Often scientists intentionally confuse politics with provable scientific fact. Just because one option involves less death and destruction, doesn’t neccessarily mean it’s the option to choose. All costs must be weighted.
A bitterly cold spring morning 🌬️
I am still planning on riding to work as I like the exercise and with the sun it won’t be that cold if I am fully bundled up. Erie Boulevard will be a refrigerator, but by the time I figure I will have worked up a bit of a sweat and be warm enough. The ride against the wind will be good cardio. The afternoon commute will be more difficult, climbing the hill in the face of the wind, but if all else fails, I’ll ride down to the Old Train Station and catch the express bus home from there.
Good morning! Partly sunny and 23 degrees at the Delmar, NY. 🌞 Breezy, ️20 mph breeze from the west-northwest 🌬 with gusts up to 31 mph 💨💨💨. The current wind chill is 9. Things will start to thaw out at around 2 pm. 🌡️
Finished up the first 5 chapters of the Power Broker, 📖 though I’ve been skipping around a bit as I miss a few sections when I fall asleep listening to it. 🎧️ I want to catch up on the parts I missed before returning it, maybe tonight. Listening to the Power Broker is one of many ways I’ve been procrastinating later, as to avoid my anxiety about my housing situation. 😩 That and scrolling through Facebook and complaining about how anxious I am and how I’m avoiding doing research. Maybe because I’m undecided.
Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 34 degrees at 4pm. 13 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around February 8th. Breezy, with a northwest wind 20 to 24 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph. A year ago, we had sunny skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 59 degrees. The record high of 78 was set in 1921. 6.0 inches of snow fell back in 1905.❄
More fillbustering last night. 🍞 I decided to bake two loafs of bread, one with lots of herbs and spices and other with canned pumpkin, ginger and pumpkin spice and a bit of stevia for added sweetness. Both were baked this morning, after rising in the oven overnight. It’s funny, I think the mice have managed to chew a hole through the rotted oven insulation and firebox, but I have no evidence that they’ve made it up the oven walls to nibble on the rising bread overnight. The two loafs of bread were delicious when baked this morning.
I don’t know why I fear information so much. 📜 It doesn’t cost anything to watch Youtube videos or read library books about buying land and building a house. Maybe it’s not the option I ultimately want to do, but research will make me a more informed consumer if I’m not hiding from it. 🧭 I just got to be very careful about giving my information to sales people, or the harassing phone calls and emails were start, every day. 📞 At least the mortgage officers have abandoned me for now, as I’ve expressed no further interest since them running the credit checks and submitting the paperwork for pre-qualification and most of it for pre-approval.
Starting to learning about some of the downsides of modular construction 🛖 namely how it doesn’t necessarily increase in value, which is good for you when it comes to the taxman but not so much if you plan to sell it. The speed and simplicity of permitting is a big upside, but the downside is the quality of building materials can be less, though often modular buildings have better insulation and fewer air-leaks. Plus far less of a risk of theft of materials on site. But that got me thinking more about whether or not I want to stay in New York State and if I really want the long commute. 🚘️ It’s not like it’s that long before I’m eligible for early retirement at age 55 — 13 years, 10 months, 8 days. The winter of 2011 was further away then that. To build would tie me to New York beyond that date.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:03 pm with sun having an altitude of 47.8° from the due south horizon (-23° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 5.4 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:32 pm with the sun in the west (265°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (272°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:09 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 7:37 pm, which is one minute and 9 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the east-southeast (106°) at an altitude of 41° from the horizon, 250,980 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 8:11 pm. At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 30 degrees. The wind chill around sunset will be 17. ☃️ Breezy, 18 mph breeze ⛅ from the west-northwest with gusts up to 29mph. Tomorrow will have 12 hours and 19 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 55 seconds over today.
All I can say it’s a hell of a situation that I am in these days. ❤️🔥 Every dollar I spend today is one that takes away from tomorrow, it’s stealing from my future. The thing about it is I am still living in that dumpy apartment that I’ve had since graduating college, 16 1/2 years ago now, even though I have that swanky office and good salary, that I’ve worked hard to obtain. 13 years and 10 months and 8 days isn’t that long, and it’s a chance to advance my career more, save more money and increase my pension. Then at age 55, I am free to move to a place like the Ozarks of Missouri where I’m free to have whatever fires I want 🔥 and have lots of money for land and stock 🐮 and really build a nice off-grid house, without the somewhat large budgetary restrictions I have. If I have $250k to build now, I’ll probably have a $1 million to buy land and build then, which goes far father outside of New York or any metropolitan area. And then to keep busy, I can find a job shoveling shit 🧹or something along those lines for the health insurance.
Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌃, with a low of 19 degrees at 5am. Nine degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around February 22nd. Maximum wind chill around 19 at 6pm; Northwest wind 13 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Pretty damn cold. I am going to have to turn on the heat I am afraid. In 2023, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 34 degrees. The record low of 2 occurred back in 1875.
Nothing has happened with my neighbor’s garbage pile 🗑️ except some paper litter blowing along my door stop, but I haven’t been able to talk to him about it as he usually leaves before sunrise and doesn’t return until late into the night. I don’t care if he were just to get some trash cans, or stick in his car. At some point I would imagine the slumlord would notice. We should talk more but he works really long hours. I’m just up early, because I choose to go to bed early, 🛌 but he’s up early to work.
Right now, a split verdict on the weekend. 😕 Saturday, rain and snow, becoming all rain after 11am. High near 42. South wind 6 to 13 mph becoming northwest in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New precipitation amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 42. Typical average high for the weekend is 48 degrees.
As previously noted, next Thursday is Average High is 50 🌸 when the sun will be setting at 7:18 pm with dusk at 7:45 pm. On that day in 2023, we had mostly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 53 and 33 degrees. We hit a record high of 85 back in 1945.
Bulk Download NYS Election District Enrollments
For some of my projects, I need access to the full set of enrollments from the State Board of Elections. While you can download them one at a time, it sure is nice to have all of them for statewide coverage to easy processing. You can get them using Beautiful Soup.
import os
import requests
from urllib.parse import urljoin
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
yr = '12'
mon = 'nov'
ext = '.pdf' #.xlsx
url = "https://www.elections.ny.gov/20"+yr+"EnrollmentED.html"
#If there is no such folder, the script will create one automatically
folder_location = r''+mon+yr+'-Enrollment'
if not os.path.exists(folder_location):os.mkdir(folder_location)
response = requests.get(url, { 'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_4) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/83.0.4103197 Safari/537.36' })
soup= BeautifulSoup(response.text, "html.parser")
for link in soup.select("a[href$='"+mon+yr+ext+"']"):
#Name the pdf files using the last portion of each link which are unique in this case
filename = os.path.join(folder_location,link['href'].split('/')[-1])
with open(filename, 'wb') as f:
f.write(requests.get(urljoin(url,link['href'])).content)
What can you do with them? If you are looking at the numbers from 2018 and later, you can load them directly in PANDAS.
import glob as g
import pandas as pd
df = pd.concat((pd.read_excel(f, header=4) for f in g.glob('/home/andy/2021-Enrollment/*xlsx')))
df = df[(df['STATUS']=='Active')]
df.insert(1,'Municipality',df['ELECTION DIST'].str[:-7].str.title())
df.insert(2,'Ward',df['ELECTION DIST'].str[-6:-3])
df.insert(3,'ED', df['ELECTION DIST'].str[-3:])
df=df.dropna()
df=df.sort_values(by=['COUNTY','ELECTION DIST'])
df
| COUNTY | Municipality | Ward | ED | ELECTION DIST | STATUS | DEM | REP | CON | WOR | OTH | BLANK | TOTAL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Albany | Albany | 001 | 001 | ALBANY 001001 | Active | 74.0 | 9.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 16.0 | 99.0 |
| 5 | Albany | Albany | 001 | 002 | ALBANY 001002 | Active | 311.0 | 16.0 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 10.0 | 47.0 | 387.0 |
| 9 | Albany | Albany | 001 | 003 | ALBANY 001003 | Active | 472.0 | 26.0 | 5.0 | 1.0 | 27.0 | 121.0 | 652.0 |
| 13 | Albany | Albany | 001 | 004 | ALBANY 001004 | Active | 437.0 | 30.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 12.0 | 92.0 | 576.0 |
| 17 | Albany | Albany | 001 | 005 | ALBANY 001005 | Active | 13.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 13.0 |
| … | … | … | … | … | … | … | … | … | … | … | … | … | … |
| 53 | Yates | Milo | 000 | 006 | Milo 000006 | Active | 204.0 | 409.0 | 13.0 | 3.0 | 50.0 | 182.0 | 861.0 |
| 57 | Yates | Potter | 000 | 001 | Potter 000001 | Active | 144.0 | 460.0 | 25.0 | 1.0 | 51.0 | 226.0 | 907.0 |
| 61 | Yates | Starkey | 000 | 001 | Starkey 000001 | Active | 187.0 | 370.0 | 15.0 | 5.0 | 57.0 | 209.0 | 843.0 |
| 65 | Yates | Starkey | 000 | 002 | Starkey 000002 | Active | 189.0 | 433.0 | 18.0 | 4.0 | 46.0 | 201.0 | 891.0 |
| 69 | Yates | Torrey | 000 | 001 | Torrey 000001 | Active | 185.0 | 313.0 | 9.0 | 3.0 | 39.0 | 159.0 | 708.0 |
And then do all kinds of typical PANDAS processing. For example to categorize the counties into three pots — based on a comparison of the number of Democrats to Republicans, you could run this command:
tdf=df.groupby(by=['COUNTY']).sum()
pd.cut((tdf.div(tdf.iloc[:,:-1].sum(axis=1),axis=0)*100).sort_values(by='BLANK',ascending=False)['DEM'],3,labels=['Rep','Mix','Dem']).sort_values()
COUNTY Rensselaer Rep Genesee Rep Oswego Rep Livingston Rep Schuyler Rep Orleans Rep Seneca Rep Otsego Rep Warren Rep St.Lawrence Rep Cattaraugus Rep Chemung Rep Cayuga Rep Tioga Rep Yates Rep Broome Rep Franklin Rep Oneida Rep Fulton Rep Allegany Rep Essex Rep Niagara Rep Steuben Rep Herkimer Rep Lewis Rep Delaware Rep Wyoming Rep Chenango Rep Hamilton Rep Greene Rep Sullivan Rep Wayne Rep Jefferson Rep Ontario Rep Chautauqua Rep Putnam Rep Madison Rep Washington Rep Schoharie Rep Dutchess Rep Montgomery Rep Clinton Rep Orange Rep Cortland Rep Suffolk Rep Onondaga Rep Saratoga Rep Erie Mix Schenectady Mix Ulster Mix Rockland Mix Columbia Mix Monroe Mix Westchester Mix Richmond Mix Albany Mix Tompkins Mix Nassau Mix Queens Dem Bronx Dem New York Dem Kings Dem Name: DEM, dtype: category Categories (3, object): ['Rep' < 'Mix' < 'Dem']
If you are using the pre-2018 data, I suggest converting the PDF to text documents using the pdftotext -layout which is available on most Linux distributions as part of the poppler-utils package. This converts the PDF tables to text files, which you can process like this:
import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_csv('/home/andy/Desktop/AlbanyED_nov16.txt',
skiprows=3,
sep='\s{2,}',
engine='python',
error_bad_lines=False)
df=df[df['STATUS']=='Active']
df=df.dropna()
There are 2.1 Million Acres of State Forest in Pennsylvania.
There are 2.1 million acres of state forest in Pennsylvania, not including the Allegheny National Forest and various state parks. The largest state forest is Sproul State Forest, followed by Susquehannock State Forest and Elk State Forest.
| State Forest | Acres |
|---|---|
| Sproul | 305,442 |
| Susquehannock | 260,110 |
| Elk | 199,966 |
| Bald Eagle | 193,393 |
| Moshannon | 190,031 |
| Tioga | 161,890 |
| Tiadaghton | 146,538 |
| Loyalsock | 114,550 |
| Tuscarora | 96,025 |
| Rothrock | 95,975 |
| Michaux | 85,502 |
| Delaware | 83,020 |
| Buchanan | 69,672 |
| Forbes | 58,519 |
| Lackawanna | 29,603 |
| Weiser | 28,058 |
| Gallitzin | 24,370 |
| Clear Creek | 16,126 |
| Cornplanter | 1,491 |
| William Penn | 807 |
Not the nicest Hump Day around ever to kick off spring 🌧️
March rain and snow showers bring mud and a lower fire risk and hopefully some green though it will need to warm up a bit. But I’m sure 80 degree days aren’t far off. I am just hoping for nice weather come Easter weekend.
Good morning! What day is it? Hump Day, of course. Rain and snow showers around and 34 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a south breeze at 8 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 8 pm. ☃️
While I concede that I probably will get wet, I am going to ride my bike to work today. 🚲 I am nuts 🤪 but hardly that’s a secret – I figure I’m kind of the Charlie Luce of Data Services. You know the former CEO of ConEd who used to ride his bicycle to work and to construction 🚧 sites to view projects in the 1960s. I think the bigger danger is getting soaked at five o’clock 💦 though if it happens I’ll throw my bike on the bus 🚍 and come home and get changed. I like the exercise and saving the bus fare. 🎫
Today will have a slight chance of rain and snow showers before 11am, then a chance of rain showers after noon. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 47 degrees at 2pm. Typical for today. South wind 8 to 10 mph becoming west in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Little or no snow accumulation expected. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with sunny skies in the afternoon. The high last year was 52 degrees. The record high of 78 was set in 2012. 7.0 inches of snow fell back in 1944.❄
Last night I got home and was somewhat chilled through from the evening bike ride. 🌬️ It was windy to say the least. Microwaved a sweet potato, chopped it up and fried it with onions and corn. 🍳 Not a half bad dinner, I was fully engulfed in the Power Broker audio book. 🎧️ You know the classic one by Robert Caro on Robert Moses. The politics are intensely fascinating. 🏗️ I was going to read and watch some videos about building green homes, but somehow I was cold so I retired to under my electric blanket and was asleep shortly after 7 PM. I had planned to get up really early — maybe at 4 AM to do more reading, 📚️ but somehow I didn’t get up until some point between 5:30 and 5:45 AM which is late for me. I guess I needed a bit of extra sleep last night. 🛏️
Probably the reason why my sleep is so fucked up 💤 is because I drink like 2-3 large cups of coffee in the morning, ☕️ then I come into the office in and drink two more cups of iced black coffee. 🧊 It keeps me awake, but as my doctor noted last year, it’s kind of excessive to say the least. I should drink more water in the morning, and try to be more in moderation so I’m not pissing all of the time. 🥛 But also by the time I get home I’m just warn out after all those hours of studying data records. Plus I’m spending so much time thinking what my future home would look like, and all the steps to implement it. But what I need the most is a good night in the wilderness with a big fire. 🏕️ 🔥 I’m really hoping next week.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:04 pm with sun having an altitude of 47.5° from the due south horizon (-23.4° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 5.5 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:31 pm with the sun in the west (265°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (271°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:08 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 7:36 pm, which is one minute and 9 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon in the east-southeast (111°) at an altitude of 51° from the horizon, 249,398 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 8:09 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and snow 🌨 and temperatures around 35 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 15 mph. Tomorrow will have 12 hours and 16 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 54 seconds over today.
Tonight will have a slight chance of snow showers before 9pm, then a slight chance of snow showers after 5am. Mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly clear 🌧, with a low of 22 degrees at 4am. Six degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 4th. West wind around 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2023, we had clear skies in the evening, which became clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 24 degrees. The record low of -01 occurred back in 1956.
This weekend is a mixed bag but generally Saturday is wet and Sunday is sunny but cold again. 🌦️ Saturday, snow, possibly mixed with rain, becoming all rain after 8am. High near 42. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 42. Typical average high for the weekend is 48 degrees.
I am potentially thinking about driving down to Catskill Mountain Cabins in Kingston to learn more 🛖 though I almost want to do more research first as I know as soon as a salesperson gets my phone and email 📱 📧 I will be harassed to buy now. And I’m not sure if that option is right for me. Already since I’ve mentioned to people that I’m interested in building a small solar powered home, I get people sending me pictures of tiny homes and off grid cabins in the wilderness – both which aren’t practical or realistic options for the life I want to live. I want to have good information in my hands 👐 and do what’s right for me before buying 💰 but also I don’t want to delay forever.
As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until 8 PM Dusk 🌆 when the sun will be setting at 7:33 pm. On that day in 2023, we had sunny and temperatures between 67 and 30 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 57 degrees. We hit a record high of 86 back in 1922.
Got my Early Vote by Mail Ballot today
Signed up for it all elections automatically this year – AWESOME! I can fill it out whenever I want from the comfort and privacy of home, drop off at any polling site or post office box, postage paid.
Register to Receive an Early Voting Ballot Here: https://ballotapplication.elections.ny.gov/home/earlymail
Track Your Ballot Online (scroll to bottom of page): https://voterlookup.elections.ny.gov/
I believe Early Voting by mail will eventually all but replace traditional polling places. While some senior citizens might enjoy going to their traditional polling place on Election Day for the church ham suppers and bake good sales, most busy professionals and families are going to want the convenience of getting their ballot mailed to them. Don’t even need a stamp to return the ballot. Just stick in any post office depository or mail box or drop off at any early Voting or polling place in the county. And track your ballot online to see when it’s counted !
Snow showers around for the first sort of day for spring. 🌨
Spring starts at 11:50 pm in the evening not that it feels much like spring today. I’m sure it will be bitterly cold until it’s like 80 degrees out. Always happens that way.
Good morning! Snow flurries and 30 degrees in Delmar, NY. ❄ There is a northwest breeze at 13 mph. 🍃 with gusts up to 23 mph 💨💨💨. Not a constant wind but I hear it picking up at times. Things will start to thaw out at around 9 am. 🌡️
Going to be cold ride in this morning, but I still enjoy the ride. 🚲 It was cold riding home last night as I was doing the Zoom meeting for Save the Pine Bush 🌲down in the Noonan Preserve though it started to get dark and I had to head home. 🌆 Dinner last night was red kidney beans I cooked and mashed into essentially refried beans minus the frying in fat, on top of onion Johnny cakes. Not a half bad dinner. I was tired and cold to bed 🛏 shortly there after.
Today will have a slight chance of snow showers before 8am. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 42 degrees at 4pm. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 8th. Northwest wind around 14 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 33 degrees. The record high of 78 was set in 2012. 9.6 inches of snow fell back in 1971.❄
Yesterday I got my Early Voting by Mail Ballot 🗳 and I promptly filled it out and will toss in a post office box 📮on my way riding to work. Decided to vote for Dean Phillipson for President, not that it’s going to change anything but I figured why not. I will probably vote Green or Libertarian come November, I’m not super thrilled with either of the leading elderly candidates. I think Biden has done a lot of good things, but I can’t argue that in some ways Trump has personally been better for me with the tax cuts.
I’ve been having problems with root rot with some of my plants, 🥀 so I brought them home and repotted them with fresh soil. I am tough with plants. Doesn’t help though my office is bone try, due to being over a printing plant 🏭️ where they have to keep things dry to keep paper from sticking together.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:04 pm with sun having an altitude of 47.1° from the due south horizon (-23.8° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 5.6 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:30 pm with the sun in the west (264°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (271°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:07 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 53 seconds with dusk around 7:35 pm, which is one minute and 10 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon in the east-southeast (119°) at an altitude of 61° from the horizon, 247,292 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 8:08 pm. At sunset, look for snow flurries 🌨 and temperatures around 39 degrees. There will be a southwest breeze at 6 mph. Less windy by evening. Tomorrow will have 12 hours and 13 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 54 seconds over today.
I haven’t had a chance to talk to my neighbor about the garbage pile 🗑️ next to his unit as he got home from work after I was in bed. If see him out and about I’ll try to find out what’s going on. He doesn’t look like he’s packing up to move out and the transfer station was open Saturday and today so it’s kind of werid. I figure if anything the rats will be attracted to his unit. 🐀 The whole situation is kind of awkward and I don’t want to be the tattle tail but also not be dealing with problems.
Tonight will have a chance of snow showers, mainly after 9pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 31 degrees at 6am. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 30th. South wind 5 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2023, we had light snow in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 21 degrees. The record low of 2 occurred back in 1967.
Another kind of shit March weekend. 😕 Saturday, rain and snow likely before 2pm, then a chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 42. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 38. Typical average high for the weekend is 48 degrees. I’m hoping for nicer weather come the following weekend to head up north, although even with a forecast like that I’ll make it owrk.
Looking ahead, there are 3 weeks until 7:30 PM Sunset 🌇 with dusk at 7:59 pm. On that day in 2023, we had sunny and temperatures between 55 and 29 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 56 degrees. That should feel very spring like. 🌷 We hit a record high of 77 back in 1991.
