@eheisman@vis.social
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

eheisman

@eheisman@vis.social

#maps #bicycling #birds #woodworking, parent

Personal account, opinions my own. Please call me out when I should do better.

Civil engineer turned #java #software developer in the public sector; modeling risk and uncertainty for #water resources and #hydrology. Dabbles in #rstats and #python.

follow requests welcome, just have some details on your profile

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

DataAngler, to random
@DataAngler@vis.social avatar

League of Legends but for #rstats folks wrangling legends in multi-layer charts and maps

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@DataAngler

bonus points if you're trying to do something outside the default with {ggplot2}

ai6yr, to gardening

GREAT opportunity for those in the Conejo Valley/Thousand Oaks/Newbury Park. There is an opportunity for $250 in FREE PLANTS (plus help) to convert your yard into a native garden from the local Audubon society. #gardening #ThousandOaks #ConejoValley #garden #free #grant #plants https://wp.conejovalleyaudubon.org/conservation/lawns-to-habitat/

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr

Lots of localities have similar programs, so if this is something someone elsewhere wants to do, try looking around!

vees, to random
@vees@epistolary.org avatar

I miss userland tildes in URLs. We should have brought them back for the Fediverse.

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@vees

Generally when I see a userland tilde in a URL, I know there's going to be good stuff on the other side.

bikepedantic, to random
@bikepedantic@transportation.social avatar

Crystal City Underground is going under https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2024/04/30/crystal-city-underground-closing.html

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@bikepedantic

Wow, I remember being amazed by it as a kid when we visited DC as a family while my mom had a continuing ed class in Crystal City. It was much less magical when I returned as a college student. Honestly I'm a bit surprised it lasted this long.

ai6yr, (edited ) to random

Funny... we had beef brisket, potatoes, onions, and carrots for dinner Sunday (we're not Jewish... but apparently there was a sale, so we went with it!) 🤔 (I had no idea until today that was a Passover thing).

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr

Chag sameach anyway!

ai6yr, to random

AP: Unstable nuclear-waste dams threaten fertile Central Asia heartland... "Dams holding vast amounts of uranium mine tailings above the fertile Fergana valley in Central Asia are unstable, threatening a possible Chernobyl-scale nuclear disaster if they collapse that would make the region uninhabitable, studies have revealed." https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/unstable-nuclear-waste-dams-threaten-fertile-central-asia-heartland-2024-04-23/

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr

I mean tailings dams are a disaster waiting to happen (well, already happened*) everywhere, so not at all surprised they are in bad shape in former USSR states.

*https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Rock_uranium_mill_spill

ai6yr, to Software

Full ground stop on all Alaska Airlines and Horizon Airlines flights, due to "an issue while performing an upgrade to the system that calculates our weight and balance" https://abc7.com/alaska-airlines-ground-stop-flight-company-issues-stop-nationwide-for-all-and-horizon-flights/14681955/

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr

Again?

https://news.yahoo.com/software-bug-caused-two-alaska-010000035.html

ai6yr, to food

AP: ‘Foodscaping’ slips vegetables in among the flowers for visual appeal in the garden https://apnews.com/article/gardening-foodscaping-companion-plants-combining-5894d074be69e9babeac918091c4ffa7

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr

Not that you can eat it once it flowers, but I think artichoke is a beautiful plant.

I'll keep buying the jarred hearts though and save myself the hassle of prepping a fresh one.

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr

I've never found space for them in the garden. I ought to give it a try this year, I have at least one bed that might get enough sun and isn't being used.

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr

No gophers nearby, as far as I can tell.

Now I'm debating throwing some in a bare spot between the native plants out front and treating it an ornamental that I'll occasionally some heads off of.

ai6yr, to zerowaste

Hmm, only taking 1, 2 and 5 plastic nowadays around here. Don't even know if these are reprocessed. So much for recycling plastic.

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr

That's what my town does, having just reintroduced plastic recycling after a few years of not doing it at all as people couldn't be bothered to check. It seems most of the things in our kitchen are 1, 2, and 5s.

(also only 5oz and larger containers, no lids)

ai6yr, to cycling

Controversial take: MTBs are slow.

But, the fat tires are most certainly are better and safer after the rain with all the debris on the road here than the road bike... quite the slip hazard around here, at least until the city street cleaners show up and get all the wet leaves!!!

(switched to the MTB for a couple of weeks due to rain)

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@tsherrygeo @ai6yr

Yeah, when I was commuting seriously on a 1980s Trek road bike, I had the fattest knobbiest tires that would fit (somewhere around 35mm), with reinforced treads. Absolute essential for bike commuting.

When that bike broke on me, I got a hybrid "gravel" bike (giant escape 2 w/ disc brakes).

IDK why anyone would use a road bike for anything but racing (or going fast for fun), if you have the choice.

eheisman, to random
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

Clearly see where the fog bank over the Walla Walla valley starts shortly before dropping off the Columbia plateau into Milton-Freewater, OR.

Photos taken about a minute apart.


(I was in the passenger seat! Don't 🤳and 🚗!)

Same road, but only the road and some of the shoulder visible, the rest covered in dense fog. No vehicles are visible ahead.

eheisman, to Weather
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

Anyone know how to report bugs for the search by location feature on weather.gov?

Recently, when I put in my zip code or my town, or use the bookmark for the forecast: I either get an error, a page for the forecast zone, or today I started getting a forecast for a town 20 miles north.

ai6yr, to ai

"California eyes using generative artificial intelligence to help solve traffic problems" ... "The California Department of Transportation is asking technology companies to come up with generative AI tools that could help reduce traffic and make roads safer" 🙄 https://abc7.com/california-artificial-intelligence-traffic-solutions/14300492/

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr

May I suggest the prompt: "Netherlands, but make it more"?

alan, to pnw
@alan@subdued.social avatar

Very cool to see so many local Mastodon servers here in the / region, on @jaz's great "Mastodon Near Me" map.

Also an excellent use of the "uMap" tool from the community!

http://mastodon-near.me/#6/44.590/-121.113

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@alan @jaz

Ooh, I was just wondering if there was a eastern WA or more local instance.

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@alan

The entry on that site says Eastern WA, not just TriCities. I am tempted to check it out to see how active it is.

I am in and know a couple of other mastodon user here. Only recently started to look into what it would take to get a small local instance running. I'd rather join a bigger regional instance than start my own.

LabSpokane, to random
@LabSpokane@mas.to avatar

AI: it’s SO awesome and so obviously useful that Microsoft and Dropbox have to install it on your computer surreptitiously.

I want off this fucking planet. I hate it here.

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr @LabSpokane

Thankfully the work PC is on Windows 10 for a while longer. But regretting using a personal laptop with Windows 11 right now.

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr @LabSpokane

Once I find the time I'll switch back over to Linux. At the very least, I'm sure there will be some decent Linux distro that doesn't siphon up data to send back to a corporate overlord.

eheisman, to random
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

A few days ago, I did a Monte Carlo simulation of Dreidel in to figure out how long to expect a game to last for a given number of players and "buy in". I had some grand plans to visualize results, which I haven't completed yet.

I did confirm that the average game for 3 players, 7 tokens each, if you aren't playing with edible tokens, will last forever (or at least for adult players it certainly feels that way.)

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@ai6yr

I will have to put my code on GitHub.

I was seriously amazed at how many games lasted to the 500 turn limit I put on the simulation.

It goes a lot faster with chocolate gelt than with pennies, as you can decrease the tokens in circulation more easily.

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

Okay, so Wikipedia confirms my rules for when to ante (at least one kids book we have says ante every round, which probably speeds it up.)

Wikipedia also has citations for expected duration of a game, and something else I noticed - an advantage to going first.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreidel

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

3 players, buy in of 5 tokens, ante on empty, no tokens consumed during play.

kristinHenry, to genart
@kristinHenry@vis.social avatar

Well, the "prompt list" for genuary 2023 have confirmed that I will not be participating in Genuary 2024.
https://genuary.art/prompts

I'll have to think of something else to do instead. Maybe I'll add a bunch of prompts to my SciArt Prompt Generator and use it to select my prompt list. Or maybe I'll revisit past prompts and take them farther? https://artatomic.itch.io/prompts

Maybe, I'll dedicate it all to Vera Molnar, who passed away today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Moln%C3%A1r

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@kristinHenry yikes!

douglasvb, to LEGO
@douglasvb@mastodon.social avatar

I toned down the layout this year. Only two loop backs (balloon tracks) and one figure 8 crossover. And only one run around track at one of the yards. There are several industrial spurs though so I can run it more or less like a prototypical short line. I've got two engines and nine cars.

Maybe later I'll get feisty and build a helix to climb the two steps to break the Lego train free of the living room 🚂🚂🚂

eheisman,
@eheisman@vis.social avatar

@douglasvb

I was just reminiscing to some coworkers about my uncle who would do this to their living room every Christmas with a set of G scale trains. This seems like just a step more... :)

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