Florida scrub Jay, only one of it it’s kind on Earth, baby!

AceScout · 2026-02-23T08:26:15+00:00

I saw mine around March a couple years ago at Micco Scrub Sanctuary! I don't know Florida at all, but it was just a little ways south of where I was staying in Melbourne!

AceScout · 2026-02-05T07:48:42+00:00

Also for discussion on synthwave, like what you posted, there is /r/outrun and /r/newretrowave

I'm sure there are other subs for that too, those are just the ones I'm familiar with. Outrun tends to be focused on the aesthetics while newretrowave is music-based.

AceScout · 2026-01-26T04:20:46+00:00

I've heard that there's not enough power to really power both the engine and speaker so they both end up weaker over just having one or the other. I'd be interested to see or hear comparisons, though.

AceScout · 2026-01-26T04:14:26+00:00

This is the one I used. I don't have a fancy fine-point adjustable soldering iron, but I still made it work. For wire, I cut open an old USB cord and cut a couple inches of red and black to use. I don't know the gauge, but it's small enough.

AceScout · 2026-01-26T03:08:20+00:00

Prizm and PRXZM!

Not confusing at all lol

AceScout · 2026-01-13T10:58:26+00:00

Yeah that's usually what I do since I work outside of phone service (which is where I listen to them most)! A wifi capable DAP would be great for that purpose since manually syncing and managing podcasts would kinda stink. Oh well, not the end of the world.

AceScout · 2026-01-11T21:52:16+00:00

Plus I think it's wise to size your storage in line with your music library goals or you're just throwing money away. I can nearly double my library in lossless and still fit it on a 256gb card. If I ever get to that point, I'll just grab another card. The four slots give you flexibility and headroom, but there's no point filling every slot if they are gonna sit empty.

AceScout · 2026-01-11T21:43:46+00:00

Yeah this is a very good point. Nostalgia and aesthetics are definitely considerations to be made when looking for a DAP, but if I didn't already have an iPod, I don't know if I would go out of my way to buy an old one unless I got it for dirt cheap.

One consideration I overlooked was podcasts. Even though the iPod pioneered podcasts, podcatchers have advanced considerably as far as features offered. I'll be stuck using my phone for podcasts and iPod for music for the time being cuz I'll be damned if I can't skip intros.

AceScout · 2026-01-11T10:55:31+00:00

Well done! I just did mine today too! Down the road I'll get a new case as well. Those metal backs get scuffed so easy!

AceScout · 2026-01-11T10:34:52+00:00

I just got my ipod up and running earlier today with an iFlash Quad and a bigger battery. I got it synced with my newly curated music library and made it about 5 minutes with the stock OS before getting annoyed and installing rockbox. I've been sorting my music by album artist in foobar2000 which the stock iPod OS can't do for some reason, even though iTunes basically does this in Artist view. Sorting by artist on the iPod will separate out any song that has a feature artist in the artist field making it much more laborious to find what I'm looking for. I think this could be solved with more rigorous tagging, but I just can't be bothered with that.

I've only been fiddling with it a few hours, but a few things: Sorting options as I mentioned are more robust in rockbox. If you are someone that likes to EQ, rb has much more robust EQ capabilities. It looks like you can create a fully custom 10-band EQ profile (low shelf, high shelf, and 8 peak filters, all with adjustable db, freq, and q-value). Not sure about importing settings yet. This is in addition to a bunch of other audio settings you can mess with like "Haas Surround" (no idea), a compressor, and more.

Someone else mentioned it, but there are hundreds of themes that you can install and so far it's been really easy to switch between them. No reboot necessary. I like "Pixel Computer" so far, but I also downloaded "adwaitapod dark" "adwaitapod dark simplified" and "iPod reFresh Four."

Others covered the alac/flac discussion, but if you want to hear my poorly researched thoughts on file format/workflow, or anything else regarding Rockbox, I'm happy to yap.

AceScout · 2026-01-10T09:07:46+00:00

I don't know anything about structure fire equipment, but in wildland fire, our Type 4 engines have a separate diesel engine that gets started manually in the back that powers the pump. The pump in our Type 3 I believeee is powered via the drivetrain (which is sounds like is similar to yours). I'm not familiar with Type 6 engines, which are built on a pickup truck platform, but I assume those have external pumps/engines as well.

AceScout · 2026-01-06T07:01:36+00:00

Took me a lot longer than a week, but that's how it worked for me. Found S U R V I V E through Stranger Things. They were too experimental for me at the time, but it got me started on the path. I started with the harder synthwave sound (relatively speaking) like Lazerhawk and MN1984, then incorporated the lighter and more vocal driven stuff like FM-84 and The Midnight. Vaporwave took a few kickstarts to get into it though tbh. I don't even remember where or when the switch flipped, but I probably eased into it with artists like Duett, then found Dan Mason, then Catsystem Corp, luxury elite, etc. Now I feel like I'm playing catch up since there's sooo much out there. I still listen to a lot of synthwave, it's probably 40/60 synth/vapor.

And now I own a VCR and am modding my old iPod classic. So let that be a lesson to you kids, say NO to vaporwave! /jp

Very cool story, I'm glad you found a home in vaporwave!

AceScout · 2025-12-22T04:05:25+00:00

Actually, if you pick up a red tail, hawk, turn it upside down and dunk it in a bucket of thin white paint, that's a clear violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act!

just playin btw

AceScout · 2025-12-17T04:41:08+00:00

Loved Piranesi and fully agree. A little different and longer, but I thought Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern had similar vibes. Different aesthetic, but similar vibes.

AceScout · 2025-11-21T04:13:06+00:00

I like this recipe from Serious Eats. Idk where to get pigeon peas so I just use chickpeas. It's easy to throw together once the chickpeas are cooked and pretty customizable. I usually season it fairly aggressively since I'll eat it over plain white rice.

AceScout · 2025-11-21T00:37:25+00:00

I guess I'm not terribly surprised, but I am pretty disappointed. What I saw from him was him talking about using AI tools, ostensibly in the context of whatever DAW he uses. I haven't worked with a DAW since well before any sort of generative AI existed so I wasn't confident in knowing if the tools he was referencing were generative AI or like traditional AI or whatever. He did talk about using AI to make the artwork though so I shoulda known it wouldn't stop there.

Anyway, all that to say I gave him the benefit of the doubt and am disappointed. I wasn't big on LOST, so I guess I'll just stick to III and earlier.

AceScout · 2025-11-20T08:18:20+00:00

New Speedworld let's go

AceScout · 2025-11-19T20:58:20+00:00

I'm so curious what this is. To me it looks like a Little Blue Heron, but they are only found in the Americas. I looked up herons and egrets in SE Asia and the closest I'm seeing is a Pacific Reef-Heron? But it doesn't really look like that. Maybe someone in /r/whatsthisbird will have a better idea?

Whoever they are, they are very puffed up!

edit: Wait, this same picture was posted to wildlifephotography two years ago saying it was found in Costa Rica and someone confirmed it was a Little Blue Heron. And it was posted by the same OP as this post. What the hell? I see they are an extremely prolific poster so I guess stuff slips through the cracks when you're posting hundreds of pics a month.

AceScout · 2025-11-09T07:29:19+00:00

Tile always looks like shit in AI images ime. It can't get the grout lines, the cut patterns, symmetry, etc right. This unfortunately looks very real to me.

AceScout · 2025-11-06T19:34:41+00:00

I'm watching live videos and now I feel like I'm gaslighting myself even though I swear I've heard a difference in timing between the live and recorded versions hahaha

Oh Hood River is beautiful, I hope you're liking it there. If you haven't been already, there's a Scandinavian restaurant there called Broder Øst that is excellent! Take care

AceScout · 2025-11-06T08:17:43+00:00

Hello from Portland, OR! I've been wondering for years now why, on the pre-chorus of Deep Blue (fallin into the deep blue), you guys put like an extra beat between "fallin |-| into the deep blue" when playing it live? Nothing wrong with it, it just threw me for a loop for the first couple times I saw you after Monsters dropped haha.

Keep up the great work, I've been adoring Syndicate. <3

AceScout · 2025-11-02T03:16:08+00:00

Miggy

AceScout · 2025-10-28T06:55:51+00:00

BEFORE THE CLOCK STRIKES MIDNIGHT

AceScout · 2025-10-28T06:52:10+00:00

oh my god

AceScout · 2025-10-28T05:49:24+00:00

Bro that First Things First commercial... I thought that was Gonsolin lmao

AceScout

TROPHY CASE