I’ve had Grado SR–125 headphones for almost 20 years now. I’ve neglected them the last ten years. Their second set of L cushions were disintegrating, so I splurged on official G cushions. They’re so good. They fit entirely over my ears instead of sitting along the edges (that made my ears ache pretty fast). #Gradolabs
Apple
In World of Warcraft’s War Within, I have made it to Dornogal. My Druid hasn’t died yet. Not sure if that means I’m badass or that first part of the game is purposefully easy to solo 🤔 Enjoying it so far #WoW
I just learned about Follower Dungeons in World of Warcraft. Being able to now play the game solo, at my own pace, is very tempting. I’m happy to see WoW is available for Macs #WoW #macOS
Asian pears are ready for fresh eating! The yellow ones are New Century and the brown ones are Hosui. Our nectarines were hammered by the heat and recently got bug infested. But we harvested what we could & cooked them down. #HomeOrchard #AsianPears 
Smoke from thr Park Fire has, for the first time, obviously made it to the surface of the west side of the Sacramento Valley. I can smell it and the Purple sensor reports above 170 AQI #ParkFire #CAWx #AirQuality
The temperatures are in the 70s and it is quite overcast with clouds and smoke. So we took advantage of the fall-like weather and went to Black Butte Reservoir. Here are Western Grebes, a Double Crested Cormorant, a Robin, and an Osprey 
Park Fire from way across the west Sacramento Valley near Orland ☹️ #ParkFire #CAWx 
Today’s Sonos app update restores most local library functionality. Here I go with app and firmware updates 🤞
At Medford, Oregon airport, two fire fighter tanker aircraft on final approach on July 17, 2024. A DC-10 (registered N522AX/TKR512) and a C-130 (registered N382CG/TNKR138). #AvGeek #C130 #DC10 #PlaneSpotting #TankerAircraft
Apple moving drivers away from kernel space to user space on macOS suddenly makes sense. #macOS
Today I’m at Medford just for the evening. So here’s a photo straight out of the camera of tanker 912, a DC-10. #TKR912 #DC10 #Fujifilm #AvGeek 
Finally, alternatives to Lithium batteries are on the market.
Undecided with Matt Ferrell: Solid State Batteries Are REALLY Here: Yoshino Power Station
If you like Watch Duty, the free (!) iOS app Calamity goes beyond wildfires into major airport delays, bad weather, earthquakes, solar flares & more. A decently presented aggregation of publicly available information.https://apps.apple.com/us/app/calamity-disaster-monitor/id6477748950
I’m watering the front yard plants tonight because knuckleheads gotta set off fireworks. I must say that the Rachio hose timer is pretty handy in these one-off situations.
In my part of the N. Sacramento Valley, 85 degrees F this morning. The humidity is 20% and it’ll drop. Temperatures may rise up to 113 today. Winds are still strong. Across the valley, at Oroville, is the Thompson Fire, which doesn’t seem to be letting up. #ThompsonFire #CaWx
Comcast/Xfinity Internet Woes
Friday, June 28, 2024
Comcast/Xfinity internet at my home has some kind of network issue that sure feels like throttling. For customer service, it’s literally impossible to get more than a chatbot and a chat-based live support agent. The live support agents are 100% scripted and they do the same troubleshooting flows as a chatbot.
The issue is that my internet is operating at 0-5 Mbps unless I’m on VPN. I’m supposed to get ~1 Gbps and usually get 700 Mbps on Wifi 6E. On VPN, most of the time, our internet is screaming fast. Off VPN, my Sonos cannot stream from Tidal and my Apple TVs cannot stream without repeat buffering. So I’m now quite thankful that Apple TV recently gained VPN support. Meanwhile, speed tests shows full speed when the VPN is off. So I guess I’m being gaslit with some kind of priority network path to speed test servers that avoid the problematic routing. So there must be a routing and/or equipment issue on Comcast’s side, but it’s impossible to talk to anyone that knows anything beyond checking your modem’s signal and rebooting it.
Chat support agents invariably say the signal is fine, and so blame the router. I’ve replaced the modem and router and cables between: same issue! LAN and Wifi exhibit the same issues and as far as I can tell there’s no device spamming the network (which would also cause issues while on VPN). Anyway, I managed to convince the Comcast's chatbot to let me schedule a technician… a week out. So I’ve got as many devices connected to Express VPN as I can to have full speed internet. For now?
Unfortunately, today one of the Express VPN locations and my work VPN started to act like off-VPN speeds.
If this doesn’t get resolved, the only option with barely reasonable speeds, but far better than this experience, would be T-Mobile Home Internet. And that will not be great.
U.S. land management agencies losing Chevron deference will be madness. Generally judges accept that agencies know what they’re doing as they do it day in and day out and have skillful people with the latest science. This will be a disaster. #SCOTUS #ChevronDeference
A helicopter has been flying a lot over my town so I looked up their previous flights. Okay… guess I shouldn’t be surprised they drew a phallus in the air with their seemingly purposeless flying 🫢 
Windows 11’s File Explorer’s Forward and Back buttons randomly not working is quite the treat. The insane part is that after moving the window, they then work. Did not realize how much I use those those
Stories on California ghost towns are always entertaining. The latest one is from SF Gate: It was supposed to be a California utopia. It turned into a ghost town
Just as most non-native plants stop flowering in time for summer, the California Fuchsias have just begun adding a splash of red. Currently the native toyon, elderberry, and roses are flowering. California Buckwheat is on its way. We have flowers nearly year-round. Native plants are awesome. 
Paramount+'s Strategy is Baffling
Sunday, June 2, 2024
Paramount+ still has nothing to watch once a season of Star Trek is over. Paramount cancelled Star Trek: Discovery and there’s only one more season of Lower Decks. Funny thing is, in the past I subscribed to their ad-free product. But Paramount+ greatly increased the cost of the ad-free subscription so I went with the ad-supported. Guess what? No ads while watching Star Trek. So they got less monthly money from us than if they’d kept the ad-free subscription cost reasonable. What are they even doing? And they STILL don’t have full streaming rights for Big Bang Theory. That’d keep up subscribed for months, if not a year.
Marestail weeds are impossible to pull out of compacted ground. I’m avoiding herbicide so I’ve resorted to using hand pruners to cut Marestail weeds down to bare mineral earth. It’s as tedious and zen as it sounds. Problem is, they refuse to die. It is as if they have infinite resources in their roots.
The Flight Simulator Navigation Data Economy
Monday, May 27, 2024
Flight Simulation has quite the economy surrounding it. I’m not particularly fond of the navigation data sector of that economy. If you want the latest navigation data, you must subscribe or buy it from Aerosoft or Navigraph. But those companies that sell it to you must buy the raw data from Jeppesen or Lufthansa Systems. That data is delivered as ARINC424 format files or in a more reasonable tailored database format. That full navigation data is very expensive. An individual cannot afford it. I have seen quotes upwards of $10,000 USD. I do not know if that's for a single month’s data or a year’s worth. However, through Jeppesen, if you’re an actual pilot with a navigation computer that you must keep up to date, you can buy navigation data compiled specifically for that aircraft’s navigation computer at a substantially more reasonable, attainable price. But Jeppesen and Lufthansa Systems will not sell you compiled data for your home computer simulator. That’s where Aerosoft and Navigraph come in as middlemen. They buy the raw data and reprocess it into a myriad of formats suitable for flight simulation and 3rd party simulated aircraft. The two companies then resell that data to simmers at around $10 USD per month or per cycle. Once a simmer is introduced to the concept of navigation data cycles, many with disposable income forever chase the latest navigation data.
You see, updated navigation data is released around once a month, called a cycle, from a number of aviation authorities. Jeppesen and Lufthansa Systems compiles all of that into proprietary databases. Typically changes are not dramatic between cycles, though they can seem so if there are new or updated approaches or navigation GPS fixes. If you export a flight plan from flight simulator planner software using a cycle that is newer or older than what is in your simulator, you’ll get a software freakout. Or if you manually enter a plan into the simulator based on a different navigation cycle, you’ll find the simulator’s navigation data lacks the the desired approaches and fixes. Worse, some 3rd party aircraft use their own navigation database files and those are often not the same cycle as the simulator’s default navigation data. You cannot simply import the simulator’s navdata into that aircraft’s system. You have to turn to Navigraph or Aerosoft to synchronize the data. Not to miss sales opportunities, Navigraph will happily provide several year old data for free distribution with aircraft and flight planner software. Of course that data will not match with the simulator’s data. Thus starts a cycle of chasing navigation data because people naturally dislike when things go sideways and need the latest navdata synchronized everywhere all of the time.
I used to subscribe to monthly navigation data. But now I’ve come to realize it is simply not necessary to chase reality like that. Frankly, I have enough monthly subscriptions. But for most of them, the services are used daily or supports independent work. Navigation data only benefits me a couple times a week, if that. For my flights, navigation data almost never changes. If it does, it’s not very noticeable or not noticeable at all. Just switch to available approaches or fixes and be done with it. It’s a home simulator, after all, not a check flight.
So it is reasonably simple, and takes barely any time, to use the flight simulator’s default older navigation cycle data (from Navigraph, of course!). If I’m using FlightAware to look at real-world filed flight plans, and if there’s an incompatibility with an approach or a navigation fix with the simulator’s older data, it takes just a minute to rework a flight plan in the open source Little NavMap software. And taking that a bit further, you can do whatever the heck you want in a simulator. Just fly and save some bucks for other more important things like saving democracy or supporting your favorite creators (including simulated aircraft designers).
The Capay Unit refuge was bustling today. Here’s a Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillar and a Black headed Grosbeak. Also saw Orioles, Black Phoebes, possibly an inflight juvenile Bald Eagle, Osprey, Ash Throated Flycatcher, Lesser Gold Finches & Red Tailed Hawks #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge 
Sonos Ace headphones are not for me since all I ever wanted from such a thing was to transfer my music seamlessly between speakers and headphones. And then there’s the Sonos app mess. It’ll be a while before I can trust Sonos enough to resume buying their hardware. WTFs all around.
Windows 11 Thoughts
Friday, May 24, 2024
I have Windows 11 on my work PC now.
What does not work for me:
- File Explorer's simplified right-click context menu where useful file interaction & application extensions, like Box, are hidden under a More button (UGH). Fix by pressing Shift when right clicking. I’m not yet sure if I like the copy/paste buttons. Guess Microsoft wants to turn Windows into Teams and make finding necessary features really difficult.
- Taskbar is glued to the bottom of the screen -- I need it on the left! I have all the display width and not much display height. I don’t like hiding the taskbar.
- Audio system is garbage. I mute system audio but Teams keeps making noise. AirPod sound output is garbled. The mixer interface is a mess and I got applications really mixed up with audio output.
Always end on a good note! So a few things one thing works for me:
- Named virtual desktops & persistence across reboots.
It is super cool that Flame Skimmer dragonflies are spending time in our backyard. This one was stationed on that stick nearly all day. And then there’s the much more active one that you can see as an orangish blur flying behind the stick. #Fujifilm 
NO Pedestrians Beyond This Point: Black Phoebe enforced #Birds #Fujifilm #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge
Sometimes unintentional photos are the best. Today at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge south of Willows: