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Monday, Jul 21 2025

Weekends on the water

This weekend we got to go out twice, both times to Great Gun, for a relaxing time. It was very hot, but water still felt cold, could not find a single person swimming haha.

Next time we have to bring our water toys to experiment with towing a float.

Nicole and Albert boat ride to Great Gun

Family boat ride to Great Gun

Monday, Jul 14 2025

Summer boat ride to Great Gun Park and Marina and the Moriches Inlet

Nice ride, even though it was cloudy. It wasn't long because we had other things to do, but felt very satisfying and fun. My friend's daughter, Ana, came with us as well. She is an expert sailor, and was showing us some nots, and knew her way around the boat better than us. I quickly traced out trajectory on a map below.

Boat Ride to Great Gun Park and Moriches Inlet

Trajectory Map for boat ride from Balcells family on Moriches Bay



Saturday, Jul 5 2025

Airtrack Pool Mattress

The hit of the summer so far in our pool has been the Airtrack/

I was skeptical at first, but after seeing how many different ways Laia and Sofia have fun with it, I am a big thumbs up. Works great in and out of the pool, as a great pool toy or a a gymnastics mattress to practice all sorts of acrobatics. Recommended.

AirTrack is a great pool toy

Monday, Jun 30 2025

WPA3 is required for the WiFi 6E

Learned something I did not know this weekend.

The WiFi Alliance (which certifies WiFi standards) and regulatory bodies require that only WPA3 (or higher) security is allowed for devices operating in the 6 GHz band, which is the new spectrum introduced by WiFi 6E.

This requirement was put in place to ensure the 6 GHz band, which offers much more spectrum and potential for less interference, is secure by default with the latest encryption and authentication protections. Specifically:

- WPA2 is not allowed on 6 GHz by the standard.

This mandate improves overall network security and prevents legacy, less-secure protocols from being used on the new band.

So, to use WiFi 6E’s 6 GHz band, both the router/access point and client device must support WPA3 security.

By default, my Nest WiFi Pro does NOT have WPA3 turned on. Which means, by default, most people are not taking advantage of its "key" new feature at the time which was WiFi 6E. If course we have WiFI 7 now as well, but that's for another day.

Nest WiFi Pro requires WPA3 to use WiFi 6E

Tuesday, Jun 24 2025

Laia's new calculator - TI 84 Plus CE... and my old HP 48GX

So, Laia is going into 8th grade next year, believe it or not. She needs a new calculator, and asked for TI-84 Plus CE which seems nice. Made me think of my HP 48GX, I loved this device which was probably my "first computer". Was incredibly powerful, I got it to play music and video games! If I tried hard enough I believe I can still find it in my basement, and I bet still works fine. They were built like a tank.

TI 84 plus CE


HP 48 GX


In fact, just for fun I asked ChatGPT to compare them:

TI-84 Plus CE:
- Modern UI and color display.
- Fast, responsive, great for high school/college curriculum.
- Easier to use and widely supported (especially for standardized tests).
- Rechargeable and lightweight.

HP 48GX:
- Extremely powerful for its time, with programmable stack-based RPL.
- Expandable via memory cards — rare for calculators.
- Cult following among engineers for symbolic math and system control.
- Complex, but powerful if mastered.



TI84-plus-CE. vs hp-48gx-calculator capabilities comparison table

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