.

I used to be a surveyor! The tripods have different tools you can put on top.

A ‘level’ is used to look at rod (some distance away) with measurement gradations on it, like a ruler, to add or subtract height from its current position to determine elevation. You can transfer measurements long distances by leap-frogging positions of the level and the rod. If you start or end at a known USGS monument, you can tie into historicity known elevations. This is how elevations were mapped before GPS (but the survey markers are still used today). They have some really fancy auto-levels that read a qr-style barcode and can measure down to very precise heights.

A ‘thedolite’ is a robot-style machine that uses triangulation to determine elevation, distance, and angle. You benchmark it in place so it knows its location, then uses a rod with a prism it can follow. It calculates degrees it turns horizontally and pivots vertically to calculate where you are with the prism. It will automatically guide you to pre-programmed points to lay out very precise locations. Or you can use it to capture really precise points that are in the field. I haven’t been a surveyor in 20years, but they could easily layout points to millimeter accuracy when I was in the game.

We also used lidar scanners to capture ‘as-built’ maps or calculate volumes of material. A lidar scanner shoots out a laser a few 100,000 times a second as the scanner turns on the tripod. When it bounces off an object, it returns a x,y,z coordinate and a color of the object it bounces off of. When you get a few million returned, you get a point cloud that represents the physical area you are mapping. When you move the scanner and repeat the process, you can map out large areas to a pretty high degree of accuracy. We once used a scan of a statue that was built in the 1800s to compare against the weight of construction materials so we could calculate the crane load expected to move it. Pretty cool stuff!

Oooohhhh… no. It was in the flight path for O’hare and very… not nice. Also, I’m from the south and know nothing of building techniques in cold climates. It wasn’t expensive, but didn’t feel unsafe.

I had heated floors in a Chicago apartment. I would lay tomorrow’s clothes on the floor at night and they were toasty warm when I put them on in the morning. Then, I’d put my blanket on the floor when I left for work and it would be nice and warm when I was ready to jump into bed at night.

This doesn’t make sense. Whether they sit out or vote 3rd party doesn’t matter. The strategic reason for GOP financiers supporting a 3rd party candidate is to draw votes away from their opponent. A sit-out or a vote for 3rd party achieves the same thing.

Encouraging people to sit out is just encouraging people to disengage from the entire process, which will enforce a trend that helps GOP candidates.

Might be a reasonable argument if you didn’t have 76 years of his rotten behavior as precedent in processing the decision made by a jury of his peers…

PENIS MIGHTIER!

To add a bit more to the national security angle: with the potential to escalate into open warfare with China, due to tensions between Taiwan and China, we really don’t want millions of drivable computers sending harvested metadata about our road systems and behavior patterns directly to enemy leadership.

If you are going to execute someone with nitrogen, would it add that much cost to anesthetize them to sleep first?

I’m not for capital punishment but realize that it’s the system we have. But slowly suffocating someone to death is surely demonstrative of the fact that it’s supposed to be torture.

Yes

Customer still pays the raised wage price, but a new company gets injected as a middle man. That’s the true American dream. Same income for the business, but another layer of corporations cleans up instead of the people actually making the work happen.

They should create incentive by taxing the shit out of businesses and offering tax breaks for actually offering living wages and benefits to their employees. If the “correct” answer in capitalism is to find the cheapest solution, make it expensive to make choices that are a detriment to the community the business operates in.

… try… they’re going to try to take over Taiwan.

Same same. I had a thermos I accidentally left hot cocoa (made with milk) in for about 6 months when it fell behind my car seat. I thought I was going to have to throw it out because it smelled so horribly rancid. I booked some water and flushed it out and used white vinegar for a few overnight soaks and it got the smell out. Like a brand new thermos…

Outrage addiction is a real thing… and it is a driving force in both news media and social media.

And I say that fully aware of the doom-scrolling nature of this platform, amongst others…

Not likely… he’s been under investigation for years. I was hoping his spat with the republicans that impeached him would accelerate his other legal issues, but they all concluded with a big nothing.

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Don’t ask if you don’t want the answer.

They will tell you it’s a sin to jerk off and will probably try to pass legislation making that illegal, too.

Just rub one out and move on…

I don’t get their arguement. The federal govt can’t tell them they aren’t allowed to print or report on something… and they aren’t. The govt is just warning the citizenry that the information being reported on is funded by foreign interest and contains biased or non-factual information.

They are specifically not interfering with freedom of the press by letting these media outlets publish whatever they want. That doesn’t means they don’t get to have an opinion and definitely doesn’t mean they don’t have a responsibility to help protect the nation’s citizenry.

People have the misunderstanding that the 1st amendment means you can say anything you want without consequence. The govt can’t stop you from saying something, but you are still accountable for the things you say in the marketplace. The govt is allowed to say you are full of shit and the marketplace can decide if they believe you or them.

Well, that and gerrymandering…

You have a choice. Use their service with the shitty ads or find something else to do.

It sucks, but that’s what you’ve got.