Curt Olson

https://social.makerforums.info/@clolsonus

Cirrus Aircraft Engineer. FlightGear co-founder. Drone avionics and aerial mapping hobbyist (as in writing code and building systems to do those things.) RC model airplane enthusiast. Still play a bit of soccer, do a bit of running, walking, hiking, cycling. Born in South America, currently reside in North America.

FlightGear: http://flightgear.org
North Star UAS: https://codeberg.org/NorthStarUAS
Curt's Blog: https://gallinazo.flightgear.org
youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CurtisOlson

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nprofile1qqs2waj98jgxpqqazd7s6zn05fnt9sea8us9gaz9y5kh7r9ku75g4ygpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsk8xmje

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Last Notes

2026-05-16 17:53:22 GMT

I should save this one for Wednesday...
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/585/528/959/053/499/original/1d160177e6db560f.png

2026-05-14 17:02:29 GMT

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(3) Actually just asked ChatGPT to review the code for issues.

2026-04-16 01:31:21 GMT

Just bored at the restaurant ...
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/411/797/480/862/447/original/b4cdaba3b1aee67a.png

2026-04-13 11:56:31 GMT

More backyard shots ... some sort of red fungus on a fallen birch branch and moss growing on a tree trunk.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/397/267/933/367/167/original/8c9c22f6b84b183b.png
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/397/269/882/927/845/original/ddeecc0f80a56422.png

2026-04-11 02:12:33 GMT

This spot amidst a group of tall old pines always feels like it has a special presence.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/383/647/205/721/174/original/f1b6d89013c538c8.png

2026-04-10 14:16:01 GMT

Ok, #FootpathFriday :-)
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/380/828/795/126/176/original/a927cfaa9e7e0ee4.png

2026-04-10 12:45:26 GMT

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I continue to be impressed with the capabilities of AI, but a couple thoughts.
I am currently immersed in a work project with complexity and nuance that I can't imagine describing to an AI engine to build without figuring out first what we want to build ... by building it. I get frustrated trying to explain the subtle nuances of what I want to the AI engine in English. There are structured, formal languages that allow much more precise specification of what I want ... like python!
The 2nd thought is currently AI is subsidized by investor speculation, so it is unsustainably cheap. When we hit that cut-over point where AI companies are forced to support themselves on their own revenues without leaning on financial tricks, I think the costs are going to go way up. Very likely the cost to do a project with AI will get more expensive than doing it with human engineers. There will be trade-offs and risks to both approaches. At some point, AI tools and AI help will become far more expensive than they are today. (at least that's my prediction ....)

2026-04-09 02:20:00 GMT

https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/372/353/386/786/776/original/2d389c4d7670a433.png

2026-04-08 21:27:52 GMT

Can you at least try to keep up? #dogsofmastodon #mungertrail #duluth #minnesota #stillwinter
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/371/202/500/341/113/original/5932aaa0fe64c619.png

2026-03-21 15:51:56 GMT

Somehow this is actually true!
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/267/962/213/708/241/original/76f640b6f0f43933.png

2026-03-14 14:01:50 GMT

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Yikes!

2026-03-08 12:50:36 GMT

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Gorgeous! Here is a week ago sunset driving back du nord from a visit to central #minnesota.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/116/193/637/376/370/149/original/1da496cdfe35a087.png

2026-03-02 02:52:45 GMT

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When I went to school in the late 80's we were given a few simple suggestions for methodology and even encouraged to try a couple, but that is as far is it every went. Pretty much left on our own to figure out whatever worked for us. I wrote my own adventure program in HS on my little Apple II in basic and the big take away from that was to make a plan to be organized .... and keep the plan out ahead of the anticipated complexity. So that's what I tell people to this day ... "I dunno, do whatever, but just keep it well organized."

2026-02-28 22:43:33 GMT

Wife and I went and got our shongles shot this afternoon. Guess we are getting to that age ...

2026-02-21 15:11:31 GMT

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So for us, not lunch time optimization, but the quoted post "triggered" me. :-)

2026-02-18 16:37:16 GMT

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What would we do without recursion!?!

2026-02-10 12:50:16 GMT

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I knew how to print things back when printers used parallel cables. Now with this wifi printer I can get stuff out sometimes.

2026-02-04 11:40:08 GMT

I couldn't just sit on this toot. I usually drink my company coolaid, but their new catch phrase is "Potential ... In motion". Isn't that just ... ok ... never mind ... I guess just run with it?

2026-01-21 15:44:46 GMT

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Yeah, it's that damn moral compass ... somehow I feel like I took my childhood instruction a lot more literally than it was intended.
I used to run some limited google ads, but they never amounted to anything, and then somehow my account went into a kill void, and google would keep offering me $300 of free ads I could never use and no google engineer could figure out why even though it got escalated several times. So I figured that was a good reason to quit wasting my money with them. Back in the day I had a little better luck with facebook ads which was weird, but true. But our model was open-source, give the product away for free ... I was just going for exposure/awareness, not trying to get any direct return on investment. (More users = more contributions was the idea, although more users = more problems too.)

2026-01-21 14:56:12 GMT

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Probably places like facebook and X, as sad as that is to say.... if you want hits and traffic.

2026-01-19 18:32:17 GMT

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This morning Luna ran out for 30 seconds to pee, then checked on the bunnies living under our shed, and then right back inside (#Esko also -13F at the time.)

2026-01-18 19:35:25 GMT

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Vivaldi is working great for me here too!

2026-01-18 17:06:07 GMT

https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/917/190/841/764/114/original/278bcf4a5d46516a.png

2026-01-18 16:14:54 GMT

I was brought up on #MinnesotaNice. Minnesota nice means giving others the benefit of the doubt, greeting each other on the street, waving at your neighbors, helping push a stranger's car out of the ditch, shoveling an neighbor's sidewalk, and on and on ... just your average human "kindness" that you would expect from people. Weather gets tough around here sometimes and it's important to look out for each other. When someone comes in to push everyone around and tell us what to do, terrorize and intimidate our neighborhoods we will give ground ... for a while. We were wary, but the agents doing this seemed legal at first. Then at some point we are done giving ground, and no more ground is given. That's it, that is #MinnesotaNice. Also, enjoy the -30F wind chills tonight ICE and white nationalist agitators. Hope you packed your insulated body armor. Cover your ears! Dress like it's a packers game.

2026-01-17 15:23:32 GMT

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https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/911/125/108/208/366/original/f9b5658ee059d308.png

2026-01-15 20:53:03 GMT

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Yeah, my daughter is very shaken up over everything that is going on in her neighborhood and at her work place. But that's the point, terrorize as many people as possible and make Minnesota hurt. (Not only are they sending thousands of troops on the ground, they are cutting off federal funding to all sorts of programs.)

2026-01-15 18:49:16 GMT

Post from my daughter this morning. They are constantly flying military drones overhead for surveillance in case anyone missed that part.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/900/605/722/376/463/original/2c4e17ebd2df33cb.png

2026-01-15 18:29:26 GMT

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I wonder if ICE will take MLK day off?

2026-01-15 16:37:33 GMT

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They are crawling all over my daughter's work place this morning with their masks and their tinted suv windows. (My daughter works for a suburban county, but lives in Mpls proper.) My mom says "stay away" but she doesn't think through why that is the advice. Poorly trained troops with hair triggers? Stressed, pissed off agents? Their commander wants to make MN suffer as much as possible and keeps pouring in more troops. They are popping up all over the state. They have 60 day commitments at their hotels. Somehow MN needs to outlast this violent invasion. MN nice gives a lot of ground up front, but at some point just stops moving and turns into MN tough, MN strong.

2026-01-15 13:59:23 GMT

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Did Kristy Noem walk by?

2026-01-13 01:46:52 GMT

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Is 33 here in Esko so I'm at the local restaurant in my shorts.

2026-01-11 22:57:21 GMT

#FreeCAD I have this old door latch thingie that is made out of metal that was too soft and is all bent up and keeps sliding out of position. I am going to try a 3d printed version. PLA just to make sure the part is sized right and then I'm going to see if I can get it printed out of carbon fiber infused something or other for a bit more strength. I'm guessing the PLA will fatigue pretty quickly and probably get brittle on those really cold days.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/878/934/474/525/950/original/11aeb60f177ffe2e.png

2026-01-11 16:05:01 GMT

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I have thoughts. I went hiking with my boss a while back (who is a trail whisperer or hiking druid or something at that level) and noticed he was wearing just normal running shoes. (Also, his steady hiking pace == my steady jogging pace.) Since then I have been doing the same for footwear. Running shoes give good cushion for walking longer distances. I never fully lace up my boots because that chaffs my ankles, so I don't notice any difference with respect to ankle support. The one place boots are nice is if I'm hiking in snow and want the water-proof features. Except often if it's deeper snow I'll end up taking on snow at the top and getting my feet wet anyway ... but I'm not winter camping so I can put up with an hour or two of wet feet for a nice hike. I'm weird though, often I lean into the discomfort of hiking with simple gear in adverse conditions as part of the challenge/adventure. One place where running shoes weren't as nice was when I was hiking an especially rocky section of the superior hiking trail. Rough rocks with hard ridges can push through the cushion of a running shoe and impact a lot of force on a small area of the foot (compared to shoe with a harder sole.) So there are trade-offs, but for me, the running shoe is my go to hiking apparel unless something really specific about the conditions steer me in a different direction. One time I did a 6-day 428 mile biking adventure in the colorado rockies and discovered diluted orange juice and my mom's home made monster cookies worked just as well has fancy/expensive sports drinks and goo packs. But I suppose each area of the country and time of year can bring it's own specific challenges and gear requirements. My advice is to do a thing a few times and figure out what works for you ... and that may or may not be fancy expensive stuff ... maybe sometimes, but doesn't always have to be. And advice for anyone out there, if I invite you on a hike, probably wise to decline. :-)

2026-01-11 15:43:12 GMT

People are talking about a packers collapse last night when they lost in the 4th quarter to the bears. This wasn't a collapse, it was a stronger team getting better as the game went on. The packers have a lot of skill and got off to a fast start, but you could see them wearing down as the game progressed struggling harder and harder to keep up with the strength of the bears. Skill and speed can win the first half, toughness can start to separate the teams in the 2nd half. If the bears avoid digging themselves a huge hole in the first half of their next game, they'll have a real good chance of staying in it for a while longer.

2026-01-11 15:31:21 GMT

Ugh, our car insurance claim system has been AI-slop-ified. (We had a big crack in our windshield so needed it replaced.) Now I get an email that they have made multiple attempts to contact me with no response -- sent from a do-not-reply email address. This world seems bent on proving itself impossible to exist. Thanks for blazing the trail American Family Insurance.

2026-01-11 13:11:31 GMT

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One time I paid a plumber $250 for 5 minutes of work ... that's how much it costs just to get them to park in your driveway and walk up to your door. I would do it when I absolutely have to, but these days you have to explore figuring it out yourself first.

2026-01-10 19:51:20 GMT

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I initially noticed it was leaking a bit, but just for a moment whenever you flushed. Chatgpt helped me figure out it would probably be the "spud" gasket or the big gasket between the tank and the bowl which only see's action during a flush. That made more sense once I took the tank off and thought about it. The previous owner/installer had hacked/trimmed a gasket to fit and it wasn't quite sealing perfectly. Then I also noticed this model had something called a "bowl horn" (not to be confused with a bowel horn) that wasn't installed/seated correctly. Also they tank to bowl hold down bolts/washers were installed incorrectly (but thankfully weren't leaking ... but did start leaking when I put it back together the same way the original person had done it.) I got the bowl horn seated/positioned correctly and went to the hardware store to get a new "generic" gasket ... but this really didn't work ... leak stayed the same as before. So I thought maybe it was the whole flush valve mechanism so I got one of those, but that didn't help. Every time I took it apart and put it together it seemed to leak a different amount in a different way. Finally I broke down and ordered the oem gasket for like $30 that was supposedly designed to fit this model, and that after some more fiddling around seems to maybe be doing the trick. But it was just time consuming and a pain to drain the tank and dry it out every time I tried something ... and in retrospect, none of the generic stuff I got from the local hardware store had any hope of working despite everything I saw online saying it would be fine. Anyhow ... I'm definitely not saying this is an area where I have special talents and abilities, but normally I can puzzle things out as well as the next person. I was about ready to just go get a whole new toilet.

2026-01-10 17:24:35 GMT

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I know it's a totally different thing, but everything going on in Minnesota this week has been weighing extremely heavy on my heart and making it hard to focus and get work done. One of my daughters lives in Mpls proper and long ago we used to attend the church that was 1 block away from where this tragedy/evil happened. Kids are afraid to walk to school. The primary mission of terrorizing "quote" blue "/quote" states and anyone with brown skin who speaks with an accent is extremely effective ... and bonus (for the evil) is they get to beat up on the people they hate with no consequences. And if any of this turns around to bite them in the a** they just change the rules because they make the rules. For them it's ok to do bad things to bad people and they get to define who the bad people are. It works out really well for them ... they get to act out all their evil fantasies and aggression.

2026-01-10 17:17:08 GMT

Since early November I have been attempting to fix a #toilet leak using the advice of #ChatGPT. So far the toilet still leaks and each time I try its advice, the problem persists or gets worse. When I report back my results, it says something like "Oh perfect, this pinpoints the exact problem ... blah blah blah ... it's a very common problem with your brand of toilet ..." I've bought about $75 worth of parts so far and am 2 months into this adventure. This is real and not an analogy for vibe coding, but it sure could be.

2026-01-07 13:11:33 GMT

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:-(

2026-01-07 11:48:26 GMT

I used to think I knew things, but now it feels like I'm watching a train wreck happening at the speed of a glacier with about the same level of ability to influence it's progress.
https://youtu.be/jAl05lQm4nQ

2026-01-05 12:12:20 GMT

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"... so that you can make a fault-tolerant replicated version of ed."
Implies you can find n >= 3 people (so 2 more?) that would still want to use ed? :-)
(I had to google what the raft algorithm was ... we had talked about something similar long ago in my distributed systems class, but I don't recall it having a specific name. Just to date myself, our class project was to make a distributed version of cvs by passing a per-file token around via a uucp/email network. If you tried to do a commit, but didn't have the token for that file, it would automatically send a request out around the network ... and a few hours and uucp hops later the token would arrive and your commit would go through. And it worked pretty ok except sometimes a token would get lost in transit and we'd have to get on the phone and cooperatively agree to recreate it ... and no one elected me the leader.)

2026-01-04 16:59:03 GMT

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Speaking super generically ... humans really connect with stories and we are very social. I am not good any any of that in person. But if there was some way to tell a story through the simulator, or make the sim experience more cooperative/social (and I have really no clue how to do those things) then you are building an experience and I bet that would connect with more people. On the other hand ... connect with people??? ... that sounds scary ... I will generally try to avoid my own advice. :-)

2026-01-04 16:16:30 GMT

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Yeah, and it feels like as we go through the whole rotation by the end of the season, some of these early anomalies settle out and the spread becomes more like you'd expect. But still it seems like there is a lot of /really/ good teams this year, SF included. But week to week ... stuff happens ... especially with injuries, so I guess that's why they play the games. Or at least that's why we used to play the games ... now I wonder if it's all just for gambling?

2026-01-04 04:16:34 GMT

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It feels like there are too many /really/ good teams this year. Feels like there are way more wins than losses across the league.

2026-01-03 01:44:11 GMT

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Never again will I second guess myself and wonder if my ideas might be a little too crazy for the world to handle. I will forever know that crazier exists!

2026-01-01 20:28:24 GMT

A national cultural center dedicated to legacy, loyalty, and the careful presentation of history.
https://www.trumpkennedycenter.org

2026-01-01 17:06:02 GMT

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I assume Idaho has similar things to Minnesota? Here there are a plethora of rescue organizations that foster dogs in homes outside of shelters and those are also great places to look. Luna came from "Ruff Start" and Betty came from "Save a Bull". Tin Tin (who we lost in 2022) came from LA area, flown up by some other rescue org that takes dogs from kill shelters and relocates them to areas of the country with better adoption chances (such as Minnesota and other sates in the Midwest.)
Story time?
My wife worked as a school counselor as her first career and was doing a parent call to a parent who was a Mpls police officer. She heard a bark in the background and asked him if he was a canine officer and he said no, his partner was fostering a german sheperd. This was like on the 23rd of Dec and my wife and daughters wanted to go visit ... so I said the minnesota "Oh Geeze..." and next day (of course) we had a new dog.
Years later my neighbor was doing a retirement shindig in downtown Mpls for someone he knew and at the end of the night walked out to the street and there were two cops standing there. So he asked if they could "fake arrest" his buddy when he came outside, and dropped that he knew our other neighbors who were also Mpls police officers. Which then they immediately replied "So you would know Tin Tin!" Apparently one of the two officers was the partner of the parent my wife had spoken with a few years earlier.
Anyhow the fake arrest was made, totally freaked out the retiring friend, lots of alcohol had been consumed by that point ... success all around.
So anyway, Tin Tin was one of the best dogs ever ... many times felt more like a person than a dog. When we first got Luna (who we still have) she was a bundle of anxiety and fear about everything, but she loved Tin Tin and was his little shadow. When she was near him she was a dog again, otherwise she was a huge mess. Luna has grown a lot in the years since. Always hope!
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/820/917/538/836/335/original/68bd8752b22c3fc1.png

2026-01-01 16:49:30 GMT

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Yes, Luna and Betty say adopting a rescue/foster dog is by far the best option!
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/820/865/334/924/197/original/a1c9677b5b395835.png

2025-12-31 12:39:49 GMT

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It is interesting to hear about the ed and flow of your little project!

2025-12-29 17:14:20 GMT

Augsburg cross-country runner with Olympic dreams barred by NCAA after accepting $6K donation - Bring Me The News https://share.google/Cq0Vhjr85ohhOO3g4

2025-12-29 03:27:10 GMT

About 125 years ago this tree wasn't here, and instead railroad tracks ran straight off the end of this mound across a wood trestle to the other side of the gully. This afternoon I hiked this part of the historic LS&MR railroad route that ran from Minneapolis to Duluth. It crossed 5 very large wood trestles (not including this small ravine.) The stone footings for the trestles are still there, but the wood parts were disassembled when the line was decommissioned. Down at the bottom of the hill in Duluth, the last 10-15 miles of track have been preserved and you can catch rides in a historic coach. We did this a year ago in the Fall and it was a great way to see all the leaves.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/800/703/817/819/458/original/be63e67f48c72a89.png
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/800/721/378/480/594/original/c41bb23443296b88.png

2025-12-29 03:16:27 GMT

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We tried booties once, but she's so slender she slips right out of them. We'd have to duct tape them on or something. She's good to about 20F. As long as it's warmer than that we go all over the local trails. Colder than that and she stays home. (I think we were well into the upper 20's this afternoon.) She's definitely not a northern breed, but the 23-and-me for dogs says she has some husky in there somewhere, and she does have a version of the double coat which probably mostly only helps the ticks hide in the summer time. Anyhow, she's a great hiking buddy.

2025-12-28 21:55:45 GMT

Snowy hike, #JayCookeStatePark #Minnesota
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/799/421/235/548/338/original/41e547c3e743775e.png

2025-12-28 17:17:33 GMT

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My folks have foxnews on during waking hours, except in the evenings if they watch a family friendly movie. They do try to keep it off when my wife and kids are around though which is nice. There are points to be made on the other side from time to time but how Trump fits into their world view I will never ever understand. (I get that some people are a$$holes and want to be a$$holes and clearly state they are a$$holes and support a$$holes in government doing mean things for selfish reasons ... and I respect that consistency at some level, but with those that think they are kind christian people and still somehow still fit Trump into that world view I will never understand.)

2025-12-28 14:25:54 GMT

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I've used ed ... like once, maybe 40 years ago. From memory it felt a lot like vi, but for terminals that were too slow to update a whole 80x24 screenful of characters ... like if you are on something < 300 baud?
That said, when I try to run a web browser and vscode simultaneously on my 16Gb work laptop, I end up getting booted out or crashing out 2-3x a day from OOM problems.
So maybe your 'ed' idea isn't such a bad one... hmm ....

2025-12-28 14:18:51 GMT

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I don't know much about things, but from my casual observations: There are 100's of companies/groups/individuals that are designing really cool, interesting, innovative airplanes. Many have enough momentum to build and sell a few. But the hardest thing (which is also the most boring thing for an aircraft designer) is you have to build a company ... HR, taxes, lawyers, sales, marketing, facilities, parking lots, employees, bathrooms, breakrooms, swag, training, tooling, accounting, managers, raises, onboarding, employees leaving ... all the things. You end up with yet another big boring company that just happens to build and support airplanes. You can have a great idea, but then you have to focus so much more on building out a company from scratch, not specifically airplanes. The further you get into it, the less important your cool idea is relative to the importance of all the boring business stuff. My 2c is that even though a big company like Cirrus is very imperfect, the one thing they figured out how to do that led to their long-term success was to build the whole business side of things while building airplanes and attracting a work force that loves aviation. The fact that they started out as a couple 20-somethings in a barn and figured out the business side along the way is maybe the most impressive thing about their company.

2025-12-28 14:05:11 GMT

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Hope you get lots of great feedback! Years ago we took FlightGear (in the form of a 747 cockpit) to SCALE (in Los Angeles) and got a lot of great positive attention ... a flight sim at a linux show really stood out!

2025-12-28 13:03:30 GMT

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I've never heard of 39c3 before your mention here. After you are back home and the dust settles, would you be willing to write up a few notes on what you put together and showed off there, and maybe what else you saw that was interesting, and post that to the flightgear group somewhere? I'm imagining something quick and casual (definitely not long and formal!) If you had something with a few pictures, maybe Gijs could post it to the flightgear website? -- only if it makes sense -- I don't really know what 39c3 is so maybe I'm way off the mark here. Thanks!

2025-12-28 02:00:07 GMT

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It is a very pretty airplane! I hope they are able to build a successful business around it!

2025-12-27 16:52:47 GMT

Our daughter and son-in-law have 3 rescue/foster dogs. Apparently this is called "Betty Spa" and is a fairly regular routine. #dogsofmastodon
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/792/564/974/792/035/original/0147e085c91fa886.mp4

2025-12-25 19:23:04 GMT

Knowing my mom, this has to have been an unentendre, right? right???
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/781/820/016/350/520/original/76316059dd58769b.png

2025-12-24 15:34:22 GMT

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Reimagined for 2025?
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/775/271/580/626/203/original/fbc9f3c3fef30e6a.png

2025-12-24 15:33:23 GMT

Hallmark Christmas movies continue to ruin companies this season!
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/775/267/018/298/831/original/5efbfdb4eed0ee55.png

2025-12-23 21:59:43 GMT

Winter sunset, Esko MN.
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/771/123/216/744/889/original/d1b85a54a9e36988.png

2025-12-22 20:02:35 GMT

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Sorry for the english: Culture (and probably much of religion) is a very low frequency low pass filter on human experience.

2025-12-21 14:01:08 GMT

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I've got a jira ticket that can only close when the two dozen issues I've pointed out are resolved by group consensus. Check in on me in a year or two to see how that is going ... due date is Jan 9 though ...

2025-12-21 12:48:13 GMT

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My boss tells me the trick is to not do yearly goals, but do 12 week goals, and then break them down into weekly goals, and then put them all in Jira tickets. Bonus, then you have a dashboard and easy ways to report metrics to upper management. Sorry, this post went off the rails somewhere ... probably before it started.

2025-12-21 12:40:27 GMT

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The autoland voice is very robotic, we can do much more natural voices now, but somehow the old timey synthesized voice grabs your attention and seems actually much more effective.

2025-12-19 23:32:11 GMT

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MAGA hates whomever Trump tells them to hate ... and probably anyone who uses whoever/whomever correctly because that is so elitist. :-(

2025-12-19 02:09:05 GMT

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The hierarchical interleaving of data was pretty cool.

2025-12-19 01:44:03 GMT

Hotel ... wifi ... images ... loading ... super ... slow ...

2025-12-17 20:27:50 GMT

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Has anyone tried trickle-up economics?

2025-12-17 20:26:23 GMT

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Well I hope that through it all (and beyond) you continue to post your work here because I enjoy seeing the details of an impressive effort like this. Wishing you all the best, and a bit of well placed luck once in a while too.

2025-12-17 19:39:22 GMT

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I don't know enough to give advice, and it's not my place anyhow, but I always wanted FlightGear to be a fun challenge, not a stressful challenge. Do what you can do and be proud of what you have made. When you post pictures of your work here it is super impressive. It is great to that you are holding yourself to a high standard ... I always take my work super seriously, but myself not so much and sometimes that helps me. And nothing will ever be finished or perfect ... not even the actual A320.

2025-12-17 14:34:21 GMT

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When I was doing a lot of UAV development I always had a theory that good days and bad days alternated, so hopefully today (or tomorrow) will be a good day when you get on top of all these things and can make some forward progress.

2025-12-16 19:43:47 GMT

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This is definitely something to think about, and I'm no expert in quotes, but I don't think it's a real Dalai Lama quote. Quoting chatgpt ....
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/730/953/130/793/927/original/0b72ccdd3347978b.png

2025-12-16 03:19:23 GMT

Awww, the little dog was being sweet tonight.
#dogsofmastodon
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/727/080/702/151/368/original/76cddc2afa667f74.png

2025-12-12 20:05:04 GMT

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Good leaders train up other good leaders.

2025-12-12 11:40:17 GMT

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Just asked chatgpt what a roll cloud is (so now I'll probably start seeing roll cloud ads in facebook and get roll cloud video suggestions in youtube, thanks a ton!) Anyhow, I don't know ... maybe? The big lake interacts with the land in different ways depending on prevailing winds and relative temp differences, so we do get a lot of artifacts from that here. And this would be right on the edge of that. This time of year it's dark when I drive home from work and dark when I go out for a hike so I don't have a good read on what the sky was up to ... there were some other light thin clouds around too, and maybe a hint of northern lights?
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/706/404/205/984/140/original/a07a1bd34c103c36.png

2025-12-12 03:40:15 GMT

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We moved up here a few years ago for work and have really enjoyed the north woods and the big lake.

2025-12-12 03:05:03 GMT

Night hike with Luna in fairly fresh snow at #JayCookeStatePark
The park was closed Sat-Wed for a special deer hunt, so very few people had been out to help pack down the trail since the last 2 snow falls. This is from the Ogantz trail look out, looking south (I think) towards Wrenshall?
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/704/372/136/415/365/original/ed65217b2d6107de.png

2025-12-11 03:57:22 GMT

Northern lights are out tonight!
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/698/921/651/935/513/original/a372894726ee4b42.png

2025-12-10 14:27:43 GMT

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I appreciate that they make me run "apt-get autoremove" manually.

2025-12-07 17:03:05 GMT

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I've been following this snow depth report map for a week and a half now and it 's super cool to see where the storms have developed and plowed through.

2025-12-07 16:06:10 GMT

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Here in the USA I've long wondered if the religious label or the political label should go first. A lot of people don't really think there is much difference between the two, and don't think about which one is driving the other, and that is troubling to me.

2025-12-07 04:42:19 GMT

Stranger Things Season 1 vs. Season 5:
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/676/448/909/759/574/original/e2cd6b971ff6058f.png

2025-12-06 01:48:58 GMT

Gonna go play pickup indoor soccer tonight with the kids (mostly 20's & 30's). My objective is to get in the way a couple times and be able to walk back to my car under my own power at the end of the night.

2025-12-06 00:51:39 GMT

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Here's what I need ...
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/669/879/747/501/309/original/f254fe9835988008.png

2025-12-04 20:24:07 GMT

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Sounds like my job too, except we are building the airplane before deciding what kind of airplane it should be ... because it is more important to show objective/measurable progress to senior leadership. And next month we start managing it all through Jira which should fix all of the messes and let us auto-generate progress reports ... which I think will be great, then our managers don't need to pay attention to what we are actually doing, just insert the cogs and turn the crank.

2025-12-02 03:39:00 GMT

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I like stacking my tolerances.

2025-12-02 03:38:30 GMT

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Oh yeah, that was some good icing. The side roads around here will probably be covered in ice until spring now. We got about 9" of snow after it changed over from rain.

2025-12-01 12:42:46 GMT

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I gotta get back to working on my own compiler idea here. I have v1 of the syntax, parser, ast, type checker ... and then I was starting poke at the code generation and then all kinds of life happened this fall and all my fun hobbies ground to a halt.
I'm sure there is a better language that already exists for what I want (and it's probably just writing code with simple C++ or python idioms) but I learn by trying to build out my ideas, and it's fun to see things I build myself actually work.

2025-12-01 03:54:01 GMT

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Yah, all new hardware, but somehow I didn't get the new spud gasket seated correctly. I'll have to regroup and try again another night.

2025-12-01 03:16:31 GMT

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Funny, our property came with a seat on a box in the woods behind the house ... but the box was rotting and now 3 years later the seat caved in. It didn't seem like there was a hole underneath, but I also didn't go digging around underneath to see. No outer enclosure though. I've heard talk of a 5 gallon bucket filled with sawdust.

2025-11-30 23:18:25 GMT

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Lol, I guess I suck at fixing toilets ... the new leak I introduced is fixed, but now the spud gasket is leaking again ... need to drain, dry, and take it all apart again to try to figure out what I did on the second try. But I've only had it together and apart 2 times ... and this might be a par 3 or par 4.

2025-11-30 22:44:36 GMT

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They are ok most of the time, :-) Not pictured were the 5 dogs ... my folks dog, our dog, and Hannah and Sam's 3 rescue/foster dogs. It was a busy two days!

2025-11-30 22:30:37 GMT

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Yeah, but less fun would be paying someone who probably knows less about toilets than the original installer $500 to come out and mess around with it and probably hack it up even worse. Ugh! :-)

2025-11-30 22:26:57 GMT

DIY??? A few day ago I discovered our toilet leaked, but just a small spurt when flushing, not when it was just sitting there. So I interrogated chatgpt for a while and decided it was probably the spud gasket. I went to the local hardware store and got a spud gasket kit. Took the toilet all apart this afternoon; discovered a thing called a bowl horn (not to be confused with a bowel horn.) That was installed incorrectly, not seated all the way in. So the original toilet installer trimmed the spud gasket to make it fit ... kinda ... and now 20 years later that gasket is getting a little hard and brittle around the place it was incorrectly trimmed. And the rush of water during the flush was enough pressure to send a bit through the spud gasket seal.
So then they make the back side of the hold down bolts almost impossible to reach to get the nuts and washer back on ... it was ok to get apart. It was almost like they designed it to be one nerve short of being completely impossible, yes I was down to my last nerve! But I did finally get the bowl horn reinstalled correctly (I hope!), the full spud gasket installed, the hodl down bolts/nuts/washers started, and finally got it all back together and the original leak seems to be fixed, yay! But 10 seconds later ... oh no! I introduced a new leak. So I took it all back apart -- now not being careful about water going every where because I'm frustrated, and fix what I think is the issue, and get it back together. I think my mistake was that I copied the washer arrangement of the original installer ... not the instructions ... just another thing the original installer screwed up. Ok, so now it's all back together, but everything is soaking wet after taking it back apart carelessly, so no idea if I fixed the leak or not. I'm going to leave it for a day or two so everything can fully dry out, ugh, and then turn the water back on and try again. How's your Sunday afternoon going!?! :-(

2025-11-30 18:22:31 GMT

Belated happy thanksgiving from the Olson clan
https://social.makerforums.info/system/media_attachments/files/115/640/037/116/039/139/original/52796a45b106c100.png