Curt Olson

https://social.makerforums.info/@clolsonus

Cirrus Aircraft Engineer. FlightGear co-founder. Drone avionics and aerial mapping hobbyist (as in writing code and building systems to do those things.) RC model airplane enthusiast. Still play a bit of soccer, do a bit of running, walking, hiking, cycling. Born in South America, currently reside in North America.

FlightGear: http://flightgear.org
North Star UAS: https://codeberg.org/NorthStarUAS
Curt's Blog: https://gallinazo.flightgear.org
youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CurtisOlson

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clolsonus_at_social.makerforums.info@momostr.pink

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nprofile1qqs2waj98jgxpqqazd7s6zn05fnt9sea8us9gaz9y5kh7r9ku75g4ygprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntexnw64

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Last Notes

2026-08-26 18:56:53 UTC

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I recently switched to "kate" because I got completely sick of vscode stuffing AI into my face in ever possible place ... and then informing me 10 days into the month that my monthly quota is up.
About the only thing I miss from vscode was it's fairly smart ability to reflow paragraphs. kate can autobreak text lines as you type them, but has no concept of reflowing paragraphs. A smart capability that could understand indentation, and bullets (and comments and markdown) would be pretty nice. Every once in a while I think about writing a simple offline paragraph reflow tool that touches as little as possible, but life is busy ....

2026-08-14 11:22:19 UTC

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My day job is now all teams and outlook, but our teams chats history gets purged after 90 days, and something similar with email except I haven't fully figured out the rules. I guess there are corporate liability or storage reasons for this. At work anyway it is insanely hard to dig back any old email or message or sharepoint document. Most of the time I just give up if the document isn't in my "recents" list. A lot of things in tech seem less ideal than they used to be, but we bumble along and somehow manage.

2026-08-14 11:08:14 UTC

My #email inbox used to be the center of my day, it was all the things I still needed to do. It was all the things I had done. It was all the people I know (online). It was all the people I work with or ever worked with. These days my incoming emails have slowed to a tiny trickle. My inbox is mostly notices that I have a message waiting on some other platform like linkedin, strava, amazon. I still haven't wrapped my head around this massive change. I guess it's ok? Except for linkedin, linkedin is the worst.

2026-08-07 01:50:13 UTC

I'm not a big audio person, but we are packed in like sardines at work so I thought I'd dip my toe in a set of headphones with active noise cancelling. I picked the FiiO E13 which are about the most inexpensive over-ear thing I could find with ANC ($50-ish). Here's my mini-review:
Pros:<li>They sound really good. Solid base, clean upper range.</li><li>I'm hearing details in songs I've never heard before.</li><li>Noise cancelling seems to work.</li><li>They fit and feel nice.</li>
Cons:<li>Build quality / materials feels on par for a $50 thing.</li><li>They don't come with any kind of case for transport.</li><li>My ears get a little sweaty ... that might just be me.</li>
Pros:<li>Hopefully I can ignore my coworkers better now. </li><li>They don't look as dorky as my old company provided head set</li>
TBD:<li>Not sure how well the built in mic's will work since there isn't a boom that comes down by my mouth. Maybe I can torment my coworkers with choppy garbled audio on my team calls now? Or maybe they'll work pretty ok?</li>

2026-05-16 17:53:22 UTC

I should save this one for Wednesday...
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/585/528/959/053/499/original/1d160177e6db560f.png

2026-05-14 17:02:29 UTC

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(3) Actually just asked ChatGPT to review the code for issues.

2026-04-23 00:34:01 UTC

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Still pretty cool, I'm always fascinated by the little halo around your self shadow in aerial shots.

2026-04-22 22:00:18 UTC

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Well that's pretty cool! Do you have any info about what goes into making your own camera, or is this a pretty common thing if I find the right forum/group on the interwebs?

2026-04-22 21:40:54 UTC

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re: real job ... to be honest I probably was happiest and most comfortable working at my university job. It had a lot of flexibility, I worked on things I loved, I could share all that with the world (most of the time the world didn't care anyway.) But that situation ran it's course, funding ran out, I didn't have much choice but to look for other options. Working at a "real" airplane company was a brand new experience for me and I figured I would have a lot to learn, and hopefully a few things to contribute.
It's interesting working with mechanica/aero engineers. They are so focused on making actual things. They don't know what to do with software. It scares the *** out of them. They know how to draw things, that is all. In some ways they kinda don't know what to do with me. If they don't see drawings on my computer screen I must not be doing real work, right? But then when I can put a button on a screen and they can click it and it opens up a window ... it totally blows their minds that a person knows how to even do something like that! It is so weird working with a bunch of engineers!

2026-04-22 20:27:32 UTC

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I've stepped back from being closely involved in the flightgear coding. James is the ultimate gatekeeper now. So much has changed since my last contribution, I'm not sure I would even know my way around the code. I would have resisted all the modern C++ features. There is a bunch of threading BS that I wouldn't have allowed in because of race conditions and crashes that happen. (But I acknowledge for visual graphics performance reasons sometimes you have to use threads.) I follow the devel mailing list, but I don't know if I've even ever created a gitlab account. I'm way behind on the transition from hub->lab. I wish I had more time in my day, but a few years ago we lost our university funding and I was forced to go get a "real" job ... and that job pays more than before, but the stress levels are sky high, the hours are long, but we are doing some cool stuff and I get to work with some great people so it's a new experience for me ... but leaves not many brain cells left over by the end of the day for anything else.

2026-04-22 19:43:47 UTC

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FlightGear already has enough mysterious bugs ... if we start letting in AI generated code or AI generated suggestions, nothing will ever work right again and it will be impossible to find/fix all the things. :-( Or maybe it will be great ... but if it's not great, by the time we figure that out it will be too late to recover. I know people who think that human coding is done and over and will never return .... but at some point they'll need a bug fixed or an actual working app (that isn't a common web app) and they'll be calling around to the humans they know for help.

2026-04-22 00:31:24 UTC

More tummy rubs please #dogsofmastodon
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/445/535/155/428/868/original/9cbbd4d4824214b2.jpg

2026-04-21 18:57:50 UTC

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Where are you seeing this? Forum? Mailing list?

2026-04-19 14:12:16 UTC

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Ooph, yeah I don't think I could handle something like that! Friends went to a place in S. Korea and got something that looked like a mound of raw hamburger with live octopus tentacles coming out still wiggling!

2026-04-19 13:59:40 UTC

Out for dinner last night ... dangers of ordering in another language! Should have asked about their vegetarian options!
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/431/722/404/162/446/original/f2c55903a690a531.png

2026-04-18 18:04:28 UTC

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I watched DS9 end to end probably a decade ago and really liked it. Of course some of it felt dated and small, but overall it is still pretty solid, good story arcs, interesting characters, it would be fun to watch it through again some day when I have infinite time.

2026-04-16 01:31:21 UTC

Just bored at the restaurant ...
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/411/797/480/862/447/original/b4cdaba3b1aee67a.png

2026-04-13 11:56:31 UTC

More backyard shots ... some sort of red fungus on a fallen birch branch and moss growing on a tree trunk.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/397/267/933/367/167/original/8c9c22f6b84b183b.png
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/397/269/882/927/845/original/ddeecc0f80a56422.png

2026-04-12 18:51:01 UTC

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Lol, yeah, I usually don't take my chainsaw on any kind of outings.

2026-04-12 18:01:23 UTC

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Now that I live on 5 acres of woods, whenever I see trees like that I want to get out my chainsaw and remove all the potential energy so they are at least dropped down to ground level. Still interesting how a tree found itself roots up ... I don't think I've quite see that exact one before. :-)

2026-04-12 15:16:32 UTC

#Drippy #Foggy #AlmostSpring weather in #NorthernMinnesota
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/392/392/545/605/424/original/3e27bbf46f88e0f8.png
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/392/393/530/961/853/original/4ca9b537ad0ce852.png

2026-04-11 02:12:33 UTC

This spot amidst a group of tall old pines always feels like it has a special presence.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/383/647/205/721/174/original/f1b6d89013c538c8.png

2026-04-10 14:16:01 UTC

Ok, #FootpathFriday :-)
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/380/828/795/126/176/original/a927cfaa9e7e0ee4.png

2026-04-10 12:45:26 UTC

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I continue to be impressed with the capabilities of AI, but a couple thoughts.
I am currently immersed in a work project with complexity and nuance that I can't imagine describing to an AI engine to build without figuring out first what we want to build ... by building it. I get frustrated trying to explain the subtle nuances of what I want to the AI engine in English. There are structured, formal languages that allow much more precise specification of what I want ... like python!
The 2nd thought is currently AI is subsidized by investor speculation, so it is unsustainably cheap. When we hit that cut-over point where AI companies are forced to support themselves on their own revenues without leaning on financial tricks, I think the costs are going to go way up. Very likely the cost to do a project with AI will get more expensive than doing it with human engineers. There will be trade-offs and risks to both approaches. At some point, AI tools and AI help will become far more expensive than they are today. (at least that's my prediction ....)

2026-04-09 12:20:22 UTC

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Normally I'm not in the interview loop at work, but got invited recently. A candidate had all the stuff on their resume, it was all fair, they did the projects they said they did ... but they really struggled to answer any questions about what they did. Did they understand their project? Did they know why the project was cool/significant? Could they talk about even one layer deeper? Could they even talk about the words on their resume? My sense was they went for a grade, not to learn ... but I hadn't considered that maybe much of their academic work could have been AI assisted. For us we need those skills, and then need that person who can apply them to much harder problems.
Contrast that with a meeting recently where a group is all in on AI generated everything ... even their project requirements/goals were AI generated. (someone else commented their app was buggy as ... the word I'm about to use in the next sentence.)
So both of these scare the h-e-double-toothpicks out of me!
Fine if all you are doing is generating silly web pages, or toy gui apps. I dunno, maybe I'm missing the whole point?
I use AI a lot in my day-to-day, but I ask it questions, I'm still trying to learn the thing and do the thing. I am just using AI to help me find the answer quicker. Previously I'd google all day long, which in retrospect was still largely ai, but would return the page with the answer, not the answer directly.
There was a wave a kids where many had academic setbacks due to covid, and now maybe we are rolling into a wave of kids that have academic setbacks due to ai.
Half the world is being actively bombed right now.
The tech world shuffles fake money around creating immense wealth for themselves that is only wealth if spent in trickles ... or to buy large chunks of sketchy companies.
Not super stoked about the future of humanity this morning, except we still can fly people around the moon, so there are still real people out there doing real things.

2026-04-09 02:20:00 UTC

https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/372/353/386/786/776/original/2d389c4d7670a433.png

2026-04-08 21:27:52 UTC

Can you at least try to keep up? #dogsofmastodon #mungertrail #duluth #minnesota #stillwinter
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/371/202/500/341/113/original/5932aaa0fe64c619.png

2026-04-07 00:11:04 UTC

#Frozen
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/360/521/976/943/730/original/b3757f0a81ba079d.png

2026-04-04 19:09:18 UTC

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"8th grader in their marketing department"
-- I always assumed males reached their peak mental maturity level about 8th grade.

2026-04-04 17:22:35 UTC

Still doing Winter today in Northern Minnesota.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/347/590/914/920/878/original/a17f93ebe4f28c34.png

2026-04-03 11:56:35 UTC

Wondering if these guys sell belts?
https://vanallansmensfashion.com

2026-03-31 02:08:53 UTC

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Just don't look down and you'll be fine!
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/321/348/627/087/271/original/3814248878bd6135.png

2026-03-27 20:12:02 UTC

I wonder if ChatGPT can file my taxes for me? #usaproblems

2026-03-26 21:04:06 UTC

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I don't know ... sometimes you go for the option you love the most; sometimes you have to balance competing interests; sometimes you settle for the option you hate the least. Austin Meyers can come off as being somewhat pompous and knowing more than everyone else (and I roll my eyes a bit) but uhh, having known the x-plane project since all the way back when FlightGear was just getting started, they took a different path, Austin owns a plane, I don't ... but I don't know that he's a bad guy or the project has bad values. It is a commercial project but that allows them to do more or different things compared to FlightGear ... so tradeoffs, but not necessarily good or bad in my view. When people are crappy to each other, that's a bad things though and sadly that can happen anywhere with any group.

2026-03-26 17:34:18 UTC

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My advice (not that I am any place to give advice) is to do the good and right and best thing for yourself. Maybe build your system to be flexible so you could flip back and forth or pivot in the future. Protect the longevity of the assets you are developing.

2026-03-25 13:08:06 UTC

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x-plane is not a bad option, and its dataref interface (via udp) enables you to do a /lot/ of your own things in your own python/c++ code. (It has a plugin system too, but I prefer my own external code talking via udp messages.)

2026-03-24 11:26:08 UTC

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These guys have an interesting approach using AR glasses ...
https://www.flyonspeed.org/hud

2026-03-22 12:51:43 UTC

The Saint Louis river is starting to open up for the spring. Some years this can be wall to wall raging water, but this year had fairly normal snow fall and this spring the melting has been paced.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/272/905/542/747/064/original/a37f17e90d42c191.png
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/272/915/112/854/894/original/8be2f6e34b00501a.png

2026-03-21 15:51:56 UTC

Somehow this is actually true!
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/267/962/213/708/241/original/76f640b6f0f43933.png

2026-03-20 12:13:32 UTC

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I sometimes wonder if I hooked up a monitor and keyboard to an ATMega2560, wrote a quick and dirty OS, hacked up a little spreadsheet/editor/word processor app, made a couple dumb simple games ... wouldn't life be so much nicer? Does our current trajectory eventually crush under it's own weight and we start the cycle over with something super simple again? I dunno, probably not.

2026-03-17 12:06:38 UTC

That feeling of power you get when you schedule a teams meeting and two of your coworkers actually accept.

2026-03-16 10:25:31 UTC

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Add a laugh track?

2026-03-16 10:18:26 UTC

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Now that I have a 3d printer I keep trying to remind myself that I can make little custom clips and brackets and things ... maybe the one end could slot into something that attaches to the main board and then you could solder in the other side? (That said, my day job has been sucking up all my extra curricular creative energy for the last couple years so all my personal projects have been going super slow.) :-(

2026-03-16 02:25:22 UTC

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My 2 cents is for rev 1, get it together as quick and easy as possible with off the shelf parts. That is easier said than done ... a lot of people (most people?) tend to want to design something pretty close to perfect on the first try and they spend a /ton/ of time doing it ... while they could have been up and running/flying weeks or months (or years) earlier if they had whipped together a hacky 80% (40%?) solution in a short time, got it working, learned a lot about what was important and not important, and then feed all that into a more carefully designed rev 2. Just be aware that I only pretend to be an aero engineer ... my degree is in computer science. :-)

2026-03-16 01:23:14 UTC

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For more casual stuff, the pololu switching regulators have also worked really really well for me ... but those might be even more over kill. It is nice to get a solid stable 5v no matter what the load is doing.

2026-03-16 01:09:49 UTC

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I've never done SMD design, but for one of my little board designs I used the Traco TSR2-2450 and it did well and was super solid. You can add an optional capacitor
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/traco-power/TSR-2-2450/9383726
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/236/175/344/412/599/original/5bfd618f8e6a1a4e.png

2026-03-15 19:05:25 UTC

Talk about crazy swings in the weather ... Rochester MN with an all time 24 hour record snow fall of ... 930 inches ... that's like over 75'. Wow!
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/234/742/962/867/710/original/183631d6810ecd51.png

2026-03-15 01:16:04 UTC

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To me "professional" in arts or sports means successfully getting paid. I think of professional vs. amateur. In other fields where people are typically paid for their efforts, maybe it means a level higher, a college degree, some sort of certification or extra experience?

2026-03-14 22:45:25 UTC

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Awe, that's fun. We had a german shepherd for a lot of years that loved to do this. I would take him jogging out to a stream as the turn around spot and throw the stick for him for a while. Then he'd want to bring the stick all the way home and we'd make a big pile in the front yard.

2026-03-14 22:43:12 UTC

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Lol, I hadn't ever noticed the moustache before! One of her tricks is to flip one ear up so she is extra cute, then she can get closer before she attacks.

2026-03-14 19:19:35 UTC

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Our rescue love ankles, but she's normally not like that as you can clearly see.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/229/142/210/286/518/original/2df9b30d08e6922e.png

2026-03-14 18:24:27 UTC

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Wishing you all the best!

2026-03-14 15:08:41 UTC

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I found this ... 289 in CA according to the random first link in my search. 411 in TX, 575 in Virginia (DC?) Would figure that the Federal gov't has the biggest need (and ability to pay) for the most data centers.
https://www.datacentermap.com/usa/

2026-03-14 14:01:50 UTC

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Yikes!

2026-03-14 13:05:53 UTC

Not untypical weather for March in the north woods.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/227/670/693/739/470/original/f74b1ce0c989a828.png

2026-03-13 01:34:29 UTC

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Weather underground bounces around as storms move through, but they just upgraded my spot from about 6 more inches to about 11 more inches, yikes!

2026-03-12 19:09:40 UTC

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Lol, not mention making new discoveries about the ultimate fate of lost items.

2026-03-12 12:34:59 UTC

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Oh, I like the idea of snowblowing all the chunks into the neighbor's yard! Actually it's usually not so bad. We have one medium size dog and she likes to go out into the fringes close to the woods in the way back, so most of the time I don't have to worry about it. It's just when we dog sit our kids 3 big dogs for a week or our friend's two dogs ... and those new dogs don't know the routine or the preferred areas.

2026-03-12 12:00:14 UTC

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More snow means I can put off picking up the yard after a winter of dog activity ... so infinite winter sounds ok for a while longer.

2026-03-11 13:30:14 UTC

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I think I am, but it's possible there is a setting somewhere I'm not aware of. (vivaldi browser)

2026-03-11 11:46:56 UTC

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Seeing the same -Err here (usa) ... location reported as 0, 0 in the lower left of the window. As far as I can tell I've enable location (but ....???) I'm running the vivaldi browser. I'm guessing it's probably some sort of browser permissions on my side, but I don't know what to look for. Is there any deeper debugging I can do on my side? (Also, my computer is located in an upstairs room of my house if that makes a difference for your algorithm) :-)

2026-03-08 17:28:14 UTC

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I'm sure every situation is wildly different so this is not so much advice as just reporting what I did. After injuring my knee (some sort of hyper-extension and bone bruise playing soccer) I spent several months alternating between an elliptical machine, exercise bike, and walking for exercise. We joined a local gym (basically the local high school gym since we are semi-rural.) I always figured if I bought any big exercise equipment it would probably just collect clothes hangars, and joining a gym let me use a variety of equipment. Eventually I started running once every 2 weeks on a treadmill which was easier on my knee than running outside ... and then after a couple months of that started doing once every week. I still wear a knee sleeve, but I'm back to being able to run a couple times a week ... but now I'm to the general age where I run every other day at most to give my body a chance to heal. And I've even started playing some pickup soccer (sorry, football) again with a local group. Anyhow, wishing you the best with your recovery and hope you are back to running sooner than you expect.

2026-03-08 12:50:36 UTC

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Gorgeous! Here is a week ago sunset driving back du nord from a visit to central #minnesota.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/193/637/376/370/149/original/1da496cdfe35a087.png

2026-03-08 12:47:35 UTC

Saturday #hike with the #dog.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/193/624/750/781/490/original/20209a0489c3f9d0.png

2026-03-07 15:45:55 UTC

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The whole thing with paper clips now sticking to your face tends to wear off in 24-48 hours.

2026-03-06 13:02:12 UTC

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Mac is solid, my St. Kates kiddo played in their wind orchestra and took french over there (until covid hit.) There is some reciprocity deal between schools where you can take classes at other schools that aren't offered at yours ... if you have a way to get there. I think it would have even been possible for her to try out for the big UMN marching band, but that was starting to look like way too big of a time commitment. Anyhow, good luck, lots of exciting times ahead!

2026-03-06 11:33:06 UTC

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A few years ago my office/lab was in an area under the stands in Marriucci ... on the side the zamboni drives in and out of (NW corner of the stadium, ground level.) We did driving simulation and human factors research there. (And the lab had previously done some aviation research and had some cool derelict airplane cockpits/sims.) Some fun times. I snuck into a game once with my daughter just to get pizza. (I think it was a USA women's national team game or something like that.) One time I peed next to Doug Woog (UMN mens hockey coach.) I was all like, hey what up. I also peed next to Gilbert Godfrey at comic con. That's about as close as I've ever been to fame.
There are some good schools in the MIAC. I hope something works out! Our oldest daughter graduated from St. Kates and youngest daughter is getting her masters there now. My mom and uncle graduated from Macalester. We have relatives or know people that have gone to just about every one of the MIAC schools. I have friends that transferred their kids from Bethel to Northwestern (a mile down the road) because Bethel was way too liberal ... so read into that probably whatever you want and you'll probably be about right. :-)
Anyhow, hope you find a good fit somewhere. (And by that I mean good scholarships!)

2026-03-04 15:55:02 UTC

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We have so many good ideas for you! (I hadn't seen mapterhorn before, it looks amazing, I need to find some time to see if I can integrate the raw data as slippy tiles on the fly instead of SRTM!)

2026-03-04 14:23:54 UTC

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I suppose I used very similar words to describe my experience transitioning from perl/C/C++ to python. Python ended up being more similar than I realized, I was just initially thrown by the whitespace-matters and all the new unfamiliar tokens/symbols/keywords . (There is a whole bunch of python weird syntax stuff that I ignore, but when it shows up in other people's code I just say "what the ..." and move on.)

2026-03-04 14:13:48 UTC

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I started to look at rust one day, and my first impression was "ohhhh .... that's different, I'll have to circle back later with more free brain cells." Sadly I think I lose brain cells faster than I free them up, so ... still poking around with python mostly here.

2026-03-04 14:08:02 UTC

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I became less of a dilbert fan over the years, but one cartoon stuck out to me. The new manager came in and was centralizing everything that was decentralized and decentralizing everything that was centralized. (The side comment was that "... the man is a management genius!")
This principle seems true in so many things where there is not a perfect answer. Maybe we'll start typing everything in python (and every other scripted language) to compensate for some small uncertainty that lets subtle bugs through ... but at some point, that will become such a pain that we'll swing back to not typing things for the freedom and flexibility?
Being able to mix both approaches in the same code is probably not the best of both worlds.
In the meantime, I suppose ll will just hang out with the type freedom and flexibility group until I have a good reason not to.

2026-03-04 13:43:55 UTC

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Honest question: I always thought one of the big advantages of scripted languages over traditional compiled languages is you could be fast/loose/flexible with types. In FlightGear we added a whole "Property Tree" system that brought this kind of flexibility of scripted variables with loose typing and ability to add totally new variables on the fly at runtime to our C++ project.
Now I see a big push to strongly type everything in python ... is this a good thing? I missed the whole discussion.

2026-03-04 13:39:04 UTC

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It looks really great!

2026-03-04 13:13:06 UTC

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Your project caught my eye because I have been working (off and on over the years) on a web-based ground control station for my UAS project. I recently ported everything from js/html/css over to nicegui (python-based) which presents the app as a web interface. All the instrument animations are done with svg (nicegui has a way to embed svg into a widget.) There are so many good ways to do things these days though, and every 6 months there are 3 new ways to do web-based things that everyone is chasing. Hopefully (for my sake) nicegui sticks around for a while. :-)
(The advantage of nicegui is you write everything in one place, it's not an unholy collection of completely different pieces that are stitched together like most web apps. Ok, well, to be fair, yes it is an unholy collection of different pieces stitched together like every other web based app .... but ... it is quite effective in hiding that from you, and you only do your editing in a single place.)

2026-03-04 11:53:36 UTC

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In case it helps give ideas, here is some code I wrote to download/parse/query the SRTM (shuttle radar tomography mission) elevation data which has pretty good coverage and quality globally from about -60 to +60 latitude. There's a lot of extra junk in there too for my particular use case ... which made sense to me at the time. I'd have to stare at it for a minute now to answer questions, but it still works for it's purpose.
https://github.com/NorthStarUAS/Simulator/blob/main/nstSimulator/world/srtm2.py

2026-03-02 12:00:55 UTC

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... then your journey towards the dock side will be complete!

2026-03-02 02:52:45 UTC

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When I went to school in the late 80's we were given a few simple suggestions for methodology and even encouraged to try a couple, but that is as far is it every went. Pretty much left on our own to figure out whatever worked for us. I wrote my own adventure program in HS on my little Apple II in basic and the big take away from that was to make a plan to be organized .... and keep the plan out ahead of the anticipated complexity. So that's what I tell people to this day ... "I dunno, do whatever, but just keep it well organized."

2026-02-28 22:43:33 UTC

Wife and I went and got our shongles shot this afternoon. Guess we are getting to that age ...

2026-02-28 14:17:10 UTC

Waking up to Trump once again exercising his unlimited phenomenal cosmic power and directing it in anger and retribution. Maybe this means #Minnesota is off the hook for a while now. But does the world really need all this ADHD war mongering ...

2026-02-27 16:28:15 UTC

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Before claude we'd just ship it late friday afternoon and deal with the bugs on monday. Distributed user-centric bug hunting, leverage your customer base!

2026-02-27 16:22:46 UTC

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My answer to WHYYYYY? is always "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

2026-02-27 01:54:01 UTC

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I don't know if this is useful advice, but try getting involved with NOAA out of Honolulu or maybe East Coast somewhere? A bunch of years ago I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to go on a 16 day cruise out of Hawaii on NOAA ship 1000nm north up into the great pacific garbage patch to test drone survey techniques for hunting ocean debris. It was hard, trying to work on a rolling ship is difficult and I was at best 60% capacity the whole trip, trying not to puke, but it was an adventure and I learned a lot ... and gained a huge respect for the sea. So try to get on a funded research project that gets ship time ... ????

2026-02-21 16:42:34 UTC

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I'm sure there would be a path from markdown to excel, except once it's in excel other people want the ability to get in there and make comments/changes (it might happen once or twice ever that anyone goes in and looks at the contents, but need to have the capability!)

2026-02-21 15:11:31 UTC

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So for us, not lunch time optimization, but the quoted post "triggered" me. :-)

2026-02-21 14:54:07 UTC

At work I noticed our brand new weekly status report slide template has a spot for waste reduction. Work is weird, so much emphasis on metrics and reporting and process, assuming all the good and right things will just fall out of doing the process. Got my hand slapped for keeping my todo list in a markdown text file (under git version control) instead of an excel spreadsheet. Now it takes 4x as long to add/update my entries, but I was congratulated for starting to get on the right track with my self organization, so that is good ... I guess? Feels like I'm simultaneously being micromanaged and unmanaged. They let go my direct boss and the new boss is great, but has about 3x the number of people more than he should to keep up with everything and now there are a number of open boss positions, so that was weird too. Somehow we manage to muddle through ... the boss they let go focused too much on creating a healthy work environment and not enough on lunch time optimization, so here we are. Sorry, just complaining!
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/109/154/230/449/374/original/b0e2de6f1e21840d.png

2026-02-20 14:28:38 UTC

#Fensterfreitag (with a hashtag in the picture even)
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/103/426/542/959/333/original/74f9cb4e53d98c03.png

2026-02-19 16:06:02 UTC

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And we got another 2-3" over night so I'm going to have to go back out and do this all again!

2026-02-19 02:54:11 UTC

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Offish Space
Ratatuna

2026-02-18 23:36:45 UTC

Gotta restomp all my trails after 8-12" (?) of fresh snow. #Minnesota
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/094/256/804/439/935/original/ac999035bc066437.png

2026-02-18 17:15:32 UTC

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😂

2026-02-18 16:37:16 UTC

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What would we do without recursion!?!

2026-02-18 03:19:15 UTC

#Minnesota #iceout
I stumbled on this video from 11 years ago and it seems 90% relevant to what's been going on in MN the past few months. And 100% predictive of the ultimate outcome ...
https://youtu.be/3Vh_zMKzIZI

2026-02-17 13:12:04 UTC

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I was in college when Jesse Jackson ran for president, it was my first time voting, and his message that the world is a better place when everyone is kind to each other really resonated with me. Ever since then I've wished there was an "everyone be kind to everyone" party. I'd join that one. And I know I'm still super naive, and there are all the reason why the other guys are worse, but I can still wish for a better world and for better leaders and better people and try to do the best I can for myself and my family.

2026-02-15 01:46:26 UTC

#Valentimes 😀
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/072/117/741/510/130/original/d26ad9cd1aa0d802.jpg

2026-02-14 19:55:28 UTC

Just got my #gurgleapps #wordclock kit up and running. Ran into a few things along the way, mostly due to python 3.14 compatibility with the provided instructions. But got through it and am up and running! Neat geeky thing for my desk!
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/070/736/390/852/924/original/8dc6d2dfe8a3731b.png

2026-02-12 17:47:59 UTC

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So you are saying if I keep my code on GitHub, some part of me will live on forever?

2026-02-10 12:50:16 UTC

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I knew how to print things back when printers used parallel cables. Now with this wifi printer I can get stuff out sometimes.

2026-02-09 17:04:20 UTC

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On my facebook feed I posted something about lady gaga and protest songs. She did a song for a super bowl ad where she literally just recorded the "won't you be my neighbor" song from Mr. Rogers. I got angry replies that we should keep politics out of sports. If Mr. Rogers is now the symbol of everything evil and woke, then I don't even know how you proceed forward with some of these people. They are just too far gone. The sad thing is that so many of these (in my circles) claim to be Christian and claim to be the good guys in the story ... yet they now have been trained to instinctively react again "be my neighbor" which is literally the greatest commandment in the Bible (well 2nd greatest, but equivalent to the greatest.) My mom proudly declared they were watching the turning point all america half time show last night, not Bad Bunny ... they are well into their 80's ... I don't know when they became kid rock fans. It just shows the power of hype and power of propaganda when you shelter inside a tiny point of view and refuse to look up and listen to people's stories, and see the good in people. They and so many others are convinced that any outside is scary and bad and ... and these are people that taught me to be kind, that love wins ... but they've hitched their wagon to Trump who is all about revenge, demonizing, fear, anger, tough guy posturing. And they don't see it and never will ... it is so disheartening to see this grow and grow and become more and more isolating and divisive.

2026-02-09 15:22:33 UTC

Heard a new word today: "FECTS". Used when you aren't sure if it should be "affects" or "effects".

2026-02-09 14:36:38 UTC

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Fox news started the culture wars, and now it feels like maybe things are slipping a bit for them? The stadium probably would have boo'd trump if he attended the game. So now just seeing another culture, hearing spanish spoken, a different beat or style of music, people with different skin tints that aren't all pasty white (I'm pasty white) just burns their eyes and ears and leads to the path of hell? The deeper you go into that weird alternative universe, the more normal it feels?