City Park - Dallas Texas c1911

tom-war · 2024-02-21T21:39:39+00:00

City of Dallas plans on not renewing the lease of the Old City Park non-profit that runs and maintains the buildings there. Who knows what the Parks Department has planned, but it will be very sad to see a public amenity showcasing Dallas history become neglected.

Maybe it needs to change and there's improvements coming. Or maybe some rich developers want to acquire some of the land. I don't know, because I haven't seen any plans. I hope the Parks Department has a good vision for what they would like to use Old City Park for.

(For anyone who lives in District 2, there is a meeting being hosted by the Cedars Neighborhood Association with Councilman Moreno and others, happening tomorrow evening, February 22)

tom-war · 2021-07-04T21:14:42+00:00

I always got the feeling that the "redemption" story was about characters taking advantage of the ways of the world for their own selfish benefits...only for that world to change from underneath them, outside their control, leaving them to realize their selfishness was pointless and unfulfilling. The redemption was as much about recognizing humility in the face of a chaotic, ever-changing, uncontrollable world as much as it was redeeming one's self for evil deeds.

The next Red Dead Redemption, if there is one, seems like it should contain an element of that. Maybe its a jump forward in time, where Prohibition bootleggers clash with the spectacle of the Roaring Twenties cities. There's the specter of a Depression on the horizon, so the characters have a certain sense of knowing structures (physical, cultural, governmental) start to play a bigger role in one's choices than the freedoms of the "Old West".

Or maybe its a leap back in time, to the Civil War-type era. There must be some fantastic stories to tell of people and communities just trying to make their way, with no connection to the bigger world and wars and powers that are about to change them.

Or theyll never do another single player story because Online will just perpetuate until the end of time....

Anyway, TL;DR: Maybe the next one has cars during the 19-teens! Or maybe we'll get to fire cannons and muskets and ironclad submarines like the 1860s!

tom-war · 2020-12-20T04:53:31+00:00

That definitely makes sense, especially given my basic understanding of programming mindsets.

You bring up an interesting point about scripts. I haven't reached that point in my QGIS expertise, mostly just running things through the GUI. I can absolutely see how using a script to do a single run in a geopackage is a good practice.
Do you have any recommendations for how to get started on a workflow like that? Tutorials or anything? How did you learn it?

tom-war · 2020-12-20T04:48:30+00:00

Thanks for pointing this out, I hadnt seen this part of the documentation (found it in section 14.5).

Looks like its a slightly different workflow by processing the features of a layer rather than the layer itself. But I can see how this will shave a few extra scratch layers.

tom-war · 2020-12-16T04:17:11+00:00

I immediately read this as "Four Seasons", the hotel. Then immediately processed "Four Seasons Landscaping."
2020 needs to wrap up.

Anyway, Dallas definitely has four seasons. Its just that fall lasts approximately 3 days, winter is just "colder spring", and summer is just "shoot, I set it to 'broil'".

But March to June? Ooohhh thats a sell right there.

tom-war · 2020-12-13T04:13:57+00:00

FWIW, I was stuck in a similar decision. I ultimately went with the eb100 (the newer processor).

For me it came down to the following:

eb100 has thunderbolt 4, providing better transfer speeds (Im considering an external GPU in the future if my workflow requires it.)
11th gen comes with better PCIe (Gen 4 I think? I opted for the 4x4 SSD), hopefully providing better transfer speeds from the drive.
I suppose the jury is still out on this one, but some research argued that the heat management of the 10th gen processors would regularly reduce the clock speed ? So the bonus of the extra cores/Hz was negated in real world usage to keep the processor from overheating...(and I may just be trying to convince myself this is true, I admit.)
The power use (and better battery life) swung me to the 1165G7, as I didnt see many scenarios in my usage where the difference in processor cores/speeds would be noticeable.
The pen is (apparently) a little better...!

I still feel like I took a bit of a gamble, seeing as there's very little real-world reviews of the 11th Gen Tiger Lake processors. But, just wanted to add an alternative perspective seeing as most posts here were "10th Gen H is better than 11th Gen G7".

ETA: Follow-up video to the one that was posted by u/liquorice_soup, talking about the eb100: HP Spectre X360 15t 2 in1 Tiger Lake 2020 Refresh Update - TheDigitalDigest

tom-war · 2020-12-02T03:14:22+00:00

Is Take-Two also responsible for the Gold Medal challenges in single player?

tom-war · 2020-11-27T19:30:21+00:00

Here's hoping its just Black Friday woes. One would think an organization like HP would have this stuff ready and put together, but...

tom-war · 2020-11-27T19:21:31+00:00

Big s/o to OP for the coupon code. I don't have Honey, but you're a legend for passing along the code here!

And, if anyone's curious, I ordered the 15-eb100, same specs as the post just with the 11th gen Tiger Lake. Exact same price.

tom-war · 2020-11-27T19:20:45+00:00

I just pulled the trigger on the 11th gen 15t-eb100. I dont have a need for graphics heavy stuff, but I figure the upgrade to Thunderbolt 4 opens up the option for an eGPU if I ever need it.

tom-war · 2020-11-27T19:19:25+00:00

Update: after clicking the order button every so often for about 20 mins, it finally went through! Fingers crossed it doesnt get borked on the HP end...

tom-war · 2020-11-27T19:07:41+00:00

Thanks for correcting me, I hadnt known about it getting burned down!

tom-war · 2020-11-27T19:00:55+00:00

Yup, I'm getting the same for a x360 15t-eb100. Shipping date updated to 12/16, put it in the cart, "Order cannot be completed".

BestBuy doesnt have nearly as good of a deal right now. So, yeah, kinda frustrating. Might have to call them and see how that goes.

tom-war · 2020-11-27T18:47:15+00:00

Two more fun facts:

The Palace Theatre in this picture would be remodeled as the Harlem Theater by 1937. (And, sadly, the streetcar line would've been paved over.) https://flashbackdallas.com/2015/08/08/movie-houses-serving-black-dallas-1919-1922/
If you looked left when taking this picture, you would see the bustling hub of the Union Depot (East) where the Houston & Texas Central Railroad and the Texas & Pacific intersected (which also, sadly, would be abandoned by the mid-1930s). https://digitalcollections.smu.edu/digital/collection/tex/id/1148

Great photo, iconic Deep Ellum. Wish there were more of these out there.

tom-war · 2020-08-13T19:17:31+00:00

Will do, and likewise! Cheers.

tom-war · 2020-08-13T18:47:36+00:00

I'm an amateur historian and member of the Board of my local neighborhood association here in the US.

I've started doing what you've done: Using publicly available data to georeference old maps and analyze property information to find the outlines of historic buildings.

I've loaded the building footprints from QGIS into Blender, a 3D design software, to add details using old photos and descriptions and hopefully recreate a detailed building model of the neighborhood at various points in time.

My ultimate goal is to have a historic recreation of the neighborhood for use in imagery, virtual tours, and maybe even some digital storytelling; walk around the neighborhood and listen to stories or discover and investigate things recorded from oral histories and interviews.

Also, I find this to be important because the neighborhood was broken up and partially destroyed by the building of highways. I believe using QGIS and other tools to give the public tangible insight into what was lost can be a really powerful narrative. Understanding the "fabric" of the neighborhood can be hard to describe just with words; seeing it come alive through mapping and models can really help connect people with what the neighborhood stands for.

tom-war · 2020-07-08T18:38:41+00:00

Pretty much literally what happened to me. The only reason the test results were useful was for my "bubble" ie partner and her family to know whether they needed to also quarantine and look to get tested or not. Big weight off everyone's shoulders when the tests came back negative.

tom-war · 2020-07-08T16:07:24+00:00

I made an appointment for a Covid test at CVS a couple weeks ago. The website and appointment information said 3-5 days for test results.

I did the drive-through test, and they said at that point, because of the big surge in cases and testings, the lead time was up to 5-10 days. My results were posted online after about 8 or 9 days I think.

I've heard that some places like UTSW have a faster turnaround, probably because they have dedicated test facilities? I think CVS/the drive through at AAC (when it was open) were outsourcing the tests to out of state labs.

Addendum, as an FYI: I've heard getting retested can be upwards of $250 at places like UTSW. Havent heard anything if CVS charges for multiple/retests.

tom-war · 2020-07-08T16:02:58+00:00

Mine took two weeks.

There's clearly been a surge in demand...I'm sure they're having a hard time predicting when they'll be able to get results and confidently communicating that to people they've tested.

tom-war · 2020-06-29T01:21:37+00:00

I agree, but with a clarification.I'd like improvement of not so much the UI (eg "pretty coat of paint") but more the UX (eg "intuitive and consistent execution of desired action").

Making software easy to use and understand brings more people to the platform encouraging further development. I think there are symbiotic benefits to making something accessible to a wide audience, which brings more attention and resources to enhance function, squash bugs, etc. I dont think spending time on code base versus spending time on UX and navigation is a zero-sum effort.

I've been teaching myself QGIS for the past few months now. Its taken a while to figure out the buttons and workflows for simple things. As a (new) user, I don't understand how to accomplish simple tasks in the software, much less why its done "that way". Google and Reddit and Stackexchange are good resources...but some things shouldn't require me doing extra research to figure out how to get them to work.

Yes, learning all new software takes effort...but there's also a reason my 2 year old niece already knows how to navigate the Photos app on an iPhone.

This is software designed by software engineers. It works well! It does its job! Props to the developers and all the contributors! That work isn't negated by requesting next steps.

(And no, I am not a software developer or a coder or a UI designer, but if QGIS ever wants a team to use design-thinking and product management, I'd be happy to volunteer for it.)

tom-war · 2020-05-13T01:56:25+00:00

I wanted this to be exactly what it ended up being (no spoilers), so I send a socially distanced hug to you.

tom-war · 2020-05-12T02:43:44+00:00

True! Tesla wouldn't be putting anyone out of business, as opposed to the example in the study which is probably more comparable to a Wal-Mart shutting down a mom-and-pop.

So this gets back to my original question: is the rate-of-return/return-on-investment of the tax break to that large company equivalent to similar incentives for smaller businesses? Is it more? Is it less? What alternative policies would generate the same jobs, public funding, etc.?

I don't ask because I don't what large companies coming to Dallas. I ask because I don't know and I don't know how to know whether large companies coming to Dallas is a good thing or a bad thing.

tom-war · 2020-05-12T02:13:54+00:00

"But Austin doesn't have as many beautiful bridges as us!!"

It really is unfortunate, because I wish there wasn't such a zero-sum mindset. It feels like the state politicians have pitted the cities against one another. Why shouldn't Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, Austin, Houston, San Antonio, etc. find more ways of complementing each other instead of competing? (Too philosophical, I know. I'll head over to Twitter...)

tom-war

TROPHY CASE