Comically bad camera work on the Thanksgiving Day Parade. It’s like they patched into somebody’s phone

Dear SaaS platform that doesn’t provide a public-facing phone number anywhere: Don’t be surprised when I ignore unsolicited calls from your sales team.

The day before Thanksgiving.

Metadata Rising Earlier in my career, I was working on an infrastructure protection task and we were reconciling data from several sources that addressed the same road network. The data from the locality was authoritative, but it lacked some information we needed so we were conflating other data…

Corned ham. It must be approaching Thanksgiving in Southern Maryland.

Can we retire the phrase "at the intersection of"?

Observation of having our granddaughters living here as they learn to talk: Questions at this stage are about the well-being of others. How are you? Are you okay? What's wrong? I admire the beauty in the fact that those are their first instincts as they come to understand what a question is.

I’ll confess that I am slightly jealous of states that can be labeled on a map without using a leader.

Partly a recap of #FOSS4GNA, partly a reflection on 2025 and life. blog.geomusings.com/2025/11/07/f...

Single most useful conference giveaway I’ve ever gotten, compliments of #wherobots at #foss4gna

Important to note that New Mexico ranks 41st in state GDP, yet free childcare is a priority, unlike many wealthier states.

"You get an extra hour of sleep." Tell me you don't have a dog without telling me you don't have a dog.

Yesterday’s hike was spectacular.

You Should Attend FOSS4G North America Once again, FOSS4G North America is bringing together the people shaping the future of open-source geospatial technology. This year, it takes place November 3–5 at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, Virginia, just a few miles from the centers of federal…

Did someone say Old Bay pumpkin seeds?

Nearly 30 years later and Eva Cassidy's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" can still stop me in my tracks.

Supporting Open Source: A Case Study I mentioned in my previous post that, at a previous career stop, I built open-source support into our IT lifecycle. Specifically, we used QGIS. The primary reason we made that choice is that we were a Mac shop. It's true we could have run ArcGIS Pro inside…

Unless… You are already using open-source. I've said that time and again to various audiences. The most committed Microsoft and Esri users will immediately balk, but it's easy to knock the objections down. Azure? Linux abounds. Esri? GDAL under the hood. And what does the "Py" in ArcPy stand for?…

When people are hired, not for their honesty or competency, but for their ability to be snarling trolls on TV for the delight of their immature and unpleasant boss, you get an AG like Pamela Jo Bondi.

I just read about Maxar, Vantor, and Lanteris. I honestly can’t keep track of all of these new Avengers.

Queen

Going through some of my late father’s things. I found this commendation from Lyndon Johnson.

As expected, the new Ring "Search Party" show up, on by default. Disabled it, like I have with all of the similar settings.

Vibing Adjacencies I have no problem with vibe coding. Yes, you can make bad code with it, and quite easily. The worst way to vibe code is to issue a monolithic prompt like "Build a word processor with the features of Microsoft Word." But using techniques like chain-of-thought or plan-and-solve…

OSM Award nominations and voting are open! Learn more in this blog post: blog.openstreetmap.org/2025/09/20/o... 🔗 awards.openstreetmap.org/list #OpenStreetMap #OSM #OSMAwards

Why spend more when you can spend less?

@adamsimmons.bsky.social does a good job tracing the arc of #HIFLD, summarizing its impact, and making the case for its value. The effort that gave rise to HIFLD shows that government, industry, and non-profit can collaborate to do hard, yet beneficial, things. projectgeospatial.org/geospatial-f...

Sad FOSS4G news, Darrell Fuhriman, who organized the 2014 event in Portland, and has been a giving and supportive open source person forever, is in a bad way. If you can help in any way, please do. www.gofundme.com/f/help-darre...

Our new website has gone live. There is still work to do, but it already provides a clearer picture of what we do. We provide executive-grade strategic guidance from inception to implementation to help you get the most from your geo, AI, and tech investments. Visit cercanasystems.com to learn more.

Longest outdoor run since January. Taking it slow.

The trail was crowded today

I didn't have the weaponization of maps on my 2025 bingo card.

The tables have turned. Whenever I’d pull out my phone, our dog would pick up a ball a bring it so I’d play with her. Now, when I throw the ball and she won’t bring it back, I pull out my phone and she does.

Today’s earworm open.spotify.com/track/1e3Q7g...

Today’s earworm… open.spotify.com/track/4AKofF...

eraser.io is my favorite AI tool right now

My favorite current LinkedIn trend is annoyed follow ups from people after I have ignored their 100% cold initial outreach.

You know you’re having fun when you realize you need a floppy disk drive.

Given how much it dominates all the unsolicited outreach (read “spam”) I get, the l3adg3n space is either suffering or booming. I suspect the former.

Clippy was better than Copilot because at least Clippy had a campy avatar that told you not to take it seriously.

Them: With AI, we won't need to code. Me, writing a ton of code to get the AI to behave properly:

Because apparently Palantir is the only company that can do this. sam.gov/opp/80c62a5e...

My semi-regular reminder of a really important reality about cities, density, services and taxes. Any questions? Graphic recently cleaned up by @kathrynmathias.bsky.social. #CityMakingMath

Me waiting for a Databricks cluster to start.

My son just shared a song by the Lightning Seeds. My work here is done.

I made my first trip to Mobile only a couple of years ago. Dauphin Street is like many other places in Alabama that have a "used to be somethin'" vibe. Little did I expect to find a story about a place that has caught my eye on morning runs. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Life, encapsulated in July 2025: Our son gets married Our 30th wedding anniversary My dad passes away Our granddaughter’s first birthday My dad’s funeral Our daughter gets married If I seem distracted…

Today I learned my dad was there for the “Ich bin ein berliner” speech.

"This app could have been a site" is my new "this meeting could have been an email."