A Geek Goes Flying

Well, wrote it and then helped me tweak it. The prompts were easy. The code pretty straightforward. The functionality is very basic. It just takes the current page title and URL and, using the things:/// URL scheme , adds an item to the inbox. (Yeah, in Safari, the “Share ... Add to Things” option does the same thing in Safari. But I’m not using Safari.) This cleans up after itself, closing the tab that was opened to call the Things URL integration a second after it’s finished loading. I’m generally happy with it, with a couple of “punch list” items. https://pastebin.com/ckfftFfc ChatGPT: Original extension creation Modifying it to auto-close the newly opened tab  To do: Need to figure out why the keyboard shortcut isn’t working (“ keyboard shortcuts do work , but   only if the extension is installed as a permanent add-on , not as a temporary add-on via   about:debugging .”) Need to modify it to use the contents of the clipboard rather than the URL, if on certain cites (l...

Yesterday I stumbled across a great deal on an ESP LTD Deluxe H-1001 in “Violet Andromeda Satin finish.” ESP LTD H-1001 in Violet Andromeda Satin finish This thing is  sweet :  The first thing you’ll notice about the new LTD Deluxe H-1001 is its Violet Andromeda Satin finish. The Andromeda finish makes the guitar appear various shades of blue, violet, and even green as light is reflected from various angles. The H-1001 is the first LTD version of this outstanding design in a satin finish. It also features a set of direct-mount Seymour Duncan Sentient (neck) and Pegasus (bridge) pickups with push-pull coil splitting, a Hipshot bridge with string-thru-body, and stainless steel frets.   Maybe someday, this will be me?  Anyway. It checked  almost  all of my boxes:  ☐ Made in Japan ☑ Made in Korea ☑ Passive pickups ☑ Non-Floyd Rose (i.e., hard tail, Tune-o-Matic, EverTune [1]) ☑ Set-thru neck ☑ Locking tuners My (at this stage in life) dream g...

Over the weekend, I had the occasion to search Google for so much information, trying to troubleshoot and bring back online my main server . Not only were all of the AI answers just  wrong  (often subtly, but still, wrong), Safari on the iPad does not play well with the AI responses (the Google page would refresh a few times before the browser gave up). I had to append -AI to all of my queries, to suppress the AI output . Sigh. I did a plain language search on Google again today and the AI response was ... Humorous, if the implications weren’t so dire. The MH-100 QMNT has a  quilted  maple top (hence the “QM”) (nothing “quantum” about it), and the NT stands for “no tremolo” – it’s a hard tail with a Tune-o-Matic bridge. But that’s not the biggest issue. The MH-100 definitely does  not  have a 3+3 tuner configuration (the Les Paul-style EC series does); it has a pretty standard inline 6 angled headstock:   MH-100QMNT Headstock I have more to write on t...

Xeon Been  flogging an HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen 8 for a while now . But I think its time may be coming to an end. It can’t boot the “optical drive” (slot 5) SATA device directly, need to have a USB stick or Micro SD card installed internally to do that. (Which failed last week. Replacing the old  SanDisk Cruzer Fit   with a  SAMSUNG FIT Plus . Second SanDisk I’ve had fail recently; the other was a  120GB 2.5" SATA SSD . Hrm.) iLO sucks, the iPad app crashes constantly, it doesn’t send mouse activity to Linux, etc. I tried using the Comet remote KVM , but I couldn’t get an any active VGA to HDMI adapters to generate a signal the KVM would recognize. So I did most of this stuff using a wireless Logitech K400 keyboard with trackpad and a tiny Eyoyo monitor . Works, but awkward. Can’t boot a GPT partition scheme (it’s got a BIOS and no UEFI), if you try you’ll get a red screen of death with an inscrutable “invalid op code” error. The most recent LTS version...

Crispy, tasty chicken wings have been my holy grail for a while now. I’ve tried probably a dozen different kinds of pre-packaged buffalo wings, including T.G.I. Fridays ’, and none have satisfied. They’ve always turned out soggy and meh, even when I tried making them in the Ninja . Until yesterday. I settled in for some football (WTF was that , Chargers?!) and whipped these up, and they were perfection. Mmmm. Tasty crispy chicken wings. 1.125 lbs of “ party wings ” Frank’s Red Hot Wing Sauce (or, the way I used to do it old school, Whirl (or melted butter) and Cayenne Pepper Sauce , mixed to taste), 2 Tbsp / pound of wings Baking powder (1/2 tsp / pound of wings) Ground white pepper , to taste (I use less than 1/2 tsp per pound of wings) Kosher salt Canola oil , I used about 4 spritzes from my Olivia oil sprayer (which, now that I have, I wonder how I ever lived without)[1] Start with thawed wings. Set the Ninja for Air Crisper, 400°F, 21 minutes. While the Ninja is pre-heating, bl...

I initially backed (on prelaunch.com) the Kickstarter BYOK project on August 7, 2024. Yesterday, January 7, 2026, one year and five months later, it arrived (about a year after the initial projected . I've now had a chance to unpack it and play around with it a little bit. Getting it working with a keyboard was ... interesting. The USB-C cable I carry with me everywhere didn't work on a Tokyo 60 board , or with a RK71 in cable mode (I suspect the cable was charging only, so I picked up a new short cable that I confirmed supports data). The RK71 in Bluetooth mode was seen by the BYOK and paired successfully via Bluetooth, but the BYOK did not recognize any input. Likewise an older Keychron K2 and my Ajazz K620T. Not great. (Edit: See below; a firmware update fixed this issue.) I finally used the cable that came with the device to connect the Tokyo60 and that worked, and it's what I'm using to type this. The device works well enough, so far. There's a tiny bit of ...

So, it arrived, and I have it setup. (I don’t have the whole listening station re-setup yet, there are several requirements pending before I can do that. Sigh.) The WiiM Pro and the Modius are both drawing power from the Anker 351 ’s built-in USB A ports. The Modius is of course hooked up to its AC/AC power brick. The WiiM Pro is connected to the home Ethernet via a GS105 , and to the Modius via a short TOSlink cable . The Modius is feeding the Magnius via XLR connectors . So far I’ve only really tried it out with the HIFIMAN HE400SE Stealth Magnets headphones  pictured hanging off the UpLift headphones stand (Walnut sample block ); they’re connected to the Magnius via Hart Audio’s HC-9: Dual 3.5mm headphone cable for Hifiman, Focal, Meze 109 / Liric headphones and more (Modular, Balanced Capable) × 1 Red / [M] 4-pin XLR cable kit . There are parametric or 10-band EQs available, and you can save presets. Here, I have the oratory1990 Harman curve for the HE400se headphones dial...