Shallow Thoughts
Akkana's Musings on Open Source Computing and Technology, Science, and Nature.
Mon, 25 Nov 2024
My hiking group includes several volunteer poll workers.
After an election, sometimes you hear some fun stories.
The Case of the Missing Information
Like the absentee ballot that came in with all the outer envelope
fields blank.
Read more ...
Tags: election, voting
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11:46 Nov 25, 2024
More politics |
permalink to this entry |
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Sun, 17 Nov 2024
Salon.com had an article predicting a rare Leonid show on Friday and
Saturday night this week:
Rare "outburst" meteor shower will be visible this weekend.
I'm not sure where they got that idea; more science-leaning resources, like
Universe Today
and
Science Alert,
say 2024 is an "off" year for the Leonids,
with an expected Zenithal Hourly Rate (ZHR) of 15-20 meteors per hour
even with ideal conditions, which we don'e have because of an
almost-full moon.
Read more ...
Tags: astronomy, science, meteors, programming
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10:34 Nov 17, 2024
More science/astro |
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Fri, 15 Nov 2024
For Day 15 of the 30 Day Map Challenge, "My Data", I'm highlighting
a feature I added to PyTopo
last week: the ability to read GPS tags in image files.
JPEG, and probably other image formats as well, lets you store GPS
coordinates inside the EXIF (EXchangeable Image File format) metadata
stored within each image file.
Read more ...
Tags: mapping, GIS, programming, python, pytopo, android
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12:33 Nov 15, 2024
More mapping |
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Sun, 10 Nov 2024
I was going through some old paper files last year and discovered
something I thought I'd lost: the event flyer and course map for the first
autocross course I designed.
Autocross, or
SCCA Solo II
as it's technically called in the US, is car racing on a miniature
course defined by orange traffic cones in a parking lot, airstrip or
other available expanse of pavement. Lots of people autocross their
street cars, but there are classes for everything up to highly
modified open-wheel formula cars.
I got started autocrossing in Los Alamos in the late 80s, driving
my Nissan 200SX turbo. In those days, there was an autocross
club based in Los Alamos,
Read more ...
Tags: mapping, 30DayMapChallenge, autocross
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16:09 Nov 10, 2024
More mapping |
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Tue, 05 Nov 2024
30 Day Map Challenge Day 5: A Journey
Last year for the #OpenStreetMap day of the 30 Day Map Challenge,
I wrote about a hike that went a little wrong, when we
lost
our way on the Mitchell Trail and ended up going partway up the
trail to LA Mountain.
LA Mountain is so named because Los Alamos High School kids have, for
many years, maintained a big "LA" on the mountain that was visible
from town. I say "was" because the LA is very hard to see now, and
I've been told (but haven't been able to confirm) that's because the
Forest Service, which owns the land, said the kids had to stop
updating it. I'd seen it from below and always wondered how to get
there, so last year, when I realized that was the trail we were on,
I vowed to go back soon and go all the way up.
And then, of course, I promptly forgot all about it, until a few days ago
when I was reviewing last year's 30 Day Map Challenge projects.
Read more ...
Tags: mapping, 30DayMapChallenge, openstreetmap
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07:58 Nov 05, 2024
More mapping |
permalink to this entry |
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Sun, 03 Nov 2024
How to Add Data from ArcGIS Web Maps to QGIS
Open Space advocates in Los Alamos county have been fighting the
forces of development.
Ordinarily that's not a big problem. This county is wildly supportive of
its open space; a huge percent of residents hike, bike, watch birds or
otherwise appreciate the natural beauty around us. It helps that a lot
of the town is on finger mesas adjacent to un-developable canyons, so
you never need to go very far to be in a natural space.
But the county also loves to hire out-of-state consultants any time
anything is changing, and a couple of years ago, they hired a consulting
firm to rewrite Chapter 16 of our county code, concerning development.
That included the zoning maps. The consultants capriciously changed several
parcels previously zoned as open space to zones that allow much more
development
(like six-story apartment or commercial buildings), ignoring public input
protesting the changes, and the County Council rubber-stamped the
consultants' changes, promising to revisit the open space changes soon.
Read more ...
Tags: mapping, GIS, 30DayMapChallenge
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15:36 Nov 03, 2024
More mapping |
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Sat, 02 Nov 2024
I have a new eBike! I'll write about it more before long, but for now,
what's relevant to the 30 Day
Map Challenge is that it's from Specialized, and if you use
the Specialized phone app, it can record all sorts of fun statistics
for rides, including GPS coordinates.
Read more ...
Tags: mapping, GIS, 30DayMapChallenge, bike, ebike, data
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13:54 Nov 02, 2024
More mapping |
permalink to this entry |
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Fri, 01 Nov 2024
November is the 30 Day
Map Challenge.
Like last year, I'm going to work it sporadically, since I've been
busy with a bunch of other things. But this sort of challenge can be
a great way to motivate myself to learn new technologies or get better
acquainted with old ones, so it's fun to work the challenges when I have time.
Day 1 is Points, and I'm mapping peaks in New Mexico.
Read more ...
Tags: mapping, GIS, 30DayMapChallenge
[
19:45 Nov 01, 2024
More mapping |
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