What is Your Neighborhood Scare Score? / / No Comments The Spookiest ZIP Codes in the U.S.As Halloween approaches, many of us are stocking up on candy, preparing costumes, and decking our homes with spooky décor. But did you know that how much candy, costumes, and Halloween decorations you buy might reveal just how into Halloween your neighborhood is? That’s the concept behind Instacart’s brand-new interactive map, Explore America’s Haunts, which Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: neighborhood, Scare, score
Links For You (10/13/2024) / / No Comments Happy Sunday and Happy Saints Are Winning As I Write this day. Before I get into the links, some administrative. At the bottom of my posts, I’ve got share links. A few days ago I removed the share to Twitter link as I’ve gradually removed myself from that platform. I was on there a few weeks ago desperate for some technical help, but in general, I’m pretty much done with the platform. I’ve added a share to Bluesky (where you can find me as @raymondcamden.com) but unfortunately, it isn’t quite working yet. I followed the directions for ‘Action Intent Links’, but even the example on their docs isn’t working. I’m going to keep the share link... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: 10/13/2024, links
Florida’s Waffle House Index Score / / No Comments In the wake of Hurricane Milton, which made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast with devastating winds and flooding, emergency responders are working to assess the damage. One unconventional but, some argue, effective tool for gauging the situation is the “Waffle House Index,” a metric used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to evaluate the severity of storms and guide disaster Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Florida's, House, Index, score, Waffle
Generating Illustrated Stories with AI / / No Comments A few months ago, I built a little demo that I simply forgot to actually talk about here. A coworker was building something similar and it reminded me to take a look at the code, update it, and actually share it. This is a pretty cool example of integrating multiple different APIs to create a final product, in this case, a short story with pictures. Here’s an example: How was this built? At a high level: Google’s Gemini AI is used to generate a short story. Adobe’s Firefly Services is used to generate the images. Adobe’s Acrobat Services is used to turn the text into a PDF. That’s the high level, now let’s get into the nitty-gritty. Generating a Story To... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Generating, Illustrated, Stories
Custom Markers with Leaflet / / No Comments As I continue to dig into Leaflet, I was recently asked about custom markers based on data, so for example, some locations for a store may use one icon while others use another. I did some digging, and while it turns out Leaflet has deep support for customizing markers, it does take a little bit of work. Here’s what I found. First off, this is the default marker: Out of the box, this is it. Period. I can appreciate the library wanting to keep its size to a minimum, but I was a bit surprised. That being said, the library provides really flexible support for creating your own markers. The first thing I found was the tutorial, Markers With Custom Icons. In this tutorial, they describe the... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: custom, Leaflet, Markers
The American Election & the Rest of the World / / No Comments With the world closely watching the U.S. 2024 election, what could a Trump or Harris presidency mean for international stability? From rising tensions in Eastern Europe to critical climate action, the global implications of the U.S. election stretch far beyond American borders.The European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) has been exploring “how a Trump or a Harris presidency Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: American, election, Rest, World
Eleventy 3.0 Released (and in use here!) / / No Comments This is just a quick note to let my readers know that Eleventy 3.0 has been released. This is a huge update and folks using it should read the full release notes here: Eleventy v3.0.0: Possums ❤️ ESM. I’ve been running a beta for a while. You can see the issues I ran into here: Upgraded to Eleventy 3.0 (Beta). I upgraded to the final version yesterday and ran into one issue, a template that output to a path without an extension. This was very clearly detailed in the error I got: [11ty] Problem writing Eleventy templates:[11ty] The template at './src/webfinger.liquid' attempted to write to './_site/.well-known/webfinger' (via `permalink` value: '.well-known/webfinger'), which is a target... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Eleventy, Here, Released
The Nicknames of America / / No Comments Some U.S. cities have very quirky nicknames. Apparently, the citizens of Auburn, Alabama like to call their town the ‘Armpit of the Confederacy’. While their nearby neighbors in Gordo, Alabama call their home the ‘Armpit of Civilization’. Elmwood and Belleville in Wisconsin both claim to be the ‘UFO Capital of the World’ (presumably because of all the strange, alien-looking folk living in Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: America, Nicknames