Assorted Experience

Sometimes LinkedIn will not pull the metadata/images from a page you link to in a status update. In my case I was trying to link to a page on latimes . I found that if you get a tinyurl to the page, that works. I suspect that the url parser LinkedIn uses can not handle 'weird' characters in an url, like commas (this url had a comma) or else, can't handle urls beyond a certain length.

The great folks at census.gov have put up some of the data they collect so we can download and use it. On this page they have data relating to state boundaries. The files are available as zipped directories containing a shapefile and other metadata information. If you want to plot state boundaries and some state metadata (like zip code, state name) the .shp shapefile is sufficient. Assuming that the shape file is 'tl_2010_us_state10/tl_2010_us_state10.shp' , some sample code using the pyshp package is: #http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10871085/viewing-a-polygon-read-from-shapefile-with-matplotlib #http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1441717/plotting-color-map-with-zip-codes-in-r-or-python import shapefile as sf, pylab map_f = sf.Reader('tl_2010_us_state10/tl_2010_us_state10.shp') state_metadata = map_f.records() state_shapes = map_f.shapes() for n in range(len(state_metadata)): pylab.plot([px[0] if px[0] <0 else px[0]-360 for px in state_shapes[n].points],[p...

When a Pandas DataFrame is saved (via PyTables) to hdf5 as a frame_table there is a varying amount of disk space overhead depending on how many columns are declared as data_columns (i.e. columns you can use to select rows by). This overhead can be rather high. import pandas as pd, numpy df = pd.DataFrame(numpy.random.randn(1000000,3),columns=['a','b','c']) df.to_hdf('data_table_nocomp.h5','data') #-> 32 MB df.to_hdf('data_normal.h5','data',complevel=9,complib='bzip2') #-> 21.9 MB df.to_hdf('data_table.h5','data',complevel=9,complib='bzip2',table=True) #-> 22.5 MB df.to_hdf('data_table_columns1.h5','data',complevel=9,complib='bzip2',table=True,data_columns=['a']) #-> 29.1 MB df.to_hdf('data_table_columns2.h5','data',complevel=9,complib='bzip2',table=True,data_columns=['a','b']) #-> 35.8 MB df.to_hdf('data_...

Gravity is a great movie on many levels. It can't quite beat 2001 for solitude, desolation and a tiny cast, but its good. The three actors, Clooney, Bullock and Sir Newton do a great job and work well together, though there is not much by way of character development. There is one raging issue that I have though. It only lasts 20 seconds in the movie and I don't quite know why its there.  So here are Clooney and Bullock drifting towards the ISS. They get entangled in the parachute cords which stops their momentum relative to the ISS. Then, for some inexplicably reason, for 20 seconds Sir Isaac Newton goes on coffee break but the crew keep filming! Clooney is pulled by some mysterious phantom force that affects only him and Bullock but not the ISS. Clooney cuts himself loose and slingshots outward. Bullock kind of drifts back, so you know Sir Newton is slowly waking up from the coffee, but not quite, so it's not really clear what's going on. Here's a tweak I wo...

D5100 sensor size 23.6 mm × 15.6 mm 8mm of wooden ruler spans height of sensor Magnification is 15.6mm : 8mm About 2:1 which is great, but the focus distance is insanely close.

Nikkor-H 28m f3.5 , a set on Flickr. Sample images from my experiments with an old manual lens.

I wanted to find out what all this hoopla about old manual lenses was about, so I went looking for one. Apparently old manual lenses aren't THAT cheap, or else my definition of cheap is about a standard deviation below the mean. However, I did find a manual lens that fit my budget. Apparently the Nikon 28mm f3.5 isn't as hot an item as some other lenses. The lens I got is older than I am, but in better condition. Nikon ended the run of this version of the lens in 1971. It's a non-Ai lens with the metering prong taken off (which makes it worthless for a collector, I guess). This suited me for two reasons: it made it cheap and it meant I could fit it on my D5100 (I read that you can fit the lens on the camera even with the prongs, but I don't believe it - the flash housing juts over the camera mount pretty closely, and I suspect the prongs would foul verified- the flash housing is JUST high enough that the prongs don't foul.). I inspected the lens for fungus and d...

I was always suspicious of eBay (mostly because of Paypal). But I decided to jump in (like, what, about a few decades behind the curve) and try it out. I have fairly specific things I look for on eBay: photo stuff, my idea is that eBay is the giant garage sale in the ether and sometimes you can find exactly what you want for exactly what you want to pay for. I don't have any deep observations, but I think one simple rule is important. I saw a lot of advice about sniping (bidding at the last second) and I think eBay does a very fair thing, in the true spirit of trying to find the appropriate price for an item. Ebay allows you to set a maximum bid and will automatically bid just enough to keep you ahead up to the maximum. If someone comes in after you with a series of bids your bid always has precedence until your limit. I think this, if you are using eBay as a garage sale to find cheap items for a hobby, is the proper way to go. When you first see an item, decide how much at...

I bought a 52mm-52mm coupler from a HK supplier (goes by the name of william-s-home). After I paid for the item, I noticed that the seller had a warning that the shipping could take 20-30 days and to email them if I wanted to cancel because I was just reading this note. I emailed him and requested a cancellation. The seller was SO polite. We had a few exchanges and he/she was always extremely respectful. I now have this image in my head of a venerable old Chinese trader who takes his business and reputation very seriously. For him, this is not just a way to earn money. It is a way of life, a principle, and things must be done correctly. The item cost $4.00 with shipping. It probably cost more than that for both of us in terms of the time spent emailing and completing the formalities for cancelling the transaction. It was all very civilized and suddenly made me want to be a global trader, exchanging emails with people from far flung places in the globe, because life is too short a...