Various Updates (publ. 2025-03-03)

Stargazing

Lately I haven't got much stargazing done due to the logistical difficulties. I think weather has been overall more cloudy as we approach the spring season. There have been a few nights where I could see stars, but also clouds, and I just can't gamble time on stargazing right now unless it is definitely a clear night. I've seen a few clear nights over the last month or so, but every time I've either been too exhausted myself to stay up late, or I'm trying to get the kids in bed. It is hard to go out stargazing in the evening because then all the kids want to go out too, so I've either got to keep little kids up way past their bedtime, or send some people crying back to their rooms. Last night the sky looked mostly clear, but several of the kids were sick and I didn't want anybody bouncing around in the cold.

I like the idea of stargazing in the early morning, but I have been having trouble getting up early enough due to exhaustion, and not keeping a close enough watch on the forecast.

Hopefully I might be able to get in some more stargazing before winter ends, but I'm not sure.

Amateur Radio

I have kept up practice on my morse code copy using files downloaded from the ARRL code practice pages. Just a few minutes each day, during the lunch break. I am mostly reliable now at 7.5 WPM with Farnsworth timing and am trying now to push it to 10 WPM. The weather is getting warm enough now that I think I might try mobile transmitting sometime in the next week or two.

Emacs/Gemini

As described in a previous post, I wrote some code to download files over gemini protocol, by tying into Elpher's API. Now I am working on some code to pull all the links from a gemfeed, but the code is not finished yet. The goal is to be able to download each file into a special local directory and then tie that into Gnus nndir, so I can read gemini feeds with Gnus. This could be done through the gmni command line utility, but I really want to be able to do this all within Emacs.

Analog Computing

I am still broke — the last paycheck was barely enough to pay rent and some utility bills, and to buy a few groceries. But my tax refund should be coming in this week, so I'm hoping I can make an electronics parts order after that.

I found a book in our library system called "Op Amp Applications Handbook" by Walt Jung, and I have started working through the opening chapters. Also, at work, I have been going over some old schematics on the analog force loop system for one of our simulators, and have learned a good amount by studying and sometimes reproducing the op-amp configurations I am seeing there.

I found a good youtube video that has helped me understand differentials better, for my studies in differential equations.

Calculus 3 Lecture 13.4: Finding Differentials of Multivariable Functions - YouTube

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