DJI OM 6 (Osmo Mobile) Gimbal – my review

I liked the OM 4 — but lost the best piece, the magnetic clamp.

SO … purchased the OM 5. Much better. … But it broke for no reason, within a year.

I tried to send it in on warranty, but somehow DJI bungled my request.

In any case, the OM 6 looked yet another big improvement. So I bought it on Amazon for CAD $215.00.

Most importantly, ACTIVE TRACK actually works all the time on the 6. That wasn’t the case for the 4 or 5.

If you take a lot of video on phone, I recommend it. Personally, I like smooth video, not handheld shake.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Battery life is up to 6 hours. You can recharge in the wild with an external, portable battery.

I haven’t tried the Osmo Mobile SE. Cheaper with fewer features.

DREAM Bike = Priority 600x

My current touring bike is a Trek Checkpoint customized for my good self. And I love it.

IF I was to upgrade, it would be to the somewhat more expensive Priority 600x.

In fact, my guru — Ryan Duzer — switched from a Checkpoint to the Priority. That’s Ryan in the photo.

One of the designers, some call this bike the Duzer Cruiser.

I think I’d prefer the no maintenance belt drive pinion system. And the nearly unbreakable Gates Carbon Drive. AND the suspension looks pretty good on this tough bike.

The supply chain problems of pandemic is over. You can get a 600x stock in the USA, as I post, within 5 days.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Atypicap Capsule Hostel, Canary Islands

Atypicap Capsule Hostel is the first capsule establishment in the Canary Islands.

I’ve stayed in a few airport Capsule hotels — but this is the best hostel version I’ve ever seen. ALL hostels should offer these capsules. Singles and doubles.

Cost for my single in 2022 was $26.15 / night (25.24 EU).

Shared leisure areas, kitchen, bathrooms for individual use, and a Chill-Out Terrace on the roof with bar service.

Electronic door-opening and closing with card. Lockers.

Equipped with USB connections and Bluetooth, air ventilation, 26-inch screen with headphone connection where you can download the multimedia content on your device (mobile, tablet or laptop), wifi, a 15x12x12 cm safe, adjustable led lights for reading, luminous alarm clock, vanity mirror, digital thermometer, power outlet, cloth hangers, smoke detector, and ‘do not disturb’ option.

Details.

Build Better Refugee Camps

Karmod Prefabricated Building Technologies is a leading Turkish company founded in 1986 and has since been running projects in more than 100 countries around the world.

They provide many different kinds of buildings for refugee camps.

In the near future we’ll have more refugees, not fewer. And they’ll be more desperate.

Afraid to return home. Willing to risk death to escape.

Of course each nation should have a system for handling claims for asylum. But only a small percentage will be granted entry. As populations are getting older, many nations — starting with Japan — need MORE young people to migrate.

BEST of many bad options for refugees not chosen for asylum is to stay on the border. Months. Perhaps years.

There are about 700 refugee camps worldwide, as I post.

Who should pay?

I’d first look to organizations like the Gates Foundation. And to other billionaires who have far more money than they could ever spend.

Life in camp should be minimal. But safe. Police. Schools. Clean water. Medical facilities.

Transportation home should be offered.

If possible, there should be opportunities to work and volunteer.

Some will be under age-18. They should have special protection as should anyone with physical or mental challenges.

Some of the nations most needing decent refugee camps:

  • Syria — 6.8 million refugees and asylum-seekers
  • Venezuela — 4.6 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants
  • Afghanistan — 2.7 million refugees and asylum seekers
  • South Sudan — 2.4 million refugees and asylum-seekers
  • Myanmar – 1.2 million refugees and asylum-seekers

Trump and his political ilk around the world don’t want to help refugees. Instead, they use the problem to anger people — hoping to motivate them to vote for right wing political parties.

That’s much easier than motivating regular people to HELP refugees.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I Love DJI Products

DJI (Da-Jiang Innovations) manufactures commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) for aerial photography and videography. It also designs and manufactures camera gimbalsaction cameras, camera stabilizers, flight platforms, propulsion systems and flight control systems.

DJI accounts for around 70% of the world’s consumer drone market as of March 2020. …

US government institutions have prohibited the internal use of DJI products …

There have been security concerns. Perhaps their products will get banned in Canada one day.

For now, I use their (MavicMini SE drone. And OM 5 gimbal.

I highly doubt Chinese cyber hackers are (somehow) seeing what I do. But if they are, I’d welcome feedback on my videos. 😀

Photo by Alan Quirvu00e1n on Pexels.com

DJI just opened their new Shenzhen, China headquarters — a creative “community in the sky.”

PHOTOS

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

NEW Book about YouTube

Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination

A good book. Interesting and entertaining.

By Mark Bergen, a technology reporter at Bloomberg.

Published Sept 2022.

The biggest surprise was learning that YouTube’s algorithm actually kept most of Trump’s BIG LIE from getting promoted in early 2021. They were ready.

YouTube did a surprisingly good job of not promoting vaccine misinformation, as well.

You can find that stuff on YouTube, for sure. But it’s not being massively promoted for money.

As FREE enterprise, YouTube is FREE to post and promote whatever they want.

I’ve removed monetization from all my videos and websites.

If you eliminate ads and ad-driven algorithms, most social media problems disappear.

Google is a great search engine but I find YouTube to be quite lousy at listing either popular, quality, or related videos. Search for any topic you know well. Disappointing.

I spend a couple of hours most days on YouTube. No ads as I pay CAD$12 / month for YouTube Premium.


YouTube was super disorganized right from the start.

After Google bought the video site and made it #1, problems evolved as millions of “creators” devised hacks to make money off the site.

Despite all its growth and success, YouTube has been widely criticized.

Criticism of YouTube includes the website being used to facilitate the spread of misinformationcopyright issuesroutine violations of its users’ privacyenabling censorship, and endangering child safety and wellbeing. …

YouTube released a mobile app known as YouTube Kids in 2015, designed to provide an experience optimized for children. …

YouTube removed public display of dislike counts on videos in November 2021, claiming the reason for the removal was, based on its internal research, that users often used the dislike feature as a form of cyberbullying and brigading. …

… public access to YouTube is blocked in many countries, including ChinaNorth KoreaIranSyriaTurkmenistan, Uzbekistan,TajikistanEritreaSudan and South Sudan. …

related – Nilay Patel – Everyone knows what YouTube is — few know how it really works

I love YouTube

The first video uploaded to the site was by YouTube’s co-founder Jawed Karim, who was 25 years old at the time: “Me at the zoo” 

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

That was Apr 23, 2005.

I first embedded a YouTube video on one of my sites in January 2006.

In March 2006, I embedded a clip of Peter and Joyce Long who had been interviewed by a TV crew on a kayak outing.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

In those days, the race to become the #1 video uploading site was competitive. Vimeo launched earlier, for example.

But these guys won out in the end.

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, the founders of YouTube

The trio were early employees of PayPal, three of the PayPal Mafia along with Elon Musk, Russel Simmons (Yelp), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn) and more.

On October 9, 2006, Google announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock. It would have been Google or Yahoo. Google was willing to pay more.

FOX was also interested, but Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation had wasted $580m buying Myspace in 2005. They eventually sold MySpace for $35m.

YouTube had $19.8 billion in revenue in 2020. I send YouTube CAD $12 every month for YouTube Premium. Ad free videos. My music subscription. And a few other perks.

One of my most popular videos is from the early days. 😀 Low resolution. No editing. #bad

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

LIBBY App – Listen to Library Audio Books

I listen to audio books pretty much every day.

Though I have an Audible account (12 books / year) I spend far more time on the Libby app. I’m coming up to 500 audio books borrowed, so far.

I can read 2-3 books a week at 150% normal speed.

Once I put a popular book on “HOLD” — wait time does seem to be increasing. So I recently added a second library to the app. Now I can put up to 60 books on hold: 30 for each library.

Bottom line … I LOVE THE LIBBY APP.

And I do donate to the libraries.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

DJI OM 5 Gimbal – my review

I was quite happy with the DJI OM 4 Gimbal — but somehow lost the magnetic phone clamp.

The magnetic phone clamp is the best feature. The one thing that makes it better FOR ME than competitors like the Zhiyun Smooth Q4. I hate balancing phones on a gimbal. With the OM 4 and 5 you don’t need to.

Rather than pay for a replacement magnetic phone clamp (CAD $35), it was smarter to simply buy the upgraded OM 5 (CAD $149) which includes the phone clamp. I can use the same phone and clamp on either gimbal.

I do feel the OM 5 is slightly better:

  • NEW built-in extension rod for “selfies”
  • lighter and more compact — but at the expense of much shorter battery life
  • ActiveTrack 4.0 and gesture control does seem more reliable. An important feature for me.
  • In “selfie” camera mode, it smoothly tracks your face by default

The MAIN downside is a shorter battery life than the OM 4. Only about 6 hours.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I used iPhone 13 on the OM 5 shooting in portrait orientation to keep the footage as SMOOTH as possible. I’d intended to upload it VERTICAL to Instagram and Facebook. Facebook worked. Instagram wouldn’t upload over multiple attempts.

I certainly prefer landscape and YouTube.

BACK to the OM 5 …

Click PLAY or watch the DJI hype video on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch the DJI tutorial on YouTube.

Here’s the best tutorial I’ve found.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The following tutorial is more comprehensive.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.