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Ask HN: What to get for my brother's 50th birthday?

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Re: Ask HN: What to get for my brother's 50th birthday?

#61
post #50

For my 50th my wife rented a 13th century castle for a weekend, and got my friends to come stay the first night and my parents/brothers-and-their-families for the second. It was fantastic

Wow. This is a great idea. Terrible wifi, but great inspiration for planning mine and my wife's 50th.

Castles have bad network admins?

Re: Ask HN: What to get for my brother's 50th birthday?

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once found a 2 hour introductory flight lesson on groupon that I gifted as a birthday present. They had a great experience.

Only caveat with this is that it could potentially be a hindrance for someone getting life insurance. I recently applied to a couple companies and they all asked me if I had flown an airplane in the last 12 months.

That doesn't mean they'll reject your application. I doubt they would reject based on a single lesson.

Re: Ask HN: What to get for my brother's 50th birthday?

#64
post #42

For a buddy’s 40th we contacted as many of his friends and family as we could find, and asked them to make a short video telling a joke/story/greeting for him. Then we hired some of his favorite TV show stars to do the same via Cameo - Billy D. Williams was hilarious! We stitched it all together in iMovie and surprised him with it. We got folks he hadn’t seen in a decade to say hi. We got poetry, jokes, even videos w…

Such an amazing idea. I’m saving it.

Re: Ask HN: What to get for my brother's 50th birthday?

#65
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the track is the safest place to be! everyone's going the same way, the roads are meticulously well maintained, and there are no cops! (I know a few people who exclusively track their bikes now to the point that they're not even plated any more; it's just where they want to go to enjoy the skills, and they've kind of lost interest in road riding entirely)

> the track is the safest place to be! everyone's going the same way, the roads are meticulously well maintained, and there are no cops! anecdotal, but in my experience with driving race cars : tracks are pretty far from meticulously well maintained. perhaps meticulously documented; "T12s soft berm had been eroding for years, take a rain line around it.", but rarely meticulously maintained. that said, maybe motorcycl…

i think "significantly better maintained than public roads" is sufficient. "meticulous" might be a stretch, but for the most part, track condition is not something you have to worry about to the degree you have to keep an eye out for tar snakes and potholes and oil slicks and whatnot on the road -- and in the event of trouble, you have corner workers who will tell you about it, too!

Re: Ask HN: What to get for my brother's 50th birthday?

#66
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the track is the safest place to be! everyone's going the same way, the roads are meticulously well maintained, and there are no cops! (I know a few people who exclusively track their bikes now to the point that they're not even plated any more; it's just where they want to go to enjoy the skills, and they've kind of lost interest in road riding entirely)

> the track is the safest place to be! everyone's going the same way, the roads are meticulously well maintained, and there are no cops! anecdotal, but in my experience with driving race cars : tracks are pretty far from meticulously well maintained. perhaps meticulously documented; "T12s soft berm had been eroding for years, take a rain line around it.", but rarely meticulously maintained. that said, maybe motorcycl…

Motorcycle tracks are a different experience. You walk the track to get rid of debris; identify potential challenges. With no cage around you it’s a different ball game. Its still dangerous but proper gear mitigates some of the risk. I’ve had a couple of low sides on the track with no long term effects.

Re: Ask HN: What to get for my brother's 50th birthday?

#67
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. This is a great idea. Terrible wifi, but great inspiration for planning mine and my wife's 50th.

Castles have bad network admins?

I'm guessing the issue is with the stone walls blocking WiFi.

Re: Ask HN: What to get for my brother's 50th birthday?

#68

For my 40th, my wife rented out a theatre and paid them to project my favourite film (2001 A Space Odyssey). It was all done in secret. My wife dropped me off in front of the theatre to look for parking (we were going shopping, or so she said), and then I noticed that the theatre had 2001 posters up with MY FACE photoshopped onto the characters. Talk about triggering an identity crisis! When I walked into the theatre…

That's incredible. What a meaningful event, and a great inspiration.

Re: Ask HN: What to get for my brother's 50th birthday?

#69
An FPV drone!

It's kinda like racing a motorcycle and flying. Not talking about a DJI drone, but something that's amenable to hacking and fixing because you'll crash a lot when you start. It's a wide ranging hobby, and sounds like your brother could leverage some of the skills he already has.

Depending on the budget, could start with something like a tiny whoop [0] that fits in the palm of your hand or a 4" quad that has a 20km range [1].

There are a lot of sub-genres within the FPV community, from racing [2], to bandos [3] (acrobatic flying around/in abandoned structure) to long range cinematic flying [4].

You have to have quick reflexes (so it's kind of like racing) but ultimately you're flying and getting such a different perspective. Could expand into HAM radio to get truly long range flying.

The FPV industry is going through such rapid progress and it's really fun to follow.

To start, you'd need:

- goggles (to see what the camera on the drone sees)

- Transmitter (control your drone)

- The drone itself

- Batteries and charger

I recently destroyed a motor on my tiny whoop so I had to learn how to solder. Considering the motor is the size of a penny that was by far the most precise work I've done.

It's a bit daunting to figure out all the pieces, but something like a tiny hawk bundle [5] is a great way to start.

0 https://www.getfpv.com/happymodel-mobula7-1s-75mm-analog-who...

1 https://flywoo.net/products/explorer-lr-4-v2-analog?_pos=12&...

2 https://youtu.be/bZvNLuC12R0?t=659

3 https://youtu.be/wzwW5vuuK5w?t=374

4 https://youtu.be/dIP7wWY4Znw?t=89

5 https://www.getfpv.com/fpv-quad-kits/emax-tinyhawk-iii-fpv-r...

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