Shallow Thoughts
Akkana's Musings on Open Source Computing and Technology, Science, and Nature.
Wed, 18 Jun 2025
We had a lovely ebike trail ride this morning, getting out early to beat
the heat, and it reminded me that I've had a partially written
review of my current ebike that I needed to finish.
I've written about my first ebike, the
Lectric XP.
Not only was it fun to ride and practical for errand-running,
but it also got Dave and me back into regular cycling after we'd
fallen out of the habit.
Ironically, that's the reason I found myself riding the Lectric less and less:
as I got back into better shape, I wanted to spend more time
on the lighter and more nimble "acoustic" bike and do more of my own pedaling.
At 65 lbs, the Lectric felt heavy and klunky
compared to the regular bike, and it wasn't as much fun off-road.
After four years with the Lectric, I found myself wishing for
something lighter.
Dave, who's always keeping an eye on the e-bike market, had been pondering an
unusual choice: the
Specialized Turbo Levo SL Kids.
Yes, kids: this is an ebike made for kids,
Read more ...
Tags: bike, ebike, MTB
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13:49 Jun 18, 2025
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Mon, 26 May 2025
A couple of us in the local League of Women Voters chapter have been
talking about how our county's school board is elected.
There are five school districts, to go with the five elementary
schools ... but when it comes time to vote for the school board,
the voting districts aren't the same as the school districts.
For example, a parent whose kid goes to Barranca might be voting for
the school board rep from the Aspen district. This confuses pretty
much everybody.
Apparently the reason it's set up this way is that the voting
districts need to have roughly equal population, which the actual
school districts don't. That made us curious about how the populations
of the actual school districts compared. But it turns out if you
ask that question, no one has those numbers, or at least,
we couldn't find anyone who would release them.
"No problem!" I chirped. "I can get population data from the Census website,
and combine that with the GIS for the school districts!"
Little did I know, when I promised that, what a soul-sucking pit of despair
the Census website is, and how difficult it is to get data out of it.
Read more ...
Tags: programming, census, data
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10:39 May 26, 2025
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Tue, 22 Apr 2025
It was 2001, and
Dave and I were off on a road trip to see the Canadian Rockies.
My first time in another country! (Not counting an hour or two in Tijuana
as a kid, and a day trip to New Brunswick as a college student.)
Our plan was to drive up through Portland, then
follow the Columbia River through eastern Oregon, Washington and Idaho
— places I'd always wanted to see. We'd make our way into Canada,
up to Banff and Jasper, then make a loop coming back down through
Glacier. Beyond that we didn't have any specific plans.
Read more ...
Tags: travel, humor, geology
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15:04 Apr 22, 2025
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Wed, 26 Mar 2025
Michael Kennedy
asked
whether people are using search engines less because of AI chatbots.
I haven't really gotten into using AI chatbots as coding assistants,
so I'm not one to say. But it did make me wonder how many searches I do.
Michael saw a stat that people average fewer than 300 searches per month;
he thought that was absurdly low until he checked his own stats and
found he'd only made 211 searches so far in March.
(Of course, March isn't over yet.
He didn't give a search number for a complete month.)
Read more ...
Tags: tech, firefox, web, python, google, sqlite
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16:07 Mar 26, 2025
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Wed, 12 Feb 2025
One of my regular routes to the grocery store and library takes me
along the paved pedestrian/bike path that follows NM highway 4.
I also take the southern section of the path at the end of most
mountain bike rides on the DOE trails south of town.
A few days ago, a very clever art piece appeared on that southern section.
Someone had noticed that some of the copious crack filling seams were shaped
like a grand piano, and had added a keyboard and the words MAKE MUSIC.
But it turns out the piano was just the tip of the iceberg.
Read more ...
Tags: art, humor, whimsy, los alamos, white rock
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15:35 Feb 12, 2025
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Fri, 07 Feb 2025
Periodically in Los Alamos county we try to pass an ordinance to make
retailers charge for #plastic bags, so people use fewer of them and
we don't end up with plastic bag litter floating around all over
the county.
But plastic bags are a nonissue compared to the new practice of
covering whole buildings with plastic wrap during construction.
I've noticed it before, late last year when there was some sort of
construction going on on the guard tower that stands near the east
edge of town on NM 502. The entire tower was covered with plastic
for months.
But between wind and the fierce UV at over 6000' elevation, plastic
doesn't last long outdoors. So on the guard tower, the plastic shredded
in just a few days, and they had to replace it several times a week.
I'm sure the same will be true of the new plastic wrap on PiƱon school.
Surely there must be a better way?
Tags: plastic, litter, environment
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10:11 Feb 07, 2025
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Sat, 18 Jan 2025
This week's group hike was at the always beautiful Las Conchas trail,
up in the Jemez mountains. Originally planned as a snowshoe/ski hike,
we discovered there wasn't enough show to justify either one, so we all
opted for Yak Trax or other forms of shoe-mounted spikes. As it turned out,
there wasn't much ice so we probably didn't even need that. (One of
Dave's spike sets fell off early in the hike, and he continued for
miles before he noticed one foot was unspiked. Fortunately, he was
ahead of the group and someone else spotted the lost spikes.)
It was beautiful, and the 27°F temperature didn't feel so bad once
we were moving. But it did cause one problem: my Camelbak hose froze up,
so I had to resort to eating snow when I wanted a drink of water until
lunchtime when I managed to clear out the ice.
Not the first time that's happened. I've long wanted to get some sort
of hose insulator that would keep the hose from freezing, but I
haven't been able to find one.
Read more ...
Tags: art, knitting, hiking, mtb, maker
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11:25 Jan 18, 2025
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Mon, 06 Jan 2025
My annual "Best Books I Read Last Year" is a little sparse for 2024.
When I look at my reading record, I see I only finished 17 books all
year, the lowest count by far since I started keeping track in 2004.
There are a couple of reasons for that, some good, some bad.
Read more ...
Tags: books, ebook
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12:46 Jan 06, 2025
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