Nick

If you are reading this "about me", you made it to my user profile.

• IT/general tinkering
• Photography
• Gaming

• Sunlake High School (Dual enrollment)
  • Graduation: 2014
• Marchman Technical Center
  • Graduation: 2014

• CompTIA A+ CE 2023 (Expires: March 22, 2028)
• PC Pro Certification (Lifetime)
• Marchman Technical School (Certificate of Completion)

This one started after the kids at the time lost interest in Beyblades. For years prior, I was known for fixing and modifying Beyblade launchers — mainly manual as these were flimsy compared to the others (but usually what we had at the time because of our parents). The neighbors' parents tolerated these modifications I did due to the repairs that were also made as needed :-). As you can tell, I am a seasoned warranty voider.
At the time, there were no instructions for these launchers so nobody knew how since they were so cheap to replace (or under warranty), so I had to find out how to open them without a manual (which was easy because we didn't send them back, nor did our parents).

I started on the older Pentium III Dell beige boxes and worked up to nicer hand-me-downs. Despite having a rough start, I eventually "made it" despite my subpar "formal" "public education", which was essentially almost nothing retained except the shenanigans I became known for. Some of this was pretty mundane (but graduated to be more heavy-handed), and others remained mundane like sleeping in class. Then after some time, I got into the risky stuff that was pretty safe (but still unethical) like cheating in BS classes and summer school with disposable email addresses, BSing busywork by lazy teachers and subs, and using web proxies to beat Websense due to how ineffective it is at doing anything so we could watch YouTube in summer school. After some time I got bored and found a way to bait substitute teachers to let us out early and didn't get caught bribing my way out of destroying school property. I got away with it because I am friends with the IT guy from my middle school.
After middle school, the era of standard shenanigans ended out of boredom and the real shenanigans came out. High school was the era of beating iBoss (which was harder but still doable with the right amount of VPNs), bypassing the web filter, and making deals with the teachers and admin to do it openly in exchange for silence on the matter as well as cheating (again) to survive BS classes and keep dual enrollment and found a cheat code to avoid the tardy table: credentials. I also sat in senior row before becoming a senior (and nobody stopped me) and tricked the teacher in intensive reading into letting me skip class early for 6 months, then flipped it on her for falling for it while not getting in trouble because I found a way to use it against her and not take responsibility. I also used the same tactic on the special ed teacher later (see: my thoughts on dropping out and NCLB) and skipped for 6 months, and pinned it on her only to get kicked out (and never placed there again). This time the tricks with the filter killed a burner phone because it was MAC address blocked this time around, but this phone eventually got recycled due to the US 3G shutdown -- it was a "3.5G (HSPA+) fake 4G" phone which was the problem, and it was using AT&T only bands being exclusive. I also did the S-OFF mod, unlocked the bootloader, and forced a carrier to unlock it (the phone predated the 2015 CTIA agreement, so you had to be an AT&T customer or pay a 3rd party). The reason I did this was due to arbitrary AT&T ROM restrictions around storage, requiring an SD card to use the camera so I could fix it with a non-AT&T ROM. I also jailbroke my iPhone 4 as well at one point (I still have this, but the battery expanded).

At some point, I took a laptop to school where I did the same thing with a swapped wireless card with the stock label so I could hide from IT and make their life hard. The original was "registered", not the alternative MAC. I also printed from my laptop grabbing the IP addresses from the school computers as a time saver. The library people knew but looked the other way as I was in and out :-). Eventually, due to tricks like mine, the internet MAC registration requirement was dropped because nobody did it (including me) since it did nothing and nobody bothered. After we won, the MAC reg requirement was replaced with a shared DISTRICT-WIDE PASSWORD we figured out as it was not unique per school; it didn't do much of anything but be a pest. This is in addition to our tech school Halo CE LAN parties and GTA V sessions on days where we got sanctioned time to do it, and showing a class how to deal with an unknown WinXP admin password.
Students: 1 School: 0. To this day, I regret nothing.

However, this infamy and experience came at a cost... I almost ended up not graduating because my grades tanked so heavily... OOPS! I spent more time in school cheating, bypassing the web filter, skipping the tardy table with status, being late to class and so many sick notes it was insane. However, that was saved by a 3-point lead over the minimum score needed on a retake test. When I graduated I didn't go down the normal college degree>50k debt that becomes a pet>common degree route. Rather than do ordinary like everyone else I took the lessons I got from school (and the LAN parties), the demos on how things got done, and walking away from near misses and went for my A+ cert, after getting the PC Pro cert (covered by my tech school). After all, I didn't work towards making the common dream of skipping college and being prepared only to become ordinary; I did all of this TO make it happen and make it a reality. I ended up living the dream my peers wished they could in terms of not needing a college degree as the many years of my shenanigans taught me what I know today, at the expense of a good GPA.

PLEASE READ: While this strategy did not hurt me in the long term in school when I was younger, I was mindful of the risk and balanced the risks with counter responses like having strong connections, knowing how to get on the good side of people who can bail me out like teachers, well respected students close and having a "Plan B"* if I needed it.
*Mostly. I got brave in junior year and had little to no plan to cheat in math class, the partner got suspended and I almost missed. OOPS :S! Unless you can excecute how I handled it, a balance between grades and experience is needed. I never learned from books well (as well as already being failed by the "public education" system so I had to make my own path), but being in the field getting these things done stuck better for me. UNLESS YOU CAN PULL THIS OFF, PASS YOUR CLASSES WITH THE MINIMUM AND GRADUATE, and throw the information out.

WHILE I AM CRITICAL OF THE US "PUBLIC EDUCATION" SYSTEM, I DO NOT PRO DROPOUT. My grievances lie in a few key areas:

• Chronic use of remedial "punishments" like intensive [class], special ed and elective theft
• Being voluntold into summer school because of your report cards looking bad to the state and feds
• Low real-world value once you graduate for the time you waste on it (~8 hours/day for ~18 years)
• Report card anxiety, heavy parental and school harassment about bad grades which will not hurt you later in life (outside of high school to college, maybe?). This one is 100% on the parent and school, combined. The student is the unlucky victim.
• A specific issue I will not mention because it is just too spicy (worse then special ed spicy).

This is in addition to the failure that NCLB was (which was in full force while I was in school) since it did more harm than good by pushing schools to "pass" failling students to get them out, while "solving it" with summer school. It also hurt anyone who could not learn from a book or "just in case" to make the feds and states happy.

At least on iFixit (maybe other places), the biggest claim to fame I had post-high school online was being able to recover data from the early LG G4s which were prone to bootloop death (and this was a common, well-known defect. In addition to the reports, my own AT&T 509K variant died the same way. Pulling the data off was the only way forward for me against all other's wishes because I had the final photos of a cat on that phone who had since passed at ~15-17 years old, even if I had to pay off the phone to avoid being harassed about doing it if needed. The other reason was even if I could repair it, I lost interest knowing I would probably run into the same issue. The phone was also encrypted to add insult to injury, with no backups of the full-size photos, and you only have a few chances. DOH!!!

When the phone died I asked on Answers to try and find a way otherwise, and got no help. Due to how it failed and what was on the phone I looked into how to get it done myself and found a way to recover the data from the phone. After (conservative) trial and error (to preserve my limited chances), I got the photos back I wanted :-) (as well as contacts not on the Google account). It has never turned on again, but the defect is board level; it needs a revised board, not a reflow.

Due to the financing debate, I (begrudgingly) had to leave the offer to send it back open despite my desire to keep it as a "trophy", against my dad's wishes. However, this reluctant compromise came with a warning: I will not touch that phone after the recovery operation I had to do once before. This ultimately got me my "trophy" with my original IMEI#.

At the time I had the LG G4, the "EIP/Installment" financing model was new in the US; due to a previous failed merger with Sprint and T-Mobile, but it was Sprint trying to buy T-Mobile; failed due to the DOJ. Ever since that failed merger, the financing model was brought to the US rather then trying for a few more years. The others followed suit after. As of the Sprint merger (when Sprint was just about dead), we are down to 3 major carriers and a lot of MNVOs, as well as Dish trying to enter the wireless space (Boost, Republic).

I personally do not miss Sprint due to the pre-2015 perma-locked GSM phones (post 2015 can be due to the CTIA agreement), requirement to use Sprint phones on prepaid or pay postpaid rates, very little support for unlocked phones and the issues with the CDMA network and device swapping. This is in addition to a Sprint phones being less viable as parts phones in many cases. The nail in the coffin was ADMITTING these could be domestically GSM unlocked but refusing due to malicious compliance.

Most white cats are deaf (or partially deaf) because the gene that makes then white also makes them prone to inherited (congenital) deafness. Cats with 2 blue eyes are often fully deaf; heterochromia cats (odd-eyed) tend to be partially deaf. Normal eyed cats are often able to hear normally.

While this doesn't make them "bad" cats, they need special attention. A common way people manage these cats is to flicker the lights, tap on the surface or blow on the cat from a distance. Care is normal for these cats, outside of alerting them with their other senses.

Camera model unknown, this appears to be from a fixed focus point and shoot film camera from the 90's or a disposable camera, maybe an early digital camera.

I do not have EXIF data to confirm anything, sadly, leading me towards fixed focus film or disposable. This photos was printed by a lab (when they stopped returning the negatives) and scanned on an Epson Perfection V39. So ~2005-2006 most likely. They also charged for the CD, and now just send scans and give dye sub prints; no more CDs. The exception to this is you go to a lab who returns them after scanning or home dev your film in a darkroom yourself with something like CineStill Cs41/Cs6, or Kodak HC-110. This photo was from when the labs still did RA-4 printing.

Due to all of the changes in film processing I have a problem with drug stores, I'm at the point of pushing home dev and home scanning with programs like SilverFast unless you find a lab who returns the negatives and good scans. For physical prints a good dye sub (Selphy or Lienie) isn't that much more than lab prices per photo. For 5x7, you need a good inkjet (peferably 6+ color CMYK+LC+LM) or DNP. For wide format prints you really need a proper pro printer like a 6+ color 13x19+ machine from Canon or Epson.

I put the phone in the scrap pile I address until I can justify the trip to do the recycling, but I forgot to do it for a few years. After it sat around too long I ended up deciding to keep it as a "trophy". This feels like the right call in hindsight; it's the original failed device, with the same IMEI# and a story. The "downside" is my data recovery permanently ended the board in the phone beyond repair. It generally sits next to a Marie Disney plush (yes, the movie is where her name came from) as a reminder for anyone who was around her when we were all young why I do not trust LG products.
It's also my way of shutting down anyone who says you can't "make it" on your own; that phone absolutely was field experience that holds a lot of real world use.

Along with digital, I also occasionally shoot on film cameras — although, not as often as digital. Part of this is a lot of labs today destroy the negatives and send back scans, so the only way to be sure you get them is to do it yourself or stick to a good lab that returns them.

• Film: Minolta (Maxxum 7000, Maxxum 450si*, Maxxum 500si, not pictured but very similar to the 450si). I can use the Minolta lenses on my Sony camera with a Sony LA-EA2 adapter and use all but the "xi" lenses. I can also use the AF as normal. I also have an M42 "A mount" adapter, as well.
• Mirrorless: Sony, for Minolta lens compatibility. I also have an M42 E-mount adapter.
• Canon: EOS 1/ELAN 7 for film, prosumer Canon for digital - EF lenses work on both, as well as M42 lenses with an adapter, but I cannot use chipped M42 adapters with burst shooting due to body sync issues; but allow for all other features. Digital bodies are unaffected.

*The major differences between the 450si and 500si on US models are:

• Case color (grey) and mount (Metal, not plastic**)
  **Note: Dynax 500si has the plastic mount, but the 500si Super is metal
• Film ISO override**
  **Not found on the Dynax 500si, only 500si Super
• No date coder (hard limited to 2019, the battery gets pulled once people discover this to avoid problems, heh). Doesn't hurt these cameras, even the Minolta 9 QD-9 back with the same issue.

If I had to pick, 500si every time for ISO override options. However, the 450si is fine with DX coded film if you remove the coin cell battery and disregard the panoramic filter (wastes half the frame being a fake panorama camera).

That said, the later bodies like the Maxxum 5 and 7 do not have this issue as it is in the firmware and not limited by the quartz crystal. The last known sour spot is the Minolta QD-9 data back. We pull the battery here too if the Minolta 9 came with it, and do not buy them for anything but door replacements for damaged film doors.

I do not have as many Minolta SR lenses as I do for my Maxxum (A-mount, no SSM lenses). Since I own more A-mount lenses, I use my Maxxum bodies more often.

Where did my film interest come from? ~13 years ago, I found a Canon AutoBoy (SureShot in the US, AutoBoy in Japan) 76 in a pile of garbage when I was trash picking for old computers to learn from, as I did not have the means to source out something I'd like for a while.

I took this camera home with me (as well as a few "BER" Casio digital cameras which are long gone). While my AutoBoy was made for the Japanese market (the main outliers being the Japanese print and LCD), I admittedly did expect this back then based on those two indicators -- but only confirmed it a few years ago. The camera is not particularly valuable (and I am missing the shutter remote), but I later realized what I had and did not know at the time. While it is not the best AF 35mm camera, having one today in a market where they are becoming somewhat desirable again is a big deal. This also uses a hard-to-find 2CR5 like my Maxxum 450si and 500si.

Fixing a Sigma A-Mount 28-70 1:3.5 that came with a rough Maxxum 7000 (with severe LCD bleed plus battery cover corrosion, which I got to show more severe battery corrosion for a guide). Since I wanted to save the camera since I own it and could not return it as it arrived as shown, I repaired the lens and put a known good LCD from a parts camera. I have not film tested the lens, but it focuses perfectly after the repair without any more distance ring roughness. LCD bleed is very common on the 5000/7000/9000. Minor bleed is common, but this was way more than "common".

This lens isn't particularly valuable to the point I may have had a professional do it as I am still learning lenses, but I still wanted to try. While it is not 100% repaired as I cannot get all the parts I need to do a full repair, it is 80-90% better and far more usable.

My failed attempt at a custom 2CR5>CR123 adapter so I can use the more common battery in place of the 2CR5 since they are so hard to find in person, and how much more they cost. This did not work out due to the modifications needed exceeding what could be done with the existing battery frame vs 3D printing one and adding metal strips. If you can, I have found it is easier to bulk buy them on Amazon for ~$38 (8 pack, $4.65/battery). The issue of availability is compounded by the fact most places no longer sell these, outside of camera shops with lots of film sales or specialty shops. For cameras like the Maxxum 7000, I have all 3 covers on hand, or know the part number. I do not need to mitigate these with a 3D printer.

The reason this did not work is HOW I intended to do it; I need to fill it in with hard plastic and leave room for a spacer to put nickel strips on there, which requires 3D printing anyway. It is more time effieicient to 3D print one.

Due to poor availability if I am taking a 2CR5 camera to a shoot, I need to stock up 1-2 weeks ahead of time in many cases! However, I will still get them from camera stores or Best Buy if I have to but try to get them prior for the best price (RadioShack as well before they went under).