There are some home designs that I just absolutely love. Throw on some smart technology and I’m enthralled.
I think I’ve found something to spend my trust fund on.
Geek
SkyAware.
One of my Christmas gifts this past holiday was a “PiAware SkyAware”. For those unfamiliar, for the past several years, most aircraft have what is known as “ADS-B”, the acronym for Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast. It’s a groovy way for airplanes to digitally talk to each other and talk to ground stations. Popular websites like FlightRadar, FlightAware, and ADS-B Exchange feature moving maps of air traffic all over the world and I’ve found it quite nifty.
As a nerd that likes to do my own thing, the PiAware SkyAware is a homemade solution for monitoring ADS-B signals from the comfort of my own home. The kit comes just about ready to go, you just have to assemble a couple of parts and find a spot with a clear view of the sky to place the antenna. This was a nifty little Christmas present and I had it installed by the weekend between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
This past weekend I bought a little touchscreen monitor to accompany my newest Raspberry Pi 5, and now I have a moving map sitting on my office desk showing me the air traffic in the area.
Yes, I could just monitor one of the commercial sites for the same thing, but what fun is that? Knowing I’m pulling real live data from the airspace within 200 miles of our home is pretty awesome in my book.
Laundry.
As a young lad I was fascinated by washing machines. I don’t know what prompted me to be fascinated by washing machines, but back in the day I could identify several different models of washing machines made by General Electric, Westinghouse, and Whirlpool. I recall finding Maytag washers boring for some reason.
Like most technology of the time, I find modern washing machines to be rather boring with their lights, touchscreens, and suggestions of water being spritzed on clothes.
When out and about on a trip I check the hotel laundry room for guests to see if the location is using old school washers or something a bit more modern.
This Holiday Inn Express has just one washer and dryer, and they’re made by Whirlpool. The inside looks pretty old school. It’s a shame the controls don’t have a mechanical timer. I like the clickty-clack. Whirlpool washers were push the dial to start back in the day, while most other brands were pull to start.
If It Ain’t Broke…
This really warms my geek heart. An Indiana bakery is still using Commodore 64 computers for their point of sale system.
Distraction.
One of the reasons I don’t use my MacBook Air full time is because of the built in distractions Apple has introduced to their ecosystem. The latest version of iOS now has iPhone Mirroring built into the experience. With this new feature, you basically have a window with your iPhone appearing on your Mac desktop. Granted, you have to opt in instead of opting out of the feature, but it’s something they touted quite a bit at WWDC earlier this year, so I gave it a whirl.
I have no reason to have my iPhone mirrored to my Mac desktop. Like most folks these days, my smartphone is almost always in reach. This feature seems to be a bit more “let’s do something to warrant an update” instead of bringing something more useful to the Apple experience.
I liken the “iPhone Mirroring” feature to the Camera Control button on the iPhone 16 models: redundant at best.
Now, I know my Apple experience is not the same as everyone else’s Apple experience, so I guess I need to add some disclaimer that this is just my personal point of view. I have officially disclaimed. I feel like there’s a ton of other features and bugs the Apple developers could be addressing, like the sad state of HomeKit, or the fact that the Mail app isn’t super reliable if you venture outside of the iCloud space into your own mail host running IMAP. For those unaware, IMAP is a mail protocol that’s been around a few decades. Apple Mail struggles with IMAP from time to time.
I know Apple has “Focus Modes” built into their ecosystem, and I should be using Focus Mode to not be distracted by things like iPhone Mirroring. It all just feels like layer on top of layer of redundancy to me.
Now, I’d much rather deal with all this redundancy over Microsoft’s onslaught of ads in Windows 11 or constant scraping of data and weird takes on integrating AI into the platform. No company is ever going to take a screenshot of my desktop every five seconds in the name of AI. That’s just not going to happen.
Small wonder I’m using my Linux laptops more and more.
Quiet?
We have entered what I hope is the “quiet time” of the year at work. From now until the end of the year I hope to get all the little things I have not completed on my projects list to a final status that will make me want to sip a little more champagne as we welcome in 2025.
I let the team go a couple of hours early today so they could get a headstart on their Thanksgiving. In IT land we’re often required to work extra hours above and beyond and while the rest of the company is enjoying their time off. This is how we keep the bits and bytes flowing in the proper direction and with confidence.
A little extra time before Thanksgiving is a good way to give a little thanks.
Legacy.
So I’m writing this blog entry on my ThinkPad T460s. I purchased this ThinkPad as a used laptop a number of years ago and have used it on and off over the years. It’s always important to use old computers for as a long as practical, because it keeps them out of the landfills. Linux makes it relatively easy to do this; support may have been dropped for Microsoft Windows years ago but the Linux distro Fedora 41 (Cinnamon Spin), Cinnamon is a desktop environment, helps this computer run like new again.
I love it.
The ThinkPad series has some of the best keyboards I’ve ever used on a laptop. They are my absolute favorite, and that’s one of the reasons I’ve rebuilt this ThinkPad as a “distraction free” writing environment. I can type away without getting notifications from a ton of unrelated apps. Focus mode in MacOS comes close to achieving this, but it’s not 100% there.
Buying an old laptop on the cheap and turning it into a digital typewriter is the way to go.
Departure.
Companies have been leaving Twitter in droves this week. Here’s a listing of some of the companies that left the platform since the U.S. Election last week.
- 3M
- Balenciaga
- Berlin Film Festival
- Best Buy
- Devon County Council
- Eli Lilly
- The Guardian
- Magers & Quinn Booksellers
- North Wales Police
- NPR
- Playbill
- Royal National orthopaedic hospital
- UnitedHealth Group
- Victoria’s Department of Families, Fairness and Housing
Austrian Airlines announced today that they have also left the platform, and they did it in style.
Information.
I thoroughly enjoy Phil Edwards’ YouTube channel. His videos feature interesting looks at a myriad of topics. His presentational style inspires me to learn more.
Here he takes a look at The Blue Ridge Tunnel. When completed in 1858, it was the longest tunnel in the United States at 4,237 feet.
Intent.
I often can’t decide if I want to focus on “digital minimalism” or “avoiding all capitalism” when it comes to my computing habits.
When I’m in a Digitally Minimalistic mindset, it’s all about the MacBook Air, my iPhone, and occasionally my iPad. I reduce the number of applications I’m using to the bare minimum and I focus on what works without a lot of tinkering. It’s during these moods that I usually step aside from all forms of social media.
But then the pendulum swings the other way and I get all “avoiding all capitalism”, where I decide that even though I believe Apple still provides the best consumer grade computing experience out there, they’re too expensive and they want me to buy too many apps, so then I resurrect an old laptop with the latest flavor of Hip-Linux and focus on that. I get rid of all the apps, move my data somewhere else (again!) and start chatting with folks online about the benefits of using a home grown operating system and the like. Then I apply an update, the computer goes completely sideways, forcing me to punch out an email via telegram and/or Ye Old Scroll, and then I give the pendulum a shove back in the original direction.
Such a quandry.
I look at all sides of a problem or a puzzle or an opportunity and then I look at all sides again. I see all the goods, all the bads, and all the maybes, so then I look at all sides again. Then I start spinning around and try as I might, there’s no bright flash of light with a thunderclap and, to the relief of memory, I do not find myself in star spangled shorts with matching cape.
I think I’ll just stick to the Mac.
