1) Great to see Mr. Munoz getting some press for himself since it's been Chris Anderson getting all the attention until now with his involvement in 3d Robotics. A bit sad that it's in the context of Munoz being "a mexican immigrant" rather that merely being "an awesome human" but I guess that's the angle here
2) There is a big rift between the UAV community and the general public regarding terminology. No one - not a single person as far as I can tell - in the community calls them "drones" because it is an ugly word and it's associated with machines that fly to pakistan and murder people. Everyone - every single person - outside the UAV community does call them drones. I see no solution to this except for the fact that if you're a part of that community and you meet someone else who is, and you call it a UAV or multirotor, they know you're "in" which is sort of cool I guess ;-)
1) I am a Mexican American so seeing a successful Mexican in tech is really uplifting because there are very few that I can relate with. Definitely an angle that the journalist used so I agree with you. The headline unfortunately caught my attention but hey that's life.
2)Fantastic point on the terminology. This is now filed in my brain for later use. Thanks!
It's not entirely unanimous though. A popular UAV community site is called http://diydrones.com/
This is analogous to the euphemism treadmill. Pretty soon "UAV" will become too dangerous sounding and the community will switch to another label.
Yes, lots of blogs and sites with "drone" in the domain name... part of our google-seo world I think.
1. Any type of multirotor, regardless of how autonomous it is or whether it has a camera transmitting video
2. An autonomous fixed wing military aircraft used to take grainy green videos and drop bombs
Although, actually, the second option would more likely not be the default, and called a "military drone" to clarify.
> Mexican immigrant Jordi Munoz says that waiting for his green card after he first moved to the United States made him feel as if he was living "in a big jail".
He may or may not have been an "illegal alien". He was waiting for his green card which would have given him authorization to work legally within the USA.
This is reiterated here:
> Yet he could not legally work, or even enrol at a college, until he got the identity card that proved his right to live and seek employment in the country.
This in the following paragraph it says:
> But instead of just sitting around during his frustrating seven-month wait back in 2007, Mr Munoz, a keen model plane enthusiast and computer programmer, started to build his own drone in his garage.
Nowhere does it say he was an "illegal alien" while he built a company. Nowhere does it mention he used "illegal documents", or built an "illegal business". Irregardless, he seems to now be a fully-authorized resident building a fully legal business.
Take your xenophobia and lack of reading comprehension somewhere else.
Yes, it sucks when an immigrant can do a better job than you huh. But don't worry, between the massive immigration BS, absurd healthcare costs and other things there's less and less reasons for someone to immigrate (legally, or even illegally) to the US
All countries are, are "people" with fences and guns, willing to slaughter people they don't like.
This kind of thinking is what has Africa and Eastern Europe all fucked up, forcing different indigenous groups together, carelessly increasing tensions so bad that wars break out. Go tell Bosnians, Israelites, Japanese, etc., that they shouldn't have their own country, see what happens.
Can't you just be happy that this guy came from nothing and built a great company?
But the underlying point is the same: the reason for the "country" is because people with guns and a fence said it is.
And it would be ideal if we all worked together to do something constructive.
Yet people are homeless, and people die from malnutrition and starvation. And the sick are ignored, or looked at as cash cows.
And it's not "irrational" idealism. It's acknowledging that there are other ways to socially go forward, rather than the capitalistic "I got mine, so fuck you" mentality. There's enough for everyone. No if's, and's, or buts. It's about time we matured as a global culture and strive for that end.