Thoughts Aloud.

This picture pretty much sums up my first day at IO 2019: Why? Because I brought these back to the hotel. The capsule is a headache killer and the large circular one is a Tums. So IO day one was pretty smooth, no headache and the food didn't cause me heartburn. Great sessions and information. Going to take a while to digest it all. Inside IO:

I recently went through the PreCheck line at an airport and instead of the usual thirty second security screening, they singled me out because they wanted to check my nuts. The officer implied they exceeded tolerance and wanted to check my "bag". Naturally, I complied like any citizen would and when the officer was satisfied that my nuts, although excessive, were no threat to the flying safety of the general public, he left me with my nuts on the examination table without so much as a goodbye.

Anyone who has had to use numerous fittings to connect two pieces of PVC pipe will love the new Schedule 40 flexible PVC pipe. There are a lot of really great reasons to use this innovation in PVC piping: 1. It's virtually unbreakable. Unlike rigid PVC pipe, flexible pipe can withstand a lot of tortue before failing. 2. Instead of using numerous fittings to connect two pipes together, flexible pipe can be connected with nothing more than standard couplings. 3. Water will flow better through a complex join between pipes using flexible PVC since there are no sharp bends like elbows. 4. Even though flexible PVC is more expensive by the foot, it can be cheaper to use since the installation of this material is far simpler since fewer fittings are required. 5. Less fittings means less chance for mistakes and leaks. The only drawback to flexible PVC that I can see is that it costs more per linear foot than rigid PVC. Some pictures of this material in use: Flexible 2...

In 2005, I wrote one of my first custom mapping projects using the recently released Google Maps API. It was a fairly crude map that used the Census Tiger ZCTA' s (Zip Code Tabulation Area) to display a representation of a Zip Code area. Matt Cutts, at the time, a major player at Google in search, wrote a blog post called "Fun with Zip Codes"  that caused my site to get an average of 70,000 unique visitors a day for about a week. The traffic that Matt's blog post caused made me consider that there could be a market for this type of site so I looked deeper into the issue and learned a number of interesting things. The most important thing I learned was that Zip Codes are not areas. They are delivery routes. The USPS draws these delivery routes based on the efficient delivery of mail and nothing else. They can cross city, county and even state lines if it means the mail gets delivered efficiently. Not every address in the US has a Zip Code. This is not obvious for...

Today's Google AI-powered Doodle was fun and entertaining. It's a tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach and allows the user to create their own harmonized tune with the harmony created by AI. Very cool! Interesting video explaining how it was created:  https://youtu.be/XBfYPp6KF2g The entire story:  https://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-johann-sebastian-bach Here's the one I created:  https://g.co/doodle/uurrb3 Google AI-powered Doodle

We've had bird feeders in our yard for many years. Sometimes as many as fifty birds might be enjoying them at once. All that activity has drawn more than birds. Squirrels, chipmunks, opossums and raccoons show up regularly too. Then there are the predators.  Cats are most common. They are either strays dumped in our neighborhood or callous neighbors who let their cats roam freely. They usually don't stay around too long as they get squashed in the road by passing cars. I guess that's a Darwin moment for the owners. We also get the natural predators and one seems to have become quite bold. This hawk has been around for quite a while. When he's (I don't know if he is a he or she but I call him he) in the trees waiting for a meal, I can walk right by and he just looks at me. I've seen him take birds, usually doves, when they are in the driveway pecking at seeds on the ground. He'll swoop down and in a flash, the bird is gone. I've found evidence th...

Pretty much everyone has found a flyer in their mailbox from someone who drove by and physically placed it in their box. This is sort of a right of passage for the young and jobless and also those industrious individuals starting a new business like window washing or lawn service. The problem with people using your mailbox as an advertising vehicle is that it is against US Federal Law and US Postal regulations to do so. These folks might have nothing but good intentions, however, they can also be using this as an excuse to steal your mail. That is why it's illegal. Here's the actual statute from the USPS: https://about.usps.com/news/state-releases/tx/2010/tx_2010_0909.htm From the link: “We know many customers might not object to having a particular item placed in their mailbox from time to time, but the reasons for restricting use of mailboxes is really two-fold,” said Postmaster Keith Jackson. “First, if there is not enough room in a mailbox due to unauthorize...