I just got a rejection email for a position I applied to seven months ago. To add to the fun, it's my current employer.

A milestone I hadn't realized I achieved but I have flown over 100 Young Eagles (Youths aged 8 - 17 via the EAA Young Eagle Program)! All flights were done for free to help inspire aviation in the next generation.

#avgeek #aviation #eaa

Did you know that if you quit before layoffs they don't have you sign any non-disparagement agreement for severance? Well you do now, because I didn't sign any such thing.

At my previous company there was an engineering meeting where we were told we "need to find uses for AI". You know, a solution in need of a problem. No one was asking for it and no one wants it. You may not know this about pilots but they generally want 100% correct information.

I was feeling spicy so I asked what the cost/benefit analysis was on implementing something and I got back the polite version of "shut up, leadership wants this" and "We didn't do one". So, you know, zero thought put into it. Turns out it was probably to drive the sale of the company for a higher dollar amount.

Then they laid off most of the engineers after the sale. Thanks for making us richer, now get fucked.

My organization is forecast to hit its Claude token limits before the month is out. People are in a full panic about it. "How will I do my job???"

I dunno, the same way you did 18 months ago? It feels like everyone has lost their damn minds.

Reminder: If you are able, get your Flu and Covid vaccines. Protect not only yourself but also those that cannot protect themselves.

(I just got mine and I will 100% get a fever and chills later tonight from it)

AI agents have pulled most of the satisfaction out of my job. Every time I ask questions I get referred to Claude. There is no honing my craft anymore, workmanship is gone, only the parts of my job I don't like remain and since other engineers can produce code faster there is a mountain of pull requests... which they are now trying to use Claude to solve.

It is frustrating, uninspiring, and unrewarding. I know a few people that have left this field and I'm looking for ways to do the same.

#programming #coding

I just caught wind that ForeFlight celebrated Labor Day with more layoffs. I'm pretty vocal about my distaste for private equity so I am sadly unsurprised in their governance.

I went out to Seattle to surprise a friend for his birthday. What a beautiful city! I used to work remote for a company based out here so it is great to come back and check it out.

Tomorrow I'm going to wander the city some more and explore the sights!

Perhaps my biggest bit of "growing up" I ever did was when I stopped being jealous of the success of others. It used to bother me when coworkers would get promoted, or someone would win big at anything, or just people were doing better than me in general. With more introspection it was likely an anxiety response to me not feeling good enough at anything because of the constant comparisons.

Sometime in my 30s I just stopped caring about it. Now I genuinely celebrate the success of others. More than that, I WANT others to succeed in life regardless of where I am at. If I had it my way, everyone would win at everything all the time and I'd be elated. That is probably why in my 30s I started mentoring high schoolers through both the school and the EAA to set them up for success. I also mentor adults where the opportunity arises; it is hard as an adult to get mentored with so much stuff geared towards youth that you feel trapped and unable to learn new things.

I go out of my way to ask people about their recent wins in life because the news makes me genuinely happy now.

My EAA Chapter hosted a fly-in and car show this past weekend. Usually we do this at Brennand (79C) but the 30' wide runway seems to scare pilots away. It is north-south as well and prevailing winds typically aren't.

This year we moved the event to Appleton (ATW) but still only had a few aircraft fly in. It was a beautiful day, there are very wide and long perpendicular runways, plenty of parking, no landing fee, etc. The week prior I went to a fly-in and car show at Shawano (EZS) and it was bursting with aircraft flying in.

I'm doing some postmortem research on the event as the arguably more favorable venue did not substantially increase turnout (which is probably a combination of things) but I am focusing mostly on the pilot part of things.

Are general aviation pilots afraid of ATC? Like to the point where they wouldn't go to a class D airfield? We've been speculating on it but I'd like to get some actual input. I trained at a class C airport so ATC is second nature to me and as such I may have too much bias to consider it properly.

I'm also not sure how to figure out why people didn't come. Tonight I'm flying to Wausau (KAUW) for a hamburger social and I plan on just asking pilots if they heard of the event and if they had why they decided not to attend. Obviously my sample size will be pretty limited overall but I'm hoping it can give me an intuition about it.

#generalAviation #flyin #eaa #avgeek

I get pleasure in finding tech posts on Fediverse that are doing numbers and then blocking every inane reply-guy I find. Most common when a woman has made the post.

It doesn't have any real effect but I still get satisfaction from it.

We had our COM2 radio removed and it resolved all our GPS jamming issues on the aircraft. The radio is simply too far out of spec and causing all sorts of noise all over the spectrum. So while we go through the annoying process of getting everyone to agree on what to replace it with (if anything, or just have one radio), here is me doing a VFR practice approach with the GPS and testing the radios. We also had the coax replaced, new connectors, and new COM antennas.

Then on approach I told my partner to look for me and she got some photos of me up in the sky.

Now if you'll excuse me, as the president of the club I have to go setup a meeting and an agenda to discuss radio replacement. I, for one, am not going to suggest we get another Bendix/King KX 155.

#avgeek #aviation #flying #generalAviation #airplane #pilot

I had a colleague deride me for refusing to use LLMs to generate code, instead referring to my process as "artisanal coding".

Anyway, we don't talk anymore.

I took my mother flying on Sunday to get brunch in Janesville, WI (KJVL). Since it was overcast there I also got to do an instrument approach which is fun. On our way back we flew over the Tornado damage in Menasha and it's not pretty.

#tornado #severewx #wiwx #wx #avgeek #aviation #flying #generalAviation

Current information suggests the Tornado was an EF-3 and it did hit my house due to it being nearly a mile in diameter. No reported fatalities so far, which is amazing for going straight through a population center.

The whole neighborhood has been at it with chain saws and the city has been really on the ball clearing debris brought to the road. It's been super impressive.

No power still and probably no power for a few days more. Our water is being fed from neighboring a neighboring city now since most of our facilities took a direct tornado to the face. We're still required to boil the water which is hard as I have an electric stove and no power. I got a bunch of drinking water bottles for now.

Roads are mostly clear of trees and such and the police blockades have been relaxed. The FAA has put a TFR over my area to keep drones out

Tornado went through my town today. My family is fine, house is fine, lost a pear tree. As more information comes in, pretty sure the edge of the tornado (or at least the wind field) hit my house and it was around EF3 strength at the core.

No power, no water, the kiddo (4) is bored from not having Internet. I've been clearing trees from the roads with my chainsaw, the entire town is impassible and power lines are everywhere.

We got incredibly lucky, but the people 1/3rd mile over did not. Spotty service on the phone and plenty to do. See ya

#wiwx #wx #tornado

I've been out of work for nearly six full months and I've enjoyed the time greatly. Going for walks, trips to the zoo, hanging out with family, playing with my kid, exploring hobbies and projects. Of course it's not financially sustainable though.

I have a tentative job offer to start work June 15th. Remote software dev job, so I'll still be enjoying seeing my kid whenever I want.

I was trying to use a python project for mapping METAR data to LEDs using neopixel stuff and it didn't work, also had hard coded paths and stuff... so I wrote my own more concise python script that does it and just works. That feels pretty good, I've never written python but it weren't hard.

We're building a METAR map at my EAA chapter to hang on the wall. I got the power, the pi zero w, leds, and a logic level converter. Now the code works so just need to build the thing now.

I don't know the name for this flower but it is growing outside my house.

#bloomscrolling #flower #spring