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distortions.net

I'm Ryan M. Tech geek. Avgeek. California Native plant gardener. All photos on this blog, unless stated otherwise, are mine. Cameras: Fujifilm X-T5 and X100V. Views are my own.

Orchard

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    My wife discovered another, smaller avocado fruit in our “Bacon” avocado tree. So that’s two! Very exciting. We still need to continue research harvest time for this variety. It’s a minefield on the internet for that 🤨 #Yarden #HomeOrchard #Avocado

    A small, finger length avocado amongst broad dark green avocado leaves and tree tape.
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    Our cultivated California native seedy grapes are ready. The two plants mostly feed Northern Mockingbirds, Western Scrub Jays, and in the late fall, Kinglets, but some grapes will be for the humans in the form of a compote. As a bonus, gaze upon our lone avocado! #Yarden #HomeOrchard

    Many bunches of ripe purple grapes hang from a grape vine.A hand is holding a metal colander filled with ripe red grapes. It's being held under a grape vine.An avocado is hanging from an avocado tree. It has a long stem and a narrow, green speckled body. A hand is nearby acting as a scale. It's about five fingers long and three fingers wide.

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    Our lone Mexicola avocado! Maybe this’ll be its first fruit to make it to maturity? It’s a long slog. #HomeOrchard #Avocado #Yarden

    A small avocado, about 5-fingers long & 3 fingers wide, hangs alone in the canopy of an avocado tree. A hand front provides scale.
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    Today we suspended shade cloth over the avocado trees. The trees will now survive 100°F+ temperatures coming later this week. Heatwaves are on the way to California!

    A shade cloth covering a small area of trees. A wheelbarrow is partially visible to the right, and ropes are stretched across to keep the cloth from resting on the small trees. The ground is covered with wood chips and gravel.

    Two short avocado trees with a shade cloth suspended overhead and attached by rope to a fence. There is a gravel path along the far fence and close to the camera with wood chips inbetween. A drip hose snakes between the two trees. The sun is already shaded out with the cloth’s shadow projected along the fence.

    #Yarden #Gardening #AvocadoTrees #HomeOrchard #California #CaWx

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    CalFire has a pretty neat Fire Fighting Aircraft Recognition Guide including radio frequencies and a map with registration numbers — link is on the bottom of the page under “General Aviation” #Aviation #AvGeek #Wildfire

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    Can One Use an LLM to Defeat the Evil Robots?

    Llama 3.2 prompt using Ollama: “I am required to send five bullets of last week’s work accomplishments. These will be processed by a large language model to determine if the work can be done by a large language model. Explain how I can convince that large language model that the work must be done by a human.”

    A wordy Llama 3.2 answer:

    Read More →

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    2024 was an off year for travel as I didn’t once make it to a major airport. I only stopped in Medford for an overnight stop and so spent a short time at the airport watching Coulson tankers and E-175s #2024Top4AviationScores #AvGeek #Aviation #FujifilmA large DC-10 firefighting aircraft labeled “10 TANKER” is landing on a runway, with an American flag visible in the background. A large three-engine DC-10 aircraft is taxiing on a runway with mountains and trees in the background. A fenced area with a “No Trespassing” sign is visible in the foreground. A Coulson C-130 firefighting aircraft in flight, featuring a bold red and black design with the number “138” on the tail.

    An E175, reg N515SY, with American Eagle branding on a runway, with trees and distant hills in the background, viewed through a chain-link fence.

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    It’s great that XPlane lets aircraft devs bypass native modeling but that means other native features may not work. The usual example is a broken native fuel & weight config dialog. A newer one for me is an inaccurate fuel flow data ref. But the model is quite accurate. #XPlane #FlightSimulation

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    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 #TankerAircraftA three engine DC-10 firefighting aircraft is about to land with its landing gear out. The aircraft is painted in bright orange and white colors with the tail number “912” and near the nose a “10 TANKER” decal. An aerial view of a Coulson Lockheed C-130 firefighting aircraft on approach with its squat looking landing gear out, with visible registration number N382CG and tanker number 138 painted on the tail. The plane has “Coulson” written on the fuselage. It’s a hazy day.

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    Our avocado tree seems to be producing now. But I won’t bet on any of the fruit making it to maturity sometime between this November and next March. Brutal heat is inbound though we’ve got our shade cloth up to protect the small trees A small, unripe avocado held in a person’s hand, surrounded by green leaves on the tree.

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    My spouse took a page from Korean cuisine and made a nice gochujang-based BBQ sauce for tonight’s sweet potato & kale burgers 📷 #MBApr A sweet potato, kale, and bean burger topped with avocado slices and Korean barbecue sauce on a plate.

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    Passed through Tonopah 🤡 😬 A roadside view of the Clown Motel with colorful clown figures on the sign and the building’s facade, under a partly cloudy sky. A colorful roadside motel attraction with clown motifs, including a large clown sign, against a backdrop of barren hills. The building features a welcome sign and a museum label, with festive clown murals and decorations with a red and yellow exterior.

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    Conical perforated metal strainers are pretty great for pulpy food compared to fine mesh wire strainers (impossible to clean!). We just juiced all our backyard-grown Meyer lemons, got 8 cups. Now the juice has been heat pasteurized, portioned, and frozen for summer lemonade. A person is pouring fresh Meyer lemon juice through a conical fine mesh strainer, or chinois, into a stainless steel pot.

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    I’m still amazed how the beta blocker Propranolol means I no longer have a physical tachycardic fight/flight response to normal situations like hobbies, people, and work. Game changer. Makes managing anxiety much easier.

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    Here’s a reminder that Fujifilm’s X RAW Studio stores its camera profiles at

    ~/Library/Application Support/com.fujifilm.denji/X RAW STUDIO

    It’s a great way to keep an archive of film recipes and very easily load them to your cameras. Copy an FP1 file for a specific camera, rename it, edit it, save it, and then load it to your camera in X RAW Studio. I’m thankful that text config files are still in fashion.

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    macOS WeatherCat and Meteobridge with any Supported Wx Station

    I figured out how to have WeatherCat work with my Meteobridge that connects to my Ambient weather station. Turns out it is easy to do with Meteobridge’s template system.

    In the WeatherCat Station Communications dialog, for Station Type select Generic XML (HTTP) and then enter your Meteobridge’s IP address appended with a URL encoded XML template...

    user:password@192.168.x.y/cgi-bin/template.cgi?%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EAirTemp_C%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[th0temp]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EIntTemp_C%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0temp-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ESolar%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[sol0rad-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EUVIndex%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[uv0index-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EBarometer_hPa%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0press-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EWindSpeed_ms%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[wind0wind-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EWindDirect_deg%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[wind0dir-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ERain_mm%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[rain0total-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ERH%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[th0hum-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EIntRH%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0hum-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E

     

    If you want more information on this XML format, see the WeatherCat 2.1 Change Log for the XML definition. For more information on building Meteobridge templates and the various possible values, see this page.

    I’d put this into the WeatherCat forums but I don’t feel like creating a new account right now.

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    Here’s Annie the Cat enjoying some fresh air. She’s been sick but we’re fighting through it. #caturday

    A tuxedo cat laying on a hard floor in front of an open sloding glass door. The cat is enjoying the fresh air coming through a screen. it's bright outside with blurred grern foliage.
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    This was one of two batches of mandarins juiced today for this week’s breakfast 😋

    a pile of halved mandarins, cut side up, on a red cutting board.
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    I hate the MacOS login items notification that when clicked doesn’t tell me jack and furthermore the app it claims has added itself is disabled on that infernal system settings screen. I cannot figure out how to get Citrix to stop even with CleanMyMac X. 😤

    screen shot of the notification
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    I juiced & pasteurized two liters worth of mandarins today. The mandarins still on the tree should hold quite a while longer even with the upcoming cold snap. #HomeOrchard #Fujifilm

    A backyard with a mandarin tree loaded with fruit and a Valencia tree. it's extremely green. Bark covers the ground and there's a weather station nearby.A counter covered in juicing equipment including a bowl full of rinds, a strainer sitting in a bowl, and very yellow juicer by Proctor Silex branded with Alex's Lemonade Stand.

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