If you like Watch Duty, the free (!) iOS app Calamity goes beyond wildfires into major airport delays, bad weather, earthquakes, solar flares & more. A decently presented aggregation of publicly available information.https://apps.apple.com/us/app/calamity-disaster-monitor/id6477748950

The highly unusual multi-day extreme heat of over 110°F took a huge toll on our Asian pears and nectarines. Worm food, now. #CaWx A cardboard box containing a mix of fruits, including pears and apples. Many of the fruits have dark, sunburnt spots on their surfaces. A single green leaf is also present among the fruits.

SFGate has a good round-up of the latest at KSFO (San Francisco International Airport): "Why the pandemic was the best thing to happen to SFO's reputation” #AvGeek

Rabbit at the refuge yesterday. #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge #Rabbit A small rabbit sits in the shade on a sunlit dirt path, surrounded by dry vegetation and a smidge of greenery in the background.

Today, before the heat got too extreme, we visited a nearby wildlife refuge. Here’s a Heron, King Bird, American Kestrel, and a Steel-Blue Cricket Hunter (a wasp!). #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge #Birds #Heron #AmericanKestrel #KingBird #SteelBlueCricketHunter A heron with outstretched wings flying against a clear blue sky.

A King Bird, gazing to the left, with yellow and brown feathers perched on a tree branch surrounded by green Willow leaves.

An American Kestrel is perched on a Eucalyptus tree branch, surrounded by green leaves against a clear blue sky.

A metallic blue wasp is navigating through dry scattered leaves and twigs.

Good morning from the westside of the North Sacramento Valley where, at 06:00, it was 79°F at 31% Relative Humidity. Today, highs could reach 118° but more likely 113-115°, depending on what the winds do.

It is 19:00 and the outdoor temperature is finally dropping. The high was 113°F at 7% relative humidity. I’ll take this dry heat any day.

Today I learned how to use BareBones Edit with Git. It is real easy. I’m such a nerd.

I’m watering the front yard plants tonight because knuckleheads gotta set off fireworks. I must say that the Rachio hose timer is pretty handy in these one-off situations.

In my part of the N. Sacramento Valley, 85 degrees F this morning. The humidity is 20% and it’ll drop. Temperatures may rise up to 113 today. Winds are still strong. Across the valley, at Oroville, is the Thompson Fire, which doesn’t seem to be letting up. #ThompsonFire #CaWx

Internet has been great all morning. Condition Green. Thanks for being good sports over my rants!

I connected my RaspberryPi ADSB receiver to Ethernet and turned off WiFi. It gained an impressive 10-20 mile range increase after the WiFi radio stopped screaming at the Software Defined Radio dongle. My FlightRadar24 box was always connected to Ethernet but also shows a significant range increase.

Maybe my getting stormy today over a few week’s of progressively worse internet speeds dislodged an electron somewhere because suddenly non-VPN internet is behaving as expected. Time will tell! 🤞

I sure hope my streaming services don’t use IP addresses alone to determine a household. ‘Cuz my IP address may be traveling the continent to avoid Comcast’s flawed internet routing/throttling. I swear I am not password sharing! Device IDs and wifi SSID should prove it.

Comcast/Xfinity Internet Woes

Comcast/Xfinity internet at my home has some kind of network issue that sure feels like throttling. For customer service, it’s literally impossible to get more than a chatbot and a chat-based live support agent. The live support agents are 100% scripted and they do the same troubleshooting flows as a chatbot. The issue is that my internet is operating at 0-5 Mbps unless I’m on VPN. I’m supposed to get ~1 Gbps and usually get 700 Mbps on Wifi 6E.

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U.S. land management agencies losing Chevron deference will be madness. Generally judges accept that agencies know what they’re doing as they do it day in and day out and have skillful people with the latest science. This will be a disaster. #SCOTUS #ChevronDeference

How about some American White Pelicans doing some formation flying last weekend. They were real far so was glad to be present enough to enjoy their presence. Always surprised to find them in deep in California #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge #AmericanWhitePelicans Four American pelicans, all white except black wingtips, flying over a grassy field with mountains in the background.

Fujifilm just released firmware updates that include, for some models, the Reala Ace film simulation. Looking forward to trying it out on my X-T5 this weekend. #Fujifilm #StraightOutOfCamera

A different kind of common bird one can see from the nearby refuge. An Air Tractor. The heat shimmer was super bad though. #AvGeek #AirTractor A small yellow propeller Air Tractor airplane is flying in a clear blue sky. It’s hazy with heat shimmer.

Here’s that Northern Harrier, a bit distant & blurred in the center of this photo, that I mentioned Friday. Was lovely to see it on the hunt, swooping low to find prey. #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge #NorthernHarrier 🪶 On a sunny day, in the distance, a Northern Harrier is gliding through a grassy field with tall, dry grass. It looks similar to a Hawk but its head is conspicuously dark compared to the rest of its body. Its chest and underwings are a bright tan with dark speckles. The background includes dense green trees with no view of the sky. The photo is slightly motion blurred.