barefootstache @barefootstache@qoto.org

#DailyBloggingChallenge (143/200)

TIL how zooming on maps work. The fascinating part is how much data needs to be store to make it feel seamlessly.

In (1) they work with an initial presetation of Earth on a 256px x 256px square for a zoom of 0.

When zooming in by one level the spuare length is doubled and thereby the Earth is being presented on 4 times 256px x 256px square for a zoom of 1.

This can be generalized to $4^{zoom}$ for square count and $squareLength_0 * 2^{zoom}$ for square length.

#LeafletJs states in (1) that tile servers max out at a zoom level of 18, whereas #OpenStreetMap’s website goes to zoom 19. At zoom 19 the legend distance is at 5m. On #OsmAnd the max zoom achieves a legend distance of 1m.

One can just imagine how much data is being stored/provided to achieve such a zoom level of detail.

References:

(1) https://leafletjs.com/examples/zoom-levels/

#DailyBloggingChallenge (142/200)

TIL that the #Jenga instructions differ depending on the language.

In English it says that after taking a block from the tower to place it on the top. Whereas in German it adds the additional information that it needs to be perpendicular to the blocks on the layer below it.

That additional info reduces the amount of choices from infinity down to a minimum of three as long as the distance from the center is not considered.

To get the minimum of three, one needs to count the amount of ways one can place a block, which is three: smallest area side, mid area side, and largest area side.

Additionally to this placement there is a rotation variable $r$ which has to be 90° or $\pi/2$. Otherwise without this restriction $r \in [0, \pi)$ and this would again give infinite solutions.

So going from the English instructions which would create infinite placement options down to German instructions, without (1), would give 3 placement possibilities.

Technically speaking, placing the blocks on the largest area side is a house rule.

#maths

#DailyBloggingChallenge (141/200)

#Karlsruhe belongs to one of the best mapped cities in Germany. The amount of amenities is fascinating, the thing that they are lacking is the amount of detail, though this is also secondary.

The challenge with such locations is to find something to add; updating or modifying is much easier. One thing that is lacking, with no surprise, is the taxon details of trees, since this an expert and niche area at the same time. Also seems like partially playground equipment and cigarette vending machines.

#OpenStreetMap

#DailyBloggingChallenge (140/200)

TIL that if you are planning to use #botox in the future it is better to start earlier, usually around the age of 30. The issue that usually happens is that people wait until their mid 40s and hope that botox can correct their wrinkles, so it looks quite mask like. This mask like presentation comes from when the wrinkles do not align with the emotions.

At least in Germany, a medical doctor needs to do the procedure, since botox is a nerve poison. Due to this factor any minimal mistake will make one carry around that mistake for about 4-5 months. This is about the time needed for the nerves to recover themselves from the poison.

For those considering the practice the best tactic is to use just enough botox so that one gets the desired look without becoming mask like.

#beauty

#DailyBloggingChallenge (139/200)

Let p be price of cup and w be hourly work cost. Then the cost C of preparation per cup is

C = p + w * t

for time t in hours.

If we take a look at the three cup example for satiation of a meal M.

M = 3 * C = 3 * (p +  w * 0.083)

Let’s take a look at various price points p = {0.8, 1.5, 3.5} and various hourly wages w = {20, 50, 100}. Then this gives us the table WP.

Now considering that whole food costs a fraction p_f of the price of convenience food, though in return needs more prep time t_f.

This gives us the new equation of

C_f = p_f * p + w * t * t_f

and

M_f = 3 * C_f = 3 * (p_f * p + w * t * t_f)

We will look at p_f = {0.5, 0.8} and t_f = {5, 10}; only on the last two columns of the previous table WP.

First we will multiply p_f * p and t * t_f, so that we can use the equation M.

Let table P be

and table T be

This give us the equation

M_f = 3 * C_f = 3 * (P + w * T)

and the table WTF

with this we can finally calculate the table WPF

since 41.5 and 42 are close, we omitted the prior one.

The table WPF shows that considering one’s own wage price for food prep, then a meal becomes quite expensive.

So next time one complains how expensive a meal is at the #restaurant, one can compare how expensive it would be if one prepped it oneself.

#maths #cooking

#DailyBloggingChallenge (138/200)

Over the past two days, I was living off of 5min quick make foods meaning one just needs to add hot water, stir, and wait.

Each meal/cup had a dry weight of about 60g and ca 250g wet weight. And it would take about 3 cups to be satiated.

Considering that the price per cup ranged from 0.80-3.50€ and the convenience factor, it can be quite an expensive luxury, depending on what price tag one puts on one’s own working time.

If one’s working time cost is 0.00€, then one is looking at 10.50€ per meal. Now considering one would buy the raw ingredients, which would on average cost only a fraction of the price, then one quickly realizes the luxury of such quick convenience foods.

#DailyBloggingChallenge (137/200)

When looking at short term memory, a portion of it is the active working memory.

One way to look at the active working memory is like matrix multiplication.

Let’s say one gets a 5 digit number. It is fairly simple to return that number in the same order as given, which would equate to the identity matrix.

If one had to invert the order of number, then the diagonal of the matrix would be flipped compared to the identity matrix, so equating to a negative determinant.

Now imagine if one had to do more complex calculations like ordering the months of the year alphabetically. Creating a matrix that transposes the months vector is initially not that simple, though once instantiated, it becomes quite simple to repeat.

Depending on how many row alterations are needed, starting from the identity matrix could be a way to quantify the complexity of the task.

#ShortTermMemory #ActiveWorkingMemory #memory #matrix #MatrixMultiplication #maths

#DailyBloggingChallenge (136/200)

TIL in psychology that we retain all information up to 0.5s before filtering away the unnecessary data.

This was shown through an experiment where subjects were shown 4 characters for 50ms and asked to recall the information. The active recall is where most of the data transfer was lost.

#DailyBloggingChallenge (135/200)

Some times one questions how the price of an item was decided on. Like take for example pickles, there are multiple options at the store although they all have basically the same ingredients.

One could claim one is paying extra for the brand. That would be fine if the brand was actually good, though lots of times, I have found the no name brand or store brand is better than some specific big name brand.

#DailyBloggingChallenge (134/200)

Today after getting the weekly #OpenStreetMap recap out of the way, I wanted to clean up my personal notes on #OsmAnd. I started with 132 notes and was able to reduce it down to 40. Most of them were single node edits and some were large area edits like between Starnberg and Weßling.

I made the earlier comment of outdated data there and after updating some areas, I realized that a good chunk of the data hasn’t been touched since 2011.

While doing this editing I listed to the “Humans of the Trail” podcast and the episode (https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humansofthetrail/episodes/Humans-of-the-Trail-Episode-36—How-to-become-a-Highlander-with-Ariana-Veoi-e20id1f) that triggered me to continue editing was the one on #highlander (https://www.highlanderadventure.com/). I did a quick sweep of their homepage and notice their adventure routes are hosted via OSM with the option to download the GPX files. The sad part is that some adventures are hosted in map data dead zones, thus I have decided to give those areas a touch up.

The first spot will be #Montana and have noticed previous mappers have used #Strava’s heat map for a more concrete path through wooded areas. Sometimes one can tell that a path exists because of a dedicated imprint in the forest cover, though most the time that’s not sufficient enough to be quantified as qualitative data.

Thus, if one combines Highlander adventures, which have up to 300 participants and if 5% track the journey with Strava, this gives quite a good notion where a trail should be.

This same process can be used in any combination of events plus Strava, as long as the participants stay on the dedicated paths.

#hiking

#DailyBloggingChallenge (133/200)

TIL that the imense amount of snow that we experienced was already predicted back in August and it is due to the interplay between El Niño and the collapse of the polar vortex.

From my understanding this is not a one off this #winter and will be revisited again at a later date. Though these extreme snow storms won’t last long, which already this past session can align with.

So although during today’s deep snow hike my mantra was “the weather doesn’t wait for anyone”, I could actually be wrong.

#ElNino #PolarVortex #weather

Source:

https://www.severe-weather.eu/long-range-2/winter-forecast-2023-2024-season-early-look-polar-vortex-el-nino-united-states-canada-europe-fa/

#DailyBloggingChallenge (132/200)

This week I have been working daily on the #MyRuckClub app; from creating a new social media presence, all the way up to creating my first short video clip on #odysee.

The initial goal was to go full #OpenSource from development all the way to social media presence. The only place where I lapsed is on the social media part and diverged onto Instagram. The main reason being that most future users live on that platform.

#DailyBloggingChallenge (131/200)

Since I haven’t been outside since Sunday and yesterday it was quite warm causing lots of roof avalanches plus my driveway being quite clear, I thought most of the #snow has melted away. It is true that a lot has melted away, though underneath is a thick #ice layer that isn’t leaving anytime soon.

One interesting thing, I noticed while traveling with the bus into the city is how well the snow cover can be used to evaluate various aspects of traffic with the most noticeable being how dirty the road truly is. Further nothing can be hidden, so your favorite spot in the park could just as well be dogs’ favorite urination spot. Or one can depict which vehicles are barely ever moved, which can be useful info for thieves or city planers.

#DailyBloggingChallenge (130/200)

The one benefit of all this #snow chaos is that a lot of personal daily duties have been permitted as hybrid. Like working from home has been relaxed for many or #uni lectures have been streamed online.

I am wondering how the whole scenario would have been managed if the #covid pandemic never happened. One could argue the silver lining of the pandemic was infrastructure investments to permit users the ability to work/learn from home.

Also wondering if some individuals get anxiety attacks when such a state is called back into action. The horrors that one endured during that dark time and having flashbacks and/or PTSD episodes.

Are we better from it that such a pandemic happened or will we lose all the knowledge left on the table?

#DailyBloggingChallenge (129/200)

Finally Monday has arrived and infrastructure breakages can slowly be fixed. Due to the heavy mass of snow lots electric cables were caught under fallen trees.

To continue with the fix they had to turn off the electricity for the whole town and it fascinated me how dependent I felt towards #electricity.

Without electricity neither WiFi nor mobile data works, one could have gone shopping if one had cash, but with credit card it was not an option. Making anything warm to eat is reliant on electricity unless one has a gas/wooden stove. I could have continued work on my laptop, if I had only updated the repos in time.

Though in the end due to boredom, just decided I might as well get some more hours of sleep. This in return usually clears boredom and starts the new period of time with some extra motivation.