Day: September 10, 2022

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Not afraid to use Python 🐍

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Not afraid to use Python 🐍

I use R for a lot of projects as it has superior libraries for working with Census data, maps and spatial data. Tigris makes it easy to call and process all kinds of census lines.

But sometimes projects are best done in Python. I recently had a project where I needed run a regular expression to extract text from a PDF and put it in an excel file. Python was easy to do it in a few lines of code while I think it would have been harder to do in R.

I don’t really buy into all this doctoraire about you should use the same tool for every project. Use what makes sense, what you are best at, what executes quickly and produces the best results. 

Drawing A Line From McCarthyism To January 6th

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Drawing A Line From McCarthyism To January 6th 9/9/22

by WAMU 88.5

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/144923413

Episode: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/2106/635ef423-9de8-4d79-8862-5b4b6c9ee2f7/On_My_Mind_090822_SEG_A.mp3

David Corn is a veteran reporter at Mother Jones Magazine who has watched the evolution of politics in Washington for decades. In a new book he argues the extremism that led to January 6th goes back at least 70 years to Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his high profile hunt for alleged Communists inside the State Department, the White House, the Treasury, and even the US Army. Corn outlines a series of deliberate choices by the Republican Party between the 1950s and today that he says nurtured and exploited fear and loathing, and capitalized on misinformation and political paranoia until it became a central tenet of the party. He joins Diane on On My Mind to discuss “American Psychosis.”

The harvest moon is such an eerie orange color this year. 🌕

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Every year I get a bit creeped out by the dull skies and the bright orange moon that sometimes happens when smoke from the Western Wildfires drifts east.

The harvest moon is such an eerie orange color this year. 🌕

While all the activist types are pontificating about their electronic cars and solar panels, the planet continues to bake as more and more carbon becomes part of the atmosphere. Denialism is as popular on the left as on the right. We’re told we should be scared for the future but not today, yet it’s tossed around more and more just about virtue signaling and green consumerism and patronage then any real solution.

Myself I’m increasingly alarmed as I see where this is going. I wish I could find ways to be more resilient and protective of my own life by owning land and equipment to protect it. Because I’m not at all convinced government is going to protect us from climate change and waiting on government for a hand out after a disaster is a very risky proposition. Sometimes the politicians help but often they dodge responsibility with red tape.