A Geek Goes Flying

Years ago, when I cared about such things (or... anything...), I belonged to the Porsche Club of America . I devoured the monthly Panorama magazine . I still remember (dimly and incompletely) the sage advice in an article on older cars, which went something like: “Fix the little things.” Replace the droopy sun visor, swap in a new climate control knob when the °C markings wear off, change out the 10A fuse you popped with too high a sustained load through the cigar lighter receptacle. If you don’t, those little things build up, and without realizing it, you internalize that you’re driving an old piece of shit instead of a beloved classic. Today I cleaned my monitors ( Koala cloth + Residual Oil Remover ), fed my office succulent ( Cute Farms ), replaced the dead batteries in my Death Star (required a small Philips head screwdriver I didn't have at the office; this Makita set is amazing, I have two), installed a new mount ( flagpole clip with carabiner + bungee cord ) to relieve ...

Just got this announcement:  https://hs-7242331.f.hubspotstarter.net/hubfs/7242331/TURBAERO%20PRESS%20RELEASE.pdf  They’re hunting for a buyer. I hope they find one. Besides electric aircraft, this is one of the developments I’m most excited about; the possibility of replacing failure-prone 1940s-era (still annoyingly often leaded gas dependent ) piston engines with modern turboprops with equivalent power, is #goals. TurbAero turboprop engine for light GA The reliability of turboprops is appealing to me for some reason 🙃 and I’m still, long term, planning (hoping; dreaming I might be able) to do a factory-assisted quick build of a Velocity Twin with two TurbAero power plants. (Although the turbine-powered ship that’s flying now was built around the PBS TP100 . Still dreaming ... (With the A&P shortage , I really, really want the ability to do my own maintenance and condition inspections...)

Yamaha bass, Fender amp, my audience Grabbed a “starter” bass, the Yamaha BB234 , and paired it with a Fender Rumble 40 [1]. Added on the usual assortment of accessories, like a cable , strap , tuner , heavy picks (’cause the first song I’ve been learning is Opiate , and, well, Paul D’Amour plays with a pick ). For the Fender I also picked up the  099-4049-000 foot switch to toggle between its modes, and for convenience this  C14 to C13+NEMA 5-15R Y Splitter Power Plug Cord so I can plug in the NUX MG-300 Mk. II (which has some bass heads and IRs and pedals, to augment the basic massaging the Rumble 40 has built in), without running another cable back to the wall. I’ve also been using it with headphone amps: Boss Katana:GO (had picked up a discounted used one to use with guitar, but it’s got a good bass mode) with a pair of AKG K92 headphones (which I already had) (cable hell, but it can also be used as an audio interface)] Positive Grid Spark NEO  (better interface...

I have a Kobo Elipsa 2E  (came with a stylus) and I’m thinking about adding a Libra Colour , which also supports a stylus. (My Libra 2  does not ; the other models that do  are the discontinued Sage and the original Elipsa .) I want to be able to easily highlight text, and add notes. The official stylus is $70, but, it turns out it uses the Microsoft Pen Protocol (MPP) , so any stylus that works with a modern Microsoft Surface tablet should work with the Kobo. Like this $20 unit (or this $29 model ). (The former can be equipped with these replacement nibs ; not sure about the latter.) The $20 SKU, Amazon’s AI said it wouldn’t work, but multiple reviews said it works just fine (search for “Kobo” and use the “Show related customer reviews and Q&A” option); for the $29 product, Amazon’s AI offers: Yes, the ASUS Stylus Pen you're looking at works with Kobo devices! One customer specifically mentions it "works well with Kobo devices" in their review. Key features for Kob...

Very brief, and incomplete, but I’ll add to it as I go. In the beginning (the 1970s), CPUs shipped in Dual In-line Package (“DIP”) packaging: DIP These were ubiquitous in the late 70s and early 80s, but they became impractical above 40 pins, which led to some interesting design compromises, like the 24-bit address bus and 16-bit external data bus of the Motorola 68000: But these could be through-hole mounted, or socketed, and it was what it was. Following that, we start getting into interesting diversions, like 68-pin PLCC (Plastic Leaded Chip Carrier) and 68-pin Ceramic LCC (Lead Less Chip Carrier) packages, commonly seen on the 80286, starting in the early 1980s: PLCC CLCC Starting more-or-less around the era of the 80386 and the 68030, came Pin Grid Array, used for, e.g., socketed (and through-hole soldered) CPUs through the mid-2000s at least, when Intel switched to Land Grid Array (LGA) for the Pentium 4 (and a couple of years later, moved Xeon over) (AMD still uses PGA for ma...

I’ve been using Google Authenticator on my phone for sites that require MFA. But picking up my phone to obtain a code is fraught with potential distraction / derailment. (Kind of an event boundary / doorway effect kind of thing.) So I was stoked to figure out I can add an Authenticator extension to Chrome to retrieve tokens ( authenticator.cc ). To export my accounts from the phone app, I had to go through one by one to generate QR codes, AirDrop a screen shot of the code to my laptop, and then import in the extension. A bit clunky, but I really only have to do it once (well, once for every device you want to use the extension on, sigh...). Adding the extension In Chrome (or apparently, also, FireFox, though the instructions will differ somewhat), use the ⋮ menu, Extensions, Visit Chrome Web Store, and search for Google Authenticator. Add the authenticator.cc extension: Me, I like to have something I’m going to use that often, pinned to my toolbar: Exporting accounts from the iP...

The rOtring Freeway is ... fine ... but it’s feeling kinda loose and needed replacement in my daily carry kit. Wanted something inexpensive and stumbled across this Porsche Crest Carbon-Look Ballpoint Pen ($25). (Echos of the Porsche Design Tec Flex Steel Ballpoint Pen someone got me after I got my first Porsche, the 968 Cabrio.) Only ... it’s not a ballpoint pen. It’s a roller ball. Which is what I wanted. The included refill writes fine and is about as generic as you can get (it’s got a green “quill” logo with an ®, 2025-04 marking, and reads “International Roller Pen Refill 0.7.” I tried the Pilot, G2 Gel Ink Refill and it  almost  fits, but the tip is recessed a bit into the pen and the diameter is like a hair’s breadth too thick (it got stuck in the tip). It appears this is probably equivalent to a Schmidt 5888M rollerball refill . Edit: It’s not. The tip of the refill gets stuck going into the tip of the pen. Amazon’s AI suggests a Schmidt 888 , or the Graf Von Faber ...