A Geek Goes Flying

So I started taking guitar lessons a few weeks ago. I played in junior high and high school, not well, but I enjoyed it. I picked up an immaculate then-$349 (new) Bright Blue  Jackson JS32 on eBay for $150 (a steal!) during the pandemic with the earnest intent of getting back into it, but it’s been collecting dust ever since (September 2021... 😮‍💨). Also picked up a Roland Micro Cube for $89 (which at the time was a great score). Ibanez S521 in Sunburst Red, stock photo But none of those were as good as the deals I found this week. A $399 (new) Ibanez S521 for $180, on Facebook Marketplace. That listing was pretty matter-of-fact, but another listing (different guitar) revealed the seller was “on the streets,” and when I met him it was at a Motel 6 in Palmdale. Still, the guitar is exactly as advertised, also in near-perfect condition, and exactly what I needed for lessons (a fixed bridge, first and foremost ‡ ;). It’s going to live at the office for those times when I can’t ge...

For whatever reason I wasn’t able to find the HPE iLO (Integrated Lights Out) iOS / iPad client software in the App Store through a simple search, but I did find it when I went in under my apps. Anyway, here’s a link:  https://apps.apple.com/app/id497560256 Then, in the chaos of redoing parts of my home LAN (wiping and installing latest software, etc), I had yet to setup a DHCP reservation for the iLO interface on my HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen8. A quick Google search revealed it uses the seldom used ports 17988, 17990, and 9300 for its remote console functionality, so I fired up nmap and scoured my network for machines with those ports open: $ nmap -p17988,17990,9300 75.748.86.0/24 --open   Nmap scan report for undefined.lan (75.748.86.91) Host is up (1.8s latency). Not shown: 1 closed tcp port (reset) PORT      STATE SERVICE 17988/tcp open  unknown 17990/tcp open  unknown MAC Address: G0:1G:48:G7:G6:4G (Hewlett Packard) There it is... (MAC addr...

Found this critique of the newer Bosch dishwashers: I can relate. (I recently installed a Bosch dishwasher, replacing one that finally gave up after ~21 years.) And it bugs me. There have been too many instances of companies going out of business and their cloud-reliant “smart” devices becoming useless bricks . I want everything run locally. (I even hacked a smart plug to be just that .) At least there’s an open source implementation of the protocol . Have to look into that. I also, for the record, do not want anything on my car to be enabled by subscription. Just in general, I’m against having anything that has to “phone home” to be useful. I mean, I’ll use streaming services for light casual listening / watching, but anything I care about I obtain at least a non-DRM digital copy (and have backups). Because: Spotify is going to break every Car Thing gadget it ever sold   “Unprecedented” Google Cloud event wipes out customer account and its backups ‘ My whole library is wiped out’:...

I was today years old when I learned about the bulk conversion functionality built into macOS (at least, Sequoia). Select all the .heic files you want to convert, right-click (Ctrl-Click; two finger tap; whatever) and select Quick Actions → Convert Image and then just make ’em JPEG or PNG. Right click and select Convert Image under Quick Actions   Select the format to convert the images to

I still don’t need glasses, apparently (my last aviation medical exam resulted in a third class medical with no corrective lenses restriction; I did the vision test both with and without glasses to see what was what), but I knew my eyes were starting to degrade a bit after almost 5 decades. So before that physical I headed over to Lenscrafters, where my Care Credit card would theoretically let me pay off whatever this was going to cost me over 6 months, no interest. Ray-Ban RX5428 frame The eye exam, apparently, was done through a private contractor operating out of the Lenscrafters store, and they didn’t take CareCredit, so I was $153.46 immediately out of pocket for that. The prescription I got from that exam: My general use prescription from my eye exam Lenscrafters was running a special, half off the lenses. The Ray-Ban RX5428 frame ( 55/17/145 - apparently a “wide” size?) was $147, and lenses with my progressive prescription was $598.34, $299.14 with the discount; total bill (i...