Graph paper

https://incompetech.com/graphpaper/

Print out any kind of graph paper! 

Where can you go?

FlightConnections shows you all the flights to/from any airport. 

New England Power

New England got hit by another nor'easter. You can see how much of the state is without power from the following sites:

• MEMA: 
• Eversource: 
• NationalGrid: 
• Bluefire Studios: 

Global Weather

https://earth.nullschool.net

a visualization of global weather conditions
forecast by supercomputers
updated every three hours

• ocean surface current estimates: updated every five days
• ocean surface temperatures and anomaly from daily average (1981-2011): updated daily
• ocean waves: updated every three hours
• aurora: updated every thirty minutes 

Phone Mess

• Die, robocalls, die: A how-to guide to stop spammers and exact revenge: WashingtonPost Apr 2019
• AT&T and Comcast today said they have completed a successful cross-network test of a new Caller ID authentication system: Arstechnica: Mar 2019
• Britain’s spy agency delivers a scathing assessment of the security risks posed by Huawei to the country’s telecom networks: WashingtonPost Mar 2019
• A National Treasure: John Oliver fights robocalls... by robocalling Ajit Pai and the FCC: Arstechnica, Mar 2019
• Criminals Are Tapping into the Phone Network Backbone to Empty Bank Accounts: Motherboard, Feb 2019
• How to Verify Phone Numbers with PHP, Symfony and Twilio: Chris Lush, Nov 2017
• Anatomy of a scam – how phone frauds harvest millions from us: Naket Security, Jun 2017
• THE CRITICAL HOLE AT THE HEART OF OUR CELL PHONE NETWORKS: Wired, April 2016

Update: Undersea Cables

• Submarine cable map.  The default goto map
• Times has a nice infographic thing on the oceanic fiber links   
• Big Tech (google/MS/FB/etc) are buying up oceanic fiber links   
• (oldpost) AS Peering 
• (oldpost) Undersea Cable Map   

Long Live the TIX!

The Tix Clock was an awesome timepiece by late inventor and native San Franciscan James Scott Thompson.

Unfortunately the clock stopped being available in 2014, and there has never been something even similar out there since.

Until NOW!! 
(Well... not now..  It's been available for a while now...  Since Sep 2018)

A kiwi hobbyist decided to build his own Tix clock, and now started manufacturing it for the public (It sounds like the blessing of the Thompson family).  He's calling it TIX2, and unlike the original with the all plastic frame, the TIX2 has a nice wooden body which I think makes it look even nicer.

Please Fix Google Docs!!!!

Google Docs is arguably one of the best (at least by value - it's free) word processors out there.  But there are a few things it's missing that really drive me nuts!!  Below I have a small list of (very simple) changes that would take this product (I think) way past the next level.

1. CSS: Or any basic editable style definitions!  Lets say that I want to have a specific look for text from a terminal, or code (maybe a gray background, paragraph border, and courier font)  Right now I only get H1, H2, and H3.   I want to be able to set my own.  Bonus points: Let me save that style sheet/style template so I can reference it from multiple docs!  (Imagine all those government folks who could now use this because it met their weird formatting requirements.)
2. Table of Contents: Yea, I know... there are plugins that you can add to, but I just want a TOC that works like with google sheets.  Nice and simple, and auto-updates.  
3. Paper!?!?: Why do I only get stuck with a view where everything is formatted to some random paper sheet?  Who does paper anymore?!?  Can't I say that this doc is for a screen, and then don't worry about the 8x11" page formatting?  

Fix this stuff and then your migration to your new sites pages will be sooo much easier!   

Those Pesky Drones

So Gatwick Airport in the UK was shutdown for a long time (more than 24 hours) causing everyone to go nutty, because someone was flying a drone in the airports airspace.

The Reg has "A few reasons why cops haven't immediately shot down London Gatwick airport drone menace", which is a thoughtful discussion about the sticky issue that drones cause at this point.

It's full of stars!

Obviously, NASA has a great image library you can use for background screen images.  Luckily, the The Art Institute of Chicago has also put 50k high-res images online! (news) The Smithsonian has some stuff too, but it only highlights how Chicago did a fantastic job.