This is the small but triumphant return of my blog, long ago left to the wayside. I'm working on some exciting projects and I'm excited to share the news on what is coming up!

But first a little news, as it may have fallen by the wayside. Earlier this year, I was named an honorable mention in the Monovisions black and white photography awards in the travel series category. I am extremely excited for this honor, as they had received over 3000 submissions. To be included among all the profressionals and other talented photographers in the competition is amazing. Moreso because it is the first photo competition I've ever participated in.

The series is titled "Eyes of the Buddha" which can be seen below or you can find it directly on the Monovisions website.

Community Cloud

The vast majority of computing power is now in the cloud. If you're not a techie, that probably doesn't mean too much to you. The short story is that when accessing services through your phone, tablet, or computer most of the computation is running on a computer usually located in a data center in random semi-remote location.

Data centers are expensive to build, and the cost of maintaining them is constantly increasing. This has led to a growing demand for more efficient and sustainable data center solutions. One such solution is the concept of community cloud computing, where multiple organizations share resources and infrastructure to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Community Cloud is an effort to accomplish this by distrbuting cloud resources to homes, businesses, and local computing nodes. This helps speed access to computatioal resources in places where they are slow or otherwise where data centers are located far from users.

Atlassianing Atlassing

Which brings us to our next topic, what are some potential use cases that would benefit from that kind of computing infrastructure? One interesting use case is mapping and navigation services. There are now quite a few high quality open data sources for GIS applications, such as OpenStreetMap and FourSquare Open Source Places.

Many of these datasets are enourmous. The OpenStreetMap dataset clocks in at over 100GB (compressed, and around 2TB uncompressed) while the FourSquare Open Places dataset is around 100GB. Given the highly localized nature of this information it neatly fits into a distributed computing paradigm like (Community Cloud). I'm excited to see where this road leads.

Finger. Painting. Poetry.

I've gotten into a habit of writing poetry here and there. One might even calm them raps or rhymes, at least if they can still be called that when devoid of flow. Nonetheless, they're fun to write and I haven't published them quite enough. They'll be popping up here from time to time if the gods will it.

Fitness

One of my many interets includes rampant self-abuseimprovement in the form of breaking down my body for fun and profit. This has been somewhat in the background for me, and mostly confined to a handful of Instagram posts and stories. Occassionally it will get featured here. I'm expecting to include a mix of content including perhaps the somewhat rare but hopefully post regarding random games that people play for reasons unknown (or fun or something).

Uhhh... Finance?

Also in the background is something I tend not to talk about even though it's a subject I enjoy, which is the filthy lucre, the dollar dollar bills, the cold hard... well you get the picture. There's a lot going on in the financial world at the moment, and while I'm not sure I have much levity (or sanity) to provide I may throw out a stock pick or two or attempt to provide some (hopefully not) hair-brained analysis.

Spinning a Yarn

And who doesn't like a good (or at least mediocre) story. There are some stories I've been waiting for quite a while to tell and I'm really excited to share these. Especially, there are a number of trip reports that I'm amped to share and hopefully it will be an interesting ride. There may even be a harrowing tale of the heart.

A Friend

Also, I've been lucky enough to have quite a few interesting conversations. Expect to see a recording and some transcripts here soon.

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So... that was a mouthful. Regardless, there's a lot coming and a lot of ground to cover. Strap in! Keep feet and hands inside the vehicle at all times. Ensure all seatbelts are securely fastened. It's going to be quite the ride!

The small but triumphant victory of the underdog in the face of overwhelming odds is a testament to the power of perseverance and determination. It is a reminder that even in the darkest of times, there is always hope and a chance for a better tomorrow.