Good Morning – February 20, 2022

Good morning! Happy Sunday. ⛪

A cold start to the morning, but it should warm up relatively quickly once the sun climbs a bit higher in the horizon. Next few days aren’t going to be real cold, which is nicer for a change.

Mostly sunny and 11 degrees in Delmar, NY. 😎 Calm wind. There is a inch of snow on the ground. ☃ ️Things will start to thaw out at around 2 pm. 🌡️

For all this talk last night about strong winds and cold temperatures, 🌬 I didn’t think yesterday was exceptionally cold. There was that snow squall that came through, but it was very brief and locally not very intense, despite all the warnings of the weatherman. At times I feel like the weatherman is overally dramatic, just because they want to error on the side of caution with all their emergency alerts, etc. Maybe other places had different weather.

Yesterday, I was kind of chilled through, 😰 so I ended up sitting next to the space heater and on the heating pad. Did a lot of watching videos on cartography and map making, and specifically how to make and edits SVG images. GIS software and R produce maps that often quite good but not perfect or publication quality. 👨‍💻 The problem with automated processes is they are automated, and computers aren’t always great at finding what is visually appropriate. Labeling still remains a problem in GIS programs — QGIS has gotten a lot better but it isn’t perfect out of the box. 🏷

I am struggling a bit to master Inkscape for editing the SVG images. 🔼 Drawing brezier curves and more generally manipulating the various layers. I am sure that once you master it and learn all the clicks and shortcuts, this comes like second nature but for now I’m struggling. One of the keys though seems to be making sure when exporting from QGIS to always use the Group Layers check box and export Text as Text, rather then paths. Then it’s just a matter of turning on individual layers on and off in Inkscape. While you can get 95% of the way with GIS or R mapping, 🗺 a computer can’t see problems that a human can. 👀

I am not totally sure about my plans for today. 💭 I might just walk out to Five Rivers. That certainly is an option. Or I might decide to head out of town for an overnight. ⛽ The thing is that gasoline is so expensive, and it can be hard to find places to park and camp with the cold weather. 🏕 It’s not like spring is that far away at this point — three weeks until the time change, seven weekends until April. Plus the month of March always goes by quickly with so much going on for work. ⏲