osgav.run on osgav

EPNM: access spurs

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 16:14:46 +0000

I’ve started working on my Edinburgh Paths Network Map again. The last thing I did was update the extent of the line layer that represents the paths themselves. The next thing I’m going to do is split out the access spurs (the little entrance / exit bits) into their own layer.

Initially the paths line layer contained only 88 features. Then I went wild and extended it much further than I’ve explored in real life which came to 830 features. Then I reigned it back in a bit and currently it contains 239 features. This is a better starting point. It’s the amount of path network I would show to someone visiting Edinburgh who wants to go for a nice walk somewhere. Thus I’m calling it the primary path network. This leaves room for expanding it later with another layer perhaps, likely called secondary path network or something.

So it’s back to QGIS to split my primary paths network layer into two. A bunch of zooming in and out and panning and selecting later… now I have 153 features in the primary path network and a new access spurs layer with 86 features.

Tip: hold Ctrl while zooming in and out and QGIS will zoom in and out slower. Conveniently you can also use Ctrl + Click to select features, rather than using Shift + Click, so you don’t have to hop between the two keys.

The new access spurs layer is a bit rough. I appear to have missed a few tiny path segments here and there (usually stairs it seems). Fixing those later will be a good exercise in updating one of my line layers with fresh data extracts from QuickOSM. It’d also be useful to combine some segments together into a single feature I think. That way a specific access spur can be selected and treated as a whole. But then I’d lose the possibility of showing certain information. Like whether a chunk of stairs in the middle of an access spur has a handrail or not, for example. Hmmm. Not a decision for today though, just a thought.

Ok next up is updating the web map with the spur-less primary path network and adding the new access spurs layer. Added the new GeoJSON files. That was sufficient to trim all the spurs off the current map. Now to put the spurs back on the map, but this time in their own separate layer that I can style separately. Ok done. Now to style them differently and only show them once you’ve zoomed in closer. Done and done.

Jolly good. I have a whole raft of ideas for things I’d like to try with this map but I’m not sure what I want to do next. I’ll probably revisit the green circles currently marking “access points” first and clean them up a bit while I consider the next thing.

Edinburgh Paths Network Map

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 16:15:58 +0000

A web map detailing a network of footpaths which highlights the entry and exit points.

3000 days!

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 08:43:57 +0000

My website is 3000 days old today ¹. Wahey!

I only know that because of the “osgav epoch” thing I added to my blog post archive page a few years ago ². In a more normal way of counting, it is the fairly insignificant age of 8 years and 2 months and 18 days old. But that’s boring. 3000 days is much more fun.

I had a vague recollection of what inspired this osgav epoch thing so I’ve just gone and dug up the source of that: https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/arvelie.html ³

Arvelie is definitely more obscure than counting up from zero. I like the result though. I remember wondering what the codes were the first time I browsed that website, and then eventually finding an explanation for them. Clearly I was very taken by it and came up with a simple imitation, which I have grown very fond of. Maybe I’ll try and add Arvelie to osgav.run some day? Maybe not? If I do, one thing is for sure though: the osgav epoch will be right there next to it.

Anyway, here’s to the next +1000! By which time osgav.run will be… well it’ll be osgav epoch 4000 of course.

weeknotes 110: toy plugin

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 15:12:34 +0000

my brother’s flat hunt is thoroughly complete now as i helped him move into his new place last week! he was indeed pleased with it, which pleased me, and the rest of the family too. crisis averted, phew!
i finished the PyQGISChallenge! mostly! i’m about half way through putting together a toy plugin as the mini project for the last couple of days. i’ll post about that specifically once its done.
and i sorted the last bit of OS upgrade aftermath, which was sorting out my geolab database again. this involved an excursion into the land of containers, which i haven’t visited for a while, to extract my postgres 13 database for loading into my new postgres 15 database. now everything is pretty much as it was a few weeks ago. jolly good!

weeknotes 109: gamification

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 20:44:46 +0000

io sono Gavin
following some encouragement i started learning Italian on Duolingo – just to pick up a few phrases and words ahead of going to Italy for a holiday soon. having fun with that so far, well done Duolingo gamification
visited a flea market and picked up a few old American road maps. one of them has a really nice legend. i like it a lot. see below.
the acquisition of yet more random old maps has spurred the creation of a new spreadsheet, as i’ve been meaning to start cataloguing my growing collection. i hope to have a page on my website for it some day, so having a spreadsheet in addition to a vague plan feels like a good step forward.

weeknotes 108: mostly terrible

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 20:12:13 +0000

thoroughly enjoyed the lack of flat viewings this week
also continuing to enjoy the PyQGISChallenge
upgraded Fedora Linux on my laptop (finally! i’ve been slightly out of date for slightly too long)
working through the OS upgrade aftermath, things are very nearly all operational again
visited the zoo for the first time in i don’t know how many years, was a jolly good afternoon. the trip was pretty much on a whim after discovering there were a bunch of LEGO® models there for only a few more days. had fun guessing the brick counts as we approached them. my guesses were mostly terrible.

4 builders, 180 hours, 49322 bricks

weeknotes 107: you're a woman, i'm a machine

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 20:16:23 +0000

the flat hunt is complete! woohoo! next stop, moving day
so very glad the flat viewings will cease. there were fun days, but also tiring days. i’m really happy with the flat my brother will be moving into, it will suit him down to the ground
saw Death From Above 1979 in Glasgow last week and it was damn good – the 20 year anniversary of You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine so they just played the album start to finish, and then some new tunes i’m less familiar with afterwards
had some dinner at Buck’s Bar before the gig and was defeated, in the sense i had to use a knife and fork to consume the burger, i felt shame, very tasty though
started the PyQGISChallenge from Spatial Thoughts – the same idea as 30DaysOfQGIS in May, but this time going through the PyQGIS course materials

weeknotes 106: bookshops

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 09:36:09 +0000

added my phone to my Tailscale network so i can test web maps on mobile more effectively – this was spurred by noticing 100vh as a height unit in my CSS didn’t behave as expected on mobile vs Responsive Design Mode in my web browser (it turns out 100dvh is what i was after)
did a little more work on my new Edinburgh Bookshops web map and uploaded it to osgav.run (that link might break in the future… if it has you can probably find the map via my portfolio)
started tinkering with customizing the protomaps basemap
continued helping my brother with his flat hunt

weeknotes 105: sporty spice

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 09:28:22 +0000

flat viewings will continue until moral improves.
i started playing around with a new side project – a friend was in town and they have plans to visit all the bookshops, take photos of them, and make a collage. so naturally i found an excuse to introduce a map element, and started a new web map. we didn’t get a chance to try it out properly though. next time!

weeknotes 104: buzzer puzzle

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 15:50:47 +0000

where was i again? ah yes. taking a raspberry pi project off the backburner and contemplating new projects as always. for the last few weeks i’ve been largely consumed by helping my brother with an unexpected flat hunt. it may or may not be nearing the end, next week should decide that. i am hopeful. i have viewed many flats and completed many buzzer puzzles (i should have taken a picture of the most cryptic one, alas i did not). i don’t relish the thought of more flat viewings but if needs must then flats i will view.

the space for my new raspberry pi has been prepared, but the raspberry pi is yet to move in. it will be a new neighbour for my raspberry pi that supplies power to my RIPE Atlas Probe. i’m sure they’ll get on great. more to come on the new raspberry pi soon, hopefully.

weeknotes 101: plotting projects

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 10:50:16 +0000

finished up 30DaysOfQGIS! it was a lot of fun. 10/10 recommend for people interested in QGIS. i’m now plotting projects where i can play around with the Model Designer some more.
made some progress on a RPi-based homelab project i’ve had on the backburner for ages, by way of acquiring an RPi4 and beginning to prepare the space in which it will live
played around with scrapy a little bit
collected my recent geolab-related pages into a portfolio page

PostGIS Geodatabase

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 14:07:27 +0000

user manual / cheatsheet: geolab PostGIS Server Manual

weeknotes 100: housekeeping

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 10:33:24 +0000

weeknotes 100!
its just shy of 2 years since i started (occasionally) writing weeknotes
and 40 weeks since i changed my weeknotes naming convention
as per last week i was loading some datasets into my new geolab database. this effort led to doing some housekeeping of my GIS folder on my filesystem. i might write about that separately later.
i played around with some temporal data in QGIS for the first time, making a couple of animations (per 30DaysOfQGIS)

dataset: Supermarket Retail Points

Thu, 30 May 2024 13:23:49 +0000

created: 30/05/2024
updated: 30/05/2024

dataset source #

source:

https://geolytix.com/blog/supermarket-retail-points/

Retail Points is a comprehensive data set of supermarket and convenience store locations across the UK. Geolytix release this as open data allowing for unrestricted use, no licensing requirements and without cost.

loading into geolab #

connect to geolab database:

psql -h localhost -U geolab -d geolab -W

create source schema:

CREATE SCHEMA __geolytix AUTHORIZATION geolab;

create table:

CREATE TABLE __geolytix.supermarket_retail_points_import
(
id numeric PRIMARY KEY,
retailer varchar(36),
fascia varchar(29),
store_name varchar(60),
add_one varchar(76),
add_two varchar(34),
town varchar(41),
suburb varchar(28),
postcode varchar(8),
long_wgs numeric,
lat_wgs numeric,
bng_e numeric,
bng_n numeric,
pqi varchar(28),
open_date varchar(8),
size_band varchar(38),
county varchar(24)
);

load data into geolab source schema:

\copy __geolytix.supermarket_retail_points_import FROM 'geolytix_retailpoints_v31_202403.csv' WITH (FORMAT csv, HEADER True, QUOTE '"')

create topic schema:

CREATE SCHEMA supermarkets AUTHORIZATION geolab;

create view:

N.B. using a view is slower than a table because the geometry is constructed every time the view is queried.

CREATE VIEW supermarkets.all
 AS
SELECT
  id,
  retailer,
  fascia,
  store_name,
  add_one,
  add_two,
  town,
  suburb,
  postcode,
  long_wgs,
  lat_wgs,
  bng_e,
  bng_n,
  pqi,
  open_date,
  size_band,
  county,
  ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(long_wgs,lat_wgs),4326) AS geom
FROM __geolytix.supermarket_retail_points_import
;

dataset: OS AddressBase

Thu, 30 May 2024 10:24:23 +0000

created: 30/05/2024
updated: 30/05/2024

dataset source #

source:

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/products/addressbase

AddressBase matches 29 million Royal Mail postal address to unique property reference numbers (UPRN), bringing a new dimension to the matched records.

loading into geolab #

connect to geolab database:

psql -h localhost -U geolab -d geolab -W

create source schema:

CREATE SCHEMA __ordnance_survey AUTHORIZATION geolab;

convert field names from addressbase-header.csv to lowercase:

$ cat addressbase-header.csv | sed s'/,/\n/g' | python -c "import sys; [print(line.strip().lower()) for line in sys.stdin.readlines()]"
uprn
os_address_toid
udprn
organisation_name
department_name
po_box_number
sub_building_name
building_name
building_number
dependent_thoroughfare
thoroughfare
post_town
double_dependent_locality
dependent_locality
postcode
postcode_type
x_coordinate
y_coordinate
latitude
longitude
rpc
country
change_type
la_start_date
rm_start_date
last_update_date
class

create table:

CREATE TABLE __ordnance_survey.addressbase_sample_import
(
uprn numeric PRIMARY KEY,
os_address_toid varchar(20),
udprn numeric,
organisation_name varchar(55),
department_name varchar(40),
po_box_number varchar(4),
sub_building_name varchar(25),
building_name varchar(40),
building_number numeric,
dependent_thoroughfare varchar(30),
thoroughfare varchar(30),
post_town varchar(10),
double_dependent_locality varchar(25),
dependent_locality varchar(30),
postcode varchar(7),
postcode_type varchar(1),
x_coordinate numeric,
y_coordinate numeric,
latitude numeric,
longitude numeric,
rpc numeric,
country varchar(1),
change_type varchar(1),
la_start_date varchar(10),
rm_start_date varchar(10),
last_update_date varchar(10),
class varchar(1)
);

stick field names on the data:

$ cat addressbase-header.csv sx9090.csv > addressbase.csv

load data into geolab source schema:

\copy __ordnance_survey.addressbase_sample_import FROM addressbase.csv WITH (FORMAT csv, HEADER True, QUOTE '"')

create topic schema:

CREATE SCHEMA addressbase AUTHORIZATION geolab;

create view:

N.B. using a view is slower than a table because the geometry is constructed every time the view is queried.

CREATE VIEW addressbase.sample
 AS
SELECT
  uprn,
  os_address_toid,
  udprn,
  organisation_name,
  department_name,
  po_box_number,
  sub_building_name,
  building_name,
  building_number,
  dependent_thoroughfare,
  thoroughfare,
  post_town,
  double_dependent_locality,
  dependent_locality,
  postcode,
  postcode_type,
  x_coordinate,
  y_coordinate,
  latitude,
  longitude,
  rpc,
  country,
  change_type,
  la_start_date,
  rm_start_date,
  last_update_date,
  class,
  ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(longitude,latitude),4326) AS geom
FROM __ordnance_survey.addressbase_sample_import
;

weeknotes 99: penguin photos

Wed, 29 May 2024 19:18:06 +0000

finished up my geolab database bootstrap scripts
started loading some datasets into geolab
did some more 30DaysOfQGIS
started reading https://brr.fyi per a recommendation from a friend – a blog from someone deployed to Antarctica to do IT stuff. the blogger has “always been a fan of remote infrastructure, logistics, and energy systems” so rather than a steady supply of penguin photos the About page informs me i’m more likely to get a steady supply of “tedious posts about infrastructure” – sounds good to me!
decided to investigate scrapy in relation to the web scraper i mentioned in data pipeline plans

dataset: Global Powerplants

Tue, 28 May 2024 14:55:03 +0000

created: 28/05/2024
updated: 28/05/2024

dataset source #

source:

via: Simon Willison / https://global-power-plants.datasettes.com/

from the WRI page:

The Global Power Plant Database is a comprehensive, open source database of power plants around the world. It centralizes power plant data to make it easier to navigate, compare and draw insights for one’s own analysis. The database covers approximately 30,000 power plants from 164 countries and includes thermal plants (e.g. coal, gas, oil, nuclear, biomass, waste, geothermal) and renewables (e.g. hydro, wind, solar). Each power plant is geolocated and entries contain information on plant capacity, generation, ownership, and fuel type. It will be continuously updated as data becomes available.

from https://github.com/wri/global-power-plant-database (the code used to create it):

This project is not currently maintained by WRI. There are no planned updates as of this time (early 2022). The last version of this database is version 1.3.0. If we learn of active forks or maintained versions of the code and database we will attempt to provide links in the future.

loading into geolab #

connect to geolab database:

psql -h localhost -U geolab -d geolab -W

create source schema:

CREATE SCHEMA __world_resources_institute AUTHORIZATION geolab;

create table:

N.B. note the rowid field. this is present in an export from Simon’s datasette, but it will not be present in the download from WRI.

CREATE TABLE __world_resources_institute.global_powerplants_import
(
rowid numeric PRIMARY KEY,
country varchar(3),
country_long varchar(32),
name varchar(87),
gppd_idnr varchar(12),
capacity_mw numeric,
latitude numeric,
longitude numeric,
primary_fuel varchar(14),
other_fuel1 varchar(12),
other_fuel2 varchar(7),
other_fuel3 varchar(7),
commissioning_year numeric,
owner varchar(140),
source varchar(73),
url varchar(795),
geolocation_source varchar(83),
wepp_id varchar(25),
year_of_capacity_data numeric,
generation_gwh_2013 numeric, 
generation_gwh_2014 numeric, 
generation_gwh_2015 numeric, 
generation_gwh_2016 numeric, 
generation_gwh_2017 numeric, 
generation_gwh_2018 numeric, 
generation_gwh_2019 numeric, 
generation_data_source varchar(73), 
estimated_generation_gwh_2013 numeric, 
estimated_generation_gwh_2014 numeric, 
estimated_generation_gwh_2015 numeric, 
estimated_generation_gwh_2016 numeric, 
estimated_generation_gwh_2017 numeric, 
estimated_generation_note_2013 varchar(15),
estimated_generation_note_2014 varchar(15), 
estimated_generation_note_2015 varchar(15), 
estimated_generation_note_2016 varchar(15),
estimated_generation_note_2017 varchar(18)
);

load data into geolab source schema:

\copy __world_resources_institute.global_powerplants_import FROM 'global-power-plants.csv' WITH (FORMAT csv, HEADER True, QUOTE '"')

create topic schema:

CREATE SCHEMA powerplants AUTHORIZATION geolab;

create view:

N.B. using a view is slower than a table because the geometry is constructed every time the view is queried.

CREATE VIEW powerplants.global
 AS
SELECT 
  rowid,
  country,
  country_long,
  name,
  gppd_idnr,
  capacity_mw,
  latitude,
  longitude,
  primary_fuel,
  other_fuel1,
  other_fuel2,
  other_fuel3,
  commissioning_year,
  owner,
  source,
  url,
  geolocation_source,
  wepp_id,
  year_of_capacity_data,
  generation_gwh_2013,
  generation_gwh_2014,
  generation_gwh_2015,
  generation_gwh_2016,
  generation_gwh_2017,
  generation_gwh_2018,
  generation_gwh_2019,
  generation_data_source,
  estimated_generation_gwh_2013,
  estimated_generation_gwh_2014,
  estimated_generation_gwh_2015,
  estimated_generation_gwh_2016,
  estimated_generation_gwh_2017,
  estimated_generation_note_2013,
  estimated_generation_note_2014,
  estimated_generation_note_2015,
  estimated_generation_note_2016,
  estimated_generation_note_2017,
  ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint(longitude,latitude),4326) AS geom
FROM __world_resources_institute.global_powerplants_import
;

weeknotes 98: notes

Thu, 23 May 2024 14:34:59 +0000

created a new “notes” section on my website. i don’t know exactly how i intend to use it yet, i just know i’ve occasionally wanted to refer to one of my obsidian notes in a blog post. but i don’t want to create a separate blog post for the note to do that, and my “lab” section doesn’t feel like the right place either (its kinda more for technical stuff). i guess the gist of it is i’ll slowly turn some private notes into public notes.
made some plans for a series of projects and blogged about it: data pipeline plans
worked on my geolab database bootstrap scripts, per my data pipeline plans.
played around with Model Builder in QGIS for the first time (via 30DaysOfQGIS). i like it.

data pipeline plans

Sun, 19 May 2024 19:48:04 +0000

I’ve been tinkering with a couple of things and toying with another couple of ideas that when all combined form what I would call a data pipeline. I quite like the idea of building this data pipeline so I’ve decided that I shall do just that.

The things I’ve been working on already are a web scraper and a database. The other ideas I’ve been keen to explore are a data portal and an orchestrator. In reverse order the specific technologies are:

For the web scraper I’m going to revisit and rewrite the thoroughly unstructured and messy python scripts I wrote for my UK Freight Transport System map data. For the database I’m going to continue working on my geolab personal PostGIS server. The CKAN data portal is presently the least explored area, but I like what I see, and look forward to learning more about it. Lastly is Apache Airflow, which will literally tie all the other components together, in theory. As in, it could run the scraper on a schedule, transform its results and stick them in PostGIS, then something something prepare an export suitable for sharing via CKAN? We shall see.

empty note

Fri, 17 May 2024 13:13:13 +0000

an empty note.

weeknotes 97: what weeknotes is it?

Thu, 16 May 2024 15:04:50 +0000

i haven’t wrote a weeknotes post for months, so i wrote the script i knew i’d inevitably write to tell me what week number i should use, as per my new naming convention described in weeknotes 60
i’ve started following along with 30DaysOfQGIS from Spatial Thoughts as lately i don’t feel like i’ve spent enough time doing stuff in QGIS, so this should tend to that
implemented “collections” logic on osgav.run – now the “blog” vs “weeknotes” split on my homepage is powered by a collections frontmatter key rather than the type one. the theory behind doing this is i can link sets of posts together and call them a collection or series (or just call them categories, the classic accompaniment to tags) and then have links to “other posts in this collection” at the side of a blog post. adds a form of discoverability to things without me having to explicitly link to related posts. not implemented that bit yet though. coming soon™

$ python build/what-weeknotes-is-it.py

use weeknotes-97 for Wednesday 15 May 2024      [1 days ago]

today is Thursday 16 May 2024

use weeknotes-98 for Wednesday 22 May 2024      [6 days away]

The Glitch Gallery: Neon Giraffe

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 09:01:01 +0000

I did a thing the other day and the result wasn’t quite what I was aiming for. But it was reasonably close and looked nice anyway. I shared it on Mastodon and in the replies I was introduced to The Glitch Gallery. Now the thing I did is published in The Glitch Gallery. Wahey!

extrapolating the edges of a bounding box (Leaflet)

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 16:34:05 +0000

Following on from extrapolating the edges of a bounding box I created a Leaflet version of the map so I could enjoy the concept in an interactive manner. Now that I’ve finally integrated Leaflet into my site I can slap a Leaflet map into a blog post if I so desire, like this:

Address Mapping

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 15:07:24 +0000

view interactive map: Networks of New York (Building Map)

Leaflet maps on Hugo

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:11:33 +0000

created: 13/02/2024

extrapolating the edges of a bounding box with Leaflet

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 16:17:18 +0000

had an idea:

weeknotes 70: tokyo

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 09:45:11 +0000

did some catsitting for my friends who were out of town for a few days
did some more prep for my upcoming holiday
started figuring out how to integrate Leaflet into my Hugo website – this is in anticipation of shuffling a data collection project I’ve mentioned vaguely in the past along to the web map phase
spent some time sorting my RSS subscriptions in Inoreader – they’ve been one long list for quite a while and I figured I’d finally make a few folders and group the ones I read more regularly into one spot on the list, so far I can’t believe I didn’t do this ages ago
started reading a pop-up newsletter by Craig Mod about walking through Tokyo – I discovered this through a blog post from Tracy Durnell who I follow via RSS

weeknotes 69: redesigning

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 15:04:19 +0000

It’s one of those weeks where I didn’t get up to much that I feel like rambling about.

But I did redesign the footer of my website. And I’m pretty pleased with how that turned out. I’m enjoying learning more about layouts in CSS using flex (and implementing them with Tailwind).

new footer design vs old footer design

I’m as pleased with this as I am the site header redesign that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I realise I said I was ridiculously excited about that and then I haven’t said anything about it since publishing it, but that’s only because it’ll be a blog post rather than a weeknotes, and well, I’m good at procrastinating those.

weeknotes 68: conclusions and introductions

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 09:43:13 +0000

It’s Friday. I’ve slipped again – I try to write these on Wednesdays. But hey ho, writing one now is better than skipping it. Why is it better than skipping it? Why do I write weeknotes in the first place? I’ve been pondering that a little bit lately.

weeknotes 67: slime network

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 21:05:35 +0000

I read a little bit about slime mold and it was pretty cool. Here are some links and a drawing inspired by it.

Slime Mold Grows Network Just Like Tokyo Rail System (WIRED)
Slime Mold Beats Humans at Perfecting Traffic Networks (livescience)
Slime mold (Wikipedia)
Slime Mold Network Engineering (technovelgy)
Are motorways rational from slime mould’s point of view? (tandfonline)
Cities in motion: how slime mould can redraw our rail and road maps (theguardian)
via https://nitter.net/anthilemoon/status/1338607290434396161 which I had saved in an old note that surfaced this week

not slime mold.

weeknotes 66: memory lane

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 13:33:42 +0000

the academic season is kicking off and consequently there have been a few notifications of lecture series landing in my inbox. i have signed up for a few. i rather enjoy listening to folks talking about old maps and the history of cartography and such
went to a gig to see a band i haven’t listened to much since i was a teenager, that was a fun trip down memory lane
i started playing around with redesigning the header on my website – i am ridiculously excited about one particular aspect of it but i am going to keep that a secret for now (yes, of course it’s map-related)

weeknotes 65: internet infrastructure

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 15:09:26 +0000

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been meaning to revisit a link I saved a long time ago, about different formats of weeknotes.

That link was: https://weeknot.es/weeknote-styles-61d957e58a4a

Ok I’ve re-read it now. The phrase stream of consciousness jumped out at me. I am familiar with this phrase as it’s something I spend plenty of time doing in my notes in Obsidian. And I feel like doing some stream of consciousness rambling instead of bullet points this week. Actually… it appears it’s been a few weeks since I’ve done just bullet points so I guess that isn’t new. In fact I will do some bullets. Here:

I had a look at an old project that I haven’t yet shared on here but did mention back in May – my first time dabbling with Leaflet, recreating what I made in “extrapolating the edges of a bounding box” – as I want to finish it up, i.e. post it on here then try some more stuff with Leaflet
I did a little bit of work on my geolab PostGIS database (but not anything that merited a further update to the new lab page I created recently)
went on another field trip for the data collection project I mentioned a few weeks ago
visited a friend and watched the entirety of season 16 of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia
started reading Networks of New York which is a really cool project by Ingrid Burrington (if you like reading and thinking about internet infrastructure)
did some admin stuff for an upcoming holiday

weeknotes 64: torrential rain

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 12:44:24 +0000

Stuff from the last week:

I’ve been running through my ankiboxes and considering the purposes of my different IW queues and associated ankiboxes a little more closely.

I redesigned part of my homepage. The “recent feed” part now has two columns – one for blog posts and another for weeknotes. Both of these things live under the /blog/ section of my site but I figured out a way to list them separately as well as altogether, as demonstrated by my new homepage and my new index pages: blog.html and weeknotes.html and archives.html

I started a new lab page – my first since 2019 apparently – for “geolab” my personal PostGIS server. I’ll be adding to this incrementally as I refine my slightly messier note I’ve been working on for the last few weeks.

I managed to get caught in torrential rain twice in the last week. The second time I was slightly more prepared and had an umbrella, but honestly I didn’t end up that much better off ha!

geolab: PostGIS Server Manual

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 13:03:57 +0000

created: 26/09/2023

weeknotes 63: capturing

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 20:06:41 +0000

I’ve been thinking about the capture workflow of my notetaking system a lot in the last week, and working on refining it, so that I can use it more effectively… as the concept of Collector’s Fallacy has felt particularly resonant lately.

I finished archiving all my Inoreader RSS starred items, so I have a clean slate / zero starred items in Inoreader now. This should theoretically / hopefully lead to more effective processing of newly starred items from my browsing… I use this Inoreader CLI (with a few modifications) to save my starred items from Inoreader into my INBOX folder in Obsidian. Once I’ve downloaded the recently starred items, I can make notes with them and reference them and whatever else, and then unstar them in Inoreader, paving the way for the next batch. That’s the theory at least!

Once something is in my INBOX folder, it is also in my ankibox. I’ve started experimenting with additional ankiboxes too now (based on items I’ve been adding to different IW queues for a while). I expect I’ll write more about this in the future, but so far ankibox has led to navel gazing about ankibox. But it feels like useful pondering at this point in time, as I try to figure out where the whole ankibox concept best fits within my capture workflow or “knowledge cycle”…

ankibox

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 09:42:10 +0000

ankibox?

anki + inbox = ankibox

weeknotes 62: archiving starred items

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:11:15 +0000

attended the Spatial Data Science Symposium (SDSS) 2023 last Tuesday / Wednesday
- it was pretty interesting, a lot of it was pretty over my head but it was inspiring nevertheless – I noted a few miscellaneous things that caught my eye / things to peruse a little closer at some point:
- https://sdgs.un.org/goals
- https://hegsrr.github.io/
- https://knowwheregraph.org/
- https://openflights.org/
- https://shriv.github.io/sdss-2023/
- https://github.com/DOSull/weaving-space
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIKW_pyramid
- https://deepnote.com/
- https://www.safegraph.com/data-examples
- https://www.bristol.ac.uk/acrc/research-software-engineering/
finished the bulk of my “trimester review” stuff
read about Apache Airflow a bit, and started thinking about how I might ~~distract myself with it~~ dabble with it in the future sometime
celebrated a friend’s birthday with a nice dinner and then staying up far too late
began archiving starred items in my RSS reader (Inoreader)

weeknotes 61: an innocuous footbridge

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 18:19:54 +0000

What did the 61st week since I wrote my first weeknotes post bring…

weeknotes 60: epoch

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 15:27:32 +0000

I decided to start doing weeknotes again, again. I’ll absolutely definitely stop doing them again sometime soon as well, probably. Nevertheless, here I am starting again.

Goode Homolosine projection in QGIS

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 14:10:29 +0000

I added a changelog page to my website

Mon, 15 May 2023 17:03:07 +0000

Tadaaa! I added a changelog. I’ve been thinking about doing that for a while now. Now it’s done. Woohoo :)

weeknotes: week 18

Mon, 08 May 2023 18:19:22 +0000

Some notes on the last couple of weeks:

quick and dirty method to count vertices with ogrinfo

Thu, 04 May 2023 20:21:33 +0000

I was experimenting with Simplify in QGIS the other day and I wanted to get an idea of how many vertices were being removed from my geometries when I adjusted the Simplify settings.

extrapolating the edges of a bounding box (QGIS)

Sat, 29 Apr 2023 12:31:36 +0000

I woke up thinking about a fragment of a map the other day, and it occurred to me that what I was picturing could probably be made using geometry generators in QGIS. I was picturing something like this:

So I thought I’d have a whack at making it.

weeknotes: week 16

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 09:30:03 +0000

Things from the last couple of weeks:

weeknotes: week 14

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 13:19:06 +0000

Another short’n’sweet update:

weeknotes: week 12

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 14:49:07 +0000

A short’n’sweet update this week:

weeknotes: week 11

Sat, 18 Mar 2023 17:55:40 +0000

Things I got up to in the last week:

published blog post: systems, processes, and tools
read an essay on systems design: https://apenwarr.ca/log/20201227 (via this tweet)
phone link dump, all the way down to zero tabs open…
got stuck into Observable Getting Started guides and the like and…
started playing with my own dataset on powerplants
did more of the Esri Cartography MOOC (running a bit behind, need to catch up!)
discovered, fixed an issue with, and blogged about QGIS MapSwipe Tool Plugin
published blog post: Spilhaus World Ocean Map
started drafting up a new About page for my website (I’ve just had placeholder text there for a few years now…)
started shopping for proper storage for my atlases and maps collection
signed up for OpenStreetMap!

And some more words about a few of those…

Spilhaus World Ocean Map

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 15:45:22 +0000

As part of the Esri Cartography MOOC I’m doing just now, I made this Spilhaus World Ocean Map in one of the exercises.

Spilhaus World Ocean Map

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 15:45:22 +0000

blog post: Spilhaus World Ocean Map

QGIS Plugin: MapSwipe Tool

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 15:30:38 +0000

I’ve been using ArcGIS for the first time in the last couple of weeks and I’ve come across the Swipe tool. My immediate thought was “oh that’s awesome” which was swiftly followed by “I wonder if QGIS has this as well?”

systems, processes, and tools

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 11:43:51 +0000

What are systems, processes, and tools?

weeknotes: week 10

Sat, 11 Mar 2023 16:42:23 +0000

Things I’ve gotten up to since my last weeknotes:

continued the Esri Cartography MOOC
started the Data Visualization Fundamentals and Best Practices from Observable
tinkered with my website: playing with flex to tweak the layout
tinkered with my website: created a shortcode for images that are drawings
fixed the obsidian-remarkable plugin’s post-processing script

A few more words about each of those…

weeknotes: week 09

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 18:10:22 +0000

So I fell out of the habit of doing weeknotes for a few months there.

ye olde Street View

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 12:44:21 +0000

I was perusing auction listings the other day and spotted this:

30DayMapChallenge 2022

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 14:11:29 +0000

Last month I took part in my first 30DayMapChallenge – a daily mapmaking challenge that takes place in November each year.

30DayMapChallenge 2022

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 14:11:29 +0000

blog post: 30DayMapChallenge 2022

weeknotes: twenty maps later...

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:31:13 +0000

Look at that, it’s December already!

weeknotes: week 42

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 15:30:36 +0000

Some stuff I got up to in the last week:

weeknotes: week 41

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 15:01:33 +0000

A short’n’sweet update this week:

X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Prachett

Wed, 12 Oct 2022 09:32:05 +0000

I finally added an X-Clacks-Overhead header to my site, woohoo!

What is that, and why finally?

weeknotes: some BCS conference notes and 30DayMapChallenge

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 19:24:55 +0000

Hello! This week I thought I’d share a few highlights from my BCS Conference notes.

weeknotes: osgav redesign

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 18:42:03 +0000

Hello from week 39 of 2022.

Congo

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 11:41:14 +0100

Congo is a slick Hugo theme, which I’ve just started using on my site. RIP my hacked up Casper theme. Congo is built with Tailwind CSS, which I look forward to getting to know better.

weeknotes: week 37

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 20:02:41 +0000

Another week passes, and what a good one it was!

The highlight was definitely the BCS Annual Conference on Wednesday and Thursday. I haven’t sifted through the notes I made and links I saved yet so I’ll come back to that later.

Some other stuff I got up to:

critical cartographer: 1

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 14:44:48 +0000

The first Student Reflection in GEOG 486 Lesson 1 asks:

Which map of the two below best communicates the trend of the data? Why?

UK Freight Transport System

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 10:40:48 +0000

For the graded assignment in the Introduction to Mapping, Spatial Data and GIS course I completed in June I made the following map:

UK Freight Transport System - shipping ports without rail connections

UK Freight Transport System

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 10:40:48 +0000

blog post: UK Freight Transport System

weeknotes: week 36

Mon, 12 Sep 2022 20:01:51 +0000

Things I got up to in the last week:

GEOG 868: Lesson 5: Working with Esri’s Desktop Geodatabases
read some of my BCS cartography book
accidentally started a website redesign project

Some rambles about each of those:

weeknotes: week 35

Sun, 04 Sep 2022 19:20:01 +0000

Just a few things to note this week:

GEOG 868: Jen and Barry's Site Selection

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:12:42 +0000

map of Jen and Barry’s Site Selection candidate cities

In Lesson 4 of GEOG 868 I completed a site selection using PostGIS.

GEOG 868: Jen and Barry's Site Selection

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:12:42 +0000

blog post: GEOG 868: Jen and Barry’s Site Selection

weeknotes: week 34

Sun, 28 Aug 2022 19:21:51 +0000

A few things I got up to this week:

A map of Melbourne

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 11:09:13 +0000

The Making Maps unit for the Introduction to Mapping, Spatial Data and GIS course I completed in June featured a tourism case study. The exercise that week was to create a tourist map of Melbourne in Australia.

A map of Melbourne

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 11:09:13 +0000

blog post: A map of Melbourne

weeknotes: week 33

Mon, 22 Aug 2022 19:21:23 +0000

Oops, my first late weeknote! I intended to get it done at the weekend rather than on Wednesday like usual, but that has ended up slipping over to today, Monday. Anyway. What GIS things did I get up to since my last post?

GEOG 868: Mapping the Class Roster

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 16:15:45 +0000

In Lesson 3 of GEOG 868 I played around with PostgreSQL and PostGIS for the first time. For the project at the end you are given a class_roster.txt file that contains a list of students and their postal codes. The task was to join that with data provided earlier in the lesson and then plot the students’ locations on a map in QGIS. Here’s how I went about doing that.

GEOG 868: Mapping the Class Roster

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 16:15:45 +0000

blog post: GEOG 868: Mapping the Class Roster

weeknotes: ST_FirstSpatialQueries

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 20:28:10 +0000

So. Hello again.

weeknotes: more NASA

Wed, 03 Aug 2022 20:34:21 +0000

A bit of a lull in GEOG 868 progress in the last week, as I crammed the prerequisites for the NASA ARSET course I mentioned last week.

I attended the first session yesterday and enjoyed my second bout of playing with Google Earth Engine (GEE), having played with it briefly during one of the prerequisite courses. The remaining sessions are on the 4th, 9th and 11th August, with a homework assignment due by the 25th. There is plenty to learn about the world of remote sensing, to say the least, but I won’t be spending too much time focused on it just now. If / when I decide to take my Oxford Uni assignment any further then I’ll revisit this stuff. For now I shall be turning my focus back to my spatial database management course.

weeknotes: UFOs and NASA

Wed, 27 Jul 2022 14:37:09 +0000

A fairly database-focussed week. The last of the “refresher” stuff before I move onto actual spatial database stuff.

UFO Investigation Organization

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 17:02:10 +0000

In the off chance you arrived at this web page hoping to report a UFO sighting, I am afraid this website does not take UFO sighting reports.

…

I’m currently working through the Spatial Database Management course from Pennsylvania State University. Each lesson has a project, and for the Lesson 2 project you are asked to design a database for a hypothetical UFO Investigation Organization.

UFO Investigation Organization

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 17:02:10 +0000

blog post: UFO Investigation Organization

SQLite database WHERE clause condition not filtering rows

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 14:55:32 +0000

It is possible to create a table in an SQLite database where the columns have no type.

For example, the columns in this STATS table have no type specified:

sqlite> PRAGMA TABLE_INFO('STATS');
cid  name       type  notnull  dflt_value  pk
---  ---------  ----  -------  ----------  --
0    PLAYER_ID        0                    0 
1    YEAR             0                    0 
2    TEAM             0                    0 
3    AB               0                    0 
4    HITS             0                    0 
5    HR               0                    0 
6    RBI              0                    0

This doesn’t seem to make much of a difference if you are storing strings / text data, and writing queries to retrieve things based on those strings.

However, if you are storing numbers, then you’ll notice a problem if you try queries like this:

weeknotes: SQL, basemaps, and old atlases

Wed, 20 Jul 2022 11:42:18 +0000

In the last week I got stuck into GEOG 868 (the Pennsylvania State University Spatial Database Management course I mentioned last week). I started off with a bit of an SQL refresher via SQLBolt and some SQLZOO, then cracked on with GEOG 868 Lesson 1.

weeknotes: GIS 101

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 14:32:02 +0000

So I’ve decided to give weeknotes a go.

What are weeknotes?

At the most basic level they are posts on someone’s blog that generally appear each week. What about a level up from that? Well, they tend to contain some account of what the author of the post got up to in the last week. That might take the form of a detailed list of activities, such as events attended, work completed, or personal endeavours enjoyed. It might also be more reflective, a form of journaling, how things in the last week made one feel. Indeed a weeknote could be a mixture of those things, and more, or less. They are whatever the author makes of them.

I’m going to give them a go, at least for a little while, as a way to encourage myself to write about what I’m getting up with regards to exploring the world of GIS.

Exploring GIS

Fri, 10 Jun 2022 09:07:17 +0000

I’ve been exploring the world of GIS for a few months now, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say I’ve been taking notes in a similar manner to this dog drinking from a hose:

A map of Swellendam

Fri, 08 Apr 2022 15:57:04 +0000

As noted in Hello (GIS) World I was recently working on the first assignment in the QGIS Training Manual. I planned to do 3 things for the assignment:

A map of Swellendam

Fri, 08 Apr 2022 15:57:04 +0000

blog post: A map of Swellendam

Now.

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 12:11:22 +0000

What am I up to?

exploring the world of GIS
spending more time working with my notes, than tweaking my system
trying to keep a podocarpus bonsai plant alive

Hello (GIS) World!

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 11:04:07 +0000

I am exploring the world of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

I have been reading the Gentle Introduction to GIS from the QGIS documentation and also working through the QGIS Training Manual. In the last couple of weeks I completed the first assignment.

My ever changing notetaking system

Tue, 08 Feb 2022 14:30:42 +0000

“Everything starts from a dot.”

PC Build 005: is it Build Day yet?

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 13:53:49 +0000

The short answer: no.

PC Build 004: Powered by Seasonic

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 09:34:04 +0000

A power supply unit, or PSU, was the first thing I started looking into after I bought my case. But I soon realised there is a vast range of power-supplying capabilities – with the most basic question “what wattage is it?” ranging from 300W to 1200W. That’s quite a difference.

So, ignoring other fancy PSU stuff, how do you figure out what wattage to get?

Now (202109).

Thu, 02 Sep 2021 14:16:33 +0000

What am I up to?

PC Build 003: bundle of joy

Thu, 19 Aug 2021 10:42:58 +0000

July was an exciting month.

Following my last post a whole bunch of purchasing ensued. In fact, the next posts are all going to be retrospective as I’ve built my PC now!

PC Build 002: passive research

Thu, 08 Jul 2021 13:07:37 +0000

The last couple of months have consisted largely of what I’ve come to call passive research - aka I discovered Linus Tech Tips videos on YouTube and have watched a copius amount of them…

PC Build 001: bought a Thermaltake Core V21 case

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 14:01:09 +0000

For a couple of years I’ve had the intention of building a PC for myself – something I haven’t done in a very long time. In fact, I’ve never built a PC from scratch for myself before. Back in college, in hardware class, is the only time I’ve gone from an empty case to a working computer. Around the same time, but outside of college, I did a little bit of cobbling together the better components from old computers I could get my hands on to upgrade the computers of friends and family. But I never built my own machine.

P.A.R.A. and Zettelkasten Experiment: My Conclusion

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 14:15:59 +0000

At the beginning of my experiment I intended to write regular updates on what I was getting up to, however I haven’t really done that.

If I had been doing that, here are a few things I retrospectively imagine I would have written about:

introducing a Task Management element to accompany the P of PARA
migrating to Obsidian and introducing Markor and using it’s QuickNote feature
- (leading on to “My QuickNote Problem” aka my latest manifestation of Collector’s Fallacy)
trying out Daily Notes and habit tracking
thinking more deliberately about the type of note I’m taking
experimenting with how I use tags
starting to create MOCs

I have plenty of rambles and reflections on all of these things in my notes but I haven’t quite nailed down the habit of publishing any of it…

I Migrated to Obsidian

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 19:31:50 +0000

For continuity of my experiment I felt I should mention that I have migrated from Joplin to Obsidian.

In fact, I migrated about 2 months ago now. So, as far as my journey into building a notetaking system is concerned, I’ve been using Obsidian for almost as long as I used Joplin (which was about 3 months).

I haven’t felt like writing a comparison of these apps, as I did when I moved from OneNote to Joplin. But I do want to point out the 2 main reasons I made the switch to Obsidian.

GNU Terry Pratchett through the Looking Glasses

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 14:14:18 +0000

“A man is not dead while his name is still spoken.”

One day I discovered the existence of Looking Glasses. It was so long ago now that I don’t remember exactly what led to it, but I know I found http://www.bgplookingglass.com and became quite intrigued by it.

A Looking Glass is a system that network operators might use to find out Internet routing and BGP-related information. They provide insight into how a particular router connects the Autonomous Systems that make up the internet.

But this post isn’t about Looking Glasses, it’s about something else I found. So back to my story…

RandomNote for Joplin

Wed, 30 Sep 2020 21:13:01 +0000

TL;DR #

I made a RandomNote for Joplin button for macOS. You can find the bash, python and AppleScript concoction here.

Apologies to non-macOS Joplin users, I have not made any other verions of this.

But if you like sticking things together, the bash and python elements could be of use to you…

What’s RandomNote? #

I discovered the concept of “RandomNote” via Tiago Forte’s PARA series. To describe it at surface level: he created a button that opens a random note from his Evernote notes.

The purpose of such a button is to aid in serendipitous rediscovery of your old notes. That’s not going much deeper, to be honest. To see what inspired me into action I encourage you to read Tiago’s post about it. He has a way with words which I do not.

The rest of this post is an extension of the “API / Automation Friendly” criteria from my OneNote vs Joplin blog post.

OneNote vs Joplin

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 21:06:18 +0000

As explained in my previous blog post, I have started an experiment on my notetaking methods.

Before I had the idea for that experiment I dived into using Microsoft OneNote, because I was so excited to try out P.A.R.A.

I did that because I’ve used OneNote in the past, so it was familiar. But, within a couple of days of falling further down the P.A.R.A. and Zettelkasten rabbit-hole, I changed my mind.

I found Joplin.

P.A.R.A. and Zettelkasten Experiment

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 08:31:13 +0000

Recently I decided to do something about my notes and notetaking methods.

Up until a few weeks ago, my notes were an increasingly unwieldy pile of .txt files. I was using Slack as a ~~blackhole~~ means of getting the odd link from my phone to my laptop.

It wasn’t great. Notes were seldom revisited. The majority of things put into Slack remained there…

mermaid

Sat, 09 Mar 2019 16:35:49 +0000

created: 09/03/2019

cli-database

Sat, 09 Mar 2019 15:47:31 +0000

created: 09/03/2019

Mermaid Diagrams

Sat, 23 Feb 2019 11:00:01 +0000

graph LR; A(Mermaid) B(Diagrams) C(Are) D(Awesome) A-->B; B-->C; C-->D; style B fill:#f9f,stroke:#333,stroke-width:4px click B "https://mermaidjs.github.io" "Mermaid!"

CLI tmux

Sun, 17 Feb 2019 15:56:48 +0000

created: 17/02/2019

CLI docker

Fri, 01 Feb 2019 22:47:21 +0000

created: 01/02/2019

python

Sun, 27 Jan 2019 10:08:37 +0000

created: 27/01/2019

#100DaysOfCode in Python

Sun, 20 Jan 2019 16:00:08 +0000

created: 20/01/2019

Hugo Date Operations (osgav epoch)

Sat, 19 Jan 2019 14:18:00 +0000

created: 19/01/2019

Mermaid Diagrams on Hugo

Sat, 19 Jan 2019 12:27:08 +0000

created: 19/01/2019

CLI environment & shell

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 12:10:08 +0000

created: 04/01/2019

CLI tree

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 12:10:08 +0000

created: 04/01/2019

CLI web

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 12:10:08 +0000

created: 04/01/2019

Command Line Interface

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 12:10:08 +0000

created: 04/01/2019

ELK

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 11:50:08 +0000

created: 04/01/2019

CLI git

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 11:20:08 +0000

created: 04/01/2019

CoffeeScript (Hubot)

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 11:00:08 +0000

created: 04/01/2019

cheatsheet

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 12:30:00 +0000

view source on Github

Use the following more html comment to manually create the “summary” block of content for the front page…

operation not possible due to rf-kill hard blocked

Sun, 09 Sep 2018 20:20:02 +0000

Are you googling for rfkill :question:

It is probably either a hardware switch or BIOS setting that has disabled your wireless…

Fix Rundeck Export Archive

Sun, 09 Sep 2018 20:20:01 +0000

Seeing an error when trying to Export Archive for one of your Rundeck projects?

Project export request failed: Could not create temp file for archive: No such file or directory

You might be missing your Rundeck “temp directory” which has a straightforward fix…

Datadog on Raspberry Pi: Enabling Network and Process Metrics

Sun, 06 May 2018 16:10:01 +0000

Empty graphs in Datadog after installing the agent on a Raspberry Pi?
I experienced this and fixed it by installing a couple of things…

whois osgav

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 18:50:42 +0100

I’m going to write a new blurb here soon - my first one can still be found here.

Lab

Tue, 30 May 2017 18:50:42 +0000

Lab Notes # I’ve been swithering about how to use this portion of my website - I knew I wanted a “reference” section of some sort to accompany blog posts, and somewhere to generally experiment with my content.

Hugo TravisCI Pipeline Broken?

Tue, 30 May 2017 17:51:59 +0000

TL;DR #

If your .travis.yml install section looks like this and the build is failing to install Hugo…

 install:
 - go get github.com/spf13/hugo

…then try updating it to download a specific version of the hugo binary:

install:
- export VER=0.18.1
- wget https://github.com/spf13/hugo/releases/download/v${VER}/hugo_${VER}_Linux-64bit.tar.gz
- tar xvzf hugo_${VER}_Linux-64bit.tar.gz
- mkdir -p $GOPATH/bin
- cp hugo_${VER}_linux_amd64/hugo_${VER}_linux_amd64 $GOPATH/bin/hugo

Why? Read on…

Recent Ansible Adventures

Tue, 30 May 2017 12:51:59 +0000

Oops #

So I recently picked up my Rundeck project again. My “production” instance has been running mostly* A-OK for many months now - except for 1 blip, it has got off easy. I’ve been using it as an unusual home for my own “documentation” of sorts. My plan for a third Rundeck blog post has been on the back-burner for a while, now beneath a virtual pile of other drafts. Now seemed good a time as any to resume my blog plans, starting where I left off!

My original plan was adding to the playbook so it configured the Rundeck Ansible Plugin as well. Ansible configuring Ansible. Instead of diving into the original plan I thought I’d re-familiarize myself with one layer of Ansible first.

As it happened, I had the inspiration I needed to start working on a money-saving playbook…

RIPE Atlas Network

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 19:26:48 +0000

RIPE Atlas Network #

Probes connected to RIPE Atlas: 9364
Measurements currently running: 11719
Results collected per second: 4082

A couple of months ago I stumbled across an interesting blog post about the RIPE Atlas Network - a global network of probes that measure Internet connectivity and reachability - and was very intrigued to discover this was something I could join, both physically and virtually by obtaining an Atlas probe and completing a typical account registration…

Rundeck on AWS Part II: Ansible

Thu, 20 Oct 2016 19:47:42 +0000

Following on from Part I, I’ve now starting writing an Ansible playbook for creating a Rundeck server in AWS - which can currently provision and terminate a Rundeck server. No more CloudFormation to deploy a new instance woohoo!

hugo --> AWS --> https://osgav.run

Sat, 01 Oct 2016 14:56:12 +0000

Why migrate to AWS? #

As well as catching up on drafted blog posts last weekend, I migrated this blog from GitHub Pages, KloudSec, Domain Registrar’s DNS & Let’s Encrypt to Amazon Web Services: S3, CloudFront, Route53 & Certificate Manager. I also introduced Travis CI and continued using GitHub for version control (but no longer hosting). This migration to AWS was in light of one of my apprehensions about KloudSec unfortunately materializing - it was a fairly small and new company and has recently ceased to exist. As such my Let’s Encrypt certificate had expired and was no longer auto-renewed by KloudSec so my blog was showing a HTTPS error when you visited it - boo. Time to pay for a risky design choice…

Rundeck CloudFormation

Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:37:09 +0000

created: 25/09/2016

Rundeck on AWS Part I: CloudFormation

Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:37:09 +0000

Then… #

A few months ago I started playing around with Rundeck - a platform for runbook automation, job scheduling, incident response, post-build deployment automation, environment provisioning, data processing jobs and anything you like really it seems, according to its website.

This all sounded very interesting so I set about trying out the vagrant image locally at first, then quickly decided I’d like to get an instance running in AWS with the EC2 plugin so I could control a few nodes with it and really test it out…

Hugo Platform Runbook

Sun, 12 Jun 2016 21:33:09 +0000

created: 12/06/2016

hugo --> https://osgav.run

Sun, 12 Jun 2016 11:33:49 +0000

I stumbled across the Hugo static site generator recently and after reading a little and watching a short video (01:08) I thought it looked pretty interesting and worth trying out.

Hugo Build and Publish Workflow

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 20:10:08 +0000

created: 11/06/2016

Hugo Markdown Cheatsheet

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 16:40:05 +0000

created: 11/06/2016

ZER0D0TS

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 15:50:35 +0000

ZER0D0TS is my username on Twitter and an old WordPress blog I never really used. May it rest in peace. This blog on the other hand I shall keep alive with a slow drip of posts and curious projects… the first of which, shall be the infamous how I set up this blog post!

For now, this hugo markdown cheatsheet is a taster of the sort of things I’m going to do to make blogging easier for myself.

$ whois osgav

Sun, 05 Jun 2016 13:41:15 +0000

osgav.run #

https://osgav.run/ is my personal blog - a place for me to ramble and write about projects I’m working on. Historically I’ve not been an avid blogger, but this changes now! Starting with a shiny new lightweight blogging framework and polished writing and publishing workflow…

So who am I? And what do I do?