Catfood WebCamSaver 3.22
By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, September 23, 2023.
Catfood WebCamSaver 3.22 is available to download. This release updates the webcam list.
Global Cloud Cover 48 Hour Video Updated Hourly
By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, September 23, 2023.
The video below shows the past 48 hours of global cloud cover, 6 frames per second. It's HD so view full screen to get the most detail. The video is updated hourly.
The source is the Global IR product from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center. I process their image to be equirectangular instead of spherical mercator (full details here) and then generate a video.
Related Posts
- Daily Average Global Cloud Cover Animation
- Animation of a year of Global Cloud Cover
- 4K One Year Global Cloud Timelapse
- Improving the accuracy of the new Catfood Earth clouds layer
- Global Temperature Anomalies Animation, 1850 to 2018
(Published to the Fediverse as: Global Cloud Cover 48 Hour Video Updated Hourly #etc #clouds #satellite #earth #h5v Video showing 48 hours of global infrared cloud cover in HD, updated hourly. )
Blue Marble 2 Animation
By Robert Ellison.
This animation shows twelve sections from the highest resolution version of NASA's Blue Marble Next Generation image for December 2004.
Can you guess all twelve locations? Answers below.
I use a lower resolution version of this image in Catfood Earth. The full version is 86,400 by 43,200, or 3.7 gigapixels. I've always wanted to do something with all this data, and decided to just follow some random paths and animate out the results. It's a little like watching the view from the ISS, if the ISS could randomly change location and direction.
The sequences in order are:
- Passing over Madagascar and then across central Africa.
- Along the Aleutian Islands and into Alaska.
- Across South America and the Amazon.
- Up the Eastern seaboard of the US into Canada.
- Following the Nile through North Africa.
- From Siberia to Denmark.
- Up Baja California and then California USA.
- Philippines, Taiwan, China, Mongolia.
- Following the Caribbean to Florida.
- Across Australia.
- South South America, focused on Chile.
- Koreas, Japan.
Related Posts
- Animation of a year of Global Cloud Cover
- Daily Average Global Cloud Cover Animation
- 4K One Year Global Cloud Timelapse
- Global Cloud Cover 48 Hour Video Updated Hourly
- Animation of US PM2.5 Air Pollution in 2023
(Published to the Fediverse as: Blue Marble 2 Animation #etc #video #nasa #bluemarble #earth #satellite 4k 60fps video from high resolution satellite imagery, can you guess all twelve locations? )
Is Sortition Having a Random Moment?
By Robert Ellison.
I have long been a proponent of Legislative Service, a specific flavor of sortition where the upper chamber in a bicameral system is replaced by a randomly selected 'jury' on a per-bill basis. You'd serve for a couple of weeks and act as a check and balance on professional politicians who propose the legislation. It might also work well if you find your country in need of a revising body (Bibi, call me). The British government didn't bite, and the concept rarely gets much press, until this week.
In the New York Times, Adam Grant suggests sortition to randomly select politicians:
"In ancient Athens, people had a choice about whether to participate in the lottery. They also had to pass an examination of their capacity to exercise public rights and duties. In America, imagine that anyone who wants to enter the pool has to pass a civics test — the same standard as immigrants applying for citizenship. We might wind up with leaders who understand the Constitution."
Having aced the US citizenship test I'm not sure it's a particularly high bar. I do take the point that we couldn't do much worse than we are now, at least for the top job, but I think there is still a role for professional representation.
Bruce Schneier organized a conference on rethinking democracy. The whole debrief is worth a read, here's the section on sortition:
"Sortition is a system of choosing political officials randomly to deliberate on a particular issue. We use it today when we pick juries, but both the ancient Greeks and some cities in Renaissance Italy used it to select major political officials. Today, several countries—largely in Europe—are using sortition for some policy decisions. We might randomly choose a few hundred people, representative of the population, to spend a few weeks being briefed by experts and debating the problem—and then decide on environmental regulations, or a budget, or pretty much anything."
Much closer to my vision, including having a system of briefing people on the issue. I'd make this adversarial, like a jury trial.
But before this in the US: demolish the electoral college, and then diversify our choice of politicians - either by ranked choice voting or like this.
Related Posts
- Legislative Service
- Lottocracy vs Legislative Service
- House of Lords - time for Legislative Service?
- Open Democracy
- Liquid Democracy and united.vote
(Published to the Fediverse as: Is Sortition Having a Random Moment? #politics #politicalreform #democracy #legislativeservice #sortition Reform democracy via lottery: Sortition covered by Schneier, NYT, Legislative Service. )
Washington Post Misleads With Statistics On First Republican Debate
By Robert Ellison.
The photo above is how WaPo decided to illustrate their poll results after the first Republican debate. They say:
"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came out on top Wednesday night, with 29 percent of Republican voters who watched the debate saying he performed best."
And his head is much much bigger so it's clear who won. Except buried in the small print this is a three percentage point difference in a small poll with a +/- four percentage point margin of error. In other words, flat.
To be clear I want neither of these gentlemen installed in the White House. But this is pretty crappy data reporting.
Related Posts
- Fixing the Washington Post Democratic Candidates Quiz
- I'm with Them
- Intelligence Squared Two-Party Debate
- Fuck the Electoral College
- 2020 Results
(Published to the Fediverse as: Washington Post Misleads With Statistics On First Republican Debate #politics #election A three percentage point difference on a four percentage point margin of error is not a win. )
Catfood Earth for Android 4.30
By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, September 23, 2023.
Catfood Earth for Android now supports random locations. The slice of Earth displayed will change periodically throughout the day. You can still set a manual location or have Catfood Earth use your current location. Install from Google Play, existing users will get this update over the next few days.
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Reviews for August 2023
By Robert Ellison. Updated on Sunday, August 27, 2023.
Spoilers!
Movies
Brooklyn 45
Both a sensitive movie about coming to terms with the transition from war to peace at the end of WWII (as well as foreshadowing some other transitions) and a really average seance horror movie. Overall I don't regret watching it but this didn't need the hokey special effects (down to an actual shot of a photo with its eyes moving a little bit).
Heart of Stone
80% Mission Impossible, 20% Minority Report. Nothing new to see here, but it's a fun enough ride.
Luther The Fallen Sun
Luther hits the big screen. Really not the same without Ruth Wilson. It's fun and over the top but more silly than dark.
Paradise
Scientists figure out how to transplant literal years of life from the poor to the rich. What could go wrong? Lots of twists and turns, this was pretty good.
The Pope's Exorcist
Russel Crowe shows off his Italian, retcons the Spanish Inquisition and shows the devil the door. It's OK.
Music
Where is my mind
Amazing performance of an incredible song.
Podcasts
Search Engine
PJ Vogt's something turns out to be Search Engine, which so far has consisted of idiosyncratic deep dives that remind me of another podcast that died too soon...
TV
Hijack
Two hours of thrills unfortunately packed into a 7 episode show. A couple of episodes in I was rooting for the Hijackers. By the fourth, I just wanted the plane to be shot down. They spend three episodes figuring out the guns are loaded with blanks, although to start with they insist the guns are fakes which is a different proposition entirely and then it turns out that they also have real bullets. That's about 3 hours of plot. Feels like it was written in one sitting and then never checked for continuity or tension or interest. When Generative AI is making TV shows on demand this is what I imagine they'll be like.
Jack Ryan Season 4
I've got some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that you get to make one more season of Jack Ryan.
The bad news is that we really had to scrape the barrel to fund it. Your primary sponsor is the State Tourist Board of Myanmar. Their goal is to keep people away so you only get to include shots that look like the suburbs of LA and the plot can't do anything to upset the Junta. Other than that you have complete creative freedom. Although Jeff insists that one scene can be summed up as "No, Mr. Ryan, I expect you get to wrapped up like a cucumber".
We also got a few bucks from JLR so every third shot has to be a Range Rover looking awesome. Have fun!
Silo Season 1
Foundation was a big disappointment to me, de-Azimov'd generic SciFi, so I was pretty nervous about Silo. It's an adaptation of the first few installments of Hugh Howey's epic Wool series. The TV version doesn't dare to be quite as good as Wool, but it's pretty decent with a great cast and spot on production design. Looking forward to the next series already. If you haven't read the books then you're missing out.
The Outlaws Season 2
At this point it's Breaking Bristol. It's rare to get dramedy right, this is great.
The Witcher Blood Origin
Ever wonder where Witchers came from? Me either, but they're going to tell you anyway. This has an awesome cast - Michelle Yeoh with Lenny Henry! And the special effects and production values are similar to the main series. It's not that good though. Four episodes is a really awkward canvas. It might have been a tight film or an entertaining series but it's both not enough and too much for the space available.
(All images included with ITHCWY reviews are the property of their respective owners and are used to illustrate reviews only.)
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Red Swamp Crayfish
By Robert Ellison.
Google Pixel 6 Pro 7mm f1.9 1/320s ISO44
A Red Swamp Crayfish at Stow Lake in San Francisco. It is confronting an 85lb lab and is not interested in backing down despite being only six inches long.
Related Posts
- Anemone Cave
- Black Crested Night Heron
- Tide Line from Lands End
- 2,000 Sea Lions
- Crab at Fort Funston
(Published to the Fediverse as: Red Swamp Crayfish #photo #stowlake #sanfrancisco #crayfish Photo of a Red Swamp Crayfish (crawfish, crawdad) at Stow Lake in San Francisco, California. )
ITHCWY Newsletter for July 2023
By Robert Ellison. Updated on Tuesday, August 1, 2023.
ITHCWY is now part of the Fediverse (Mastodon etc), follow @[email protected].
Time lapse of the Market Street Laser Rainbow for Pride, and the Shenandoah Valley.
Hikes with Hyperlapses: Presidio of San Francisco, Philosopher's Way.
A 3D printed kong holder, if you hate kongs falling over while you stuff and freeze them.
Photos of a Black Crested Night Heron and, sadly for the heron, a frog several thousand miles away.
Previously:
- 2022: Snowdonia Milky Way Time Lapse
- 2021: Teague Hill Preserve
- 2020: Did anyone tell Material Design about Gesture Navigation?
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Federation
By Robert Ellison. Updated on Thursday, August 1, 2024.
ITHCWY is venturing into the Fediverse. This is the second attempt, I had a brief-lived API implementation to a bot account that didn't go so well. This time I've hooked up Bridgy Fed, which is free and easy and so far seems to work pretty well. I added webmention support last year which helped with the process. You can add me as @[email protected] or use the form on this page. If you reply to a post in the Fediverse it will end up as a comment on this blog (and vice versa).
Related Posts
- Webmention on ITHCWY
- Tedious Feed Update
- Fight Facebook with Email
- 1,000th Post!
- Server Migration Complete
(Published to the Fediverse as: Federation #etc #ithcwy #bridgyfed #fediverse #indieweb #webmention ITHCWY is now part of the Fediverse at @[email protected] )
