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---
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title: "Week 10, Tuesday: Lego and Flightsim"
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date: 2024-10-01T21:55:00+02:00
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draft: true
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---
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{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/todo.png" alt="Credit: " >}}
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{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/nordic.png" alt="Credit: Nordic Music, YouTube" >}}
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I went to bed at 01:30 but Tim was up for a little bit more longer than that. He informs me in the
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morning that his last commit was 03:30. I like having found a likeminded night owl! As we drink
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coffee, we talk abit about Tim's new [[AS214380.net](https://as214380.net/)] project which he is
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doing in Hugo. We talk a bit about themes and its structure, and end up getting the formatting he
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had in mind. He scrambles to write some content, and even ends up adding a few blog posts! An
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aspiring writer, I like it!
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Tonight we'll be eating a cheese platter, with ingredients that we fetched from the _Globus_
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yesterday. But today I'm also making an onion soup and fresh bread to go with the cheese. Marina is
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so kind as to chop three large onions for me, as I have a little bit of a visual migraine coming up
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and I don't want to chop off a limb. I've noticed that if this happens, eating some sugar and
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drinking caffeine helps - so I yeet an espresso into my throat and eat an *R,G,B* triplet of sugar
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aligators while hanging out on the couch for a few minutes. It's gone as quickly as it came.
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{{< image src="/img/arc.png" width="7em" float="left" alt="story arc" >}}
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In the early afternoon we go downstairs and work on the simulator a bit and continue the story arc
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of Tim's visit: getting this thing up and running smoothly. It's not going too well yet, as the
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simulater is constantly crashing. Also, the flihgt instrument panels are not working at all.
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After a few hours we decide: screw that, we're going to do something more fun! Tim is an enormous
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LEGO fan and he has a [[Lego Passport](https://lego.bricksmegastore.com/pages/passport-program)],
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which I quickly agree is a fun program to let fans explore the stores, discover new sets, and
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collect unique stamps along the way. Tim is delighted to learn there is a LEGO store in the local
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_Glatt Zentrum_, and in a premeditated act, has brought his passport with him to Zurich. As we
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arrive to the LEGO store, he is greeted by a very friendly chap who immediately grabs not one but
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two stamps, and the grin on Tim's face speaks volumes. Good job!
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Then it's off to the store we go, for a little bit of speciality kit. Tim and I buy six cheeses that
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will go with our cheese plate tonight, Marina buys black truffle for our risotto later this week,
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and I buy a few teas from [[Mariage Frères](https://www.mariagefreres.com/)], which is my
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favorite tea.
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Back in Brüttisellen, we decide to abandon our efforts for X-Plane 10, and instead reinstall
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the entire computer with Windows 11 and try to buy Microsoft Flight Simulator, which claims to have
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out of the box support for these Saitek flight instrument panels. Maybe it's an X-Plane issue? As
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often the case, purchasing things on the internet are _difficult_. Yesterday, I tried three or four
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times to buy MSFS, but Microsoft keeps on saying that the store country is not the same as my
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account country. So this new install will have a new e-mail address and country which we know to
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match. And yes, with that new stuff, we are able to finally give MSFT their cash in return for a 157
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gigabyte download. Luckily, I have a good ISP :-)
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As this thing chomps along, we decide to calorie-up with the eleven different cheeses. As a quick
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starter, a french onion soup with toasted bread and cheese gratin. It is an absolute killer. Then,
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we chomp away and attack our cheeses only to find that several hours later, our bellies are round
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while in fact, most of the cheese is still where it was when we started. I think we'll be eating
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cheese for the next few weeks, before we finally win the battle.
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Meanwhile, in the lair, Microsoft has sent me all the bits and pieces to be able to run MSFS.
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However, it doesn't even make it past its god damn splash screen. The computer locks up and reboots
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every single time. Man, this is frustrating. But, Tim has found yet another issue. One of the USB
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cables that connects a flight panel is shorting out, which means that the other panels on that USB
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hub are not detected. This is why I can only see - at best - five out of ten of the FIPs work.
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I go to [[Digitec](https://digitec.ch)] and find a sassy new video card, and nVIDIA has fallen out
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of graces, so we try our luck with a AMD RADEON RX 7700 XT, which has good reviews but sets me back
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a pretty penny. I also throw in two USB v3 hubs to rule out that the short is from the hub rather
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than the cable. The FIP itself works fine though.
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As I'm reading up on forums on how to get this stuff to work, I complain that it should be easier
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than it is for us. You should be able to just plug this stuff in, install the _Saitek_ drivers, and
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run a sidecar app that queries MSFS or X-Plane and renders the telemetry on the screens. But why is
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it so hard (that's what she said)?
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{{< image src="/img/brain.png" width="7em" float="left" alt="brain" >}}
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Then I find that there's some guy on the internet who _also_ believed it should be easier, so
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he went and **made it easier**: [[SPAD.Next](https://www.spadnext.com/home.html)] is a website with
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a _Simulation Panel Advanced Drivers - neXt Generation_, shows every single one of my radios, switch
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panels, instrument panels, lights, and what-not. His claim: install his program, for which he gives
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a 14 day free trial, and your troubles are gone.
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Can you believe how happy we both were, when we installed the little app, and it started up giving
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us like five tips about USB power management, and then boo-yah, it finds and installs nine out of
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ten FIPs, the radios, the switch panel, the indicator panel, the navigation panel, the yoke (which
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this german guy calls the _Joke_). But, every single one of them works, hell yeah! This guy wins the
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internet for the day. We proudly take several pictures of the entire cockpit lit up, and we agree
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that it should be doable to configure it tomorrow. Now please please please, let that RADEON card be
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less of a turd than the nVIDIA K2200 that I had laying around.
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## Pictures of the Day
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{{< gallery-category >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1704.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1705.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1706.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1707.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1711.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1714.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1715.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1718.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1719.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1721.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1723.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-02/IMG_1724.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-02/IMG_1725.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-02/IMG_1726.JPG" caption="" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1704.JPG" caption="Kneeding dougie for this evening's full grain bread" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1705.JPG" caption="These three aligators, Red, Green and Blue, saved me from a migraine, yaay!" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1706.JPG" caption="Marina has chopped the onions for tonight's soup, so that I could avoid chopping off an arm while having a little visual migraine" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1707.JPG" caption="We are 'playing' the X-Plane sim, but it crashes with video card driver failures every few minutes. Bah" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1711.JPG" caption="The flightsim, nor the instrument panels, are working at this point. Only the yoke and rudder peddals are detected" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1714.JPG" caption="Tim is super enthusiastic with the opportunity to get his LEGO passport stamped in Switzerland" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1715.JPG" caption="Tim's passport is stamped - twice - by the LEGO store guy in Wallisellen, Switzerland." >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1718.JPG" caption="Marina has found a delicious pot of black truffle paste. She got this little pot by taking a second mortgage on our house." >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1719.JPG" caption="We are trying to install MS Flight Simulator as an alternative to X-Plane. Several hours later, we managed to pay MSFT the money for it." >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1721.JPG" caption="Enjoying a cheese plate with Tim, Quinn and Marina in the evening." >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-01/IMG_1723.JPG" caption="The cockpit as it has only a few FIPs detected, and with a marginally working switch panel. This turned out to be a corrupted cable and/or USB hub." >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-02/IMG_1724.JPG" caption="After replacing the broken equipment, nine out of ten FIPs and all other panels are detected and installed with SPAD.neXt, great progress!!" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-02/IMG_1725.JPG" caption="We are closely inspecting the install and configuration of these panels in MSFS, which is not yet working because we are missing a working video card, sigh" >}}
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{{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-02/IMG_1726.JPG" caption="At the end of the evening: RADEON and replacement USB hubs ordered, so we celebrate our progress so far." >}}
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{{< /gallery-category >}}
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{{< gallery-modal >}}
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