The Doomsday Glacier / / No Comments Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier took thousands of years to form, yet in just the past two decades, its grounding zone, the critical boundary where the glacier meets the seafloor, has receded by over eight miles.As the widest glacier in Antarctica, Thwaites spans an area comparable to the size of Florida. Its potential collapse could have catastrophic global consequences, significantly raising sea Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Doomsday, Glacier
Parsing CSV in BoxLang – Maven Style / / No Comments I recently did some CSV parsing in ColdFusion while working on my ColdFusion 2025 Hackathon submission, and while I didn’t win, I really enjoyed the little utility I built. That tool made use of CSV parsing support in Adobe ColdFusion and I thought I’d take a look at what I’d need to use to support that in BoxLang. This led me to look for a Java tool and gave me a chance to try something new in BoxLang, Maven support. BoxLang runs on the JVM, but doesn’t really require you to know any Java. Which is good. I’ve been "casually" familiar with Java since it came out, but have never done any real work in it nor really spent any time learning the language. I... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: BoxLang, Maven, Parsing, Style
A City’s Grief in One Street / / No Comments Unless it has happened to you, I guess it is impossible to truly understand what it’s like to have your home destroyed. How, then, can news organizations convey the tragedy of such loss to a public that seems increasingly immune to the horrors of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza?In 2023, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) created an interactive 3D model of an apartment block in Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: City's, Grief, Street
AI with BL / / No Comments Forgive the somewhat cutesy title. I hate vague titles that only serve to be clickbait, but given the subject, I couldn’t help it. This post is about AI, specifically Generative AI, with BL, AKA BoxLang. This has always been possible with BoxLang and any GenAI service that had a REST API, but recently the team released an impressive AI Module that makes this a lot easier. So what does it do? Much like LangChain, the BoxLang AI module provides a unified interface to work with multiple different AI providers. This makes it a bit easier to switch from one service to another. I don’t necessarily see people doing that willy nilly. Each service has it’s unique strengths and weaknesses... more → Posted in: JavaScript
Introducing ESA’s Satellite Stories / / No Comments The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched a new educational platform designed to explain the vital role that satellites and Earth observation play in advancing Earth science, combating climate change, and driving scientific research and technological innovation.Edukeo uses Lobelia’s Globe Story Engine and TeroMaps framework to create immersive, interactive stories. These stories are Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: ESA's, Introducing, Satellite, Stories
Updates to my Table Sorting Web Component / / No Comments It’s been a while since I touched my <table-sort> web component, but last night I had a few interesting ideas and thought I’d do a quick update. For folks who may not remember, I first blogged about this way back in March of 2023. The basic idea was to take an existing table, wrap it in my web component, and sorting would be added automatically. Nice and simple. As an example: <table-sort> <table> <!-- existing table here --> </table> </table-sort> The only real "feature" was that if you included numeric="X", it would consider the Xth column as numeric and ensure sorting worked properly. X in this context could be one column,... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Component, Sorting, table, updates
Mapping the Cultural Impact of Gentrification / / No Comments The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) has released an interactive map which visualizes the gentrification of American cities over the last 50 years. Cities are constantly evolving. But behind many urban developments lies a deeper story of community transformation – one that often comes with a negative cost for the original residents. The Displaced by Design interactive map is a Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Cultural, Gentrification, Impact, Mapping
Links For You (6/22/25) / / No Comments Greetings, programs. This has been a quite excellent weekend so far, and today will be awesome for one reason alone – there’s not one dang thing on our calendar. A day with nothing to do is a glorious day indeed. I spent this morning finishing prestige 10 in COD and catching up on my comics ("One World Under Doom" is incredible). Now let’s get to the links… What exactly do I do? I’ve had to explain developer advocacy and evangelism for years now, but I absolutely love this explanation by Ashley Willis, "What Is Developer Advocacy (2025 Edition)". In it, she goes into great detail about the job myself, and many of my friends, love, and talks about... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: 6/22/25, links