On a (somewhat) more practical note
Here are instructions to build an ADS-B receiver with a Raspberry Pi (video if you prefer). That’s what powers FlightRadar24.com – 30,000 to 50,000 users (I’ve seen both figures) sending data to them.
ADS-B stands for Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast – meaning aircraft send out their GPS location to ground stations, as opposed to the old system which gathered two or more signals from the ground and calculated the position of the plane based on the difference.
You have to promise to keep it powered up 24/7 and to put the antenna outside somewhere unobstructed. In return, you get a free contributor’s subscription. Honestly, probably easier to pay the $15 for a basic subscription, but what’s the fun in that?
You can also apply for a free transmitter, but considering the South of England is probably one of the geekiest, nerdiest spots on the planet, I don’t think they’re lacking coverage in our area.
We use flightradar24 a lot. We’re in the path of beaucoups de flight traffic, civilian and military. Plus lots of microlights, drones, models and learners. Something interesting always overhead.
August 12, 2026 — 3:38 pm
Comments: none
Here’s one
Gratifying to read how many of you are pi-heads (special shoutout to Gordon R. Durand, who uses one as his main desktop machine).
I know, I know…I understand that once you’re buying premade and troubleshot components, you’ve left the realm of tinkering with innovative machinery and landed right on putting together a Heathkit – but I must say, Pidog looks fun.
You have to supply the Pi, but it comes with an awful lot for the money – sound modules, light and movement sensors, pretty sweet looking servo motors. It must have an internet connection because it hooks into AI for facial recognition and coordination and stuff. Here’s a YouTube (complete with annoying robot narration).
I just realized I can’t have one because I don’t have enough clear desktop space to walk him on. I wonder what diabolical things a clever person could do with all those components, connected differently…?
August 11, 2026 — 5:42 pm
Comments: 4
Looking for ideas
I’ve been itching to buy a raspberry pi since they first came out, but I can’t think of an excuse. Have any of you played with one?
I gather they’re brilliant for doing things like multimedia kiosks – which, it so happens, I have professional experience designing. But for what? I mean, would a touch screen even respond to a beak?
August 10, 2026 — 7:04 pm
Comments: 6
The crossing barrier ruined my shot
And the weed. This is the charming little Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch narrow gauge railway. It chugs across Romney Marsh. And very picturesque it is, too.
They’ve had a couple of collisions with cars, in 2003 and 2005. In both cases, sadly, the driver died.
We’re standing at a fish shop buying plaice fillets. A long way to go to buy fish, but it’s a nice drive and we got to see the train.
Have a good weekend, everyone!
August 7, 2026 — 6:34 pm
Comments: 8
Cool.
After a long hiatus, I’ve gone back to using Facebook. I realized I hated it because I was using it wrong. I expected it to be a medium for communication, where it was endlessly frustrating.
Now, I just watch it like TV. Let the news items wash over me and never go back to find something later. I don’t remember so much advertising, though.
Anyway, this one is pretty cool. It’s a German company that will make a 3D model of a city or landscape for you. Go on Google Earth, find the place you want modeled, put the coordinates into their website and they’ll quickly generate a preview.
For under £100, it’s pretty slick. I reckon they’re using data from an open source like OpenStreetMap and feeding it to a 3D printer. It includes color and a basic frame (more elaborate for more £).
I love maps. I had them make a sample image of my closest town. I was tempted, I admit, but I have no place to put such a thing.
August 6, 2026 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 2
Kitties!
Uncle B sent me this fun article about an art book on bodega cats, with the remark that it wouldn’t be allowed here.
Well, yes, but it isn’t allowed there, either. Public health and all. It’s just widely ignored because who wants to crack down on cats? Also ethnics, probably.
We once saw a bit fat shop cat snoozing in the bowl of a vegetable scale. Same thing (without the ethnics).
August 5, 2026 — 6:16 pm
Comments: 10
One step behind
In the thread below, Uncle Al asked if I had a solution for Amazon books (specifically their ability to delete items already in your collection). The answer WAS yes – a program called BookFab (you may remember DVDFab, from the same company).
Six weeks ago, when you downloaded a file, it went into a specific directory, usually \Documents\My Kindle Content. If you downloaded the app with BookFab running, it would find the book and convert it to a DRM-free pdf. This was important to me because, as I mentioned before, my favorite Kindle reader is a reMarkable tablet and it won’t read native Kindle format.
BookFab gave you three goes and then made you pay. I immediately paid and downloaded all the titles I wanted to store locally.
Last Fall, with firmware revision 5.18.5, Amazon tightened its DRM on Kindle devices and eliminated the Download & Transfer via USB option. It closed most common workarounds for backing up books outside the Kindle ecosystem.
A couple of months ago, the Kindle for PC icon turned gray and renamed itself Kindle Legacy. That began the countdown. Eventually, they killed it and replaced it with a new Kindle app that can only be downloaded from the App Store and uses much stricter DRM.
Bastards.
So far, nobody’s broken it. But our friends at DVDFab are Chinese – meaning clever and they don’t give a fuck about American IP. I have faith.
I notice on their discussion forum, they released a new version today, but comments are closed. I read the release notes and it doesn’t mention Kindle, but I suspect they’re actively working on it.
p.s. While I was writing this, I clicked the Kindle Legacy icon to see what would happen. Nothing. For about ten minutes. To my surprise, it’s just loaded and shows books I bought recently. I don’t suppose it works as before, but I’m surprised it works at all. And it cheerfully informs me “Announcing the new Kindle app! Switch to the new Kindle app today, featuring drag-and-drop import, drag to multi-select, and app-wide dark mode.”
It’s a trap!
August 4, 2026 — 5:26 pm
Comments: 2
Robot school
The robot is teaching me how to edit Epub files.
The thing that surprised me most when I first learned about EPUBs is that they are not really a document format at all. They’re more like a miniature website zipped into a single file.
The thing that surprised me. ChatGPT is such a card! Anyhoo, it’s right – an Epub file is a bunch of xhtml and css and image and media files all zipped together – literally! If you rename a book.epub file into book.zip, you can open it and poke around in it.
I may have mentioned it before. What I didn’t know before is that the best way to edit them is using an open source tool called Sigil (pictured above). It makes it really easy to see the structure of the file and edit the various components directly.
Why was I doing this? I have downloaded a series of Victorian books which are behaving badly on my preferred Kindle reader (which is, for the record, a Remarkable tablet).
(Oh, who am I kidding? I just like to dissect files and Frankenstein them).
August 3, 2026 — 6:57 pm
Comments: 5
Wigged out. Soul food. Stink eye. Poo. Nonheterosexual. Monkeypox.
Montezuma’s revenge. Meet and greet. Mayo. MacPherson strut. AAA battery. A-go-go. Black Muslim. Coin-op. Arugula. Doofus. Dreadlock. Hate crime. Hair gel. Helipad.
See what words first hit print the year you were born (or any year) thanks to Merriam-Webster. And have a hyperarid weekend!
July 31, 2026 — 3:49 pm
Comments: 8
Older mustelids
This dude found the earliest known fossil weasel, somewhere in Spain. Well, a protoweasel. Here’s Grok’s synopsis:
A research team that includes Chris Law (University of Washington principal research scientist and affiliate curator at the Burke Museum) described a new fossil species named Galanthis baskini.
It comes from the Late Miocene of Spain (Las Casiones site, roughly 6.5–6.3 million years old). This pushes the known origin of the weasel subfamily Mustelinae (weasels, ferrets, minks, etc.) back by about three million years. Previously the oldest confirmed true weasels were around 3.5 million years old.
The animal was very small — estimated at about 135 grams (roughly the size of a modern least weasel) — and already had the sharp teeth of a small carnivore.
Chris Law is quoted in the article discussing how this fossil helps explain the early evolution of the distinctive small, elongated weasel body plan.
The paper is here, and it looks dead boring. What was more interesting was the clip of the guy talking about it – he was talking about the elongation of mustelids, selected for nipping into burrows and murdering rodents. It’s always fun to hear a scientist talk about his specialty. Unfortunately, it was an embedded video on a Facebook post, so no easy link.
July 30, 2026 — 4:53 pm
Comments: 2