Geek

I’ve always been a fan of the metric system. When I was in elementary school the United States was projected to convert to the metric system in 1980, so we focused on kilometers, liters, etc. and reviewed a passing interest in the imperial units. To this day I ask my husband how many pounds are in a quart and he sighs.

Aviation weather forecasts are in degrees celsius, while we fly at feet above mean sea kevel. Inspired by nearby Interstate 19 and its metric signs (“2 km to Tumacacori”), I’ve decided to start embracing the metric system on my own. The rest of the world uses the metric system, there’s nothing really that special about the United States and its archaic use of rods and yards, and I would enjoy a broader world view. I found this little chart online to get me started on adapting to “thinking in metric” instead of seeing a thermometer read that it’s 20 degrees and I do a conversion in my head (20*2+30=70 for a rough estimate), and I thought I’d share the chart with the class. I don’t remember where I found it, but if I do remember I’ll give them proper credit here on the bloggy thing.

In case you’re thinking about trying Mastodon and/or leaving Twitter this weekend, here’s a guide.

How To Get Started On Mastodon and Leave Twitter Behind (PC Mag).

So as of last night, Elon Musk has completed his purchase of Twitter and immediately fired the top four execs of the company. (Source: Axios). There’s evidence of content monitoring already being relaxed. Nothing else noteworthy has occurred this early in the game, but I’m sure there’s a whole avalanche at the top of that hill.

I have two public accounts on Twitter, one for general stuff with a tech lean and one primarily for my aviation endeavors. Both can easily be abandoned without much strife on my part. I’d simply leave them in place with minimal information in the profile and that’s that.

I’ve already been waffling about whether to stay with the platform. This is a struggle I constantly have in my head as I find it to be an incredibly detrimental time sink with not a lot of reward. I have met some great people through social media in general, especially Twitter, but like many things in the United States, since the beginning of the Trump era it went down the shitter. (There really isn’t an elegant way to state that fact). Kicking Trump off the platform was an improvement, but the fire of idiocy had been lit and there’s just a lot of incredibly stupid people out there saying things indicating their city speed limit IQs.

As I write this blog entry I’m talking myself out of going back there but like watching the proverbial train wreck, sometimes you want to see just how awful your fellow humans can be.

I believe the new regime at Twitter will give us plenty of opportunity to behold that spectacle.

In the meanwhile, you can find me on mastodon, which is much more complicated but open source and focused on privacy. The tech hoops one has to jump through to find their way around mastodon reminds me of using CompuServe or Prodigy in 1992, but it makes for a less reductive experience when it comes to content.

Here’s a link to an article on The Verge.

I think I have solved my strange characters issue in my blog. When a database is over 20 years old, it’s bound to have some rust.

This is a test entry with ‘lots of punctuation’ and off-beat characters like an é and an è. This is from my Mac.

Here’s a paragraph from my iPhone with è and õ and ü

And here’s an entry from my Linux machine with “quote marks” and ‘single quote marks’ and back ticks

And then one more paragraph from my “iPad Pro” with lots of things going on, including é and è and ø and ü and º degrees

I stumbled across the YouTube channel when looking around for retro computing things to watch. I don�t know who this programmer is but he has a super positive attitude and he�s writing a BASIC program on an Apple ][. That�s all I need to know.

He is verbalizing the way I think through my workday. What he�s doing in this video is how I learned to write my first program with a VIC-20 back in 1982. I wasn�t allowed in the high school computer lab until I was a freshman, and then I got to try my chops on the Apple ][+ and new Apple //e machines we had in the computer lab, which was managed by the math department.

I found myself feeling overwhelmed at work so I stopped for a few moments, stepped away from my work computer, and watched a video on YouTube. The video is a film from 1946, and it’s an “infomercial” of the time, showing us the wonders of the brand new 1946 Westinghouse Electric Range. Be sure to look for the Wicked Witch of the West.

Yesterday we went for a ride to the area southeast of Phoenix to check out some of the towns, villages, and cities in the area. Our path took us through Arizona City, which isn’t as big as one would think, but charming in its own way, nonetheless.

My husband found us a diner in the small city. We like eating at locally owned diners when we’re traveling, so we stopped at the Flashback Diner. It was definitely a flashback. A small building with eight tables inside, it was dead quiet and everyone looked at us when we walked in. We made our way to a table for two and the friendly waitress came over with menus and we went through the typical diner experience. The food was very good.

When it was time to pay the bill, I gave her my debit card and was surprised to see what she brought back for the tip and signature.

I haven’t signed one of these forms in a very, very long time. The hacker in me was immediately concerned about my debit card number being imprinted on this form, but they didn’t do that, instead just writing the last four digits on the form so they could reference their computer records when their printer was working again.

The old school credit card slip definitely added to the flashbacks of the Flashback Diner.

Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols passed away yesterday. She was 89 years old.

She wanted to leave �Star Trek� after the first season, but a conversation with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. changed her mind. She later volunteered her time to NASA, promoting their programs in the name of diversity to encourage minority and female astronauts.

Thank you, Nichelle, for keeping us your captive audience for so many years.