predicting the sun’s path

Yesterday I badly misjudged when the sun would “set” behind the mesa to the south. Using the manual method I judged the sun would start to be hidden around 3:30pm; in acuality I had direct sunlight until ~5:15p. Now there’s not a lot of power available when the sun is very low in the sky

review: Xiaomi Redmi 9 budget smartphone

I mentioned earlier that I’d ordered a replacement carry phone.  It came in on time and I spent most of yesterday setting it up. an unfair comparison This phone is terrific for my uses, snappy and well-built. The last phone that made me this happy was the Note II, Samsung’s flagship of 2012.  Of course, that

Instabridge soft-bricked my phone

I typically use Wifi Map to log and find passwords for publicly-available wifi (as one would find in restaurants).  I’d recently installed segment leader Instabridge to see how it compared. I didn’t like Instabridge’s intrusive ads and notifications, but the final straw occurred when I tried to use it to connect to a local wifi

My phone/data setup in 2019

Many people have expensive unlimited plans;  my needs are simpler: best coverage available at a low cost and I don’t need much bandwidth.  Stability for me is more important than speed or GB/month. I don’t talk on the phone much, and all my “text messages” are routed over data via Google Voice. saving money with

In (faint) praise of the iPhone

I was assigned a work phone (boo!) and it was an iPhone 8 (boo!).  As much as it frustrates me with the “we know what’s best for you” apple approach, I do have a couple of nice things to say about it: the hardware is beautiful, as always the battery life is much better than

Tethering a VS415PP on Verizon 3g

I bought a phone flashed with a grandfathered 3g unlimited plan from a private seller, who had in turn bought it from one of the [in]famous eBay device flashers.  This particular device is a Zone 2 (vs415pp). It came rooted with Wifi Tether Router installed.  Over time WTR started getting flakier and I dorked up