Flying machines of Chinese farmers | Hacker News Reader

Flying machines of Chinese farmers

bbc.com

120 pointshappy-go-lucky22 comments

No mention of how they share what they learn with each other. I know the main bottleneck here is material / financial, but I get the impression there's also an information bottleneck. Getting them networked might dim the romance a little, but it also might mitigate the tragedy.

The article mentions at least one of them can't read or write. Would be an interesting challenge to build a knowledge sharing platform in that case.

Wechat built its initial traction by having voice memos as a first class interface element in its app. There are entire communities of illiterate Chinese communicating using purely voice memos/stickers.

Yes, but are voice memos indexable and searchable? Maybe they can be, but don't know what enterprising startup would find it profitable to create the machine learning algorithms necessary to do this successfully. As a well-funded nonprofit, maybe. Because of illiteracy, your metadata would also need to be a significant amount of audio, at least for the illiterate humans.

Alexa, search for airplane propeller.

Touche.....

The cancer of Web 2.0 summed up in one proposition

> Getting them networked might dim the romance a little, but it also might mitigate the tragedy.

True, it would result in a mixed experience.

Guess it goes to show when given more and more freedom and property rights inspiration takes off. going to assume it is only semi legal to fly such things in China or perhaps the rules have not caught up with the hobbyist?

The article mentions it being illegal, but it's interesting to note that many of the aircraft pictured would be legal in the US without certification as "ultralights." The cutoff is 254 pounds.

Any pictures? The story is about a photographer after all. And the machines have got to be amazing steampunk-inspired marvels. I'd really have preferred a pictorial essay.

There are pictures embedded in the article.

Oh! The first time, there were none. Now I revisit and see them. Strange.

This reminds me about "Astronaut Farmer" movie.

Another nail in the coffin of the thesis that Chinese people can never innovate.

I remember my first impression after getting acquainted with silkworm history being that Chinese people actually discover things but aren't that much into sharing!

That's the conclusion you draw from judging the poor but resourceful?

Does EAA have much presence in China? These guys should be members.

There is basically no general aviation in China-- the airspace is controlled via the military and the regulations are extreme (flight plans require 2 days notice!). However as of last year they are loosening these restrictions and plan to establish a larger GA industry:

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/general-aviation/2016...

> 'aeronauts', literally meaning 'being born into air'.

<pedant>Incorrect. The suffix -naut is from Greek naute^s, meaning sailor. Of course it may be that the Chinese phrase used does mean "being born into air", but then the article should say that</pedant>

Maybe they were thinking "aeronat" :)

(Nat- being a Latin prefix for "born", see "natal")

my eye read it as an autocorrect error where the author had attempted to write "borne" for that is what a ship does for sailors.

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