Nathan | NTHP

Bamboozling Birds

Nathan — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 01:22:00 -0400

The other day, I was driving through the local city, and saw some swans in a park pond. I wanted to get out and get some pics, but I didn’t have my camera on me, and I had somewhere I had to be. I thought about logging them in eBird, but didn’t. I wanted to get them for real.

Backstabbed

The next day, I set out. I was going to (hopefully) get those swans.

Pulling up, something felt off. While waiting for traffic to clear so I could open my door (coupe life), they weren’t moving. I immediately got suspicious. And them not being logged in eBird, only heightened that suspicion. Then it hit me. They were in the same spots that they were the day before.

Once traffic cleared, I got out, and took a look.

It’s a fake!

Turdus Migratorius

That was… disappointing. A least I didn’t log them when I drove past. But still standing in a park, I decided to walk around, and see if the was anything more… real.

And I’m glad I did. As there were a ton of robins, and I was able to get some pretty good shots of them.

All and all, not a waste. Though I did get a few laughs from co-workers.

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Nathan — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:49:45 -0400

Another Orbit

Nathan — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:44:00 -0400

Another orbit, another year. And having friends/family that are somewhat of enablers, means more camera gear.

Gears

I was gifted a geared head. A tripod head that uses gear for precision adjustment.

These are usually ment for macro work, and that’s what I indent to use it for. But, this one can take up to 15lbs of load. That means it can comfortably accept the BIGMA.

Your bowser don't support HTML5 video

I have plans and ideas for this thing.

Just like how this guy had plans to hog the feeder.

Red-Winged Blackbird

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The Great Desk Flood

Nathan — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 17:17:00 -0400

This morning started like any other. I woke up, got some breakfast, then went to my desk. Except, my desk was soaking wet.

WTH?

I wasted no time. First I made a quick check for a source. Nothing was spilled, and the ceiling was dry. Nothing obvious. So I started taking things off, and pulled out the paper towels.

Luckily, the only things that got soaked, were my desk mat, mouse pad, and the feet on my keyboard. The desk mat soaked up almost everything. That, as well as the vertical stand, kept my MacBook safe.

While cleaning, I got a big clue, as to the source of the flood. The liquid was brown, and sticky. Interesting. But the big moment, was when I grabbed a sealed can of Coke off of the desk. It was empty.

Investigation

After cleaning everything, and getting my desk put back together, I turned to the can.

Looking it over, I didn’t see anything off about it. So I filled up the sink with warm water. The warm water will warm up the air in the can, when submerged. That will increase the internal pressure, hopefully causing bubbles. And lo and behold.

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That is tiny. Like, really tiny. Let’s bust out the super macro lens.

That’s pretty close.

That’s really close. But do we see anything.

That’s pretty damn tiny.

Opening Time

I have no idea why the hole formed. My only guess is that the plastic coating wasn’t as think in that spot (or there at all). And that allowed the acidic Coke to eventually eat though the metal. I might have to experiment with that at some point.

With that mystery done and over. There was just one more things to do. Crack open the “sealed” empty can. You don’t get to do that often.

Your bowser don't support HTML5 video

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Travel Router

Nathan — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 22:40:00 -0400

So I picked up one of those cool little travel routers. The new one from Ubiquiti. This thing is neat.

A Traveling Router?

The main questions people have about a travel router, is “what” and “why”. A travel router, is a router you take with you, when you travel. You connect all of your things to it, and then connect the router to some random network. Be it a hotel, an airport, or a random gas station.

The why gets a little more interesting. Instead of connecting all your devices to the airport WiFi, and dealing with the “Subscribe for faster speed”¹ captive portal on all of them, you connect just the router. Then, all of your things connect to it. And they don’t deal with the captive portal.

Is this incredibly niche? Yes. But this little thing has a couple extra features up its sleeve.

Small But Capable

For starters, this thing is small. Here it is on top of a keyboard.

And next to a Mac SE

Despite its size, it packs two ethernet ports. Using the cool folding jack port style. You also get two USB type C ports. One for power, and the other one for tethering to a phone.

The only thing you don’t get, is a battery. So pack one with you, when you travel. You should probably do that anyway.

Thinking With Portals

The main question I had, was how it deals with captive portals.

To test this, I packed up, and headed off for the airport. Ok, I didn’t, that’s a little much, even for me (but I wanted to). I simply spun up a new network and SSID on my UniFi system, and put it behind a captive portal.

Connecting the UTR to the new network, the app prompted me to deal with the portal. It forced my phone to connect to the travel router, then served the portal through a little web server running on it. While at the same time, showing a message on the built in screen.

Once the portal was happy, I was in. And nothing else I connected to the travel router, had to deal with the portal. So yeah, it deals with them pretty well.

Thoughts

There’s a fair bit more this thing can do. Like cloning a MAC address when joining a WiFi network, VPNing back to your home network, and probably more. This thing is pretty flexible².

I can’t wait to give a real spin next time I go flying.

I’ve been to more than one airport with that. ↩︎
It’ll come in handy for getting things with just an ethernet port, onto wifi. ↩︎

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