Catfood Earth 3.44 is available to download. This version updates the timezone database to 2018i, moves to a new source for timezone mapping an fixes a bug in the volcanoes layer.

Golden Gate Bridge timelapse - shot from the Marin headlands, the Golden Gate Overlook and near Fort Point.

Colorado looks set to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. What you can do to help.

Could we solve the youth turnout problem with age weighted voting?

Previously:

• 2018: Facebook shouldn't own your social graph
• 2017: Book reviews for February 2017
• 2016: Chromecast won't connect to wifi - finally found the fix

(Related: Migrating from Blogger to BlogEngine.NET; Monitor page index status with Google Sheets, Apps Script and the Google Search Console API; ESRI Shapefile Reader in .NET)

(You might also like: Worst special TiVo offer ever; Debugging Treasure Trove; Gun Insurance could pay for Buybacks)

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If the atmosphere was the population of the United States...

A Tarsier.

Thomas Friedman in the New York Times today: "Could we have our first four-party election in 2020 — with candidates from the Donald Trump far right, the old G.O.P. center right, the Joe Biden center left and the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez far left all squaring off, as the deepening divides within our two big parties simply can’t be papered over any longer?". Here's my daisyworld analogy from 2010, and a write-up of an Intelligence Squared debate on the same topic from 2011.

The scoop on Material Design 3.

Previously:

• 2018: Export Google Fit Daily Steps, Weight and Distance to a Google Sheet
• 2017: #Resist
• 2016: Get an email when your security camera sees something new (Apps Script + Cloud Vision)

(Related: Go-arounds: LEGO and Legislative Service; The Trust Project, Fake News and a Partial Facebook Uninstall; #Resist)

(You might also like: Fleet Week 2019 Parade of Ships; News: Brexit: British clubs could suffer in transfer window, warns sports expert; Do I need a Zumbox?)

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I have a 58mm ND5 filter that I bought to photograph the 2017 solar eclipse. It worked pretty well for that with my Sony RX100 V, but now I want to use it with an RX10 IV (which has the advantage of a 600mm equivalent zoom). The RX10 accepts 72mm filters and I want to try and photograph an ISS transit which is happening sooner than I can get hold of an adapter.

I figured someone must have done this before, but I can't find a file anywhere. It's a reasonably straightforward part - as the filter is smaller than the thread on the camera I just need a small cylinder which has a 72mm thread on the outside and 58mm on the inside. A step up adapter would be slightly more complicated to accommodate the larger filter size.

To build this I used OpenSCAD and this thread module. Open the thread module file in OpenSCAD and then you just need to subtract the inner thread from the outer thread like this:

This makes a simple 10mm tall adapter and you would just need to change the thread sizes to make it work for pretty much any combination of camera and filter (most filter sizes use a 0.75mm pitch as shown above). The vignetting is pretty extreme with the smaller filter and the size of the adapter. For this application I don't care, I'm only using the center of the image. If it's a problem for your application then it might be worth reducing the height of the adapter, at the expense of making it harder to detach from the camera.

Here is the adapter STL file on thingiverse.

After all that, I missed the transit by a couple of seconds. I thought the clock on my phone would be accurate enough but turns out it's 5 seconds off. So memo to self for next time - shoot over a longer window, or just take a video.

(Related: Long term solar powered time lapse camera using Arduino; Capture DropCam (Nest Cam) frames to Google Drive; Style Transfer for Time Lapse Photography)

(You might also like: Mariposa Loop; World Time Lapse; Crissy Field)

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If the atmosphere was the United States here's how it would break down:

Thor, Iowa is Hydrogen. Thor is the birthplace of John K. Hanson, founder of Winnebago. 179 people.

Florence, South Dakota is Krypton. 371 people.

Butterfield, Minnesota (home of the Butterfield Steam and Gas Engine Show) is Methane, 586 people.

Lewisport, Kentucky is Helium. Abraham Lincoln was unsuccessfully tried for operating a ferry without a license here in 1827. 1,706 people.

Maquoketa, Iowa is Neon. As of the time of writing Maquoketa Caves State Park is closed for bat hibernation. 5,921 people.

Gainesville, Florida is Carbon Dioxide. It's ranked by the National Coalition for the Homeless as the 5th meanest city. 132,567 people.

Chicago, Corpus Christi and Kimball, West Virginia make up Argon. 3,042,217 people total.

All that adds up to around 1% of the atmosphere, mostly Argon.

Oxygen is about 20%, that's California, New York, Oregon, Louisiana, Lake Station, Indiana and Cedar, Kansas. 68,225,139 people.

If you're not listed then you are Nitrogen. Close to 80% at 254,334,562 people.

(Population figures from the US Census 2017 estimates. Atmosphere composition from Wikipedia. Water vapor not included.)

(Related: San Francisco November 2020 Ballot Measures; Republicans and Democrats: Too big to succeed; Año Nuevo)

(You might also like: Winter Solstice 2015; Sunset #9; Coastal and Julian loop plus Black Sands Beach)

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The Echo Clock has one job, and it's not great at it.

I made an animation of maximum temperature anomalies by decade from the 1850s to the 2010s.

Is 2019 the year that Trump gets impeached? I wrote to my representative. Why not do the same?

Some surfing dolphins.

Farhad Manjoo calls for open borders in the New York Times for many of the same reasons I had back in 2015, before this was less unpopular ;)

Previously:

• 2018: I'm not afraid of Google
• 2017: I didn't think I'd ever fall for fake news of Facebook
• 2016: San Bruno Mountain

(Related: The Trust Project, Fake News and a Partial Facebook Uninstall; I didn't think I'd ever fall for fake news on Facebook; Go-arounds: LEGO and Legislative Service)

(You might also like: Fleet Week 2019 Air Show; Bredo; News: No need to breed like rabbits - Pope)

(All Etc Posts)

It turns out I'm not great at getting a monthly newsletter out. Starting with the January 2019 newsletter I've put in place a new system - I'm storing summaries of new articles when I write them and also collecting a few links that might be of interest to ITHCWY readers. These should be sent out automatically on the first of the month so I should only skip the newsletter if nothing happened. Apologies in advance if there are any teething issues with the new format.

(Related: Upgrading to BlogEngine.NET 2.5; Migrating from Blogger to BlogEngine.NET; The curious case of the missing slugs (in BlogEngine.net 2.8))

(You might also like: Coronavirus Visualization Update; Bottled Water; Please Stay)

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A year ago I uninstalled Facebook and Twitter from my phone in an effort to slim down my social media fake news diet. The idea was I'd occasionally check in from my laptop. Which I didn't. So this week I've finally taken the plunge and deleted both accounts. Or rather, deactivated, you have to wait 30 days before they actually delete anything. I also nuked Quora, because of the hack rather than any particular tendency to undermine the foundations of democracy.

This leaves me with a potential problem. As a person with a rapidly decreasing social media footprint I might be asked to host the Oscars. It would be nice to be tapped, but I really don't want to and so I've published a complete archive of all my tweets. I'm pretty sure some of them would be disqualifying. Whew.

(Related: The Trust Project, Fake News and a Partial Facebook Uninstall; I didn't think I'd ever fall for fake news on Facebook; Fight Facebook with Email)

(You might also like: Boob Bombs; Crissy Field; Twin Peaks Loop)

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A genetic algorithm learns to draw a hummingbird:

The video is an animation of three thousand generations of evolution. It starts with a random mix of line segments which are then mutated by adding or removing lines and by changing the start, end and color of existing lines. Each generation has 32 individuals. The best individual is mutated to create the next generation.

For this implementation the best or fittest individual is the one with the least error on a pixel by pixel comparison to a stock art drawing of a hummingbird. Because I care more about the shape than completely filling in the drawing an error outside the figure is penalized three times more than a gap inside the figure.

Color is mutated each generation but not selected for, so it's just changing randomly.

(Related: Can I move to a Better Simulation Please?; Life, Non-locality and the Simulation Hypothesis; Better related posts with word2vec (C#))

(You might also like: #OV105; It was where he left it; Sunset sunset 4k)

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For the service of telling UPS that I'm not in today and so they can save a whole bunch of time and money by not failing to deliver a package they want to charge me $5? This is UPS My Choice.

(Related: Twenty-Four Hours with Twilio; Do I need a Zumbox?; How to get technical support without spending hours on the phone)

(You might also like: Commentary; Radio 4: Can I buy you a new hard drive?; Cranes)

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Not only does it know when you're home but the Nest Learning Thermostat also knows when you're nearby. Here's how it works.

You crank up the heat to 70 and walk away. Nest then immediately returns to 62 degrees.

Thinking there must be something screwy with the algorithm you turn it back up to 70. Nest knows that it's in trouble so it displays a comforting message like 'Heat set until 10pm', waits for you to leave and then sets the temperature back to 62 degrees.

Giving up on the learning part you use the app to manually program it to keep the heat on. Nest now uses its WiFi connection to phone the gas company and disconnect your service.

(Related: Leaving the Nest; Chromecast won't connect to wifi - finally found the fix; Catfood Software Support)

(You might also like: Stars over Pinnacles; Vernal Equinox 2014; Executive Clubbing)

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