mvexel

I came here to recommend Thinking Fast and Slow. I'm not surprised that it was mentioned a few times already. I am about to head into my third read of it. If I had to pick one concept from this book that had the most impact on my decisions and the way I look at other people's decisions, it would have to be loss aversion / prospect theory.

Where I live, all too often there just isn't any runway to do this. When you're trying to merge, say, here: https://binged.it/2DTnemt then all you can really do is rip right into traffic and people will just have to make space. It's the worst possible layout for supporting a smooth traffic flow, and it baffles me that they don't lay the extra 200ft of asphalt to improve this, especially in a state that has a DOT that does know how to apply innovative solutions to increase traffic flow like SPUIs and CFIs.

Perhaps it's time for more granular Javascript blocking. Since forever it's been 'Enable Javascript yes / no'. This makes no real world sense to me anymore (if it ever did). Could there be an end-user friendly way to tell a browser to block Javascript that transmits your 'pre-submit' activity on a web site without breaking the site?

Not much better but there's a press release also. https://www.barebones.com/company/press/bbedit_25_anniversar...

I don't think there was an article, hence the link to a merch page, sorry about that.

I was a BBEdit user in the late 90s / early 00s. Interesting to see they are still around. I thought it was a magnificent editor at the time.

"States' rights" is actually one of the valid answers to question 74 on the naturalization civics test. ("Name one problem that led to the Civil War.")

Now I wonder what process led to these 100 questions, and their valid answers. (I just took the test a few weeks ago, and becoming a U.S. citizen on Monday.)

The full list of questions and valid answers is here: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Office%20of%...

Looks like https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/61555047 may have been the source of this. It's the only changeset in the history of OSM for the area that contains the offending term. It's from August 10, and was reverted on August 11 in https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/61556585

If you're looking for something OSM related, be sure to join the OSM US Slack channel and join #jobs there. It's formally for OSM US but people hang out there from all over. Join here: https://osmus-slack.herokuapp.com/

Probably not the same cause but the disk ran out of space just now because I neglected to properly purge temp files.

That is a good way to find the boundary relation and one I had not thought of.

As for the Overpass API limits -- yes, if folks start to actually use this on any kind of scale, this will croak. I should perhaps do some logging, https://github.com/mvexel/meetyourmappers/issues/3

Sure, author here.

The OSM data model does not have a concept of areas, or polygons. A line feature ('way' in OSM parlance) that shares the same point ('node') for its start and end is usually considered to be an area. This works well for simple area features like, say, a building.

More complex area features, like ones with holes, large areas, or ones that share edges with other features, are commonly modeled using relations. A relation in OSM is an ordered list of nodes, ways and other relations, or any combination of those.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/198770 is an example of a boundary relation consisting of several ways. The tagging type=boundary and admin_level=6 define the relation as an administrative boundary, and set its level in the administrative hierarchy.

You can find any administrative boundary relation by going to osm.org, entering its name into the search box, and clicking on the relevant result. The info box should say something like "Relation: Salt Lake City (198770)". The integer in brackets is the relation ID. Note that some places are only defined as points in OSM, they won't work in this tool, since it queries for data that lies fully inside the boundary.

There has to be a way to make this easier, but in the time I was prepared to spend on this, I couldn't come up with one.

It works worldwide as long as the ID entered is an OSM boundary relation. Do you have an example you tried that failed?

> My Amiga 1000 handled all my computing for a decade, and it was still a downgrade in 1995 when I begrudgingly switched to a 486.

Yes. Many Amiga owners I knew, and I myself, felt that way when it became clear around 1993-4 that the Amiga's future was not looking bright. I had invested quite a bit into my A1200 setup (HD disk drives, 68030+68882, MacGyvery external HD using a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE cable) and it could do most things I needed and wanted to do. But the need to collaborate with fellow students on papers, projects (SPSS, AutoCAD) drove me to get a (admittedly low end) 286 PC. I hated it, but it got the job done. I kept my Amiga around for many years after that, and used it, mostly for gaming, well into the 2000s. I finally got rid of it only fairly recently when I moved abroad. I tried Amiga gaming on emulators, but not having a native joystick (Suzo Arcade!) makes that no fun whatsoever.

What does Google Chrome track beyond what you can disable under the Privacy and Security settings, when you're not signed in with a Google account?

I'm seriously curious how they were able to sell that last inventory. Folks buying them for nostalgic reasons? Was there a real market left for top of the line film SLRs that wasn't served by the used camera market? You can get really good used ones for not very much money.

As a film shooter for 20+ years, I decided to break out my old Nikon FA and shoot a roll of film today to mark the occasion. (I still keep some in the fridge, Velvia 50 Daylight.) I wonder if the last place that would still develop slide film around here last time I needed film developed still does it. If they still take film, they probably ship it some place to get it developed rather than do it in-house like they used to.

Yes, interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. This indicates that there is work to do. All the more reason to open source it.

I really like the magnifying glass!

A comparison with much more recent history, OpenStreetMap in 2007 vs now: https://mvexel.github.io/thenandnow/#13/51.5/0.0 - London is where OSM started, so it was pretty well mapped even in 2007 (OSM started in late 2004). If you look at other parts of the world or even the UK, it's easy to imagine how almost everyone thought it was a crazy idea that would never get off the ground.

There are some rendering issues (like water missing) due to the OSM schema going through some significant changes over the years.

95% remote for 5 years now and enjoying it. I agree with all of your points and have some to add:

* Create a really pleasant and tidy work space for yourself. My work life improved considerably when I did: http://ma.rtijn.org/2016/01/03/standing-desk.html

* Be among people. This is part of 2. but worth pointing out. I work at a co-working space 2 days a week, and at cafes some mornings. I don't care that I don't actually interact much with folks there. Being among humans is enough to break the isolation.

* Take care of your body. Don't do any work before you have given yourself time to wake up, shower, get dressed, have breakfast. Set a timer to go for a walk around the block. Have a glass of water on your desk at all times. Eat healthy. These things apply to all desk workers, I just feel it's even more important being remote.

* Start the day checking in with a colleague. Doesn't need to be about a work problem or question. Just see how folks are doing at HQ, anything special going on? Just having a laid back conversation with a colleague before you head into the day helps start me off with a positive, social attitude.

* Build confidence that not being always-on is okay as long as you deliver. Work on trying not to read too much into the phrasing of chats / emails.

* Insist on good practice in meetings. It's very easy to ignore someone not in the room. If you can, have them project your video on a screen so you're "there". Remind people to speak up and to point a camera at whiteboards etc.

I'm probably forgetting a bunch of things. Good topic for a blog post that focuses less on the drawbacks and more on recipes to make remote work a joy. Any links folks can recommend?

Do you have plans to scale out? I'd volunteer time but I'm not near any of the cities you currently work in. (For others who are in the same position -- inquire with your city / church / local refugee support org, you may find there are similar local initiatives for refugees.)

Also, this being (I assume) a weekday daytime commitment, do your volunteers get typically get their teaching time 'donated' by their employers?

Fails when trying to create a profile. Nothing happens. Either after 1/2 second or a few seconds.

The export function on osm.org is a pretty expensive operation on the live database and not the best way to download OSM XML data for most people. If you're looking for a city-sized extract, https://mapzen.com/data/metro-extracts/ is a good source. They have pre-built ones for commonly requested areas, or you can select your own bounding box.

No permissions per se, we just didn't want to have users create YAA. We figured if you're going to be interested in OSV you'd already have an OSM account anyway.

Yes, most all of these were produced with an early beta of the apps. Has since been fixed. There's still a known issue where images appear mirrored in OSV when using certain Android phones, https://github.com/openstreetview/android/issues/3

We're in the process of adding 360 camera support.

It's a nice overview but it glosses over the fact that while the OA database is governed by a CC0 license, the individual address collections in the database are still governed by their own licenses which can be (much) more restrictive. The fact that you can download the data doesn't mean you can use it the way you want. The OA web site hints at this but doesn't address (ah-hah) that underlying problem. That doesn't mean that OA is not valuable - quite the contrary - but I think the fact that it's presented as one big free and open dataset can be misleading.

There's several:

http://map.project-osrm.org/ http://graphhopper.com/maps/ http://open.mapquest.com/

For mobile, try the Scout app (Android / iOS). Disclaimer: I am on the Scout team. (I also made this 2007-now comparison site.)