gang realise he’s just as vulnerable as the rest of them.

Comments: Aaaaahhh this fic. Something about this one has me coming back to reread it all the time even though I always cry. It is just so angsty but in a more poignant, sharp, breathless kind of way. Some of the things the characters say send painful stinging jolts into your chest and you can feel your heart cracking and then you get angry because how dare (I mean ch4 tho holy sh*t). I just want to hug Keith so much ugh. Hunk’s protectiveness of Keith gives me the strength to finish this masterpiece every time. Also, this can kind of be Sheith if you squint (or not, if you don’t).

The Message by Shipstiel

Word count: 132,787 (45/45)

Summary: (4:07) okay, but considr this, and hear me out here (4:08) so like, a photobooth u can do with ur pets like there’ll be lil costumes that u can dress them up in, and u can do liek, period costumes and shit with them (4:09) omg, can u imagine, u and ur cat/dog, and theyre in a lil 1800s dress and one of those lace umbrella things omg so cute

(4:15) Why the FUCK are you texting me at four in the morning with this

—

Keith is texted by accident by some idiot one day, and honestly he’s not even sure why he responds. Or why he keeps responding. Yet somehow he finds himself drawn in, and okay, so maybe this fool is mildly entertaining after all. Who would’ve thought.

Comments: Slowburn Klance Wrong Number AU. These two are so cute I just can’t. This is the perfect story if you are looking for something effortless and relaxing to read. Even though this contains some softcore Langst, it is still a very cute and heartwarming story about two dorks slowly falling in love. It features Lance’s mother who I fell in love with here, and the kind of supportive nosy best friends that everyone wants in real life (i.e. Hunk, Pidge, and Allura).

**The Quiet by MilkTeaMiku

Word count: 66,700 (32/32)

Summary: Does he not realize he’s dead?

Keith can see ghosts. As a part of his Garrison training, he’s sent to a hospital to do one year of medical clerkship - it’s there that he meets a charmingly irritating chose who definitely needs to learn what boundaries are.

Comments: Modern Ghost AU with eventual Klance. This fic is the most suspenseful story I have ever read in my life. Idk if it’s just me, but I just have this feeling building up paragraph by paragraph of an impending… something. And it has my heart racing which is crazy because it isn’t even particularly fast-paced. There’s just a heaviness to the words that have the hairs on the back of your neck prickling. I literally have to take a breather from reading sometimes to calm down.

A couple cool songs I think set the mood for this fic is Smother and Mirror.

Finding Home by spacegaykogane

Word count: 26,966 (6/6)

Summary: After the wormhole collapses, Keith finds himself stranded on a strange planet. Alone. Until Lance comes along. With their lions dead and resources limited, Keith and Lance need to put aside their differences and work together to get home. Wherever that may be, now.

Comments: Klance. I love Stranded fics where they have to work together to survive and bond over that. So yeah this one has some whump obviously, bc you know, crash landings aren’t very fun. This one is angsty but its balanced out by the fluffiness in the end.

Cuddle Puddle by nothingwrongwiththerain

Word count: 46,782 (6/6)

Summary: Unexpectedly, Shiro’s hand landed on the top of his head. Apparently with Lance and Hunk taking up all the shoulder real estate, Shiro would settle for ruffling Keith’s hair.

Keith was fairly certain his soul was about to detach and abandon his shaking body on the couch. He was surrounded, in the complete and total sense of the word, by other people. Not once before, not in his whole life, had he dealt with a situation like this one.

Or, five times Keith found himself too close for comfort and one time he couldn't get close enough.

Comments: Klance featuring ace!Keith. Don’t be fooled by the fluffy summary, this is a very angsty fic with lots of Keith whump. Basically, as stated by the author, this story is about ‘Keith struggling with physical contact and learning to accept people care about him’. I love touch-starved Keith stories, like this one. I love the scenes with Kidge bros, featuring a super supportive Pidge.

At the Beginning by Sakuraiai

Word count: 64,203 (12/12)

Summary: Inspired by Anastasia

King Zarkon of the Galra empire lost his only way in to the Kingdom of Altea. In his anger, he put a curse on the royal family. The young, adopted half Galran prince Keith disappeared when the palace was overrun, never to be seen again -- or so it seemed. The only surviving princess, Allura, grieving for her child, offers a reward for Keith's safe return.

Con artists, Lance and his best friend, Hunk plan to pawn off a phony to the princess, hoping to reap the rewards. They hold auditions and choose an orphan man who has a remarkable resemblance to the missing prince -- all the way down to his fluffy Galran ears.

Comments: Can anyone say Anastasia AU?! I waited with baited breath for each chapter to come out and I was not once disappointed. I love the integration of the different alien races in this timeless story, it all works out so well. Keith just wants to find his mommy and I just want to cry. Also Kidge bros are still my fav as always.

out of orbit by rbillustration

Word count: 78,135 (19/19)

Summary: Dragged apart by Haggar’s attack on the wormhole, the paladins and Alteans struggle to survive and find one another again. Luck has placed them all within the same galaxy… but their fortune ends there. Lance is stranded with a badly-injured Shiro and his relief at finding their leader still accompanying him soon turns to terror. Keith may be the only who can rectify the situation - but the Galra have him in their grasp, and they don’t want to kill him. They want him as one of their own.

Comments: ANGST. SO MUCH ANGST. A brainwashed Galra!Keith plus a Possessed!Shiro. This is the perfect recipe for disaster if I ever saw one. If lots of blood bothers you proceed with caution. I love stranded fics.

A good song rec for this one is Darkside.

VLD Rec Lists: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Here’s a Fic Masterlist for my other fandoms.

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sualkmedeiors · 6 years ago

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After 30,000 Driverless Lyft Rides Consumers Rate it Almost Perfect

After 30,000 real-world driverless Lyft test rides in Las Vegas consumers have rated it an amazing 4.95 out of 5, says Lyft’s Chief Strategy Officer Raj Kapoor. He says that in the last 12 months the system’s gotten smarter and the ride has gotten smoother. “It has measured reactions and acts like a really good driver versus maybe an inexperienced driver,” says Kappor. “That’s a big change.”

Raj Kapoor, Chief Strategy Officer at Lyft, was interviewed by PCMag at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas:

Consumers Rate Selfdriving Lyft Rides 4.95 Out of 5

What’s changed changed in the last 12 months with our selfdriving tests is first of all the system’s gotten smarter. The smartness comes out in terms of planning and prediction. You can now tell how smooth the selfdriving ride is. If it’s seeing pedestrians or lots of cars it doesn’t make knee-jerk reactions. It has measured reactions and acts like a really good driver versus maybe an inexperienced driver. That’s a big change.

Two is that we broadened the area that we’re operating significantly. We’re operating a geofence that covers almost all the major hotels in Las Vegas and you can go anywhere in that area versus very specific points.

It’s one of those rare instances where a cool demo from CES right away becomes a live service. We have now 30,000 rides that we’ve had in the system and so far the feedback has been awesome. Consumers have rated it a 4.95 out of 5 stars and 9 out of 10 people that go on a ride would come back and do it again.

We’re really quite pleased with it. I think people have a lot of questions around self-driving, there’s some fear, but once they get in and do the ride they are really excited about it and ready to do it again.

It’s using the same scale as normal Lyft rides and in their mind it’s that same perception of how comfortable, clean, did the person or the robot drive well, all those things go into account. The automated Lyft is rating pretty high but the human drivers definitely get up there too. But 4.95 out of 5 is very respectable.

Lyft Using Las Vegas Data to Perfect the Selfdriving Ride

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We can notice a lot of things with this real selfdriving test. Las Vegas is a great proving ground because there are so many people from around the world that come here. You’re not just having residents that are here. You’re having people that are using it for their vacation, using it for going back and forth, so we’re able to collect lots of data from a big diverse group of people.

We’re able to see what the repeat use is like. What do they like about it? What do they dislike about it? How much do they like to walk to the vehicle versus not? There are all these little nuances that go in.

Another example is around remote assistance. We noticed that the people love to have a conversation with the safety driver. They’re so excited at that moment. The question we have is as we move toward a future without a safety driver is how do we still get that interaction with the consumer? Can we have a remote assistant do that? We’re learning all these little things by being in the real life out there with people.

In fact, there are two people in the front. There’s a safety driver and also a safety engineer that’s in the front. So usually it’s the safety engineer that’s answering the questions. The safety driver is very focused on the road.

What doing now is developing remote assistance systems where you can talk to a lift operator and ask the questions that you need to ask via a very conversational interface with the consumer. There’s a lot going on there and there’s a lot going through their head around building trust. What is this car seeing? Is it acting the way that I would act? Then asking questions about how does that technology work? How can it do this?

More Human Drivers Will be Needed, Not Less

Going to the question around drivers. We still believe that there will be a need for more human drivers than there are even today. If you look at it these ride-sharing services in the US make up about 0.5 percent of vehicle miles traveled. Even if we go to 5 percent and the majority of rides become self-driving, if you do the math on that growth of the overall number of rides, you need even more drivers than you have today.

Also, this technology is great but it’s going to be slowly rolled out. It’s going to take a while for it to be able to do all conditions, all places, all the time.

We haven’t even begun to imagine around the new economy that comes out of self driving vehicles. There’s so much infrastructure that needs to be built around parking and charging and even mundane things like cleaning cars. Then there are serve there are groups of people that need to have assistance, whether it’s elderly people, people requiring physical assistance, or young children. We think there are going to be opportunities abound.

Obstacles to Overcome with Driverless Cars

There are a number of obstacles to overcome with driverless cars. Can I trust that this vehicle is going to operate safely, not just for me but for all the environment and community around us?

Two, is the technology itself. I think we’re on a good path and we’re improving but it’s going to take some time to get there. The other piece of it is that the cost of the vehicles are significantly expensive right now. They’re using expensive computers, expensive sensors, and they’re not made necessarily to last for a long time because they’re in a lot of R&D stage.

So the reliability and the costs have to get better. Then on the government side, the regulations that need to allow for this to flourish. We’re seeing good progress there. If we continue to have a federal level on safety standards then that’s something that’s really positive because it’s not going to be that you have to create a specific car for specific jurisdiction. We think those are the barriers but they all seem very doable.

Surprised at How Quickly Micromobility Has Taken Off

We classify all this (scooters and bike) as micromobility. What we found is that there’s really an unmet need for that zero to two-mile range short distance trips. Yes you could take a Lyft or you could potentially walk but you’re in that zone, especially if it’s a half a mile or more. It is a really convenient thing to do. It’s also a really fun thing to do whether you’re biking or scooting and especially if it’s electric propulsion.

I’m also surprised at how quickly that has penetrated but I think we’re living in a world now where there’s mass adoption, there social networks, and the innovation that’s coming that came in software so fast we’re seeing in hardware. New versions of scooters are about every month. There’s some loss rate and breakage rate that is acceptable given the high usage and it works for the consumer because it’s still a very reasonable price to get around town.

Lyft Helping Society Shift Away From Owning a Car

For people not to own a car, it’s really going to be a stitching together of a number of different modalities. Whether it’s bike, scooters, walking, or ride-sharing together, to provide a really good alternative to owning a car, which is expensive, a hassle, has parking, congestion, and emissions. It’s a really big problem that all these things together are going to be solving.

We want to get them from point A to point B in the most convenient way that they could get there and without owning a car. That’s the key criteria.

I think there will clearly be a big group of the population, especially that lives in cities, that really will not be able to justify owning a car. All the use cases that you’re thinking about you could utilize by short-term rentals, car sharing, ride-sharing, micromobility, or also public transit.

We’ve integrated into public transit and it’s the best way to get around in a lot of instances and we’re feeding into that. There’s a lot of inertia still about buying a car and some people are still wrapping up a car in their self-worth and their identity. That’s changing, especially with young people.

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The post After 30,000 Driverless Lyft Rides Consumers Rate it Almost Perfect appeared first on WebProNews.

from https://www.webpronews.com/driverless-lyft-rides/

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caredogstips · 7 years ago

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Why are deadly extreme athletics most popular than ever?

Five parties died in the French Alps last weekend in boasting occurrences from paragliding to wingsuit hovering. What pushes people to test the eventual limits of their own security?

Darios ready, adds Dario Zanon. Three, two, one, remarks Graham Dickinson. Vive la France! they both wail as they leap from the summit of Le Brvent in the French Alps and spread their offstages to begin the Rock Star Line, one of the most hazardous routes in one of “the worlds” most dangerous sports.

Zanon and Dickinson are members of best available, however. Utilizing the flappings of cloth that connect their limbs and legs, they skip expertly past cliff margins and between trees at more than 110 mph. After less than a instant they liberate their parachutes and stray down, whooping, over Chamonix. A daytime after Zanons footage of the flight was posted last September, it had been watched a million times. Since then, it has been watched at least 10 million more.

On Wednesday 8 June this year, Zanon returned to Chamonix and climbed the Aiguille du Midi on the other side of the hollow for a solo flight. On the Sunday his figure was found on the glaciers 5,000 ft below. Most likely no one will ever know is which small-minded occasion went wrong. Small things become large-hearted instantly at 110 mph. He was 33.

Dario Zanon flying the Rock Star Line in September last year. He died in France in June.

It does happen to the best. Mark Sutton, “the mens” who parachuted into the London Olympics stadium garmented as James Bond, was killed wingsuit hovering in the Swiss Alps in 2013, while filming for EpicTV. In May 2015, Dean Potter, a famous US climber and wingsuit flyer, expired with his friend Graham Hunt. They had rushed from Taft Point in Yosemite Park, California. In July last year, the record-holding Colombian wingsuit flyer Jhonathan the Birdman Florez died during rehearse in Switzerland. The Briton David Reader succumbed two weekends ago. Last weekend five people croaked in separate incidents in the French Alps: two climbers, a paraglider, a hang-glider and a wingsuit flyer. Wednesday introduced two more, in separate accidents: an as yet unidentified British “mens and” Uli Emanuele, Zanons former piloting partner. Be a Hero, answers the video they obligated for specific actions camera company GoPro in March.

It is hard to find exact fleshes on the notoriety of extreme sports, but it is even harder to find anyone who is of the view that they arent smash. In 2006, the British Parachute Association entered 39,100 first jump-starts. Last time there were 59,679. Counts of full members regular skydivers have been rising at a same pace. The British Mountaineering Council had about 25,000 individual members in 2000. Last September there were almost 55,000. The number of people clambering Everest has rocketed since the 1990 s. The balance of status of women climbers is increasing too, up from about 16% in 2002( BMC illustrations) to 36% now( Sport England figures ). Hang-gliding figures have suffered since the 1990 s, according to Michelle Lanman at the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association( The kit is so much heavier ). But paragliding and paramotoring( paragliding with a monstrous love) are doing very nicely. SurfingGB also reports that British surfing continues to grow rapidly.

Uli Emanueles video for GoPro. He croaked this week.

You precisely get into it and then progressively build up, be developed further mentions Jess Cox, 27, an instructor at her leaders business, Fly Sussex Paragliding, near Lewes. Better flights involve get higher, further, doing debagging or acrobatic material. Sorry, debagging? She indicates me a video on her phone. It was recorded by a pal shortly after they had both hopped off a 7,000 ft mountain in Turkey. Cox is moving high-pitched above a sparkle body of water when suddenly she falls from her harness, surely to her fatality, until a brand-new paraglider unfurls out of her knapsack and she swoops away. Woo-hoo! she squeals, watching. I adore it! That was one of the best days of my life. Its exactly the most exciting circumstance Ive ever done. The high-pitched lasts for daytimes. Youre walking around on a cloud when you have a great flight. You actually experience what you do. You really cherish it

Of course, the drawback of detecting something you adore this much is having to do without it sometimes. You cant make the crack be too long or you get itchy feet, Cox says. Some people become wholly haunted, retire their jobs, live in a van and only circulate round the world with textile in the back, leaping off material. It does kind of devour you. Its entirely addictive. When possible, Cox actually flies to work in the morning with her paramotor. Shes never fright, she says, unless you weigh nerves before rivals. Nor should she be. Like more extreme athletics these days, paragliding is much safer than it appears, as long as its done properly.

Jhonathan Florez, seen here contesting in the Wingsuit World Championships in China in 2013, died during tradition in Switzerland last month. Picture: Long Hongtao/ REX/ Shutterstock

For others, theres no denying that danger is part of the entertainment. On his website, Dickinson says that when unpredictable episodes happen( birds, dead tree branches, etc) I feel like I am operating in pure survival mode. I can feel my heart rate speed up, my appreciations increase, and my focus narrow so that everything seems to nearly slow down. During these instants I try to only focus on the current, the immediate here and now. I think this integrity of thoughts and thought is one of the many reasons I continue to do what I do. Being able to escape the interference, clutter and business of daily life is a rare treat in this world.

Its the luminous beginning of a red-hot daytime and Tim Cox meets the amateur paragliders and explains what they are going to do. I weigh 16 men as well as four girls. Mark, 28, and Andrew, 39, are both musicians at Glyndebourne. We had this day off and I concluded, Lets go and do something stupid, Andrew pronounces. Hes done a skydive once before and it panicked him. I only recollect contemplation, Deem it together, nurse it together, prop it together. I was hopeless to be on the ground. Hes hoping this will be a bit calmer. Mark, on the other handwriting, is a struggle director and well up for it. Hes done a bit of kite-surfing, diving and caving, but has still not been anything up high. I think its just for people who dont do very well at a barbecue, he reads. So many of our colleagues are happy to sit with a bottle of prosecco in the sunbathe for four hours, he tells. I get fucking birthed. Gives go and jump out of a mound! Hes made his GoPro, primarily to take times which could be used to scoff his partner, who wishes she were here.

How wingsuits toil

Sometimes referred to as birdman suits a wingsuit flight intents by distributing a parachute.

Martin, 25, is working in advertisements in London. He did a tandem paraglide with an teacher only a few years ago, and the experience lingered, so hes back to have a go on his own. He acknowledges to being a little bit apprehensive. Among all the josh of the others, he seems quiet and solicitous. Paul, 59, has been paragliding four times before, twisting his ankle on the last. He works in insurance and has always enjoyed trot, dive and climbing. He formerly had a captains licence. When he was diagnosed with cancer six years ago, he got more serious about his fitness and finally lost enough weight to try paragliding. He announces his cancer Nigel and takes pleasure in ignoring its requests. This is one in the eye for Nigel, he announces, as we climb the hill up to the launch area. He postponed some chemotherapy to be here.

Paragliding examines easy, at the least to start with. The equipment is not a parachute but an inflatable offstage, which is laid flat on the hilltop, then fills with breeze, takes shape and face-lifts leaflets off the dirt. Once the basics of territory and equipment-checking are illustrated, the tandem fliers are fastened into a big pitch-black fanny, hooked up to an teach, dragged back by the glider attracting as it rises, then a few speedy stairs launch them sends into the air. The first pamphlet, Andrew, is up 10 instants after we arrive. Bloody hell, mentions Martin.

The rest take off, and its clear theyre having a good time. Smoothly, gracefully, they fly backward and forward over the hillside until it seems almost dull, this boating around, as the initiated called it. Drifting down from the tandems return grabs of conversation that you might well exchange over prosecco. When involved, their teachers liven thoughts up with big-hearted changes and coilings, which appear very exciting. Their domination is so good that they can come over and waver within touching distance while we talk.

Mark Sutton, “the mens” who parachuted into the London Olympics stadium dressed as James Bond, was killed wingsuit moving in the Swiss Alps in 2013. Photo: CHAMUSSY/ SIPA/ REX/ Shutterstock

Science teacher Becky, 35, sits next to me, watching her banker boyfriend, John, enjoy his 39 th birthday present. Its like wearing a nappy, he enunciates when first fastened in. That was awesome, he says on property. Becky did a skydive formerly( crazy at the beginning) and a bungee rush( much worse, because you have to step off ). They didnt provoke in her the addiction that it did in Jess. She talks about the skydive like it was a first taste of marzipan good, yes , not over-rated , no particular need to do it again. Its trying brand-new circumstances, isnt it? she reads. Life would be a bit boring if you dont try new things.

Was life boring before extreme plays? It was surely less safe than it is now.( Gaze up the violent crime and road accident statistics .) Some do Evel Knievel started the cult by showing girls that roughly croaking “couldve been” refrigerate. Some say nonsense, “its been” Sondre Norheim. Or Otto Lilienthal. Or Franz Reichelt. Or Leslie Irvin. Or George Freeth. If you have no idea who those people were, then we havent reached the phase yet where the pioneers of downhill skiing, gliding, parachuting, skydiving and surfing are household names, but it is clear that what they started is no fad. You maybe know somebody who has done all the things these men were considered lunatics for trying. You may have tried a few yourself.

The Dangerous Sports Club needs a special mention, in part for exemplifying the crazed inventiveness and nonconformist ethos of extreme play. Organized by a group of well-to-do sidekicks at Oxford University, the DSC liked to think up perilous capers to play-act wino and in black tie, such as a ancestry down the ski slopes of St Moritz on a Louis XIV dining decide or a grand piano, or voyaging through gusts to the remote islet of Rockall, then accommodating a tea party. A younger is part of the DSC afterward constructed the monstrous trebuchet, which shot beings 100 ft into a net, eventually killing a 19 -year-old student announced Dino Yankov. The enormous gift of the DSC, nonetheless, is bungee jumping, which they acted for the first time on Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol on April Fools Day 1979, after a nighttime of boozing, without any preliminary tests.

Sutton with stuntman Gary Connery, in 2012 in Henley-on-Thames, preparing for a jumping. Photo: Gary Connery Archive/ Getty Images

Safety goes more thought these days, but the spirit of experimentation has never undermined in extreme sport. A decade ago, plain basi startle was the new frontier.( Instead of skydiving from a plane, you use a construct, feeler, encompas or Earth cover not bridge because the founders “ve decided that” babe hopping might not be taken as gravely, according to Phil Mayfield, who was one of them .) Today base jump-start is tame without a wingsuit, and wingsuits are tame unless you use them to get close to happenings, from time to time so close like Emanuele piloting through a 2.6 m defect in the rock-and-roll that it is obviously dangerous. But the peril reached him famous.

Perhaps next it will be jet-powered surfboards.( They prevail .) Or kids everywhere will model the Russian roofers who get themselves photographed hanging precariously from towering structures, and often autumn. Last-place month Luke Aikins became the first person to skydive without a parachute. After a descend of 25,000 ft, he landed in a giant net. It is breathtaking, he discovered.

At experiences the inventiveness is virtually ludicrous. Base jumping blindfolded, or with your bird-dog( that was Potter ), or with a parachute attributed to perforates in your back: youll find all of these online. But then, thanks to rugged cameras, video hosting and social media, these brief but stunning times of extreme play are as well-suited to 2016 as “couldve been”. No broadcasters offer billions for skydiving or skateboarding privileges just yet, but GoPro, Red Bull and others sponsor some of best available athletes to roam the world stirring exceedingly marketable clips. If we want a reason why extreme athletics have flourished so much this century, this neat fit between the producers and the money looks just like a good guess.

The number of first-time parachute rushes in Britain has increased by 50% the past 10 years. Photo: Ken Fisher/ Getty Images

And these may still be early days. Harmonizing to a report from the US presentation busines Delaware North, 100 hours of GoPro video are uploaded on to YouTube every minute, and sales of war cameras are growing at 50% a year. By 2020, extreme plays will objection professional and collegiate squad athletics for the claim of most-watched category of plays material, research reports responds. Today theyre a blip on the screen compared to the big business of professional sports, but participation in action and undertaking athletics has outshone conventional plays at the recreational level.

And where their commercial limits lie, it is hard to say. BMX and snowboarding are Olympic occasions now, and clambering, skateboarding and channel-surf will be in 2020. But I wonder whether plays such as wingsuit hovering had now been passed the limit of safety. Perhaps the same get for freediving, in which people rival to swim as deep as is practicable while hampering their breath, and where leading proponents, such as Natalia Molchanova and Nicholas Mevoli have recently died.

Pushing is part of sport, of course, but whats being pushed here is safety. A good footballer or tennis musician always wants to be tested against better opponents, but their opposings are human, so that can only proceed in so far. In extreme athletics, the antagonist is danger. As one of the worlds best known climbers and wingsuit flyers, Steph Davis, wrote in January, the limit comes when you hit the terrain. Instead, she advocated, Perhaps advance intends something very different. Perhaps it makes refining the experience, becoming safer, more beautiful and more mindful. Davis has been married twice, to Dean Potter and Mario Richard. Both men died in wingsuit collisions( Potter after their divorce ). Perhaps the future of extreme sports is hearing to be less extreme.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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viralhottopics · 8 years ago

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Right-to-Repair is ridiculous

Congrats, you got it apart. Now what?

Image: Shutterstock / PATHOMRAT PRAERIN

My co-worker, Tracey, held her iPhone like a baby bird with a bent wing.

I stared at the dark screen. The device was still on, but stuck somewhere between living technology and a dead iPhone. Tracey said that the device made a popping sound and got really hot in one corner while she was making a phone call. Then, her screen cracked, and burnt her ear. She wanted to know what to do. She explained the incident happened shortly after having third-party iPhone screen repair company iCracked replace her shattered iPhone 6 screen. iCracked was ready to let the original technician repair her phone again. I warned her against it. The phone was obviously dangerousand letting them touch it again probably wouldnt help. In fact, I thought it might hurt.

Right-to-Repair? What a ridiculous phrase. No one has the right to repair anything.

I was reminded of this episode as I read about Nebraska, the latest state to consider new Right-to-Repair legislation. If the legislation passes, it’d require Apple, Samsung, and other electronics manufacturers to supply parts and detailed repair manuals to everyone, including repair shops, and average consumers. And there are several legislative efforts like it underway around the country.

Right-to-Repair? What a ridiculous thing to say. No one has the right to repair anything. You might have the skill to repair something (something that iCracked tech might’ve lacked). And you can hand people all the schematics, instructions, and parts you want and they still wont be able to replace an iPhone battery or screen.

Another way to say it

We dont lead with that language, said The Repair Associations Executive Director Gay Gordon-Byrne.

Her organization supports Right-to-Repair legislation around the country. Gordon-Byrne, who has a bit of a DIY streak in her, agreed that repairing something isn’t a right like free speech. In fact, some of the legislation her organization sponsors is called Fair Repair. The Right-to-Repair language actually started in the auto industry. Obviously, it would be silly for us not to take advantage [of it.], she told me.

Even though the language of the legislation being pushed in Nebraska includes the word consumers and reads broadly, Gordon-Byrne insists the goal of the legislation isn’t you should repair your own stuff.

That may be so, but I worry the DIY community, the Maker community, and especially Apple-repair shop iFixitwhich stands firmly behind Right-to-Repair, and urges their site’s visitors to support itfeel otherwise.

The company, which sells an excellent line of repair tools and kits, does daily teardowns of popular consumer electronics products, and rates them on repairability. It gave the iPhone 6 a 7 out of 10 score, which makes it sound quite repairable. Of course, the teardown features 22 steps using four specialized tools you can buy, naturally, from iFixit. Its screen replacement guide for the phone features 26 steps, an $80 part, and seven tools.

Gordon-Byrne says companies like iFixit should be credited with small third-party iPhone repair services that do exist. Without the intel they provide on how these products are made and the components within them, as well as the tools and, sometimes, replacement parts they offer? There probably wouldnt even be an iCracked.

The End of Repair

When they work, sites and services like iFixit and iCracked fill in a crucial gap between the end of your iPhone warranty and buying a new iPhone. But Traceys experience makes me wonder if the entire consumer electronics repair industry is a farce. Apple and Samsung aren’t building these products to be repaired. They started with batteries that cant be removed, and continued with hidden screws. Even water-resistance flies in the face of a repair job. ‘Soon as you open that phone, you can probably kiss any real waterproofing you might’ve had goodbye.

This, for Gordon-Byrne, is a positive. Most repair is actually simpler than people expect, she told me, adding that many repairs aren’t “repairs” at alltheyre just parts replacement. If a board goes dead, the repair shop slips it out, and slides a new board in.

Shes right, but the typical consumer gamely trying to repair their iPhone wouldnt get that far in. Theyd struggle to open the device, and probably wouldnt know how to unplug the front panel that includes both the LCD and glass screen cover.

I agree, theres a shift in manufacturing that has tended to using more adhesives and more integrated parts, said Gordon-Byrne.

Its not that I dont believe in better-built products and repairability. We need tightening against planned obsolescence cyclesTV sets that once lasted 25 years now fail after five. Im also a tinkerer. Ive taken apart everything from VCRs to BlackBerry Curve phones and their classic scroll buttons. When I see moving parts, I think: repairability. Todays phones have almost no moving parts. At least the iPhone 6 had a moveable home button. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus dont even have that.

Apple would rather just not.

Apple, which wouldn’t comment for this story, has made no secret of its distaste for the Right-to-Repair movement, lobbying against it in multiple states. Its also sought to steer people away from third-party and potentially unlicensed repair companies by lowering the cost, in the U.S., at least, of some of its own repair services (Apple doesn’t cover most cracked screens unless the crack was caused by a manufacturing defect). The company also understands just how hard it is to repair and dismantle its own products. In 2015, Apple introduced LIAM, a custom-design, iPhone-dismantling robot. Its still a prototype, and only safely dismantles an iPhone 5, but it also separates and sorts recyclable and hazardous materials. My guess is that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, iPhones will be so thin, powerful, and complex than only a robot will be able to repair them.

Opponents contend that Apple’s fighting Right-to-Repair legislation because it wants to protect trade secrets. But which ones, exactly? iFixit teardowns reveal virtually every component inside these devices. There’s clearly some stuff iFixit cannot figure out via observation. Im fine with that. Apple wanting to protect some details of its iPhone technology is no different than Kentucky Fried Chicken trying to protect its secret recipe.

DIY disasters

I think its a fair concern that Right-to-Repair laws could lead to an explosion of Radio Shack-like iPhone and Samsung electronics parts shops. Consumers will wander in with broken iPhone and Samsung Galaxy screens, and walk out with all the parts and tools they need to repair them. And they will fail, miserably.

Plus, what if a consumer’s injured during a failed repair attempt? They slice open a finger on the cracked glass, or put it back together incorrectly, so the battery fails (and maybe even explodes). Its the consumers fault, obviously, but they could also try to sue Apple or Samsung.

Gordon-Byrne laughed off my concern. I cant imagine someone going in to try and sue Apple for a finger cut, when its already clear that the phone has glass and that glass is fragile.

The Right-to-Repair movement would make a lot more sense to me if it focused solely on industrial technology. Farming and manufacturing equipment are, increasingly, filled with hard-to-repair solid-state components. When theres millions of dollars (and potentially: infrastructure) on the line, it makes sense to ensure that businesses, farms, even governments can repair this equipment, as opposed to simply having to replace it.

The Repair Association has, in fact, considered pursuing something less inclusive. Gordon-Byrne pointed me to Wyoming and Kansas, two states considering legislation tailored to farm and ranching equipment. On its Wyoming Bill page, though, The Repair Association says it would like to see the bill be adjusted to include all digital equipment.

Too new to fail

If Right-to-Repair succeeds, Gordon-Byrne sees a lot more people getting trained and going into business for themselves as technicians. It could be a booming business. It could also face one very big challenge: modern product-upgrade cycles. New smartphone manufacturer and carrier plans are encouraging consumers to upgrade their phones every year (and pay a monthly fee, so they dont notice the $700 theyre plunking down for that new iPhone). Leaving aside clear profit motives, it introduces a new possibility to our smart-phone-owning existence: More and more people will be carrying like-new phones, and repair opportunities may dwindle.

That reality’s probably years away, though, and Right-to-Repair is struggling to make its way through a handful of state legislatures, which leaves us with the somewhat dicey status quo and companies like iCracked that are, even by their own admission, feeling their way through the repair process.

The repair industry was the wild west and to some extent, it still is. Said iCracked CEO and Founder AJ Forsythe.

He was understandably alarmed about Traceys experience, noting that its not the norm. iCracked does seem obsessed with repair quality. It even captures video of its parts on the assembly line and uses barcodes to attach that footage to the final product its iTechs use in repairs.

However, iCracked, like most third-party repair companies, is still flying partially blind-folded. Since Apple doesnt provide repair manuals and certified parts to companies like his, Forsythe has made over two dozen visits to China to find the companies supplying iPhone parts. Are they the exact same parts Apple uses? A lot of the time, they are the same, said Forsythe. But Apple is well known for forcing supply partners to, sometime subtly, alter components just for them. Could Forsythe be certain his LCD panels match Apples?

As far as we know from the supply chain team over there, they are wildly similar, or the same, he told me.

Forsythe, naturally, supports Right-to-Repair. I asked him if hes comfortable with even more consumers trying to repair their own phones. He acknowledged that not everyone’s as handy and tech savvy as he is. Would I feel comfortable having my father or mother repair a phone?”

“I guess [the answer] would be how well they could follow instructions.

AND NOW, A DIFFERENT OPINION: Apple doesn’t want you to repair your iPhone because they’re money-hungry and evil.