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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 01/09/2026

Like, huh I wonder why there's such a big jump right around 2022. Pic unrelated

A graph from the St. Louis Federal Reserve's FRED tool showing the percentage change in median CPI from a year ago. There's a large increase in the graph over the course of 2022

Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 01/09/2026

The most recent article on this subject was also not adjusting prices for inflation which is questionable in general, but especially so when we had a somewhat recent spate of inflation well above target. $30K in 2015 dollars is $41751.25 in 2026 dollars using CPI.

a chart from a CNN article showing the percentage of new cars sold for less than $30K. A note at the bottom is hilighted that reads: "Note: The $30,000 threshold is not adjusted for inflation."

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 03/07/2026

And it does, at least to some extent. Interest rate shock very visible in sale prices across the bay. Less prominent, but still pretty visible in US-wide indexes. Can't find a good source for Emeryville specific prices over the same time period though (Redfin only gives me back to June 2021)

All-Transactions House Price Index for the Oakland-Berkeley-Livermore region showing a peak in 2022 followed by a dip and plateau

All-Transactions House Price Index for the San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City region showing a peak in 2022 followed by a dip and sort-of plateau

All-Transactions House Price index for the whole US. Pretty visible change in 2022, but shows more of a steady increase post-2022 than the Bay Area ones

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 15/06/2026

Some jerk ran a red light on University Avenue and hit my car. I'm okay, but the automated claim thing thinks it might be totaled. It's 9 years old, but it only had ~43K miles and the battery had considerably less due to the recall. Liked this car a lot so I'm really bummed.

A metallic orange 2017 Chevy Bolt Ev with a bunch of damage to the front

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 07/06/2026

I don't think this is net of taxes, just the raw costs. In the same report they have pay-back periods for infill vs fringe housing. They find both types of development generate more tax revenue than they cost, but infill has a shorter payback period. Full report here: www.pew.org/en/research-...

Graph of payback period for infill and fringe housing development across a number of states. The average is 9 years for infill and 13 years for fringe development

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 04/06/2026

Got my Copper Charlie induction range installed today. My home is now fully electrified

A Copper Charlie induction range installed in a kitchen. It has the optional Black Walnut knobs and handle

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 03/06/2026

I think the current CA primary results are probably a good bit more conservative than what we'll see when all votes are counted. Here's the current state of the Controller race. In 2024, Harris won 58.5% of the vote in CA and Trump won 38.3%. Do you think CA got more or less GOP friendly since?

Screenshot of current state of the CA Controller primary. Malia Cohen, the incumbent democrat has 54.8% of the vote. Herb W Morgan, a republican has 41.0% of the vote

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 03/06/2026

Yay, my ballot has been received and accepted. Still time to vote in the CA primary. Polls close at 8PM. Go to an in-person polling location or use a ballot drop box before then if you haven't voted already

Email screenshot, the text reads:

Hello MICHAEL PAVONE,

This is a message from the California Secretary of State on behalf of Alameda County Registrar of Voters. Your ballot for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election was received and will be counted. Thank you for voting!

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 29/05/2026

Fixed what is hopefully the last SH2 core bug (at least until I write a dynarec and make a bunch of new ones) last night and now Shadow Squadron works in BlastEm

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 25/05/2026

Managed to get Star Wars Arcade running in BlastEm today

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 23/05/2026

Virtua Racing Deluxe is a little buggier, but very playable

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 23/05/2026

Virtua Fighter is almost, but not quite glitch free now too

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 23/05/2026

Been a little bit since I posted some BlastEm 32X progress. As of tonight, it successfully plays everyone's favorite not quite a Sonic game

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 17/05/2026

But it's generally easier to just use a series that's already inflation adjusted. Here's all workers. Things got weird during the pandemic, but trend is up and so is Q3 2025/Q3 2019. Lots of different wage measures you could use, but the most obvious ones all seem up over 2019 in real dollars

A graph of median real (i.e. adjusted for inflation) weekly wages for workers 16+. There's a big spike around the pandemic, but ignoring that there's largely a consistent upward trend starting around late 2014. Q3 2025 is $374 in 1982-1984 dollars, Q3 2019 is $360 in 1982-1984 dollars. This represents a small increase in real income, in line with wages outpacing inflation

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 17/05/2026

So looking at CPI from September 2019 to September 2025 (most income series don't have data more recent than Q3 2025) I see ~26.4% increase in CPI which is in line with what you say, but nominal wages are up more. 1st quartile is up ~33.9%, 2nd quartile ~31.9%, 3rd quartile is up 29.8%

Graph showing nominal weekly earnings for full-time workers 16+ in the first income quartile (i.e. 25% lowest earning). Q3 2019 was $611, Q3 2025 was $818, a roughly 33.9% increase

Graph showing nominal (i.e. not inflation adjusted) weekly earnings for full-time works 16+ in the second income quartile (i.e. 25% second-lowest earning). Q3 2019 was $921, Q3 2025 was $1215, a roughly 31.9% increase

Graph showing nominal (i.e. not inflation adjusted) weekly earnings for full-time workers 16+ in the thrid income quartile (i.e. 25% second-highest earning). Q3 2019 was $1462, Q3 2025 was $1898, a roughly 29.8% increase

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 17/05/2026

Except that isn't true (at least for the US, not sure about other places). Real (i.e. inflation adjusted) income is up for both the median person and household. Even looking at workers with no college education, they're not really any worse off than they were 20 years ago in inflation adjusted terms

Real median household income. While not monotonically increasing, the overall trend is upwards and the most recent data for which data is available is an all time high

A graph of real median personal income which shows similar trends to the household one

Median weekly wages for full-time workers with a high school diploma, but no college education. It has been manually adjusted for inflation by dividing by CPI since this series isn't available in real dollars from FRED. While largely stagnant, these workers are not really doing worse in inflation-adjusted terms than they were 20 years ago

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 15/05/2026

BlastEm, yeah, it runs Doom. Turns out Doom uses an undocumented alias for the SH7095 division unit result register. After supporting that and fixing an SH2 core bug (more on that in a moment), Doom 32X is now playable with only a few small bugs remaining.

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 14/05/2026

Apart from the first part of the intro, Tempo is now looking good in BlastEm

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 12/05/2026

One of the fun things about emudev is sometimes a 2 line change can have pretty dramatic effects. Here's Motocross Championship after a small, but important fix to the cmp/hs SH2 instruction

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 12/05/2026

Yeah, the new default behavior is to show you this. The old default behavior is to just treat it as fatal and exit. I have not added detection for any new "freeze" cases, but now when you hit one you have an option to get an idea where it happens.

A screenshot of the new UI asking a user how they want to deal with "machine freeze" events. The top section provides a general explanation along with the text of the specific error. The middle has 3 radio buttons with the choices "This time only", "For the rest of this session" and "Always. The bottom has 3 buttons representing the possible actions: "Exit", "Enter Debugger" and "Ignore & Continue"

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 11/05/2026

After a fix to how the SH2 status register is saved when taking an interrupt, Space Harrier 32X is now playable in BlastEm. Of the commercial 32X games I have, this is the first one to reach playable status

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 10/05/2026

Commercial games are still showing relatively little signs of life. A bright spot is Motocross Championship, which while still very broken is playing music and drawing what looks like the track/terrain

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 10/05/2026

Chilly Willy's port of Yeti3D to the 32X now mostly works in BlastEm. There are some graphical glitches which is probably due to bugs in the SH2 core. Sound is also missing which is probably because I have not implemented the DMAC yet.

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 07/05/2026

Got a couple of small 32X demos running last night after some SH2 core fixes. There's this plasma demo

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 06/05/2026

BlastEm doesn't quite run 32X Doom yet, but it gets to the title screen/main menu now

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 04/05/2026

It would be helpful if this error message gave any clues as to what the actual problem is. It seems to be some client-side check so I can't even get an actual error message/code by snooping on network requests

Screenshot from the clipper card website that reads:
Set Up Auto-reload
There was an issue processing your request! Please verify your information below or go back and select a different primary payment method.

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 04/05/2026

It's sort of cheating, but I have first light for Sega 32X support in BlastEm. I say sort of cheating, because this demo does not use the SH-2s at all and instead just writes to the 32X VDP from the 68K. But hey, it's still progress. Should see some SH-2 code running soon

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 24/04/2026

Doesn't seem to be the case. It only counts as a failure for this metric if it can't be repaired in the field. Reading the doc a bit more, there were some specific teething issues with the new trolley buses, but doesn't explain why the old ones were also much less reliable than similarly old diesels

Screenshot from SFMTA Bus Fleet Plan, it reads:
3.5.1 Mean Distance Between Failures
SFMTA defines mean distance between failures per sub-fleet per the FTA guidelines as an
in service mechanical failure that cannot be fixed in the field divided into the total service
miles per sub-fleet. SFMTA’s MDBF is continuously working to improve MDBF and enhance
the maintenance program. In addition to lowering the average age of the fleet substantially
over the past 5 years, SFMTA has also made numerous improvements to the maintenance
program include:
• Implementing a road call truck deployment program
• Introducing the use of on-board diagnostics
• Adhering to an on-time PM program that meets or exceeds the OEM
• Adding a significant increase in mechanic training hours

Graph of MDBF by coach type for Muni's older (now generally retired since this doc is from 2017) bus fleet. The ETI and Flyer Trolley are all at the bottom below the Diesel and Hybrid Diesel buses

Graph of Muni's newer (as of 2017) bus fleet. The New Flyer Trolley buses are again at the bottom, but do show marked improvement over the five quarters shown in the graph.

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 13/03/2026

ok, had to dig around in the board meeting packets and I still couldn't find complete fiscal year 2025 numbers, but at least the January numbers make a more compelling case for Berkeley than I expected

Ridership recovery by route comparing January 2019 vs January 2026. Oakland & Alameda + Alameda Seaplane is slightly ahead of the old Oakland & Alameda route, Richmond is doing much better than 2019 (though it started not long before the pandemic), Vallejo, Harbor Bay and South San Francisco are all doing worse than 2019

SF Bay Ferry ridership by month graphed with lines for each fiscal year starting with 2019. FY 2026 is still below FY 2019 overall, but December and January were above 2019 levels.

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 18/02/2026

It's kind of wild how much it's costing to keep Diablo Canyon open. PG&E estimates about $8.4 billion over 6 years. The plant produces a relatively constant 2.258 MW so assuming it has no downtime over that period, it's around $70/MWh which is around the LCOE for new solar+storage or wind+storage

Screenshot of a graph from a recent Lazard LCOE+ report. Utility Solar+Storage has a range of $50-$131/MWh and Onshore Wind+Storage has a range of $44-$123/MWh. The average for fully depreciated US Nuclear like Diablo Canyon is $34/MWh

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 05/02/2026

I've had my first fully self-sufficient solar day of the year. Over 24 hours without any real draw from the grid (there's a tiny bit since there's some latency in the battery responding to sudden changes in load, but if I had gone off-grid I would not have lost power).

Screenshot from my custom solar dashboard showing a graph of solar production (blue line), battery charge/discharge (orange line), grid import/export (yellow line), total consumption (red line), estimated consumption from EV charging (green line) and battery state of charge (purple line). Solar production topped out at around 3350 watts around noon. Minimum state of charge reached overnight was 24.5%. Peaks in consumption (red line) correspond to the heat pump cycling on, microwave use (short spikes a bit after noon) and the dishwasher turning on its heating element (afternoon spikes).

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 27/01/2026

I'm willing to believe that INS was not as bad as ICE, but they are the ones that did the infamous Elian Gonzalez raid so I don't believe this agency culture problem really started with ICE/DHS.

an officer in tactical gear pointing what looks like an MP5 at a man holding a young Elian Gonzalez

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 23/01/2026

Recently a member of the BlastEm discord noticed that I had no support for the Radica Plug&Play Gen/MD releases. This is now implemented in the most recent nightly build. Here's a video of it in action with the Volume 2 Rom which contains Bluesky's favorite Gen/MD game

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 15/01/2026

Post a game you remember playing that nobody else remembers

Screenshot of Alien Logic: A SkyRealms of Jorune Adventure. I remember being somewhat fascinated by this game, but never got very far because it's fairly complicated. Still have the CD-ROM. I should give it another go as an adult sometime

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 20/12/2025

Seem to be plenty of places that match that criteria from a quick perusal of Craigslist. Not sure I'd argue zoning is truly fixed in CA yet (especially not until SB79 actually takes effect), but at least in Berkeley rents peaked early this decade

Map of Craigslist search results for apartments/houses for rent with at least 1000 square feet and max price of $4999 per month

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 16/12/2025

My hot take is that "single payer", while generally cheaper won't actually solve most of the problems with US healthcare costs either. The delta between the US and Switzerland (what ACA is trying to emulate) is way bigger than say Switzerland and France (single payer).

Graph comparing life expectancy and per-capita health expenditures. Switzerland is second on life expectancy to Japan, but also has the second highest per-capita expenditure in Europe (only Norway is higher). France has slightly lower expectancy, but also lower expenditures. The USA is an extreme outlier with mediocre life expectancy and extremely high expenditures.

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 17/11/2025

What perfect album came out the year you turned 16?

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 15/10/2025

Isn't the threshold 48 trains per day? Or am I looking at the wrong part of the bill?

(e) “High-frequency commuter rail” means a commuter rail service operating a total of at least 48 trains per day across both directions, not including temporary service changes of less than one month or unplanned disruptions, and not meeting the standard for very high frequency commuter rail, at any point in the past three years.

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 15/10/2025

More cats of Thessaloniki, this time some strays that seem to have little insulated cat boxes in YMCA park

A brick wall with large graffiti that says ESL. In the lower right are a number of improvised, insulated cat boxes. Some of these appear to be made from coolers and others from upside down covered litter boxes. It's not very visible, but the one second from the right is occupied

A black cat standing on a brick walkway in YMCA Park in Thessaloniki, Greece

An orange and white cat relaxing in the grass in YMCA Park

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 14/10/2025

Found a very chill cat outside a supermarket in Thessaloniki

A cat sitting outside a glass automatic door in front of a supermarket in Thessaloniki, Greece

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 10/10/2025

Initial look into whether National Weather Service skycover forecasts would be helpful for predicting my solar production for the day is not looking too promising so far. Doesn't look like much correlation between the forecast and how good my production is compared to the ideal

Graph showing solar production in watts in blue and the most recent forecast for a given hour in purple. Production starts off strong, but gets very variable around 10:20 due to intermittent cloud cover. A bit before noon it dropped down to around 1000 watts due to overcast conditions before recovering somewhat around 2 PM.

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 06/10/2025

My custom home automation dashboard is coming along nicely. I guess at the moment the dashboard itself is more of a solar/battery system dashboard, but the backend part does some automation tasks like controlling EV charging and lights

Screenshot of a home automation dashboard showing solar production, electric consumption and battery information next to a graph of production, consumption, battery and grid power over the course of part of the day.

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 02/10/2025

OK, I have seen the full context of the waffles skeet and people really need to get a grip. Singal sucks, but he's been temp-banned before for specific rule violations and the posts in question seem to have been deleted. This out of context reply about it is a perfect example of the quoted behavior!

Quote post by Jay (CEO of Bluesky): Too real. We're going to try to fix this. Social media doesn't have to be this way.

Quoted post by Jerry Chen: (bluesky user bursts into Waffle House) OH SO YOU HATE PANCAKES?

Reply post: have y'all banned Jesse Singal yet or

Jay's reply: WAFFLES

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 24/09/2025

us-east-1 is important in part because it was the original AWS zone, but it's also a reasonable compromise location for serving traffic for both the US and Europe. For another angle, here's a map of data centers in California. Note that we have about as many as SoCal despite pop./submarine cable gap

A map showing the locations of data centers in California. The largest circle is in San Jose with 75 data centers. The second largest is around Long Beach and has 71 data centers. The third largest is in Sacramento with 22.

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Michael Pavone @retrodev.com · 16/09/2025

Anyone know why this helicopter is circling around the Elmwood neighborhood?

Screenshot of a helicopter's path from FlightRadar24showing a number of circles around an area near College Ave and Asbhy Ave in Berkeley

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