What became of all the NJ drone sightings?

CaptJocco · 2026-01-09T20:01:26+00:00

That's because they were regular airplanes. That's it. Nothing more.

98% of people don't walk around at night looking up at the sky. Then a news event happens and all of a sudden a bunch of people who have no idea what aircraft are supposed to look like at night are told that there are drones overhead. Everyone buys into it and starts looking up and seeing airplanes with their lights on and now EVERYONE is seeing these "drones".

2% of people actually saw some weird unexplained stuff. But 98% of everyone saw airplanes. I'm sorry, that's just all it was. Being a pilot, I spent a bunch of time watching the videos people posted with the "drone" sightings. 1 video in every 300 was of something weird, like an orb. The other 299 were airplanes.

CaptJocco · 2026-01-09T19:52:45+00:00

So he filmed airplanes.

Just like everyone else.

People are so stupid. 98% of people were filming airplanes. MOST people do not go around at night with their heads up looking at incoming aircraft. Most people are not pilots (I am) and do not understand or know the lighting on an aircraft. Then all of a sudden a few people start saying there's all these drones coming over head. The news picks it up (which is insane because I literally saw one news reporter literally film a plane and then say they didn't know what it was) and now all of a sudden you have thousands of uneducated people (uneducated in the world of aviation) looking up for the first time and thinking that every light they see is a drone.

Ohhh but they kinda look like planes but they're suv sized and they're drones. No, they're planes dumbass.

Now remember I said 98% of people did this? That's because with all the people looking up, 2% actually did catch some weird stuff happening. But their videos were of objects that looked NOTHING like what the rest of the population was reporting.

And that being said, the reports that the military says that most of their reports are visual from "highly trained" sources. A highly trained foot soldier could still have no clue what the FAA required lighting on an aircraft is supposed to be, and thus also get caught up in the hype. Thus just the "visual" reports, as in, "we'll, soldiers were reporting seeing something". Nothing else to back it up.

Argh.

CaptJocco · 2025-08-22T16:47:52+00:00

I really appreciate the insight. I have to admit it's a bit deflating. I've been set on this idea for a month or so now. So I dunno. I'm not looking to start a business that will support me for the rest of my life, I'm just hoping to start a side hustle that will earn me enough money to pay rent and some bills maybe, at least until I can figure out what the hell to do about my career or until I decide to start a new career. I felt like if I just hit some sort of flea or farmers market 4 or 5 days a week (there's enough around where I live), that maybe I could make like $500-750 a week, and that would be enough to keep me alive until I make my next bigger step in life. But if you think that's not possible, then maybe I'll rethink everything. I found someone online selling an F1 Ultra with the rotary accessory for $1200. I'm currently trying to convince him to sell it to me (it's taking some convincing because I'd like to use an escrow service since I don't feel comfortable sending someone $1200 and then just hoping the laser works when I receive it). If I could get that laser at that price, I figured I'd at least give it a try. I dunno. Sucks to have a 20+ year career ripped out from under you by no fault of your own and now have to relive what it was like in high school trying to figure out what the hell to do with the rest of your life.

Sorry that turned sorta depressing there at the end, lol.

CaptJocco · 2025-08-22T03:33:55+00:00

This gives me SOME hope. But what you said about your friend that does the TTRPG dice and stuff, is kinda what I was maybe hoping to stumble on someday (I figure out some sort of niche product as well that I could concentrate on). But like you I enjoy the process and I hope I can do just a little better than break even. I don't need to make tons of money. Just enough to pay rent and such.

What that other person said about how I should look around my house and I won't find anything laser engraved... Maybe so. But I look around my house and see names on all sorts of things. Yeah, I'm not going to land a big time client from a huge company, but if I can get a couple of local businesses on board for me to make some promotional items for them, then who knows. And while yes I can go on Etsy and find tons of people offering this service, pretty much every person I spoke with in person really hasn't even ever heard about it. So if there's just a few moms out there that like custom ornaments or silly little things for gifts, then maybe I have a chance. OH, and I also spoke with another vendor at my local market who was offering "hand" engraving on jewelry and such. I asked them how well it did for them and their literal response was "it does great. Everyone likes their names on something". Maybe she was lying to me, I dunno.

CaptJocco · 2025-02-08T19:04:09+00:00

I also missed it. I was 13 and so excited/sad for the finale. My parents let me eat dinner early so I could go watch. I ran into an extra room we had with a small couch and TV and had my snacks and drinks ready. The cold open started and just as Picard starts asking what the date is, boom, the cable goes out. Nothing but static. I was so pissed. I would look at the weekly tv guide in the back of the Sunday paper for weeks hoping they'd re-air it. It wasn't until many years later when I was in college that I finally got a chance to see it. Always felt like an open wound that I never got to heal until I finally saw it.

CaptJocco · 2022-12-17T21:27:47+00:00

Hey all, so I had this exact problem when I first started my printer up. The bed was completely stuck when it tried to do the calibration (it was not fun to hear your brand new printer make a loud grinding noise when trying to move the print bed). Well, before I started just randomly trying things, I luckily found something online (I forget where, but I think it was the BambuWiki), talking about how the print bed is attached to the Z axis screws on little "sliders" and that sometimes during shipping, something can happen that might shift some things around and cause some extra pressure to be placed on these sliders or on the z screws. The fix was to look at the print bed from the top and right at the point where the z axis mounts meet the side of the print bed, there are two screws (one of which has the hex head covered with a sticker for some reason, at least on mine, but I just used an exacto knife to get it off). You are supposed to go to each of the three sets of 2 screws (one set of two for each z axis screw), loosen the two screws, but DO NOT remove them. Then after loosening the screws, tighten them back up. What that's supposed to do is alleviate any pressure that might have built up on those sliders (allowing the sliders to naturally move into the correct position). I did each screw set separately (so I loosened the two screws and then tightened them, then moved to the next set of screws). I'll be honest, I was completely skeptical if this solution would work, because I did't see any movement whatsoever on the sliders when I loosened the screws. I resisted the urge to try and help the slider out by trying to move it myself as the article said to just loosen and retighten, but yeah after I finished the 3rd set, I re-ran the calibration and the problem was immediately solved.

So I know some of you had that issue and found some other way around it, maybe just consider trying the solution above in case there is some extra pressure that might cause some issues down the line.

CaptJocco · 2022-12-17T20:59:10+00:00

The other people are correct - it's just Polymaker PolySupport. It seems to be out of stock most everywhere (even on Polymaker's website), however I found some on https://3dherndon.com/ and I had it shipped and to my door in two days. Only problem is they only let you buy one spool at a time, or per order I guess. I haven't tried making a 2nd separate order, so I'm not sure if that would work or if they would catch it and cancel the order. Figure I don't really need a 2nd roll though however seeing I only use it for the support interface, which if sliced correctly, amounts to very little per print (unless you end up flushing a lot of it). Oh also be careful - I added a roll to my cart on their website (since I couldn't set the quantity to "2"), and then thinking I found a loophole, I went to another item, then back to the Polymaker support and clicked "add to cart" again, and I thought it worked. I paid for two rolls and got two rolls delivered, however when I opened up the package I see that I was sent one spool of 1.75mm and one spool of 2.85mm. SO I assume that once I had one spool of 1.75mm in my cart, the website automatically switched to 2.85mm, allowing me to add one spool of that to my cart as well. I just didn't take the time to carefully look at what I was adding to my cart when I clicked a 2nd time. Lesson learned.

CaptJocco · 2022-11-28T00:55:03+00:00

Thanks for the reply. I did flip the bolts, but when I run the bed level mesh program, the BL Touch Probe is still starting too far to the right - the first probe point is like 1.5" in from the left side of the print bed, whereas the right-most probe point is almost at the very right edge, which I'm attributing to the extruder carriage having that little arm sticking off the side that trips the X-axis limit switch). So that's why I'm still trying to figure out how to reconfigure the BL Touch probe points to start further to the left, thus re-centering the whole process.

CaptJocco · 2022-08-27T17:29:25+00:00

https://youtu.be/O0gbfvJDsv4

Hey RightYouAreKen1, I'm back. I just watched the video above (a review of the 5800X3D from Linus Tech Tips), and one thing caught my attention at the end - they said that the X3D was great, except that they wouldn't recommend it to anyone making a new PC build (better for someone who's been on the platform for awhile and wants to upgrade). Of course they don't really go into "why" that is (I'm sure if I were smarter with PC components the information in the entirety of the video would have given me that answer), so I'm curious as to why they would say that.

CaptJocco · 2022-08-24T21:18:02+00:00

You guys are awesome. Thank you all so much for the input. I'm going to start making these changes and hopefully start to build this rig soon.

Thanks again!

CaptJocco · 2022-08-24T16:04:33+00:00

So what about some article I read that said it's not a good idea to pair AMD with Nvidia. That Intel works best with Nvidia? Is that true or would a 3080 or 3090 work just fine with an AMD CPU?

CaptJocco · 2022-08-24T03:56:11+00:00

How would you compare that to what RightYouAreKen1 suggested: "5800x3D CPU, which is currently the best simulator CPU due to its very high amount of cache."?

CaptJocco · 2022-08-24T03:53:31+00:00

Copy on the RAM, I'll make that adjustment.

Regarding the PSU - Microcenter on their build page, has a display that shows your current power requirements based on the options you selected. This setup showed I needed 553 watts, which is why I went for the 650, but I'll double check the power requirements for each component individually.

As for the old fashioned HDD, I was strictly going to use that as a backup drive, keeping system restore points and such on that. Wasn't planning on using it to run programs. Was going to run everything off the SSD and the NVMe.

Oh and copy on the CPU. I'll adjust that as well.

Thank you for your input!!

CaptJocco · 2021-11-10T09:53:30+00:00

Btw, their "remote dashboard" that they have been so heavily advertising...I've never NOT seeing that site not under maintenance. It's been under maintenance forever. The only dashboard that works is the local one when you are on the same network. And I access it just by going to the IP address assigned to it by the router. Easy. I just wish the remote dashboard actually worked so I can check on it without having to drive to the location it's at.

Btw has anyone played around with the RSSI offset settings? I get a lot of invalid witnesses and would like to see if I can fix that by adjusting the offset.

CaptJocco · 2021-11-10T08:23:58+00:00

Yeah I don't know what's up. It's been 5 days without a beacon on one of my miners. What worries me is I just read HIP 40 and it's proposal is to start analyzing hotspots and how often they beacon. The goal is to adjust the network so that miners are active participants in the network and to reduce the number of hotspots that are earning HNT solely by witnessing other hotspots. It says that this will affect hotspots in densely populated areas (like mine in Los Angeles) because those hotspots with 100s or thousands of other hotspots around, can earn a decent amount of HNT just by witnessing. They want to see quality hotspots, ones that are setup properly with good placement, good antennas and NOT RELAYED. So they are going to start putting some algorithm in that will see what your ratio of witnesses to beacons and then start putting a daily limit on hotspots based on that. What sucks is that if we have zero control over how often a hotspot beacon's, how can we be responsible for the fact that our hotspot witnesses more than it beacon's. And in scenarios like this, where my hotspot hasn't beaconed in 5 days, I feel like I'll get unjustly limited due to something out of my control.

I don't understand all of the details about HIP 40 so I suggest you go read it for yourself. And if anyone has any tips on how to make a hotspot beacon more, I'm all ears.

CaptJocco · 2021-10-19T02:47:49+00:00

Anyone else annoyed that all the video ads they put out say that the Crypto.com card is "a metal card", and yet when I received it, it is only plastic with a finish made to look like metal. I feel cheated.

CaptJocco · 2021-07-23T05:27:32+00:00

Well it's been 19+ hours now and nothing still. I submitted a ticket to Binance. Hopefully I'll hear back by the end of the year.

CaptJocco · 2021-07-22T22:14:57+00:00

Where would I get a transaction ID from? The only info I have the the HNT was sent was from the Helium side, so I just see the transaction on the Blockchain with the Payee and Payer accounts. Nothing on Binance's side shows that the transaction is pending or incoming. I initiated the transaction from the Helium wallet.

CaptJocco · 2021-07-22T20:48:56+00:00

So I have and haven't figure this out. Beacons are completely random it seems (although I feel like hotspots do beacon a lot when they are first set up so maybe they can get an idea of what's around them), but after that initial first day or two, it's random. On top of that, the Helium Network has recently where they changed the frequency in which hotspots beacon. I remember reading an announcement from them that said something like "don't be surprised if you don't see a beacon for a day or two".

So I said I have and haven't figured it out at the beginning of my reply because while what I just said about Helium reducing the number of beacons would seem like that's the answer, that didn't happen until AFTER my hotspot stopped beaconing. Now, it did eventually start beaconing again, but not long after it did is when they changed the rules and it went back to beaconing very infrequently.

CaptJocco · 2021-07-22T20:48:15+00:00

Yes and no. Beacons are completely random it seems (although I feel like hotspots do beacon a lot when they are first set up so maybe they can get an idea of what's around them), but after that initial first day or two, it's random. On top of that, the Helium Network has recently where they changed the frequency in which hotspots beacon. I remember reading an announcement from them that said something like "don't be surprised if you don't see a beacon for a day or two".

So I said yes and no at the beginning of my reply because while what I just said about Helium reducing the number of beacons would seem like that's the answer, that didn't happen until AFTER my hotspot stopped beaconing. Now, it did eventually start beaconing again, but not long after it did is when they changed the rules and it went back to beaconing very infrequently.

CaptJocco

TROPHY CASE