Charlie Loyd @vruba@everything.happens.horse

I remember e-mailing every civilian satellite operator, sometimes using Google Translate, to ask if they had imagery they could share. We got every kind of bad response you can imagine – patronizing ones, greedy ones, ones confused about extremely basic concepts, and so on. One company said the person who handled this kind of thing was on vacation and they would get back in a week or two. Another one gave us okay data but over sub-dialup download speeds.

I remember someone sitting next to me having to turn their laptop screen away because they had just got imagery before it hit the Hazards Data Distribution System but it was still classified so they weren’t allowed to do anything with it other than confirm that it would meet a humanitarian need. It wasn’t declassified for hours after that, and it was already late in the Philippines.

I remember sitting in the headquarters of a large institution and watching the person next to me finish tiling a map, eject the thumb drive it was on, put it in a plastic bag, and toss that into a ULD container someone was wheeling through the room on its way to Manila.

The story of Haiyan/Yolanda is very much not mine to tell. I was not in it. But what I saw on the other side of the world, of how the US NGOs and the mapping industry responded, is still stamped on my psyche. It was a very radicalizing and occasionally encouraging experience.

Was walking home with some cans of catfood ripping through a paper bag and thinking about Supertyphoon Haiyan/Yolanda when I realized I’d just missed its tenth anniversary.

@aljavieera That explains why the store just called to say they were out of them.

I grew up in a rainier version of the climate I live in now, and it just started raining, and it’s stupendous.

Time to settle down with a big mug of herbal tea to look at some abandoned essays and remember why I abandoned them.

Time keeps sneaking up on me. It’s already November again and time to pick up a new screen light for the insect sky.

@migurski Insisting on spelling things out in unary “for portability”.

Wishing a joyous and fulfilling 1700000000 to all who celebrate. Nothing but empathy and understanding to those for whom it is a difficult occasion.

@richardaudette @timbray I suspect that if you asked the GoPro technical staff what engineering issues they work hardest on, this would be in the top 3. It’s one of their most important competitive advantages.

@tmcw Saw a guy in a tiktok who looked just like you.

@meetar The existence of homebrew has been of great benefit to me over the years; on the other hand, every time I encounter a project-wide policy decision of theirs I have to read it again to be sure I’m not misunderstanding.

The landlord’s on the roof and the cat is staring out the window with an ostrich in her thought balloon.

@urschrei I, on the other hand, am a non-academic American, which is fucking mindblowingly awesome!!!

@urschrei I would go further than “may not be great” but I’m glad.