Car Parks or Play Parks? / / No Comments How much of Berlin is designed for cars – and how much for children and nature?Hans Hack has released an interactive map that offers a clear view of how urban space is allocated in Berlin. The tool compares the amount of urban space taken up by parking lots with that devoted to children’s playgrounds and other green spaces across Germany’s capital.By centering the map on any point in the city,& Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: parks, Play
year plus plus… / / No Comments Welcome to my yearly "roundup" where I look back at my wins, accomplishments, and just about everything I did over the past year. As I always say, I assume no one really cares about this, but I like to take stock and honestly just remind myself of what I actually did. The years go by faster the older I get, but I swear they also feel longer as well. Of course, this year has been incredibly tough and that could account for that as well. Honestly, I don’t feel like rehashing the bad stuff. If you read this blog on the regular, yall already know what I went through, and as I’m ending the year on a high note, I’m going to focus on that. I love my new job, I’m relatively... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: plus, year
Tracking Santa for Christmas / / No Comments 🎅 Santa’s Big Adventure: Follow Him Around the World! 🌍It’s Christmas Eve – the most magical night of the year – and guess what? Santa is already zooming around the world, delivering gifts to kids just like YOU! 🎁 This year, why not join in the fun by following Santa’s incredible journey around the world? 🎄✨ 🦌 NORAD Santa Tracker: Powered by Rudolph’s NoseDo you know how NORAD tracks Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Christmas, Santa, Tracking
How Christmas Lights Up America / / No Comments According to NASA, Christmas lights up the winter. Using nighttime satellite imagery of American cities, NASA discovered that nighttime lights in American cities shine 20 to 50 percent brighter during the Christmas season than at other times of the year. In Even from Space, Holidays Shine Brightly NASA explains that nighttime lights start getting brighter on the day after Thanksgiving. You Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: America, Christmas, lights
My Tech Stack (2025) / / No Comments Every now and then I like to share my current tech stack, not that I think I’m doing anything special in my day to day, but I know I enjoy reading about other devs and their stacks as it’s a great way to get introduced to tools I may want to adopt myself. As far as I can tell, the last time I did this was back in 2020 and things have certainly changed for me. So without further ado, here’s what I’m using. Operating System – OSX I’m back to Mac. To be honest, this was part frustration and part practicality. I’ve been on Windows for maybe 7 or 8 years now and generally happy with it. I usually did most of my work in WSL (Ubuntu) and as most of what I did... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: 2025, Stack, Tech
Using Chrome AI for Color Suggestions / / No Comments Today’s blog post came to me on the way to dropping of my kids at school and made complete sense to me, but I’ve also got the flu and am heavily medicated, so take that for what you will. The idea was simple, given a description of something in the real world, could I use AI to generate RGB colors that would represent that abstract idea. I thought this could be a good use of Chrome’s built-in AI model and decided to whip up a quick demo. The front end is pretty simple, just a form for you to enter your description and a place for the results: <h2>Description to Color</h2> <p> In the form field below, describe the color you are trying to recreate and Chrome... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Chrome, Color, Suggestions, using
Fuzzy Neighborhoods / / No Comments City neighborhoods rarely have crisp, universally agreed-upon boundaries. Unlike political jurisdictions, neighborhood borders are shaped by lived experience: where people shop, who they identify as neighbors, and shifting social and cultural trends. These boundaries are often fluid, overlapping, and contested, changing over time and varying from person to person. As a result, neighborhood Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Fuzzy, Neighborhood's
The Twelve (Generative) Days of Christmas – 2025 Edition / / No Comments For the past two years I’ve done a fun little expirement – using GenAI to create illustrations from the Twelve Days of Christmas song. You can check out the 2023 and 2024 editions to see how things have progressed. In previous years, I mostly just kept things simple – passing only the day’s gift as the prompt: partridge in a pear tree two turtle doves three French hens four calling birds five golden rings six geese a-laying seven swans a-swimming eight maids a-milking nine ladies dancing ten lords a-leaping eleven pipers piping twelve drummers drumming Which is absolutely not ideal at all, but part of the fun was seeing how the various tools handled it. This year I decided... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: 2025, Christmas, Days, Edition, Generative, Twelve