My Favorite Features of QGIS 3.0…To Date — Bird’s Eye View GIS

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My Favorite Features of QGIS 3.0…To Date — Bird’s Eye View GIS

I wanted to upgrade to QGIS 3.0 but I am going to hold off as I am running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and they are not going to backport libraries to this soon to be obsolete version of software. Eventually I'll upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS when that comes out and also install QGIS 3.01 or whatever the bug fix version is at that point. I'm going to have to port over my pyqgis scripts that I use to make maps which is another consideration before I can get up and going with this next version of the software but I'm excited about some of the new features like easy label adjustments and more coloring options. QGIS is rapidly becoming a very professional grade of software. I should think seriously about donating to their cause.

Noticing How How My Energy Bills Are

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This past month, I was noticing how high my utility bills really were. 💡 I guess shouldn’t be that surprised, but I guess I didn’t realize I was paying nearly $100 a month for electricity and gas for my apartment. 💰 That seems like it’s a lot more then it was years ago, but honestly I’ve been using autopay, and not paying much attention. It’s been creeping up, despite all my efforts to save money.

I try to conserve power whenever possible, because I understand that my power mostly comes from the burning of fossil fuels. 🏭 Many years ago, I used to pay a renewable energy surcharge to ensure the energy I was using came from wind or hydro, but it looks like that surcharge has come and gone. With the high cost of power these days, I was thinking about discontinuing paying for it — but that’s now a moot point. Honestly, I am not sure how worthwhile paying that extra money really was — most of utility-scale renewable projects were going to get built at any rate. Eventually, my hope is be off-grid when I own land,🤠 so I won’t be burning that much fossil fuels for electricity, although I expect to be using fossil fuels for my truck and machinery, for the foreseeable future.

Conservation is my priority. ♻ I’ve never kept my heat above 50 degrees most of the year, although in exceptionally cold weather I’ll turn it up to 55 or 60. ♨ Without use of the electric radiator upstairs, it really never gets much above 55, which is fine because I kind of like it cold. I wear a sweater and climb under my sheets. 😳 I don’t own an air conditioner. I don’t have Internet or television at home, all my lights are energy efficient bulbs, although I admit the LED strip I built uses more energy then I would have liked. 💡 I do however tend to operate it at lower output levels, but the power supply I have is only about 85-90% efficient.

I do need to find ways to reduce my power usage, and try to get my bills down. Obviously in a few weeks I expect the thermostat to be turned to lowest setting, so the natural gas boiler won’t be running except for whatever waste in built in the system — a few therms because it’s impossible to turn completely off at my apartment. I’ll turn the hot-water heater breaker off anytime I expect to be gone more then a few days for camping. The refrigerator can’t be turned up much, otherwise it gets too warm in my experience. Most other things I try to leave unplugged and turned off when I’m not home. I don’t have Internet or Cable at home, so there is nothing along those lines getting used, and my big monitor and computer speakers 💻 for the most part is turned off except the rare times I’m actually using it.

What Makes Unix Special?

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What Makes Unix Special?

I've been using Linux for two decades now. It works great, and one thing I like about it is modular nature and backwards compatibility which means you can run things like the XCFE desktop manager that never changes. I think over the past decade XCFE has only seen a handful of updates and it's very fast on modern computers and uses very little memory.

March 19, 2018 Evening

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Good evening! Mostly sunny and 27 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a northwest breeze at 11 mph. 🍃 with gusts up to 21 mph 💨💨💨. While not a long wait for the bus, still not pleasant waiting outside. Things are pretty biterly cold for the end of winter. I guess out like a lion. Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow, the first day of spring around 1 pm.🌡

Today wasn’t a half bad day at work, I got out at a fairly reasonable hour. Sun was still up although it will have set before I get home. ⛄So ungodly cold outside with the wind it doesn’t really matter. Thinking about cooking up some fish, working on a few things on my laptop then retiring to bed fairly early. 💤 I’m glad that traffic is light and the bus is moving on time, although that’s not to be unexpected at this hour.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 13 degrees at 6am. 15 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around 21 at 6pm; Northwest wind 6 to 11 mph becoming light after midnight. In 2017, we had clear skies. It got down to 19 degrees. The record low of 2 occurred back in 1967. Not record breaking cold, but still pretty cold for mid-March. But I’m sure the nights will get nicer as we get closer to spring. Sunset really is still much too early to enjoy much time after work, especially if I’m thinking about going down to the park.

Tonight will have a Waxing Crescent Moon 🌒 with 8% illuminated with the moon setting at 9:29 pm. The moon will rise at 8:55 am. The First Quarter Moon is on Friday night with a chance of snow. The Blue Moon 🌝 is on Friday, March 30th. The sun will rise at 6:58 am with the first light at 6:30 am, which is one minute and 45 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 11 hours and 49 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 55 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞 , with a high of 36 degrees at 3pm. 10 degrees below normal. North wind 3 to 8 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 49 degrees. The record high of 78 was set in 2012. 7 inches of snow fell back in 1944.❄ As we head into spring time, exceptionally big snow fall records become less common.

Right now Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 40. Sunday, a chance of rain and snow. Partly sunny, with a high near 39. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Typical average high for the weekend is 48 degrees. Won’t be quite as cold as last weekend but hardly spring like. ⛺With so much snow on the ground I may wait a while to go camping but I might fix the ground on my truck cap this weekend and continue to work on unpacking my truck cap.

In many ways, this has been a really tiresome winter❄. I’m really not sure how many more winters I afford to stay up north but I don’t know with climate change many years if not this year, winters are not as bad as they once were. I am so ready for spring time. 🌼

In four weeks on April 16 the sun will be setting at 7:39 pm,🌄 which is 32 minutes later then today. In 2017 on that day, we had rain, mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 87 and 56 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 59 and 38 degrees. The record high of 91 degrees was set back in 2012.

Looking ahead, Memorial Day 🇺🇸 is in 10 weeks, Labor Day 👨‍🏭 is in 24 weeks, Consitution Day 👨‍🏭 is in 26 weeks, Columbus Day 🛥 is in 29 weeks, Veterans Day Observed (Monday) 🇺🇸 is in 34 weeks, Cyber Monday 🛍 is in 36 weeks and New Years Eve 🎆 is in 41 weeks.

🇺🇸🦅Only 66 days remain until the start of Memorial Day Weekend!🦅🇺🇸