Computer Programming and Open Source Software
I use GNU/Linux and open source software.
Plus I like buck goats, because they’re real macho men
spraying their beards with goat urine.
Knowing coding is important. Even if you aren’t a master programmer. But be a geek. And source-seperated data is good, that keeps formatting seperate from data, as nobody wants to clean up your pretty-looking garbage.
💻👨💻 Open Source 🗺️📍
I only use open source software and public sources of data for the blog. Quantum GIS (QGIS), GDAL/ogr2ogr, PyQGIS, GeoPANDAS, R Studio and Leaflet for map making, Arduino and ESP32 microprocessors, Ubuntu Linux and XFCE Window Manager. I’ve recently gotten interested in machine learning.
I avoid using commercial software like Microsoft Windows anddo not have home internet or television. If you don’t use commercial software and use your brain,fears of computer viruses are overblown. I deleted most of my social media accounts.
Creating Digital Surface Models using LiDAR Point Clouds.
R Statistical Programming 
The R programming language and RStudio are powerful tools for statistical analysis, making maps and charts. Many of the blog posts and analysis I do are in R, ggplot not only makes great charts but also maps using tidycensus. Generally, R is better then Python for geospatial work.
Use IDW Interpolation to fill in missing Census data, Zonal Histograms for land cover, load WMS Aerial Photography in R, find mountain peaks, save Census shapefiles using tigris quickly, pull NY Election Night Results using Selenium. Fast reverse Geocoding in PostGIS. Working with PDFs in R. Fix a common error starting rselenium/wdman. Make data-filled calendars. R is wonderful and weird, learn it!
Python and Pandas 
Querying state property database, political enrollments, PL 94-171 Census files, calculating population statistics, what address is a district in, converting old districts to new districts, Shapefiles missing Projection information in QGIS.
Learn to code for free modern HTML, Javascript, Python and SQL at freeCodeCamp and web development at the Odin Project.
Things I Ponder
Why no 128-bit computers? It turns out not very practical or useful to have general purpose registers that wide. COBOL is old but awesome for what it does.
Explaining the difference between artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing. I am skeptical about ChatGPT and human-pretending chat bots more generally, though I find AI to be quite useful. So much of it hype! I think government licensing of AI should not be required, but it should be free for people use and run models at home.
I am a luddite, I refuse to have internet at home. I believe good technology is simple technology.
Computers by Malvina Reynolds
Computers, computers, computers wherever you turn.
Those chips are so loaded with hot information
You’d think they would burn.
Some of it’s factual, actual,
Some of it’s made of thin air.
Whatever gets in a computer
Stays there.You can put almost anything in there that comes to your mind.
The programmer gets lost in the shuffle, the scuffle,
The dope stays behind.
Some of its factual, actual,
Some of it is double-faced.
Whatever gets in a computer
Isn’t erased.Our lives have been fed to computers, every thought, every dream,
Everything that we’ve bought that has rusted or busted
Or split at the seam,
Every up, every down,
Every howl, every glimmer of luck.
When something gets in a computer
It’s stuck.The stuff that we have in our heads is a different affair.
We’ve hoarded and sorted, amended and bended
And let in the air.
But computer banks grow like a cancer,
They can always produce a wrong answer
And they never are troubled with doubt.
And once you get in a computer
You never get out.
