Gregory's Server
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Finally got to submitting my talk proposal to @foss4geurope . Pretty sure it'd be a fun one, and in a way answering some questions local Maa-amet had. Go submit yours before the week ends! https://2024.europe.foss4g.org/cfp-general-program/ I wonder if tech bros still recommend laid off and underpaid people to "just learn to code". After January tech layoffs that amount to half of the 2023 total. When companies hire mids to junior positions because of all the lay-offs, making it impossible for new people to get in. (the latter point is from https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/19fa9k5/microsoft_lays_off_1900_staff_from_its_video_game/ ) Regarding the popular @openstreetmap iceberg, when I was working on public transport in Maps.Me (after successfully getting all the subways on OSM in a consistent format), I planned to float the "bus route relations" at least to the middle of the iceberg. It's all set up, but I lack strength for the final push: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Refined_Public_Transport (if you missed the subway thing, see this: https://cdn.organicmaps.app/subway/index.html ) Folks I lost the link to the map of geospatial events, like conferences and meetups. FOSS4G, FOSSGIS, INTERGEO etc etc. Did anyone save it please? #gischat
[DATA EXPUNGED]
"Life is Strange" hits. I didn't expect it to do that so well. Not a single obvious answer to its choices. So many people you get to care about. Maps.Me was amazing in more ways than one, and nothing beats the best unexpected decision they made. The one that gave the app immortality in the same sense that OSM has. The one that made @organicmaps possible. @organicmaps The post was insipred by the latest linkdump from @pluralistic and the excellent longpost by @Catvalente filled with dragon rage and love. You've probably read it, or gonna read it right now: https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start Something for the weekend: my talk at @sotmeu about points of interests in @openstreetmap , meaning shops and amenities. I outline the current state of mapping and importing, and give some suggestions on how can we get the next million POI. Very proud of the talk, and the first half feels like a proper stand-up. Now with English subtitles: you can turn on automatic translation into your language! Random fact about my SotM EU talk (preparing subtitles rn): I used "like" 140 times in it, which makes 5 likes per minute. (Thanks to Paul for the transcript.)  Finally finished the library to compress GTFS feeds to 8-10% of the original, and additionally generating deltas that are under 100 kb for a week. https://github.com/Zverik/gtfs-proto Can't wait to employ it in my next public transport app, so that we could have offline but up-to-date transit schedules for any city and country in the world! Feels so weird having over 60KB of code, refactored over and over, but nothing to boast about for at least a couple weeks still. I'm used to making smaller projects with faster gains. But now I know why nobody implemented this "quick and simple idea".  On one hand, yes, this year it would make sense to redirect your wikipedia donation to OpenStreetMap: https://supporting.openstreetmap.org/donate/ But. 19 years in, it feels crazy to have this project everyone uses run on a budget of three facebook developers. Like, are we sure this is the way we want to have it? "At least we're not wikipedia?" rebuttal still stands?  @zverik 1.5 facebook developers, not three. But the thing is, even getting the funds equivalent to those 1.5 devs has been an uphill fight. So it isn't really a question of "the way we want it" more one of what is realistic. Comparing with Wikipedia is fair game when we are discussing efficient usage of funds, but not when we are talking about market position and the leverage it provides. I usually skim James' newsletters — he's very full of himself and could benefit from cutting his texts at least in half. But this list of things to add to general audience maps is pretty good: https://maphappenings.com/2023/12/07/santa-claus-list/ (at least half of it).  As I wrote during the conference, Steve has too many stories inside him. Here's one of those: how in 2012 he asked people to compare maps visually, and came to a conclusion that OSM was already okay. But another thing mattered as much. https://twitter.com/SteveC/status/1726993743151001786 (h/t @courtney ) I have translated my telegram posts on Overture Maps from #sotmeu, as @thibaultmol suggested. And added some OSMF-related thoughts from Mastodon. Already regretting this. While riding on a bus, I remembered we have an ongoing vandalism in Russia and Israel on the map. Folks fighting it are heroes, and it's great seeing our infrastructure harden. That what wars do, after all. But, mapping-wise. (Sorry for the rant) I spoke about our inability to deal with large scale imports in 2017 ("How to break OSM"). You though it was a joke? I proposed improvements to API and data model in 2019 to mitigate that. Starting with "area datatype? are you even serious". Mapping in OSM is and should be strictly volunteer-based. As I wrote to @bdon , OSM is competing with corporations for resources — making it a competition for an outlook on OSM data. And OSM have consistently been losing the best developers to Mapbox, Grab, Meta, or private endeavours. I have been a sub-par employee at some of my jobs because I wanted to improve OSM as well, and I should not have. One more thing about how Overture Maps could help @openstreetmap , elaborating on my last answer about managers: https://t.me/foss4g_ru/1484 (First post is https://t.me/foss4g_ru/1469, both are in Russian, but you know how to translate.) (Sorry if I come out as a bit harsh in some phrasing, Russian language is different)  @zverik @openstreetmap IMHO everyone is (faultlessly) invested in the OSM status quo - Does Overture ask anything of OSM beyond “keep doing what you're doing"? Assuming there is a potential Executive Director with the background, what would motivate them to work inside OSMF instead of an NGO or commercial downstream?  @zverik Came back from #sotmeu and I see people are still posting 30 days of maps stuff! Is it even November still?! Overture is an amazing complementary project for OpenStreetMap, these two can proliferate together. But. They clash because they don't talk to each other, either can't or won't or don't know they have to. And from that the very strange moment for OSM is formed. I feel it in the air here at #sotmeu, but nobody verbalises it. I tried in my telegram channel: https://t.me/foss4g_ru/1469  @zverik Partly true. In my (questionable) opinion, there's a fundamental difference in the motivations of Overture and OSM. Overture is a commercial interest group while OSM is a public interest collective. One is driven by profit motives and enablement of "industries" and the other is not explicitly aimed towards such an outcome (or at least doesn't seem to be). It's not that they won't talk to each other. It's just that there's nothing to talk. There is no overlap in intentions.  @zverik I have strong views on Overture and OSM, based on my previous experiences with other companies trying similar things. But since most of my conversations at sotmeu were around openstreetmap-website development, and overture-related presentations Q&A isn't the best place to discuss a complex and nuanced topic, I'll need to save my thoughts for some other venue! |
