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Star Simpson Profile picture
Star Simpson
@starsandrobots
Eyes bigger than bookshelf. Aviation, Automation & a long tail of interests 🇩🇪🇯🇲 Work: Autonomous Air Freight @ThereCraft__ (YC) Repeal the Jones Act ⛔️🚢
May 9, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
It’s been so long since I shared anything publicly about what I’ve been working on and I am very excited to show off what we’ve been building. (star@therecraft.com)

I’d like to publicly introduce Therecraft which offers aviation services using our drone vehicle called Hopper — Image Our flagship drone which we call Hopper, has performance that should blow you away:
- 6 hours of flight time
- range of 180 miles
- that’s while carrying a typical 10-lb payload (easily carrying cameras, sensors, cargo; such as tacos 🌮😄)
- the empty vehicle weighs just 20lbs Image
May 5, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
I’m just starting to come to terms with how much pressure I felt in my teen years to dedicate all of my available effort to getting into college, and how unreasonable it all was? Like the main thing I remember from being a teenager was being so stressed out that on any given day I felt on the verge of tears? Anything could - and frequently did - trigger me into sobbing. At all times - for years?
Oct 4, 2020 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Wanted: List of Basic Problems with Counterintuitive Solutions; specifically, common life issues where basic tendencies will typically make the problem worse. Example follows.. This is about as basic as I could come up with. The trope is the problem of never being able to find the matching sock. People tend to buy more socks. The problem is you actually have too many socks, and you need to get rid of socks until you have so few they are countable.
Oct 4, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
There are a lot of reasons to regard the use of acronyms as a hostile practice, but I’ve been realizing lately just how bad they are especially for i18n. This is stated tongue-in-cheek but also is genuinely something I’ve been noticing. Like, oof, the only people you’re writing for are current/existing members of your documentation’s target subculture? This practice should be considered fundamentally isolationist.
Sep 29, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Amazing to see how the pandemic has affected air freight. Passenger airline flight reductions have squeezed cargo capacity availability. At the same time, demand for shipped goods has only increased! I find it slightly amazing that the shipping industry is resilient to the point that there haven’t been more noticeable supply shocks due to this effect. I know folks dealing with project timelines where shipment time is ballooning into months that would previously been a week.
Sep 18, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I started my career at a wind energy company called Makani Power and I cannot overstate the impact that company had on shaping my career hence. Incredibly, a feature-length film has just been released, documenting Makani: Sadly, after 13 years, including heroic input of effort by world-class engineers to answer certain heretofore unsolved engineering problems and prove the tech, the company has closed. I am therefore even more glad to see Makani captured - full film:
Sep 13, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
OMG I think I just edited a tweet?? I wrote a tweet, noticed a benign single-letter typo, deleted the tweet and pressed “reply” again and found the full text of my previous tweet available to edit and send again. If this really is the feature test I think it is I am SO HAPPY. Folks are replying to this tweet and deleting your tweets to test it out. Yes go for it feel free, I don’t mind!
Sep 1, 2020 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
What areas of your life have changed in the last decade due to a startup/someone else’s work in tech (not your own/direct results)? ie what were the best results of the last 10 years of tech efforts. (Esp, but not specifically from SF as a cultural center.) (Note smart phones and Wikipedia have fallen off the last-10-years list!)
Aug 26, 2020 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Face masks have terrible UX, and I don’t blame anyone for hating to wear one, especially day in and out. It’s like all the scratchy annoyance of being a kid putting on a sweater, but rubbing on your *face* instead of just the neck/wrists. Ugh. I wore an N95 for 12 hours just for one day and almost a week later the bridge of my nose is still recovering. It was itchy, sweaty, and hot, and if the my values and the setting didn’t require me to persist, I’d have considered it unbearable.
Aug 26, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
For you, when does the pre-call work paralysis set in? Where you are anticipating having to jump on a call so the barrier to starting a new task is high, but it’s also not yet time for the call? For me, it’s about 40 minutes beforehand. I’ve found two things to use the time for.. 1) Snacks
2) All those “hard” tasks that I am simply dreading doing. Great for the pre-call “what do I do in the next 35 mins” freeze because it’s like a natural Pomodoro; you can dig in for 25-30 mins and the task probably will not be fun but it WILL end, and you’ll have started
Aug 21, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
When I was studying at university I decided to capture ideas in my notebook so I wouldn’t forget them, with the rule that I had to put a little drawing next to each one, to help with visual scan later to remember/index each one. Trying to make good (frequently attempted-isometric) little sketches and, later, an industrial designer friend, got me started on an interest in the lost art of drafting. Anyone else with me on this one?
Aug 13, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Anyone who has gone through a hard quarantine (not leaving a room) for days+; what were the best ways you found to spend your time?
(I’m fine) I’m thinking: jumping rope and resistance band workouts, working on my technical drawing skills (such as they are), finishing those books — what else should be on this list?
Aug 12, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
“Time travel sci-fi” idea:

You are able to place a single phone call to one person, at any point in history, and speak for one hour. Who do you call? I think I’d like to call Westinghouse and get a first-hand account of the age of electrification in the 1890s. That said, while interesting, there are probably way better ideas for theoretically using this one-time power.
Aug 10, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The giant AIR MUSEUM words are on the side of a building which can be described without hyperbole as “ginormous” and scale is only one way it astonishes; Image Tillamook Air Museum: built in 1942, two of these were constructed and completed from scratch in 90 days.

Used for only 6 years (1942-1948).

Note the mini-guppy for scale (or for more familiar reference at bottom left, an RV in the parking lot): Image
Jul 31, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Amazing! I love this so much. Deserves an addendum in John McPhee’s amazing book about weird cargo and freight service, Uncommon Carriers. A lot of the urban drone delivery concepts out there are basically bringing back carrier pigeons en moderne https://t.co/Z4YjbcG4Mu
Jul 25, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I think Guy Hagi has been the local weatherman for my entire life and this... is perfection (if you’re not following Pacific news; there’s a big hurricane due to make land in Hawaii this weekend) Anxiously watching the wind maps as #HurricaneDouglas gets closer to Hawaii. Wind was up to 28kts in Hilo a few hours ago. Could be the first hurricane to land in ~28 years Image
Jul 25, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
One pandemic upside has been discovering that Los Angeles dedicates the same level of craft to the aesthetic experience of car washes as (nearly) going to a movie theater. I found one called The Bellagio, based around an elaborate color-changing light-show where the soap suds diffuse and mix the light. Another where a car scent pack and a small wipe are dispensed to you so you can fuss over interior surfaces while the track hauls you through.
Jul 24, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
What kind of mask/shield/protection would need to exist for you to be willing to trick-or-treat this upcoming Halloween in October? (Parents plz chime in especially)
Jul 10, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Ever wonder if your local pastor really lives & breathes their job? What’s the most outlandish cool beautiful or stylish face shield, mask, or other face covering you’ve seen so far?
Jul 9, 2020 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Which industrial or product designers are most underappreciated?

Thread: share pix of the project/object + name of designer/firm and let’s give some recognition where it’s due.
Jul 9, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
When I woke up this morning I did not realize that, thanks largely to German engineering, trail and off-road rollerblading is now a thing: Crossing the Sahara on rollerblades?? This is exactly the kind of ridiculous escapism I didn’t know I need right now: