- Articles

Imposter scrolling on LinkedIn

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Subdomains with GitHub Pages

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Hey, it’s possible to use subdomains with GitHub Pages.

Read and ride 🚲

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

After nearly 9 years at Mapbox, I decided to step away from my role as technical lead on the Maps API team to seek out a new challenge. I’m excited to join Read AI as a senior engineer on the backend team!

Node.js on Windows

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not much of a Windows user, but recently I needed to make a change to one of my personal GitHub repositories without access to my personal or work computers (both Macbook Pros). Instead I used my gaming computer and figured I’d give Windows PowerShell a try.

Native SQLite in Node.js v22.5.0

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Node.js v22.5.0 introduces an experimental native sqlite module as part of the core language. Until now, sqlite access in Javascript has largely been by way of the node-sqlite3 and better-sqlite3 modules. These libraries both rely on prebuilt native C++ binaries to ship alongside the NPM package, which can introduce some issues across different architectures and Node versions especially if there are no binaries available and users must compile from source.

Building a wedding website

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

First and foremost, I’m very excited to be married. Second, I have a fundamental aversion to the wedding industry and the wedding industrial complex due to the profiteering and gouging that comes with planning an hours-long party. Because of this, I’ve been living two parallel truths while planning our wedding:

Re-using an old grey fence

Mon, 15 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In 2020 I replaced a portion of our fence with new cedar planks. The former fence was cedar, but very weathered. It still stood, but didn’t prevent Jasper (dog) from jumping over. Practically, we needed to go higher. I still didn’t like that we had to remove a bunch of wood that was still technically doing its job. I decided to keep all of the scrap around for future projects…

Imagery - Big Island, HI

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I was in Hilo, HI recently and took a helicopter tour of Kilauea, the youngest and southeastern most volcano of the Island of Hawai’i.

Earth & Three.js

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Just a small experiment with three.js and a globe. Learned a lot from this blog post.

Environments with Next.js and Vercel

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I learned about Vercel + Next.js when building Beepboop, a small journal app. This was a small foray into building apps with React’s latest “hook” architecture. Deploying react apps was relatively new to me, as a backend engineer. I found Next.js and Vercel to fit pretty seamlessly into my preferred workflow:

Why is it named ... ?

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Why is it named Bash?

Tears We Cannot Stop - reading list

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Collection of books recommended by Michael Eric Dyson in his book, “Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America”. Here’s a New York Times book review.

Sending emails with Node.js, Gmail, and IFTTT

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I recently had to set up an email confirmation system for the Atlas of Design in preparation for the next call for participation. The submissions platform is written in Node.js using Express and uses AWS for the data storage and map uploads. The last bit of the puzzle was just a simple email to send folks after they submitted their map. This proved a bit harder than anticipated.

Perspectives in the apocalypse

Fri, 28 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

An ongoing series of perspectives in an undefined apocalypse. This is my attempt to write regularly without worrying about the consequences.

Making things out of wood

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I’ve been exploring wood working in my spare time. Not the kind where I find the nicest cut of Old Oak or make the perfect lap joint, more the kind where I try to make 2x4’s look good, which has been a remarkably enjoyable challenge.

Creating an RSS JSON API - a Google Feed API alternative

Wed, 11 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Last month (December 2016) the Google Feed API was discontinued. The CUGOS website (cugos.org) used the Google Feed API to list out the recent posts in our Google Group, which has a less-than-stellar user interface. The JavaScript console on cugos.org looked like this:

Object.assign()

Wed, 28 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I came across the JavaScript Object.assign() method recently, which is used to copy properties from one or more objects into a new or target object. Here’s how it’s used:

Making maps in 2016

Fri, 16 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Making a book - The Atlas of Design

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been an assitant editor and editor for the Atlas of Design for nearly 4 years. I was extremely lucky to have piggy-backed on the work of Daniel Huffman and Tim Wallace for Volume 1. The foundation they laid set a bar higher than most expected. They gathered the interest, had a budget approved, and sold 1600 books over the course of two years.

A breathing forest

Thu, 18 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Sketching and vectorizing

Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Edit: Adobe Shape CC is now part of Adobe Capture CC

Developing with NPM & GitHub branches

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Much of my recent work at Mapbox has been around developing and testing node modules lay the groundwork of our vector tile pipeline. All of our node modules that we use across tools, such as tilelive, are published to NPM, which means we release semantically versioned updates.

First month at Mapbox

Thu, 25 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year I began working at Mapbox! My first month on the job has revolved around ensuring geographic data is reliably created, stored, and shared. A ton of Mapbox’s tools and products rely on Mapnik, which refers to itself as an open source toolkit for developing mapping applications. Mapnik does a lot, but lately we’ve been pushing really hard on ensuring all of the vector tiles it produces are compliant with the Mapbox Vector Tile Specification.

Writing a node module

Mon, 21 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE 2021-12-07: This post was written when I was learning about Node.js and NPM for the very first time. It’s not wrong but it’s definitely not representative of the modern Node.js development environment. I’m leaving the post here, as is, for posterity. Enjoy!

Geocoding in the terminal with Mapbox

Sun, 20 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

In need of geocoding a number of addresses in a CSV file for some mapping work, I created a module mbgeocode that ingests a CSV and outputs a GeoJSON file of all successfull addresses geocoded. This project relies on the Mapbox geocoding API, which allows for requests sent via HTTPS and returns geocoded information in the form of a Carmen GeoJSON.

Richmond is for adventures.

Mon, 10 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

These aren't the maps you're looking for.

Sat, 13 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I attended my first State of the Map US (SOTM), an annual conference for those within or interested in OpenStreetMap (OSM). The conference was held in New York City at the UN headquarters, which was a most excellent venue. Not having been to an OSM-specific conference before, I was interested to see how it stacked up to the other, more general mapping conferences such as FOSS4G. I expected something smaller and more focused, relating purely to OSM and it’s triumphs and failures thus far.

Concerning users: your neighbor's birthday was last week.

Fri, 29 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past month I’ve been working on an application at Code for America and the city of Richmond, VA that aims to allow health clinics to share patient eligibility information with other health-related services (more about the screening process). Put simply, the goal is to remove redundancy in the referral process for patients and screeners.

Known.

Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A crashing ocean appears in front of me. Treacherously beautiful and unsettlingly inviting. Behind me lies a forest enveloped in a warm evening sun. The comfort of the known. Predictability and assurance of peace and rest. Looking forward presents the very absence of rest and an uncontrollable disobedience of the unknown.

Code for Burritos. And America.

Sat, 17 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The new year has come with myriad changes. Having moved to the Bay Area recently for my year-long fellowship with Code for America I’ve found myself in a very new place professionaly and mentally. The one thing that has me incredibly jazzed about this year, though, is the community of people around me that have taken the plunge into civic technology.

D3 Background Hash Patterns

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

D3 is one of my favorite mapping tools, largely because it makes me still feel like a cartographer in a land where markers and map tiles reign supreme (though you can find beautiful cartography in map tiles as well!). It reminds me of creating static maps in Illustrator and having control over the exact styles visible to the viewer. One important style to work with in any cartographic product is the concept of styling no data - or, the absense of data from the map, which can be just as important as the data itself (or themselves).

Animating Page Scroll with Anchor Hash

Fri, 17 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

When using in-page anchor links, you typically create the a tag with the id hash of the element you want to scroll to - <a href=”#your-element”>. The default functionality is to jump the page to that anchor point instantly, without any animation. This can be somewhat confusing for a user, especially if you want your site to be notably vertical and in a specific order.

Drawing SVG Paths

Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

SVG is versatile and scalable. Let’s animate it.

Responsive YouTube Embeds

Wed, 23 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The responsive nature of the modern web is making content integration tricky - especially in the age of video. Working with Youtube videos typically involves <iframe> embeds, which don’t give you a ton of freedom due to Cross Origin Issues unless you use the Youtube API. The API can be a bit cumbersome for a simple, single video though.

Retrieve site URL via JS

Wed, 16 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Working with multi-sites can be tricky, especially when you have specific scripts running that require specific information based on the differing site domains. I typically run into this issue when I need to grab, for instance, an instagram feed for a specific restaurant, but another feed for another restaurant and both are using the same javascript file. The following script can be used for any number of reasons, but my favorites are:

Transparent Borders

Mon, 30 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a teeny, awesome little design touch I’ve been into lately. It fakes out a border with the CSS box-shadow class but removes the spread and uses rgba().

WordPress Helpers

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The following are scripts and settings that I typically use when working in WordPress. They are here for me to reuse, but please feel free to use yourself!

CSS :first-letter

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I stumbled upon an article the other day that caught my eye. In particular - the usage of a CSS technique I had never seen before… ::first-letter.

Creating GeoJSON in client-side JS

Tue, 27 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Often times I find myself with spatial data in non-spatial formats. Equally as often, those data cannot be permanently changed into a spatial format since they are being continually updated in their original format by someone else. Rendering spatial data requires GeoJSON. GeoJSON is derived from JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) and adds a spatial key/value pair into the mix. The data type has a required format, which can be found at geojson.org and seen below:

Design is a process

Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Cartography: Path or Profession?

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I recently had a conversation with Sam Pepple (@drsvalbard) about cartography and its place as a profession and a practice. It was a quick and spontaneous chat but it made me think about cartography as a study. When I began cartography courses in school, I assumed I was learning how to become a cartographer. How to make maps and take that skill into the professional world as a map maker.

A Collaborative Cartographic Age

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I recently attended the annual conference for the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) down in Portland, Oregon. NACIS is a geographic community focused on the creation of maps, their beauty, and their influence on the greater informed world. The three days of meetings and discussion led to some high-quality, genuine connections that humbled my existence as a cartographer and curator of digital information.

The Cartographer's Dilema

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I was in an interview yesterday where I found myself answering questions about my resume. I’ve never had someone examine it so closely yet ask so many substantial questions. It was a good thing I knew what was on there and wasn’t lying about what I’ve done, otherwise I would have looked-a-cheat. The interviewer pointed out one thing that has stuck with me since: “Your objective on your resume is quite vague” - I quickly thought to myself about how absolutely correct he was, and how much that didn’t make sense considering people point out basically exactly what they want in a career in their “Objective” section. That’s why it’s an objective.