We continue our series of articles on orienteering. Of course, orientation techniques largely depend on the natural area in which we found ourselves. But a number of things remain fundamental, fundamental and common to any zone. We will talk about one of these methods today. It can be formulated: I sit high - I look far away. So today we'll be scrambling on trees, hills, rocks and other hills to scan the surrounding area for signs of people or paths to civilization.
So the task find high ground or the most tall tree convenient for climbing. Of course not always physical form lost extremal corresponds to climbing on cedars :), but if there are opportunities, you need to climb.
From high you can see signs of people, a city or village in the distance, the smoke of a taiga hut, the outlines of a clearing, rivers, roads, and you never know what else.
In arid areas, climbing a hill, you can see plants - a sure sign of the presence of water, and possibly an entire river. Also, in the forest, rising above the crowns of the forest, one can notice sea birds, a sign of the approach of the ocean, etc.
You always have to be inventive, analyze all, even seemingly meaningless, information. Flexible mind - best tool survival!
To more effectively climb high, even trees with a small number of branches, you should use shoelaces or a rope. You need to tie the shoelaces and clasping the tree trunk from behind, climb up. Thanks to the additional friction of the rope on the bark of the tree, it will be easier for you to stay on an even trunk and move up more efficiently.
There lived a grandfather and a grandmother.
They had a granddaughter Masha.
Somehow Masha's girlfriends called to the forest to pick mushrooms. The granddaughter was released by grandparents into the forest:
“Go, just keep an eye on your girlfriends, or you’ll get lost,” they said to Mashenka.
The girls came to the forest, began to pick mushrooms and berries.
Here Masha - tree by tree, bush by bush - and went far, far from her friends.
She began to haunt, began to call them. And the girlfriends do not hear, do not respond.
She came to the very wilderness, to the very thicket.
He sees - there is a hut. Masha knocked on the door - no answer. She pushed the door, the door opened.
Mashenka entered the hut, sat down by the window on a bench.
She sat down and thought: “Who lives here? Why can't you see anyone?"
And in that hut lived a huge bear. Only he was not at home then: he walked through the forest.
The bear returned in the evening, saw Masha, was delighted.
- Yeah, - he says, - now I won't let you go! You will live with me. You will heat the stove, cook porridge, feed me porridge.
Masha grieve, grieved, but nothing can be done.
She began to live with a bear in a hut. The bear will go into the forest for the whole day, and Mashenka is punished not to leave the hut anywhere without him.
And if you leave, - he says, - I’ll catch it anyway and then I’ll eat it!
Mashenka began to think how she could escape from the bear. She thought and thought and thought.
Once a bear comes from the forest, and Mashenka says to him:
- Bear, bear, let me go to the village for a day: I will bring gifts to my grandmother and grandfather.
- No, - says the bear, - you will get lost in the forest. Give me the gifts, I'll take them myself! And Mashenka needs it!
She baked pies, took out a large box and said to the bear:
- Look, I'll put the pies in the box, and you take them to your grandfather and grandmother. Yes, remember: do not open the box on the way, do not take out the pies. I'll climb into the oak tree, I'll follow you!
Okay, - the bear answers, - let's box! Mashenka says:
- Get out on the porch, see if it's raining!
As soon as the bear came out onto the porch, Mashenka immediately climbed into the box, and put a dish of pies on her head.
The bear returned, he sees - the box is ready. He put him on his back and went to the village.
A bear walks between the fir trees, a bear wanders between birches, descends into ravines, rises to the hillocks. Walked, walked, tired and says:
I'll sit on a stump, eat a pie!
And Mashenka from the box:
I sit high - I look far away
Don't sit on a stump, don't eat a pie!
Bring it to grandma, bring it to grandpa!
Look, what a big-eyed one, - says the bear, - sees everything! He picked up the box and went on.
He came to the village, found Mashenkin's house, and grandfather and grandmother met him:
- I brought you presents from Masha, - says the bear.
And the dogs sensed the bear and rushed at him. From all yards they run, bark.
The bear was frightened, put down the box and set off into the forest without looking back.
Grandfather and grandmother came up to the box, opened the lid, and there Masha!
That was joy!
Surely many of you have seen such scenes in films - someone hooks a "bug" on someone's car, then follows the villains along a beautiful interactive map to the very cache, in last moment rescue bound goodie, shooting-explosions-blood-dismemberment ... well, you understand) Everything is in the best traditions of one-time films, I watched it and forgot.
However, such "spy things" have always aroused interest, which could well find application in our Everyday life. Are there such devices as in the movies? I present my new review.
You can’t call the hero of today’s review a spy - he will easily give himself away at least in size, not to mention the unambiguous GPS inscription on the case. However, you won’t immediately understand what it really is - if they hadn’t told me, then I would have been lost even in the wildest guesses.
Let's talk about a GPS tracker. MamaGPS. The manufacturer's website provides examples of using the device - for children, the elderly and for pets. I will not pull the cat by the tail and list its main features, according to the documentation:
Location determination at any time
- View location, moving speed at any time on GoogleMaps
- View the history of movements on the map
- 4 channels for voice communication
- SOS signal transmission
- Transfer of information both by SMS and by E-mail (in the format "street, house")
- Message about exceeding the set speed
- Message about entering / exiting a certain territory
- Service management on a personal page on the Internet
Inside the box is the tracker itself, charging from the network and from the car's cigarette lighter, as well as USB-miniUSB wires - unfortunately, no disk with software, not even instructions. The fact is that the roots of the device grow from the Netherlands, where the existence of Russia is not even suspected. Therefore, maybe the manual is meant to be downloaded from the manufacturer’s website, but I still didn’t dare to dig there - it’s still not clear.
But good deed Ukrainian craftsmen are engaged in developing a service for these trackers - they already have everything for more than understandable language. Including the manual.
Appearance
The dimensions are very compact - a little more Zippo lighters; the tracker easily fits in a fist. Weight with battery less than 100 grams.The front side of the device is made of black glossy plastic, it has a speaker, a power button and a 5-position "circle", which will be discussed later.
On the sides you can find SOS buttons ... Why two identical buttons? That's right, so that the alarm signal is not sent by chance, you need to hold down two buttons at the same time.
On the right, you can connect an external antenna behind a rubber plug, and on the left, there is a microSD port where you can additionally record data. The SOS button on the left side is combined with another button - together they are responsible for the volume level.
It's good that the connectors of the device are protected by rubber plugs - practical. And another nice little thing - holes for attaching the lace.
The back cover is almost matte and there is a lock on one of the ends:
Inside there is a 750mAh lithium-ion battery - given that there are no color displays, Wi-Fi and other goodies, one charge is enough for almost a day of GPS data transmission.
Under the battery is an IMEI code and a slot for a SIM card, thanks to which data will be sent to the network and which will open access to other interesting functions.
Turn on and work
Despite the fact that some examples of using the device were presented on the site, I didn’t even have the thought of “attaching” the tracker to a child, a cat or a grandmother - first of all, I wanted to beat the scenario ... with a car. I recently did a review of a fairly expensive MINI Cooper S, on which it was decided to try out the spy trick.
Imagine - you bought a car, and in the cabin you were still forced to install an alarm system, even the most incredible one, with "satellite tracking". A dishonest salon employee (or insurer) reports to the side all the information about the car and the security system, which greatly facilitates the work of the hijackers. They leave in your car, overcoming the standard system, not even suspecting that ... you installed your little “plug-in” without violating any guarantees, interfering with the design of the car and without other problems) This can be done within a minute after leaving the salon, no one giving notice. No, upon arrival in a quiet place, it will not be difficult for craftsmen to find the tracker, turn it off and throw it out the window, but all the information will already be on the network.
The minicar has a nice bonus in the luggage compartment - a second “cigarette lighter” inconspicuously hid there, into which you can plug anything (for example, an inverter or a pump) - it was a sin not to plug in the charging from the device; the tracker itself was hidden in a small cutout designed for a first aid kit. As a result, almost nothing betrayed the presence of a foreign device, while the tracker itself became completely autonomous in terms of power (not counting the Internet). Palevno, yes, but it is unlikely that the first thing the hijackers will climb under the hood or in the trunk - of course, they will first drive off, and only then ... But the whole charm is that you can follow your car in hot pursuit on your own and immediately, not waiting for slow workers in the alarm service - unless, of course, the tracker's GPS signal is jammed. In general, a whole script for the film, but as it turned out, everything works.
In my case, I drove 700 km from Moscow, to the legendary city of Uryupinsk, in the Volgograd region. The trip was about 8 hours - all this time the tracker silently worked autonomously in the glove compartment (given that the device can work autonomously up to 20 hours, then you could find a car not only in Uryupinsk, but also in a more distant sub-sub-Moscow area, for example, somewhere in Yekaterinburg or even Omsk). Without noise and dust, the tracker "burned" our route with a fairly high accuracy - at least in some places the trajectory of our movement coincided up to a meter. But it's better than nothing at all, right?
There are some inaccuracies along the route itself - perhaps this is due to the speed and the fact that the tracker was hidden in the depths of the cabin (this can be solved by installing an external antenna). When the tracker was in your pocket, the signal was transmitted much more accurately, as evidenced by the trajectory of movement in the park:
Or another "test" - I asked a friend to drive the car in any direction (with a tracker in the glove compartment) and stop. Armed with a netbook and an egg from an iota, I found a cunning and contented face in neighboring yards - already 10 minutes later, walking on foot.
All these are screenshots of the map in GoogleMaps, where the tracker can export its data in a couple of clicks. If you wish, you can do it yourself. Everything is convenient and very visual - almost like in the movies :)
Here is a video to illustrate:
If we discard all bad thoughts, then this device can still come in handy in many other places. For cyclists (memorize the route and share it with friends), for photographers (overlay geo-data on photos), just for travelers ... but in many places. And, of course, to control children and the elderly, who periodically know how to tickle their nerves - as you can see, the tracker will greatly facilitate their search. The only strange thing is that the kit does not come with some kind of case with a carabiner or something else there - now the only reliable option is to put the device in a zippered pocket.
As for the rest of the functions, in my opinion, less useful.
On board the device there is a slot for a microSD card - there, if you insert a card, the tracker will write GPS data that it sends to the server. It is useful if the SIM card runs out of money for accessing the network - the data will not be lost, later it can be exported to the system. For a thousand kilometers, the tracker recorded 48kb of data and another 500kb of some system data, such as "Brace yourselves, I'm sending data to the server!".
There are 4 buttons on the front - 4 numbers for an "emergency" can be attached to them in the tracker's administration panel. By simultaneously pressing two SOS buttons, an SMS with the coordinates of the tracker (address "street, house") is sent to the first phone in the SOS list, and at the same time a voice call is sent. Incoming calls are accompanied by a cheerful ringtone.
In addition to SMS, you can call the specified phones - just press the desired button and "OK". For a conversation, there is an external speaker, volume control buttons and even a wired headset jack - it is hidden from above behind a rubber plug.
There is a small undocumented feature fine tuning devices. So, for example, one of the commands (they are sent via SMS) allows you to make sure that every time the connection is lost, the tracker does not start a new GPRS session - this will lead to considerable money savings, and the operator will not round the slightest session to the numbers that are beneficial to him (in this case, the tracker has a cache so that the data does not disappear). After a trip to Uryupinsk and back, the balance on the SIM card amounted to 191.48 rubles - when buying a SIM card (Megafon Login), I put 200 rubles on it with a margin.
As for the web interface, it is quite good. A map on which the trajectory of the selected tracker is plotted (there can be several trackers registered on an account).
Above - a menu with various settings.
The time and coordinates of the movement are shown on the right - you can select any period of time and see the trajectory for this period. All coordinates can be exported to GoogleMaps.
If desired, you can set "green zones", upon exiting from which (or upon entering which) the tracker will send an alarm SMS message to the phone specified in the settings.
Very cool in general. I thought everything would be much more deplorable, but it turned out that it works the way I imagined it.
Specifications
General specification- GSM 900/1800/1900
- GPRS class 12
- Built-in GSM and GPS antenna
- Sensitivity: -159 dBm
- Replaceable, rechargeable 750 mA/h Li-Ion battery
- GPS+GSM/GPRS full time work up to 5.5 hours
- GPS standby time up to 8.5 hours
- Size: 88.5mm x 40mm x 19.95mm
- Weight: without battery 57g / with battery 72g
- Operating conditions: -10°C to +50°C
- Mini USB port for battery charging
GPS
- GPS Chipset: SiRF Star III
- Channels: 20
- Sensitivity: -159 dBm in tracking mode
- Refresh: 0.1 sec., medium
- Hot start: 1 sec., average
- Cold start: 42 sec., average
- Cold start (AGPS): 8 sec., average
Advantages and disadvantages
Equipment
Compact size, light weight
Good build, rubber plugs
GPS and GRPS modules in one bottle; microSD slot
Decent battery life
SOS function and "smart" filling
Convenient and functional WEB-interface
Only 10 free SMS every month, if you need more - you have to pay
No lace included
Price
The price is quite biting - about $245. Whether the “protected” object is worth this money - let everyone decide for himself.
The end
Whether it's a bad tracker or a good one, I don't know - at least because it's the first GPS tracker I've ever tested and I don't know what the competitors have there. But I liked it. And in my opinion, this “toy” beats its cost one hundred percent - in addition to the main task (which the tracker does an excellent job of), there are many different non-core chips that may also be useful to someone. Small size and weight, practical case, for a long time battery life and good service - all in order to provide all possible assistance in problems that can happen to any of us.I anticipate comments like " On eBay similar things from $ 5 with delivery» - happy owners, write if there is at least export to GoogleMaps ;)
Thank you for your attention.
Good luck!
The other day, Kvartblog went to the workshop of designer Roman Bondarev to get acquainted with his most interesting creation - the SitUp vertical workplace.
SitUp is a complete compact workplace with an area of 0.7 m2. It is equally comfortable to sit and stand at a high table, and the interlocutors will always be at eye level.
The idea of creation was born, as it happens, quite spontaneously. According to Roman, during the repair in the apartment, he simply put the laptop on the IKEA rack, and when he came up to check the mail, he suddenly realized what a convenient position it was. Since it is very difficult to work standing at a computer all day long, a bar stool was bought that year, which, due to its design, turned out to be extremely unsuitable for fruitful activity. Firstly, bar stools do not have armrests, and secondly, the back, as a rule, is so small that it is impossible to lean on it and relax. Having felt all the pluses and minuses on himself, Roman decided that it was necessary to create a design that would satisfy all the planned parameters.
Inspired by this idea, he went with his family to Anapa, where for a year he developed a prototype in a garage located in the basement of a private house. As he himself recalls: “I used the minimum number of tools, and, naturally, the process dragged on. It was creativity, the search for ideal solutions, manual labor. I wanted to create something completely new: not just an unusual table and chair, but an original concept that would make it comfortable for a person to work both sitting and standing.”
Now the production time for one SitUp site takes no more than two to three weeks. At the same time, the model has been considerably modified and continues to change. There are many additional options that the client can order: side folding "wings" that increase the space of the table, a cup holder, a retractable table top. The most interesting thing is that each such workplace can reflect the taste of the owner and harmoniously fit into the interior. It is enough to choose any paint for the design, as well as bring the designer fabric or leather, which can be covered with pillows. And even the material itself from which the SitUp is made can be changed: ash is used by default, but oak, beech and walnut are also suitable for production.
SitUp is available in two sizes - M (Medium) and L (Large). The size of the place depends on how tall the one who will work behind it. I was lucky: in the workshop "Yard of Collaborators", a report about which you will see next week, there was just a set in size M, perfect for my small height - 165 cm. This is one of the founders of the SitUp family: an old modification, which, however, adheres to the same principles. And when Roman and I talked enough, I decided to take the opportunity and test SitUp, about which so much has been said. As soon as I settled comfortably in a high chair, the habit worked out over the years to push the chair to the table, and not vice versa. And here I am, with a terrible sound, trying to bring myself closer to the table top ... As it turned out, another principle applies here: the table is equipped with two wheels, thanks to which it easily and naturally takes the position that the person sitting wants. When I realized this, I could not resist the temptation to roll it back and forth. Still, it is very unusual: to move the table, while remaining in the same place.
When I finally took the final position, it turned out that the back was in a pleasant position, and the legs were not hanging in the air, but were comfortably on the bar. Frankly, I settled down so well that I did not want to leave my familiar place. But the concept of SitUp also implies a vertical position. Here's something else to check. Reluctantly, I pushed the table away and stood up. And here again there were assistants: the height of the tabletop was suitable for putting the elbows, and it was convenient to put the leg on the lower crossbar and thereby evenly distribute the weight of the body. This, of course, is an unusual position for work, but you quickly get used to comfort, even if it is achieved in an unusual way.
