I have or would most like a personal drone to ...
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 14407 votes
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 40 comments
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Drones will come to resemble white blood-cells around your home and personal space, identifying and killing unauthorized foreign objects.
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The neighbor's five stray cats on the other hand, not so much.
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Check the "Toxic Waste ..." option.
Poll on the side (Score:1)
Cowboy Neal. (Score:5, Funny)
I wish I could vote for "Spy on the neighbors" and then "Expose toxic waste dumping or similar." Them bastards are poluting my creek!
Re:Cowboy Neal. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's okay, I almost always vote for the Cowboy. Only 53 of us have but it's good to see that he's not forgotten.
I don't actually have a use for a drone but, if I did, I'd just borrow one - presumably from CowboyNeal. I guess it's a fairly honest answer. I was gonna vote Cowboy regardless. Hell, I vote that way even when I *do* have an actual opinion - unless I hold a strong opinion or think the results of the poll are worth knowing.
We should do the hardware specs, OS, bandwidth and price, and various software polls again at some point. Nobody will be satisfied with the limits but the winners can get an award, a figurine wielding a knife - call it the Slashy Award.
Cowboy Neal v drone? (Score:2)
Y'all are thinking too small. My personal drone should be something a bit larger, so...
I think the Cowboy Neal option should have been something about a Hellfire missile. Sick joke, but we shouldn't forget or overlook those extreme uses of the drones... Maybe "Take out Cowboy Neal's enemies"?
Anyway, at the time I took the horse option as lease feasible, and I sort of "won" that prediction. At least it has the fewest votes right now... However, on third thought, the horses could be scared of Hellfire missile
Re:Cowboy Neal Baby! (Score:2)
Tyson is waiting nervously 'side the road, already tired of hearing "Whatcha gonna do Mike?", when he spots a Cowboy riding the fence line near the road. "Hey Cowboy," Iron Mike says, "Get dow
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*snickers* I've been preoccupied for a few days so I'm just getting to this now. Thanks. That one made me chuckle. I often have a return joke, one to give back, but I don't have any cowboy jokes or even one I can turn into a cowboy joke without it seeming odd. Ah well...
In order to repay you, I've got to write a novella. You needn't read it all but it's probably best if you do. Just to the row of asterisks is fine - if you'd prefer. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility! ;-)
I have this one f
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Bring me Yummy Food (Score:1)
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That works. I'm working on a SoC that is a robot. More a remote control car. His name is Rex. He has a sister, her name is T. Her job is to play media. She's just a media box, she's actually working now, as is the remote to control T. Rex, on the other hand, is an idiot. He's meant to bring the robot to me by following the sound of my voice. He does, technically, move when he hears something that he seems to think is my voice. He doesn't appear to go in any direction except forward and to the left. He sort
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It's okay, I almost always vote for the Cowboy. Only 53 of us have but it's good to see that he's not forgotten.
I don't actually have a use for a drone but, if I did, I'd just borrow one - presumably from CowboyNeal. I guess it's a fairly honest answer. I was gonna vote Cowboy regardless. Hell, I vote that way even when I *do* have an actual opinion - unless I hold a strong opinion or think the results of the poll are worth knowing.
We should do the hardware specs, OS, bandwidth and price, and various software polls again at some point. Nobody will be satisfied with the limits but the winners can get an award, a figurine wielding a knife - call it the Slashy Award.
With all the regulations, I'd probably never buy and register my own drone; don't want any of its activities tied back to me ;)
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Agree! Things are going in the right direction. Even the "News for nerds, stuff that matters" of olden days is back. Way to go!!
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It's good to see Coyboy neal take a spot at the polls. Didn;t vote for him, but it's good to see him.
I wish I could vote for "Spy on the neighbors" and then "Expose toxic waste dumping or similar." Them bastards are poluting my creek!
What happens then, you'll need the "Vanquish my foes" option I think.
Which is what I voted for. A drone to drive my enemies before me, also will need a microphone attached so I can hear the lamentations of their women.
Don't need it! [Re:parking spot defence\ (Score:2)
a drone not only to find open parking spots, but to forcibly fend off other pesky spot hunters...
I don't need that, because my self-driving car will just drop me off and then go off and pick up paying Uber customers while it waits for me-- the Watson AI will continuously download real-time Planet Lab images and estimate where public events are getting out and make sure it's the first in queue to pick up customers-- it will pay for itself!
You don't ever get just ONE innovation...
--
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pick up paying Uber customers while it waits for me-
Someone ought to cut uber out of the picture. Its just a lousy app after all. I'll list my car as available, set pricing, and it can sign up with a dozen competing ride booking apps. No reason to lock it into uber, or let them have more of the fare than the free market will allow for.
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except so many people will be using their cars to try and make money while they work, there won't be any profit in doing so.
No, Self driving races, THAT'S where the money will be.
Parking spot creation (Score:2)
a drone not only to find open parking spots, but to forcibly fend off other pesky spot hunters.
Just get a military predator drone then you don't need to worry about parking spot finding or defence: you can create one at will.
Beer not Food (Score:2)
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The (now disused) railroad freight category system placed beer as food. Food had a special symbol, which was painted on the outside of the cars. The idea was that it was a warning that the cargo could go bad if mishandled. From the 1880s, ice was added to keep the temperature down, which not only provided the ability to transport meat and fish long distances, but also to move cold beer around.
The technological breakthrough, which made this possible was the fridge. Today we just place one on each car and pow
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Old British stately homes had ice houses, usually a cave or hole dug into the ground. They'd collect ice from the (artificial) pond in the grounds and store it in the ice house, layered between straw to insulate and minimise melting.
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There are some things I don't want to outsource, to a drone or anything else.
Antenna support (Score:5, Interesting)
I want a personal drone to hold up my temporary 330 foot vertical wire antenna for 160 Meter band contests. 1910KHz LSB QRP!!!!
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IT's been tried. The noise isn't bad. However, the weight of the antenna becomes a bitch for quadcopters. However, there have been people who have put another 100' of 100lb test monofilament between the end of the longwire and a larger RC aircraft flying tight circles.
Kamikaze mission (Score:2)
D: All of the above! (Score:1)
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Coffee is food (Score:1)
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Plumbing.
Pfui, none of the above. (Score:1)
Bring me food on demand
->I can still manage to get my fat ass up
->off the couch to get my own food.
Spy on the neighbors
->I'm with the shoot drones out of the sky
->crowd. I respect my neighbors privacy and
->expect them to respect mine.
Find open parking spots
->Walk to work.
Vanquish my foes
->Don't have any.
Frighten the horses
->Why would anyone want to frighten poor
->horses that never did any wrong.
Expose toxic waste dumping or similar
->Maybe a good use, but would require
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Expose toxic waste dumping or similar
->Maybe a good use, but would require
->violating privacy.
Since this would inherently mean the waste was being dumped on (or leaking onto) land that isn't the owners, no, it wouldn't.
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If you can't figure out that the toxic waste that suddenly appeared on your own land must have come from somewhere, you're too stupid to... waitaminnit... I have some toxic waste I need to get rid of. I'm moving next door to you.
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Bring me food on demand
->I can still manage to get my fat ass up
->off the couch to get my own food.
I don't think we're talking about inside the house. The place I see as a perfect place for a drone is if you're on campus and get hungry and can call a pizza delivery. Or if you get to school and forget your homework and someone at home can drop it in a drone and deliver it to you. Or you're at the beach/pool/park and run out of beer/sunscreen/etc.. and you can order some from walgreen without leaving the party.
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So you never have food delivered to your home?
"Vanquish my foes
->Don't have any."
You are the type of person that thing destroying thing is an appropriate reaction, trust me, you have foes. You're just not important enough for them to bother to take action.
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Given a typical drone is something like 30ft. long and weighs a few thousand pounds, using one to fetch hot pockets seems overkill.
You haven't seen the SUV's at Costco doing just that.
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Hmm. A typical drone is nearer 2 foot across in any direction.
The military drones are abnormally large with an enviable range and very different level of aggressive capability.
Most drones are indeed more suited to menial, observational and local tasks.
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Cars and drones (Score:3)
I've often thought it would be natural for cars to launch small drones to aid in navigation. Some highways you don't know till you get pretty much on them if they are moving slowly, or when you hit a wall of traffic and want to know why the hell you haven't moved in 10 minutes.
They could show accidents, nab cel phone users who hold up steady traffic flow, and maybe co-ordinate with other drones to get a real traffic type map with video of the entire route to your destination.
Of course all of that is also quite terrifying to the privacy conscious mind too. So who knows. Seeing how well dashcams have taken off, I wouldn't be surprised to have higher end cars have deployable drones in them within 10 years.
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And I suppose you would launch it by pressing the 'G' button on your steering wheel?
Watch and record me doing athletic activities (Score:5, Interesting)
In some sports, like speed skating, technique is everything and it often very hard to determine if I am actually doing what I think I am doing. Actually, scratch that. I am never doing what I think I am doing but If I had a drone taking video I could see what I am doing wrong and quickly learn to correct it. As it is, most of make the same mistakes for years because we don't even know we are doing them.
This is almost available now. There were at least a couple of Kickstarter projects that claimed this functionality, albeit with battery life too short for regular training. Unfortunately neither project actually delivered.
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A wide-angle fixed position camera would give you a massive amount of feedback very simply and with minimal cost. Maybe relocate it from straight to curve to transition between the two between runs, but it'll cover enough of the run to provide some solid feedback.
Going beyond that a fixed position camera with tracking software and automatic zoom. A drone is largely overkill when you're on a simple oval (which is my assumption, given speed skating).
Downhill skiing, yeah, I could see the need for a drone. Pro
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A wide-angle fixed position camera would give you a massive amount of feedback very simply and with minimal cost. Maybe relocate it from straight to curve to transition between the two between runs, but it'll cover enough of the run to provide some solid feedback.
Going beyond that a fixed position camera with tracking software and automatic zoom. A drone is largely overkill when you're on a simple oval (which is my assumption, given speed skating).
I sort of see your point for ice speed skating or even indoor inline but what I do is outdoor inline speed skating. Ovals exist but they are not common. Most participants skate on roads and trails. My main training ground is a four mile stretch of road that is close to traffic every Sunday. If the camera were no on a drone, the only place left would be on my head. From that location, any angle wide enough to cover the region in question would capture dramatically distorted images.
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Ah, I hadn't even considered non-ice skating. Fair enough.
How about towing a helium balloon or a small go kart with a gopro attached? Would help with the resistance training :)
There are people with various tethered drone designs that are meant to track you but not sure the top down perspective would give you enough feedback?
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There are people with various tethered drone designs that are meant to track you but not sure the top down perspective would give you enough feedback?
Directly overhead would not be good but my understanding is that the more advanced "follow-me" drones can do quite a lot better than that. I envision a drone flying maybe 10 feet up and perhaps 30 or 40 feet down range. They do face tracking to keep their subject in view.
DRC - Drone Racing League (Score:1)
I want drones and VR headsets to work together ASAP and create a new world-spanning sporting league.
Tap into the drone feeds to watch as they wind through insane courses... or fail to.
Pilots having to drive in first person through courses designed for objects that can move in 3 dimensions.
Record and share on social media.
Seriously... why is this not already happening??? We have drone racing, smallish courses, or driving via a small screen... if we can do that, we can do headsets.
I DEMAND VR DRONE RACING! VI
Strike that. Reverse it: (Score:3)
Expose toxic dumping? Feh! I want a drone that I can use to dump toxic waste on my neighbors!
Safety (Score:1)
Like robots in general, drones could be useful for a lot of tasks that otherwise put humans at risk (but at the same time misuse can add risks). For example, in a forest-fire situation authorities could fly drones over the area to watch the fire, note hot-spots, etc, and have useful addons like thermal cameras. It's safer than putting humans up in a helicopter flying through thick smoke. The downside is that we're already getting a lot of idiots who say "fire, cool!" and fly their personal "drones" in to ta
Anything a small child can do. (Score:2)
Or rather, anything a parent would ask a 12 year old to do (which would require some cell-phone like peripherals and some lifting ability):
* Bring in that light suitcase
* Okay, coordinate with Unit2 and bring in that "heavy" suitcase
* Take this phone over to so-and-so.
* Hop out and save that parking space.
* Go take a photo and text me so I can tell what so-and-so is talking about.
* Go see how long that restaurant is staying open.
* Run ahead and look around the corner: is there a line?
* Bring me a soda. (Or
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* Make me a Manhattan.
"POOF! You are a Manhattan" - Dad drone.
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Solution: Strap a small child to a drone...
The Issues That Really Matter (Score:1)
help with sailing (Score:2)
I like sailing on tidal waters... a drone (if quiet enough to not annoy the wildlife and other boaters) would be great for checking out where the water is deep enough. Navigational Charts are nice, but below depths of 1m (the draft of my boat with keep fully raised is 35 cm / 1 ft) and especially in tidal waters that change after every storm are not so useful, so you often have to find your way with trial and error. Getting a couple (gps-anchored) pictures from above at moments around low tide would be fant