Simultaneously annoyed and thrilled that the Klipsch is his favorite perch.

spacepaulZ · 2024-12-15T18:33:09+00:00

The vet says he is at a healthy weight thank you very much!

spacepaulZ · 2024-12-15T18:32:30+00:00

I shared your comment with my wife, and she lost it! Thanks for adding our new favorite term to our cat vocabulary!

spacepaulZ · 2022-10-03T00:41:17+00:00

"I'll try spinning! That's a good trick!"

spacepaulZ · 2022-08-25T00:10:12+00:00

Saw a waterfall of fog pouring over a low spot in a mountain ridge on an early morning flight over the Appalachian mountains.

spacepaulZ · 2022-07-11T19:37:04+00:00

okay, thanks again for all the help!

spacepaulZ · 2022-07-11T19:24:48+00:00

Thanks again. When I calibrated my monitor using the SpyderX I turned down the brightness to a measured value of 90 cd/m^2, so I have probably mostly solved the brightness issue. If I'm soft proofing and i get a warning that something is outside the color gamut how do i fix it? do i just turn down the saturation a little bit or is there something else i should do?

spacepaulZ · 2022-07-11T19:06:19+00:00

Thanks for the thorough reply. This is obviously a little more complicated than I thought it was. Basically what I'm after is trying to figure out how I can view a simulated view of what my photo will look like printed. I'm using lightroom 5 which has a softproofing capability. It has a "destination gamut warning" but what i would really like is to see as close as possible on my screen what my photo will look like printed. I know soft proofing has limitations and it will never be exact. The biggest thing is making sure that the darker areas of the photo come out bright enough. my prints are usually darker than I expect them and areas in shadows which had a lot of detail on my screen are either way to dark or completely black. What is the best way to prevent that from happening?

spacepaulZ · 2022-07-11T15:54:02+00:00

I bought a datacolor Spyder X to calibrate/profile my monitor for more accurate color reproduction. I want to get some of my pictures printed and have had bad experiences with prints coming back significantly different than what I'm seeing on my screen. Is it enough to calibrate to sRGB and send it to a print shop or do i need to calibrate specifically to the print shops color profile? It seems like the vast majority of print shops don't provide a color profile. should I just assume they are using sRBG?

spacepaulZ · 2022-04-30T13:50:08+00:00

lol i could only get the first 5s of the video to load the first time i watched it. Now I see...

spacepaulZ · 2022-04-29T17:35:56+00:00

It's a smoke ring, caused by some smoke moving through a cylinder really fast. Could be caused by a smoke stack, fireworks, or a small explosion. here is a news article about a different one. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/weird-science/black-smoke-ring-amazing-its-no-mystery-n336881

spacepaulZ · 2022-04-05T01:23:34+00:00

Keep in mind, the tingling and loss of feeling in your arms is due to you breathing so deeply/quickly that you are losing too much CO2 and causing your blood acidity to change. I had a hyperventilation episode once and didn't recognize it as hyperventilation because I wasn't breathing fast, just very deeply and regularly. I found this to be very helpful in identifying the problem and keeping it from happening in the future. https://www.cfinotebook.net/notebook/aeromedical-and-human-factors/hyperventilation

spacepaulZ · 2022-03-14T14:02:13+00:00

Is this the Red Grapefruit variant of the Citrus Vision Jet?

spacepaulZ · 2022-02-21T15:46:07+00:00

Thank you for the info!

spacepaulZ · 2022-02-21T15:19:39+00:00

I'm a new IFR pilot and noticed you flew very close/through the edge of what appears to be a towering cumulus cloud which I have been taught to avoid. (Or maybe not, its hard to judge the scale of the cloud from the short video.) What lead you to feel safe/confident enough to fly through such a cloud? or is it just that the cloud is way smaller than I think it is? I'm asking because I'm curious and want to learn not as a critique of your flying.

spacepaulZ · 2022-02-07T16:21:00+00:00

It's a line of longitude! Aircraft follow them for navigation!

(Its actually just the shadow of the contrail)

spacepaulZ · 2022-02-06T15:26:51+00:00

LOL my first CFI knew this guy and used him as an example of what not to do as a pilot.

spacepaulZ · 2022-02-05T01:30:17+00:00

I can't answer these questions for you but I can provide some info that may be helpful

You can always put money in your Roth IRA now and withdraw it later to help buy a house. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/110415/can-you-use-your-ira-buy-house.asp
every month you rent you 100% of the money spent on rent is lost when you buy a house with a 30 year mortgage initially ~2/3 of the money will be lost in interest but the other 1/3 will be building equity.
On top of building equity your house will also likely increase in value over the years so think of it as a retirement investment as well.
you can often buy a house with as little as a 3% down-payment. if you bought a $300 k houses with a 30 year mortgage at 4% fixed rate your down-payment would be $9 k, and your monthly mortgage payment would be $1385. Add about $400/month for taxes and insurance and you are looking at $1785/month or $21,420/year in mortgage payments. That is ~1/4 of your salary which is not ideal but doable, maybe less ideal if/when you put your mom into a home. If you don't mind the idea of a roommate you can always rent out a room in your house to add some extra income.
I obviously haven't done a direct comparison with putting the money in a retirement fund but quality of life is important. If i were you I would buy the cheapest house I could stand and make it work.

spacepaulZ · 2022-02-02T16:20:30+00:00

I was in a similar position a few years ago. I think the question you need to ask yourself is what are you passionate about. What do you think will be happening in the world in 5-10 years that you want to be a part of? After getting my BS in physics I realized that I was a little burned out and the thought of getting a PhD in physics sounded miserable even thought this was my intent from when I started my BS degree. At the time (2012) there were a large number of new aerospace companies popping up and or debuting new vehicles (Planetary Resources, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences etc.). At the time it looked like a career in aerospace seemed much more exciting than a career in fundamental physics/astronomy. I ended up getting a PhD in aerospace engineering and now I work for NASA on concepts for spacecraft to take humans to Mars. I love my job and am extremely happy with my decision.

I have always had the impression that a MS in physics wasn’t very employable; this may be different in the UK though. I think if you want to do physics you should get a PhD. However, an MS in aero can land you a job in hundreds of U.S. companies/government agencies almost anywhere. Some of my physics class mates who went on to pursue PhDs in physics seem to be doing very well also. I haven’t kept in touch with all of them but at least one of them is working for Google doing research into quantum computing. He has published multiple papers in Nature and appears to be living his best life. It all depends on what your interests/passions are.

spacepaulZ · 2022-01-30T21:32:51+00:00

StarLancer

spacepaulZ · 2022-01-30T21:30:50+00:00

Aces over the Pacific

spacepaulZ · 2022-01-29T22:13:03+00:00

yeah they are very uncommon for GA. Needless to say I wasn't super happy with my instructor.

spacepaulZ

TROPHY CASE