Shallow Thoughts : : Aug

Akkana's Musings on Open Source Computing and Technology, Science, and Nature.

Fri, 09 Aug 2024

Alligators ... in Colorado?

[A sign on a platform in a field of weeds: COLORADO GATORS Discount Tickets sold HERE! with a picture of an alligator's head, and inside its open mouth is a smaller sign, Open Daily! ] A recent trip through Alamosa reminded me that I'd never written about my trip to see the gators. High time!

As you drive up Colorado highway 17 north of Alamosa, you pass a series of old, faded, hand-painted signs saying things like "Alligators? In Colorado?" and "COLORADO GATORS Discount Tickets sold HERE!" I'd seen them for years, and chuckled a little but didn't ever give them much thought. The desert is full of signs for roadside attractions that were abandoned fifty years ago.

But five or six years ago, someone told me that Colorado Gators actually was quite an interesting place, too bad it had recently closed. Darnit — why couldn't someone have told me that before it closed? Oh, well.

Then last year, we were heading up 17 on our way to visit the relatives, and I couldn't help noticing that there were really quite a lot of signs for an attraction that was supposedly gone. And some of the signs looked fairly new. We had some time to spare, so we took the detour and found Colorado Gators still very much open for business.

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[ 11:04 Aug 09, 2024    More travel | permalink to this entry | ]

Thu, 01 Aug 2024

Fetching OpenStreetMap Details with OSMPythonTools

I was talking to a friend about LANL's proposed new powerline. A lot of people are opposing it because the line would run through the Caja del Rio, an open-space piñon-juniper area adjacent to Santa Fe which is owned by the US Forest Service. The proposed powerline would run from the Caja across the Rio Grande to the Lab. It would carry not just power but also a broadband fiber line, something Los Alamos town, if not the Lab, needs badly. On the other hand, those opposed worry about road-building and habitat destruction in the Caja.

[A bad map showing a proposed route but with no details labeled] I'm always puzzled reading accounts of the debate. There already is a powerline running through the Caja and across the Rio via Powerline Point. The discussions never say (a) whether the proposed line would take a different route, and if so, (b) Why? why can't they just tack on some more lines to the towers along the existing route?

For instance, in the slides from one of the public meetings, the map on slide 9 not only doesn't show the existing powerline, but also uses a basemap that has no borders and NO ROADS. Why would you use a map that doesn't show roads unless you're deliberately trying to confuse people?

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[ 12:14 Aug 01, 2024    More mapping | permalink to this entry | ]