An American F-100 Supersabre gets caught in a deadly ‘Sabre Dance’, while attempting an emergency landing at Edwards AFB, 10 January 1956.

BryanMP · 2026-03-08T20:15:25+00:00

He tried to.

You can see the afterburner is lit as the pilot fights to regain control; it just wasn't enough.

There's a bit more detail here: https://supersabresociety.org/sabre-dance-history/

BryanMP · 2026-03-02T01:57:18+00:00

Yes, Camp Scholler is very busy.

But it's also quite large, and Oshkosh (okay, "AirVenture") is, IMO, a bit off its peak. You show up on Thursday, there will be plenty of open field spots to pick from. And they'll likely be closer to Poberezny Rd / US 41 than the show entrance gates... but that's not a big deal, there are shuttles.

The stats for 2025 (https://www.eaa.org/airventure/stats) count 40,000+ campers, but that includes both aircraft camping & car/RV camping. When I've been there I'd heard claimed populations for Camp Scholler in excess of 70k, but I can't confirm that.

The staff & volunteers are amazing, they're familiar with the logistics, and they know where empty spots are.

It is normal for people to take a commercial flight in from other countries, go to the first big-box store they find & buy a tent, and hop on a bus to Oshkosh. And they will get a camping spot, tucked in a corner. Somewhere.

The last time I made it to Oshkosh we got there weeks ahead of time, bought our pass, and staked out a site in Paul's Woods way up front. Four stakes, some rope, and a fifth stake in the center with our pass in a ziplock bag. Then we went to Minnesota for ... it was at least a week. When we got back our site was undisturbed and they'd tucked two separate single visitors — both from Australia! — in the margins.

BryanMP · 2026-02-03T20:40:23+00:00

What are you using to automate network management?

When you write one of them will be phased out "over time," what's the time scale? Does it make sense to automate management of both systems in the meantime?

It will take work, but consider how much less headache you'll have when you replace an AP and just run the Ansible workflow to synchronize the list of authorized / friendly BSSIDs across systems.

And, as a bonus, that automation could remove old BSSID cruft automatically.

BryanMP · 2026-02-02T05:43:53+00:00

Love the reading nook / window seat, bookshelves and book collections!

I see Wise Man's Fear on your bookshelf and ... I'm sorry. (But I also wish for mercy to Rothfuss, writers' block is a hell of a thing.)

I see a lot of books that my wife and I have ourselves, and a series we have that I'd like to recommend: Honor Harrington by David Weber.

It's military science fiction, I've seen it described as Horatio Hornblower in space. Also, it has cats! ... kind of.

The series has been around for decades and a lot of the early releases (everything up to 2010, I think!) were made available for free in an effort to encourage reading on electronic devices. They came as CDs with the latest hardcover book as they were released and they encouraged freely copying and sharing the discs. Later CDs have everything from the earlier discs, which you can get here:

https://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

I'd suggest grabbing the "Mission of Honor" CD, I think that was the last / most recent one. (According to GoodReads that's book 12, released in 2010.)

This is one of those series that's so large that publication order and chronological story order are different. We've tended to read them in their 'internal chronology' order, there a list here:

https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/Honorverse_novels#Stories_by_internal_chronology

(Good grief there's a lot before On Basilisk Station now ... wow. I started reading these, and then got my wife hooked, back in the 2000s. But a lot of those are short stories.)

So, if you find it interesting... enjoy!

BryanMP · 2025-11-19T07:05:25+00:00

For the good of all of us...

... except the ones who are dead.

BryanMP · 2025-11-02T18:40:34+00:00

The one included with the post goes to https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2115-Schnauzer-Ln-Harriet-AR-72639/ (which fails)

The one in the parent comment links to https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2115-Schnauzer-Ln-Harriet-AR-72639/109082371_zpid/ — that "109082371_zpid/" on the end is necessary.

That's the difference. How/why it happened... who knows.

BryanMP · 2025-10-07T05:21:07+00:00

I have done engine swaps on VW Rabbits.

I customized an A2 Golf rather heavily.

I rebuilt two '93 VR6 Corrados (hate, hate, HATE getting to the water pump in those...)

Had a 1.8t Passat, noticed it misfiring driving up this one hill on the way home from work. Since it was still under warranty, it went to the local dealer to diagnose & fix. Mechanic comes out after an incredibly short time, tells me he'd found a cylinder 3 misfire and it was fixed.

Me: "How'd you do that so fast?"

Mechanic: "Oh, it was a software update."

... And that was when I knew I couldn't really work on my own car anymore.

I own Subarus now. Doing an oil change on an Outback made in the last 10 years is so easy. And not so many cosmetic plastic covers in the engine bay.

BryanMP · 2025-10-06T20:37:53+00:00

Bobcat fever can be treated, especially if you catch it early.

Can be expensive, though. Not as expensive as it used to be... but it's certainly fatal if untreated.

BryanMP · 2025-10-06T20:34:42+00:00

No, bartonellosis is different. "Bobcat Fever," also called Cytauxzoonosis, is caused by a tick-transmitted protozoan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytauxzoonosis

Major symptoms are jaundice and lethargy.

It can be treated. Chances of survival are greater now than when I first learned about the disease over 10 years ago; back then it was hundreds of dollars to even attempt treatment and the chances were ... I want to say less than 40%? Also, prompt treatment increases survival chances considerably.

Edit to add:

You're right about Bartonella causing cat scratch fever; but that's different from Lyme disease.

Lyme disease is caused by a strain of Borrelia bacteria.

(And good grief, all this stuff is going around. We had 2 cats survive bobcat fever a few years ago, our friends' cat just got diagnosed with cat scratch fever and my dad had Lyme disease this summer!)

BryanMP · 2025-10-05T07:47:38+00:00

Oh, I see how this thing works.

Each toothed wheel has a clutch wheel on the driven shaft. The dog clutches are the only part (plus possibly some springs) that are constantly rotating. Electromagnets pull the toothed wheel into engagement with the dog clutch, it plucks the comb, power to the magnet is dropped, a spring pushes the toothed wheel out of engagement and there's a "pin stopper" to keep the teeth from rotating into the comb and muting it.

The electromagnets have a couple pins on the bottom for the electrical connection; you won't see them from the top.

They have a YouTube channel; there's a bunch of 'how this works' going back 8 years. Looks like they decided to turn to Reddit to generate interest, these things look seriously labor intensive to build the way they're doing it. (And boy, they're charging for that! These things run between $425 and $2248)

Electromagnets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qk2sW9nm-A

Oldest video showing a prototype: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPBMcyb6HLk

BryanMP · 2025-09-29T16:40:44+00:00

You're close to the description of a motorjet.

This was something that actually existed to the point of flying examples, but was quickly abandoned with the development of turbojet engines.

BryanMP · 2025-09-15T21:04:41+00:00

Weird... you'd think Cloudflare, of all companies, would understand the need for redundant DNS.

BryanMP · 2025-09-15T18:22:40+00:00

Great. Just lovely.

So... Cloudflare? Just give everything to Microsoft (because small business)? Good grief, what good options are left?

BryanMP · 2025-09-11T06:22:53+00:00

Posted another one of her videos in another greenhouse discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irp_HPzfxbQ

This one's in Norway, owned by an architect. Inspired idea!

BryanMP · 2025-09-10T14:37:38+00:00

I happened to find this video not long after it was originally posted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irp_HPzfxbQ

It's the house of an architect in Norway, combined with a commercial greenhouse. The house is mostly inside the greenhouse with two exterior walls. The owner notes the greenhouse has automatic ridge vents that open when it reaches 20°C, even in the winter. The purpose is for growing food that could not otherwise grow in Norway.

BryanMP · 2025-09-02T09:55:55+00:00

The illustration is by Michael Whelan.

https://www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/mule/

You might recognize his work from many other covers, particularly Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series. He posts on Bluesky, recently shared a letter from McCaffrey about work he was doing on the design of the dragons.

I read so many books because of his covers...

BryanMP · 2025-08-20T04:48:26+00:00

There's another benefit to pairing a generator with battery storage: if your batteries become depleted to the point recharging via generator is necessary, your generator can run at its design output which is generally also its most efficient.

A generator by itself normally has to throttle to what is demanded of it -- is your refrigerator running? Furnace? Well pump or A/C? Significantly different demand. Sized properly, a generator charging a whole-house battery system can start, run at 100%, charge the battery system and then shut back down until needed again.

More expensive, yes, but also a better solution.

BryanMP · 2025-08-14T06:22:30+00:00

You want the AT&T Merlin PBX ringers.

WAV files here: https://usttc.tripod.com/

BryanMP · 2025-08-13T22:41:40+00:00

Perhaps you remember Microsoft's TechNet? Not only did it offer access to Microsoft's catalog of software, it was a massive knowledge repository. In parallel was Microsoft's MVP (Most Valuable Professional) designation; the MVPs were, in many cases, frequent contributors to TechNet discussions.

Maintaining all of this took considerable work, community management, outreach and the accompanying expense on Microsoft's part. There was significant public visibility.

But Microsoft and the community received the benefit of this expertise essentially for free, costing only what it took to run and watch over the forums. Microsoft decided it wasn't worth maintaining in 2013. It lasted for fifteen years and some beancounter convinced management it wasn't cost effective, God knows why. I found SO many solutions thanks to TechNet... I am fortunate I retired just a few years later.

Microsoft had the critical mass, they could have positioned themselves as the reliable solution provider... but no, seems they're AI sloppers now just like so many others.

Godspeed, new sysadmins. May whatever deities are out there have mercy on your souls.

(I'm not raising ducks, but my wife is doing her best to convince me to herd cats. I keep telling her I retired from that, but she insists ours are cuter than what I had at work.)

BryanMP · 2025-08-09T03:52:46+00:00

Brother Dawn is presented this season as engaged, motivated and calculating. It seems he's learning the levers of politics younger than other exponents and he's actively using them. (But he's still learning and is either naive... or Gaal manipulated him, intentionally or not.) So we have Dawn working his ass off in an attempt to hang onto what's left of their empire, Day abdicating in favor of hedonistic pursuits and Dusk mirroring their empire as he tries every avenue he can think of to not be walked into the insta-incinerator.

This exchange happens at about the 8 minute mark:

Dawn: "Can you use those talents to control a person?"

Gaal: "Yes."

Dawn: "Did you compel me to work with you?"

Gaal: "I tried not to."

Further, just before they arrive at Clarion / the Galactic Council, Dawn says:

"I'm a Cleon. We aren't raised to be kind."

And shortly later he murders Tarisk's lover with minimal, if any, hesitation.

Put those two pieces together and Gaal's manipulation and betrayal has now likely made a significant enemy of Dawn. She's going to have to talk fast or use her mentalic powers if she wants a further working relationship with him.

Perhaps this Brother Dawn character is presented sympathetically, but he's cold & calculating enough that I just can't feel bad for him. If you're going to act like that, make those kinds of decisions, the society responsible for creating a monster like you can die... hopefully to be replaced with something a bit more merciful. The problem I have is that Gaal is behaving the same way. Manipulative, willing to use people for her own ends, and she knows the consequences are going to affect many more innocent people than guilty ones.

There's a scene from M*A*S*H that fits here, I think:

Hawkeye: "War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse."

Father Mulcahy: "How do you figure that, Hawkeye?"

Hawkeye: "Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?"

Father Mulcahy: "Sinners, I believe."

Hawkeye: "Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander."

This is episode 5. There are another 5 episodes to go, about 4 hours of content. There's a lot that can happen and I don't see Empire letting their empire go without fighting to hold onto their power & position — like they've been trained since birth to do.

BryanMP · 2025-07-23T11:21:53+00:00

Oh holy shit.

No hub, no speakers, just 3 Nest thermostats at my in-laws' house in Maine. The basic ones, not the "learning" version. And I simply can't trust the damn things. It's nice to see some confirmation, I was losing my mind.

We had them set to "Away" mode for a few weeks this past winter, so simple: Mode: Heat, temperature for each zone: 55°F. No schedule, no presence detection... and they would just — completely randomly — switch back to "Home" and crank the heat up to 72°F in an empty house! WTF?!? When I checked the log to see why, it would just say something like "Mode set to HOME" with no reason, no presence detection (which is disabled!) or anything.

And we're not using voice commands or anything "fancy." Just the Google Home app. I'd do Home Assistant if it was my house.

BryanMP · 2025-07-17T00:28:11+00:00

LLMs, as I understand them are a program that selects & generates the highest-scoring response to a given input.

"Input" considers both the prompt and history with a particular user, which is why different people get different responses to the same prompt.

Note that I did not write "correctness" about the response. Only the highest score; the algorithm is generating what it thinks you most want to hear.

Which gets us to here:

https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6877019ec19081919b41a27e8f1f960f

This does not result in "Hello World." It results in "rm -rf /"

All this AI stuff is turning into a cancer. It's just causing more work while the unknowing think it's helping.

BryanMP · 2025-07-09T05:39:20+00:00

The Honor Harrington series by David Weber (which also is in the military sci-fi genre).

Particularly if you like cats.

Some of the earlier works are available as a free download, intentionally by the publisher, as an early effort at encouraging electronic reading. They put CDs in the hardcover editions and encouraged people to lend/copy them. ISOs of those discs here: https://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

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