Category: learning curve

Norm for good service

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Boy away on school camp.
Girl takes full advantage of parents’ undivided attention, asks if we can do dinner.
Of course we can.

Dad checks menu online.
Dad reads the small print.
Never read the small print.

Small print too small for you? Here’s what it says:

Gratuity Policy
We hereby respectfully advise that gratuity is not included in our main prices. The norm for good service is 100% of the total bill. The payment of gratuity is entirely voluntary and the amount is based on the quality of service.

Did I miss something here? Not since the Waterfront branch of Cape Town Fish Market conveniently informed tourists that ‘in South Africa, we routinely tip twenty percent’ has there been such a blatant attempt to rip restaurant patrons off.

But even the pisspoor CTFM kept it vaguely reasonable. This is completely off the scale. And at a restaurant where a 3 course meal plus wine will set you back ±R400 per person, it’s no wonder that the parking lot is full of Audis and Beemers – that’s clearly how the waiting staff get to and from work.

Negative perceptions

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On the DJI Mavic Pro Owners Facebook page, this question:

DRONE vs QUADCOPTER
would it be better if we started calling these “quadcopters” ? Public has a stigma against the word “drone”
drone = surveillance
quadcopter = hobby
just a thought …

I’ve only had my Mavic for a few weeks now, but I completely agree with this sentiment. When mention of it came up at the recent Molton Brown Curry Club, the immediate reaction was that I had obviously bought it to spy on my neighbours.

Yeah, that’s exactly why I spent $[loads] on the Mavic. I was desperate to see what was going on next door, and I needed to upgrade the current periscope over the back fence setup I was using previously.

And even when we’re on the field, flying well away from anyone and anything, we’ve noticed that we’re still getting disapproving looks from dog walkers. I like to think that I am a considerate flyer: I’m aware of the rules and of my responsibilities, and (literally) go out of my way to avoid disturbing or bothering other people.
But it’s only a matter of time until someone writes a dramatic letter to the school and flying there is banned. It’s coming.
And why? Well, here’s a reply on Facebook, which makes some good points:

Euphemism treadmill. No matter what we call it, it will be viewed negatively because of what it is. A flying camera. People don’t like the idea that they are being watched/recorded even in places where they don’t have a realistic expectation of privacy.

The school field being one of those places. If I was sitting on that same bench but rather than holding a Mavic controller, I was playing with the long lens on my camera, no-one would be so much as batting an eyelid. And I’d know that, because I could take photos of their eyelids from a huge distance away with the long lens on my camera.
Far more so than with the Mavic.

Facebook commenter continues:

The only way to break the stigma is to show people the positive side of them and show that they are less of a threat to their privacy than the kid across the street with a telescope.

Yes, of course. Except that while the Molton Brown boys might be open to this idea, the dog walkers on the school field will almost certainly not want to engage.

If you go down to Agulhas, you’ll see that just next to the lighthouse there is already a “Drone Free Zone” sign. Just a reminder that you’re not allowed to fly anywhere in any of the SA National Parks – and that’s absolutely fair enough. Their gaff, their rules.

I’ve been very careful to look (in detail) about where I can fly and where I can’t around Cape Agulhas. I’ve already got my routes planned and my photos and videos in my head, ready to go. All street legal, all above board and I can’t wait to play.
But half the reason for my checking and double checking this stuff is that I need to know my rights in case I am challenged, because I’m almost expecting that I will be.

Why? Because of those immediate negative perceptions around quadcopters, UAVs, flying cameras…

… around drones.

High

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Remember how I lamented not dragging my sorry ass out of bed last weekend? This weekend, I put all that right by dragging it (and the kids) down to Wynberg School field and taking the drone higher than I’d ever taken it before. 121 metres up in fact. That’s according the the flight log, which is part of the software that limits the drone to the 120 metres legal ceiling, so you do the maths.

It’s all rather academic anyway. While I launched from the flat field, I was sitting in the shade at the top of the steep bank (you can see me, at about 10 o’clock, actually), a good 5m up already.

I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t endangering anything or anyone.

The photo includes the kids, waving madly at a dot in the sky from the Jacques Kallis Oval, which as any fule kan see, are distinctly square.

My confidence in my ability, together with my knowledge of what Florence the drone can do, is growing all the time. It can’t be long now before I run out of excuses for taking kak photos with this amazing machine.

Don’t jump

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Is this unadventurous or is it sage advice?

I’m not talking about throwing yourself off the Derwent dam wall (which is where this is) – that surely makes a lot of sense, I mean “shattered spine” sums it up, yes – but more metaphorically.

I’m not much of a risk taker, personally, but I equally admire and pity those who are. I guess that some of them might look at me in the same way. But probably it’s more pity, right?

Yachts are complicated

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Look at cars. Loads and loads of different types, but generally all the same design.
A box on four wheels with an engine.

Now look at yachts. Loads and loads of different types, and all completely different. One hull, two hulls, three hulls. One mast, two masts, three masts. This sail, that rig, the other jib. And yes, I’ve begun to reference the technical language that goes with it, so you’re already playing catch-up.

(As an aside – which is your preferred keel type?)
(Fin, Wing, Bilge? Daggerboard or centreboard?)
(Meh – I digress. Your call. It’s all good.)

I was in contact with The 6000 miles… Maritime Correspondent last night, asking him to assist with deducing the type of sailing vessel depicted in a photograph wot I had saw on Facebook. Was it, perchance, a sloop? I thought that it might be – via the means of a process of elimination:

I was pretty sure that it wasn’t a fractional rig sloop (although now maybe it was – see UPDATE below) or a ketch, a schooner, a yawl, a cutter or a cat (no whiskers, see?). Alternatively, it could have been a barque, (always worse than their bite), a barquentine (always worse than their bitentine), a brig or a brigantine, but it wasn’t. Clearly.

Neither was it a true sloop though, because – as was pointed out by The Maritime Correspondent, it was gaff-rigged. And then, it turned out that actually, it didn’t fit into any given category anyway and was a completely new type of yacht. Great.

Kinda sloopy , but… not. Gaff-rigged, rather than the more traditional Bermuda or Marconi rig, see?

So, you can have variations on any of the above themes and that makes them not what you thought they were, then? Great.

And this is proven on the “types of sailboat” page which I got some of my “types of sailboat” information from, because even the expert author there was forced to issue a clarification:

In this article I’ve said that ketches, yawls and schooners with two headsails can be called cutter rigged. This is a commonly used description but strictly speaking, there’s only one rig that can accurately be called a cutter – and that’s a single-masted sailboat with two headsails.

Damn straight. I spotted that as soon as I logged on. Amateur.

Look, I like to know about things. I pride myself on my general knowledge. But yachts? Meh – you can keep them. Unnecessarily complicated. I’m happy to stick to my limited knowledge of woody or fibreglassy bit = hull, poley bit = mast, clothy bit = sail.

If you know more: fair play, well done. It’s not for me.

UPDATE: Oh Christ… incoming:

If you work it back, it appears that the Bermuda Sloop was originally a Gaff-Rig:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_sloop
So it could be argued that a gaff-rig is a type of sloop.
Our Yacht is a fractional rig sloop? Sloop is a bit of a generic term for any normal yacht, it appears…

*head explodes*