Much as I dislike that my heat-pump requires a proprietary communicating thermostat, I do like that I can change some deep level settings to optimize things without dip-switches.
Apple
Some real dinosaur stuff happened today at Bay Front Park just south of SFO. This Great Blue Heron caught a gopher, paraded around with it for several minutes, then swallowed it whole. Then the heron proceeded to hunt some more. 😬
Volunteer Sunflowers in the backyard. The scrub jays garden really well. I continue to be impressed with the new Fujifilm XApp for transferring photos from my X-T5. #Fujifilm #Sunflowers #BloomScrolling
Out of an abundance of caution, early this morning I’m watering my front yard native plants in case the neighbors get whacky with their fireworks.The Rachio smart hose timer is working well so far. Turned on at 3am while I was sound asleep.
Suppose it will only be a matter of time before the Justices are on the receiving end of their undemocratic, hateful rulings.
It sure is easy to rise in FlightRadar24’s ADS-B rankings! I guess most people don’t even try to get a even half decent antenna position and reliable uptimes.
The new Rachio hose timer works well. Currently, it has fairly simple operation with basic App scheduling and timer. It doesn’t yet have smart home support or an API. It’s independent of the Rachio valve controller. But it works quite well for my needs: rare but long (deep) watering of my front yard native plants.
Perfect morning in California to cool the mass of the house off with our whole house fan. Normally it’s in the 90s this time of the year with lows in the high 60s and low 70s. Sorry for those in Texas though 😬
Using Migration Assistant via thunderbolt is insanely fast.
I’ve been very patient with my M1 Mac Mini. But now I have an M2 Mac Studio on the way. Flight simming and photography will be enormously improved. Less likely: And now that Apple allows on personal device “testing” of apps for free, I might resume learning iOS development.
macOS Universal Control is so very good when I’m multitasking between my Mac Mini and my MacBook Pro. One keyboard + one mouse = total control of both.
I’m slowly getting the canopies of my shrubs off the ground. Mostly to reduce outdoor cats hiding under them. I’ll do a lot to keep their destructive, bird killing lot out of my yard.
The new Fujifilm XApp is a vast improvement for transferring photos to a smartphone on the fly. But the app’s notifications alerting to the camera’s request to transfer photos are a bit aggressive. #Fujifilm
Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl OBT01 is on its way back to Long Beach. No idea what it is doing out and about. My ADSB receiver is tracking it. https://www.flightradar24.com/OBT01/3061cbdb
Woodpecker granaries are really neat. This one was right on a trail at Pinnacles NP. We did see an acorn woodpecker nearby though the photo isn’t great.
I neglected to post that our cultivated native California roses (Rosa californica) are blooming. Their flowers are fragile and nearly just by looking at them they go to tatters
Ortho4XP on macOS Ventura
Sunday, May 7, 2023
Ortho4XP has some code that’s been deprecated in the latest Python 3 Shapely and Numpy. You’ll need to downgrade Shapely to version 1.8.5. On my Mac after following the Big Sur installation instructions (I’m running Ventura): pip3 install shapely==1.8.5 After that you’ll need to go through the source files and replace numpy.bool to just bool and then numpy.float to just float (I used bbedit). This is probably safer than downgrading numpy.Last weekend: in its most happiest habitat, predominantly here are Yellow Monkeyflowers within massive rocks at Pinnacles National Park, California. #MonkeyFlowers #PinnaclesNationalPark
I’ve learned a bit about repairing hose bibs and turns out it’s pretty easy. I’m kind of looking forward to repacking my front yard hose bib this Friday so it stops leaking at the stem and I can put a new Rachio smart hose timer on it.
American Gold Finch digging for sunflower seeds the other day. #AmericanGoldFinch #Birds #Fujifilm
And now a female Bullock’s Oriole has shown up in our backyard. What luck. #BullocksOriole #Birds
Here’s yesterday’s Bullock’s Oriole looking right at the camera. #BullocksOriole #Birds
Ladybug larvas were later than normal this year but geez do they have a feast now!
We planted our vegetable and herb seedlings today. Our home compost has turned out real nice. Took several years to build up enough for use. The worms do most of the work since we can’t get the compost hot enough for long. 🌱
Present me is very thankful that past me connected all the commons in our newer irrigation box. So I didn’t have to undo the common “water proof” wire nut but only connect up the green wire to move from an older, now broken valve in an older box.
First Cedar Waxwing ever in our backyard! They have a creepy high pitched song.
Annie the Cat taking in a big dose of sunlight (again, but cuter this time). I hope she shakes her sinus infection soon.
Our young “New Century” Asian Pear tree is in full bloom. Our “Hosui” Asian Pear isn’t mature enough to flower and cross pollinate. Maybe next year!
DPReview.com to close. I loath Amazon even more now. I wish DPReview employees the very best. The site was my go-to for everything photography.
I’m getting more sore that MS still don’t have a macOS Bedrock edition. Surely the market is bigger there‽ I end up running Windows in VMWare 🤮
Microsoft is bringing Minecraft to Chromebooks www.theverge.com/2023/3/15…