Geek

While making my way through the workday today I decided to throw on a Youtube video or two. I’ve been in a nostalgic mood lately. I ended up dialing up a 1947 film which was basically a 30 minute infomercial for an electric range by Westinghouse.

In this film, a couple has invited their rich uncle over to convince him to help pay for their daughter’s tuition at the community college. They’re dependent on cooking the perfect meal for him, and when their old oven door blows off, their neighbor comes to the rescue with her new electric range by Westinghouse.

A special nod to the uncle’s nurse play by Margaret Hamilton, also known as the Wicked Witch of the West.

I really enjoy these old presentations. People dressed nicer, folks seemed friendlier, and the appliances they’re showing off are built to last a generation. And the knobs on the stove are real knobs with a color indicator as to the heat setting for the burner! What will they think of next!

You can be sure … if it’s a Westinghouse.

So it’s been 10 days since my friend Chris gave me a computer he was intending on sending off to the recycling center. The computer in question is a Microsoft Surface Laptop 2. The specs on this machine are impressive. I’ve been running Ubuntu Linux 22.04.3 LTS since obtaining the laptop. The experience has been very good, in fact, it’s been an unexpected pleasure.

Now, because of my history with Apple products I tend to compare today’s computer hardware to that released by Apple. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 is dang close to the MacBook Air experience. The hardware is light to carry, the display is gorgeous, and I really like the fabric covered keyboard area.

I usually stick to LTS, or Long Term Support, releases of Ubuntu because it’s usually the most stable. 22.04.3 LTS has not disappointed in any way. I needed to do a couple of things to modify the experience, but that mostly based on personal preferences. For example, I like my “dock” to be along the right hand of the screen, regardless of the operating system I’m working with. If I can change the default fonts of the interface I usually change it to something like “GE Inspira“.

This experience thus far has been flawless and I’m enjoying the computer very much. Not bad for a computer destined for the recycling center.

If you’re looking to give new life to old equipment, I highly recommend Linux, especially Ubuntu Linux. It’s not overly fiddly and the paradigm presented for the user experience feels familiar.

I recently picked up an analog wall clock from a school in North Dakota. It’s rare for these clocks to be on ebay these days, because the Lathem Time Clock Company didn’t make their “Airtime” line of clocks for very long. These clocks are controlled wirelessly from a little master clock I have elsewhere in the house. The master clock pulls in the clock signal from the Atomic Clock in Colorado and rebroadcasts the correct time to all compatible clocks. As far as I can tell, only Lathem Airtime clocks are compatible with this particular system.

Lathem had a few different styles of clocks available in the series, including a digital clock that I had hanging in this space prior to today, and a solar powered model that boosted its battery power by ambient light in a room.

The whole thing is very clever. And my family is happy I haven’t pulled wires through all the walls to power an older style clock system.

I’ve been working on rebuilding my Flight Simulator rig this weekend. Using monitors that were destined for the recycle bin, I decided to configure everything into a bit more of a panoramic flight experience.

My flight simulator software of choice is X-Plane 12. In the past I’ve run this on my Linux gaming desktop, but Linux didn’t play well with so many monitors. Instead of diving into why that was turning out to be such a pain, I decided to just put Windows 11 back on the computer. Things are now configured and working well.

I have a monitor stand coming for the monitor on the left as shown in the photo below. This will bring it up to the same level as the other two main monitors. I’m working on tweaking X-Plane 12 to get things just the way I like them and then I’ll start my flights this week.

Generally I don’t really enjoy flight simulators, as I’m always trying to figure out what makes them tick. However, it’s good to practice instrument approaches and get a feel for airports I’m not familiar with. I look forward to plenty of hours on this new setup.

My friend Chris offered me a Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 that he had destined for the recycle bin. Apparently the unit had an issue with Windows and he thought I might have fun installing Linux on it to give it a whirl.

Giving devices a second lease on life is right up my alley.

The laptop arrived today and I have successfully installed Ubuntu Linux 22.04 LTS (Long Term Support) on the device. One would think it wouldn’t be an easy thing installing Linux on a device made by Microsoft but the experience was mostly painless.

I’m writing this blog entry on the laptop.

This is my first time messing around with a Surface Laptop. The build quality is very reminiscent of Apple’s MacBook Air line. I like the cloth-like covering of the keyboard and dare I say it, the keyboard on this Surface Laptop exceeds the keyboard on my M2 MacBook Air.

It was very kind of Chris to offer me this machine for tinkering. It keeps my geek juices going, and that keeps me in my happy place.

You’ll notice the display is quite reflective.

Over the weekend I used a little bit of saved up money to purchase a new watch band for my Apple Watch. I’ve had my eye on the Braided Solo Loop and decided to make the purchase while we were in Las Vegas.

I asked the kind Apple store representative if the band would stretch over time. She said for the most part it shouldn’t stretch, but it might stretch a little bit after putting it on for the first time. Apple has one try bands of this type on for size before making a purchase, so we went through a couple of bands for sizing and I found a band that felt comfortable.

Two days later I’m not really enjoying this band that much. After 40 hours or so of wear my watch already feels loose. It’s not going to fall off or anything, but it does feel like the watch is sliding around a bit more than I enjoy. I switched back to one of my older bands this morning and things feel a bit more normal. Perhaps I’ll try the new band again over the weekend or something.

I’ve been on the fence about how I feel about my Apple Watch in general for the past several weeks. It’s starting to feel extraneous to me. I have purposely shut off the vast majority of notifications because they’re just annoying. I work around some of this by using Apple’s “Focus” modes baked into their infrastructure.

I’m likely going to continue using my Apple Watch until it is no longer a viable gadget but I don’t know that I’m going to buy another Apple Watch to replace it when that day comes. I miss the look of a classic wrist watch and I definitely don’t need the constant stream of data coming to my wrist that I once thought I needed.

I just don’t know if I’m going to use that new band I purchased. We’ll see if it gets too stretchy over time.