Word: autopilot
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...over pitch (the nose angle, up or down) of a flying object. But MacCready observed that other flying creatures, like the albatross, achieve stability and pitch control by instinctively making small fore and aft movements with their wings. His solution: the latter-day pterosaur will have an onboard computerized autopilot that will effect similar corrections in the attitude of its mechanical wings. That will take some doing. Explains MacCready: "Nature's creatures are very good at active control. Artificial creatures are very bad. For example, any dumb person can walk across a rough field, but to make a robot...
...American and French lifestyles--at least on the distaff side. Her assessment of American culinary errors: "Fast foods; rushing; not taking the time to sit down for meals, and not eating for pleasure. I see people eating, and they're just gulping it down. They're eating almost on autopilot, like robots...
...cultivation of high-value fruits and vegetables, mostly in California, with great results in terms of yield. He asked California-based Trimble, a navigation technology company, to design for him a GPS that would work for the hulking machines of grain country. That fall, Mitchell installed the Trimble AgGPS AutoPilot guidance system on his tractor, making his farm the first in the Midwest to use auto-steering...
Unfortunately, for many farmers, such technologies are still out of reach financially. Typical costs for GPS and wireless network systems can run into the tens of thousands. As the seasons pass, however, the results may more than make up for the initial costs. "When Clay first started with the autopilot, the economics didn't seem feasible," says Doug Hefty, a farmer neighbor of the Mitchells'. "But as time went on, I had the opportunity to see what the yield did on his corn hybrids. He surpassed me by leaps and bounds--it's embarrassing. He's using less fertilizer...
...Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, from eccentric writer/director Wes Anderson, never completely sinks, but for the first time in his career, Anderson seems to have put his creative steamship on autopilot. As his body of work, beginning with 1996’s lovably lost Bottle Rocket through 1998’s academic oddball Rushmore and 2001’s family jewel The Royal Tenenbaums, has gradually gained cohesion and complexity, the sloppy ponderousness of The Life Aquatic reveals an ambitious talent in desperate need of a better editor...