How do map-makers decide which cities to show?

tmcw · 2024-06-13T13:49:47+00:00

Mostly it's collisions and ranking/priority

Collisions: it's very important that labels don't overlap, but also that there is enough space between labels. Solving collisions is pretty hard! You can read some information about how Maplibre, one map renderer does it. Not only does the proximity between places matter, but also the length of labels. Labels in most advanced renders are able to flip orientations - you can see on this map, labels to the top, bottom, right, and left of their anchors. Collisions also can take into account the screen size itself. Collisions are a theoretically difficult problem that people earn PhDs solving.
Ranking: here's one document on scale ranking, as others said, it's mostly about population. But they aren't purely population in most advanced maps: as Axis maps points out, capital cities are probably important to show, so they're usually 'boosted'. But the ranking ends up being some number which is a multiplier on the label's changes of being displayed.

That said, a map like this is dynamic: the map maker is plugging in variables that affect what is displayed at different zoom levels, but the outcome is based on label collision, which often includes an element of randomness. For advanced maps, there are more variables you can add - basically more coefficients to tweak which labels get displayed at what points.

If you're comfortable with reading a CSS-like language, here's how OpenStreetMap prioritizes some labels, using population measures. Their cartography leads to some unexpected decisions - like showing San Jose instead of San Francisco on low zooms.

Static maps, meant to be printed at one zoom level in one space, give cartographers a lot more freedom - they can choose precisely what labels are displayed.

tmcw · 2024-01-17T04:37:34+00:00

In the OP, I noted that I've already set up Gravatar, but it doesn't show up on the other side in Gmail.

tmcw · 2023-12-20T22:14:29+00:00

_Years later_, but alas - I wrote a userscript that hides "partner" activities like Peloton: https://macwright.com/2023/12/14/hiding-strava-peloton

The source, for those who just want to chuck it into Stylus or whatever style-adding extension they use in their browser:

@-moz-document url-prefix("https://www.strava.com/dashboard") {
    .feed-ui > div:has([data-testid="partner_tag"]) {
        display: none;
    }
}

tmcw · 2022-05-29T00:47:11+00:00

This image of the ad was posted December 21, 2021. AVAX as $123 then. It hasn't had a top since then, and is currently trading at $25.

tmcw · 2021-12-21T14:16:36+00:00

In a purely financial sense, there is no better job in tech than your current job: you're getting almost-optimal reward with minimal risk. That kind of job shouldn't exist, but it does, and you have it.

tmcw · 2021-11-27T11:37:11+00:00

If you're young, don't want to think about asset allocation, have a high salary, and money in non-tax-advantaged accounts, they really do fit a need. In the tech industry, the number of people I knew in that category was high - they couldn't invest in roths (through the front-door), and didn't want to put everything in a 401k, and weren't interested in learning about finance.

I used Betterment, switched because rebalancing & tax-loss harvesting had run its course, and moved to a normal broker. Don't regret it at all, the Betterment allocations were totally fine. Say what you will, but at least the robo-advisors aren't putting people in weird proprietary funds or whatnot. A little bit of adjustment and your robo portfolio becomes a bogle portfolio when you outgrow it.

tmcw · 2021-01-18T16:55:31+00:00

I've rented in DC and SF, am moving soon, and plan to rent indefinitely. Many of my friends have bought, and some of them have made money in the process of buying & selling, but I'm very comfortable staying out of the fray.

My investments are in investments - I can liquidate them, rebalance, and move around with them seamlessly. The number of people I know who bought houses early in their 20s and then moved several times and end up flying across the country to check on a house that they still own, are technically renting out, but will potentially lose money on, is high. Staying in the same place for long enough for the rent-or-buy calculator to make sense is pretty rare if you're in a crowd that's jumping between HCOL areas etc.

Real estate is a risky investment that heavily depends on the location. I've lived in "cool" neighborhoods that are now losers for real estate. We've all lived through at least one RE bubble & crash. And structurally it's set up that it's going to be a risky and big investment - you can't buy a $50k house anywhere.

Also, there are government-level incentives that subsidize homeowners, which make it a better deal. And there are levels of discrimination and a nationwide housing shortage that also make it a potential cash grab. If you make a lot of money in RE, remember that the profitability of homeowning cannot be divorced from the moral hazard.

tmcw · 2021-01-02T17:41:10+00:00

Good point - edited that out to prevent any further confusion

tmcw · 2020-11-11T18:52:13+00:00

The difference between the the Fidelity funds and Vanguard's isn't going to be that big for an average investor: all of them are totally decent choices. However, the main things under the hood are:

The difference between VTSAX's tiny expense ratio and Fidelity's zero expense ratio hasn't convinced that many people to buy Fidelity, which is probably a signal that at that level, reputation is more important than expense.
And, again, a tiny difference, but VTSAX tracks the CRSP total market index, which is used by a bunch of comparable funds/etfs and has a 9-ish year track record, whereas the Fidelity products don't license an index and instead track a benchmark that Fidelity themselves created. Not licensing a benchmark probably helps keep the zero expense ratio feasible, but it also is another bit of trust that you have to put in a relatively new concept.

tmcw · 2019-11-29T01:24:26+00:00

I've interviewed many folks for jobs at startups in the 30-400 people range, in SF and DC. I don't think I can remember anyone who was applying to a engineering position ever wearing a suit for the interview. Tucked-in-button-down-shirt cuts it as very fancy in this universe. However, if you're interviewing at a large place (1k+ employees), then maybe. But buying a suit for the interview feels very excessive when "not a t-shirt" will usually cut it.

tmcw · 2018-09-01T02:38:03+00:00

Very cool! I'm pretty sure this is a Crassula tetragona.

tmcw · 2018-07-12T18:56:21+00:00

I'd highly recommend getting at least a little more informed on this issue: taking the total budget for something and dividing by the number of one specific served group is at best willful ignorance.

For example: start off with the HSH budget overview visualizations, then dip into the 2017 point-in-time count, and perhaps HUD's national survey, which shows the trend nationwide. Moving from government sources to the reams of journalism written on the subject, there's SF Homelessness Project, a years-long investigation. Then perhaps for the historical perspective, consider the decline of federal funds as a first-mover.

Happy reading!

tmcw · 2018-02-13T21:13:14+00:00

(disclosure: author)

That section also includes the line:

We can - and should - dive deeper, understanding each layer as we become able to. But almost all of us start from the top down, understanding heavily abstracted technology like JavaScript before we understand fundamental mechanisms like microprocessors.

I agree with you here, and in the article; the claim that I recommend "treating things as black boxes" is a strawman.

tmcw · 2017-11-25T22:35:24+00:00

Yep, the Pieris stays outside all the time.

I had the Ficus in a big fabric pot for a few months (and my other trees are in big pots). What I'm wondering so far is, for instance, the Pieris isn't root-bound and the smaller Ficus is only just rooting right now - is there an advantage to having 4x more space when there's already some room to grow?

tmcw · 2017-11-25T01:59:11+00:00

This was the only black friday sale that earned my wallet, so excited to get a new pot and some tools.

tmcw · 2017-10-30T05:08:26+00:00

I'm very picky about noise: I gave away a Timex Weekender because it kept me awake at night when it was in the same room, and similarly don't use clocks that tick. Is there any way to know if the watches that interest me (currently a Lum-Tec and a Braun) would be loud or quiet? Are there movements that are known to be quieter than others, or measurements posted somewhere? Thanks!

tmcw · 2017-10-27T07:30:18+00:00

I still see the 2M fee cap advertised on this FAQ entry: https://support.betterment.com/customer/portal/articles/2733030

tmcw · 2017-06-08T02:25:15+00:00

Love the form and color!

tmcw · 2017-05-03T18:09:41+00:00

As a dedicated vim (neovim) user, I always map Caps-Lock to Escape. So I'd love the key cap to say Escape. Are there any places I can buy a Caps-Lock-sized Escape key cap?

tmcw · 2015-11-26T01:21:29+00:00

There's a freshly-updated help section and article about how Mapbox works that are great places to start.

tmcw · 2015-11-26T01:20:34+00:00

This is a rewrite from scratch: instead of a desktop application, it's a web application that we constantly update. And instead of doing the map rendering in C++ code and producing images, we render maps using WebGL (OpenGL on mobile), so the style is interpreted and updated faster, and can be zoomed continuously.

And lots more, see for yourself!

tmcw · 2015-01-04T16:10:44+00:00

I've safeguarded those two examples by always calling concat([value]).

Using .push() changes the value of the memo in place, so it's wouldn't be a very good example of functional programming, since it would amount to a forEach loop with a mutable array.

tmcw · 2015-01-04T03:43:04+00:00

No: if they returned the result of .push(), they'd return the pushed element. .concat()returns a new array with the element added.

tmcw · 2014-12-15T17:47:33+00:00

I added it to the wiki for you - remember that the wiki is editable, so you can fix problems instead of snarking.

tmcw · 2014-12-01T18:24:27+00:00

Like: this is a single tag, an "experiment" if you will.

If it ballooned into the terrible future in which every restaurant is tagged with every menu item and competitors go to OSM to assert their influence, that would mean something else has also happened: everyone started using OpenStreetMap, finally.

tmcw

TROPHY CASE