2024-12-24 TIL: ACDC, Tailscale, GIS RSS Feeds, New Year’s Day, Bearer

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ACDC (Automated Creation of Digital Cousins)

ACDC is a fully automated pipeline designed to generate interactive simulated scenes, referred to as “digital cousins,” from a single RGB image.

• Unlike digital twins, which are exact replicas of real-world counterparts, digital cousins maintain similar geometric and semantic affordances without explicitly modeling the real-world scene.
• Genie 2 and ACDC Pipeline are both advanced AI models designed for generating interactive environments from image inputs, Genie 2 is geared towards creating diverse 3D worlds for AI and human interaction, whereas ACDC focuses on producing simulated scenes to enhance robot learning and deployment.
• AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock and heavy metal, although the band calls it simply “rock and roll”.

Tailscale

Tailscale is a mesh VPN (Virtual Private Network) service that streamlines connecting devices and services securely across different networks.

• It enables encrypted point-to-point connections using the open source WireGuard protocol, which means only devices on your private network can communicate with each other.
• Unlike traditional VPNs, which tunnel all network traffic through a central gateway server, Tailscale creates a peer-to-peer mesh network (known as a tailnet).

Top 100 GIS RSS Feeds

The best GIS rss feed list curated from thousands of rss feeds on the web and ranked by relevancy, authority, social media followers & freshness.

• Top 60 Map RSS Feeds

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元日 (New Year’s Day)

王安石（宋‧七言絕句）

爆竹聲中一歲除，春風送暖入屠蘇。 千門萬戶曈曈日，總把新桃換舊符。

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Bearer

The person who owns an official document or banknote.

• The passport No. E******** of the PRC was issued to the bearer of this passport.

This morning, the sky looked uniquely painted as a large airplane passed overhead. I began reading Where the Red Fern Grows and felt deeply moved by Billy’s determination to save $50 over two years to buy two hunting dogs.

After a morning meeting, I searched for Map/GIS RSS feeds, took notes on Positive Discipline at noon, and discussed a program with colleagues in the afternoon before playing badminton.

In the evening, Hamer and I watched Love Actually while waiting for Dada. Xiaoyan traveled to Pattaya today.

2024-12-23 TIL: NORAD Santa Tracker, ReadTogether.ai, HappyKids, and Phonewords Explained

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NORAD Tracks Santa

NORAD Tracks Santa is an annual Christmas-themed program in which North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) simulates the tracking of Santa Claus, who is said to leave the North Pole to travel around the world on his mission to deliver presents to children every year on Christmas Eve.

• This tradition began in 1955 when a child accidentally called NORAD’s predecessor, CONAD, asking about Santa’s whereabouts. The commander played along, starting a yearly tradition.
• Today, NORAD uses radar, satellites, and jets to track Santa every Christmas Eve.
  • Although NORAD claims to use these technologies, the website primarily simulates Santa’s journey and displays predetermined location data to users.

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Readtogether.ai

Read books together with your kids.

• Technologies used:
  • How to convert a hard copy into a high-quality E-book.
  • How to extract content from the E-book — gpt-4o + another model for verification.
  • How to read the content — ElevenLabs, Cosevoice + F5-TTS.
• Explore a collection of children’s books shared by users, and add them to your library.

Happy Kids

HappyKids is a FREE and SAFE video streaming app to educate and entertain kids. HappyKids provides kid-safe content in forms of Popular Shows, Movies, Rhymes, Stories, DIYs, Gaming videos, and more.

• Hamer loves it and now prefers it over YouTube Kids.

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Phonewords

Phonewords are mnemonic phrases represented as alphanumeric equivalents of telephone numbers, using a standard phone keypad:

• 2 → ABC

• 3 → DEF
• 4 → GHI
• 5 → JKL
• 6 → MNO
• 7 → PQRS
• 8 → TUV
• 9 → WXYZ

For example:

• You can start a conversation by calling 1-800-CHATGPT (1-800-242-8478).
• The public NORAD Santa Tracker hotline is 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723).

I felt much better this morning after some extra rest, and Hamer also woke up in a good mood. After dropping her off, I bought breakfast and caught up on my journal.

I planned out a busy week ahead, balancing personal tasks and company event preparations.

In the evening, Hamer and I enjoyed this year’s Christmas light show and a video of Billie Eilish teaching music at an elementary school during dinner. The neckband Bluetooth speaker I bought for my mother-in-law arrived, and she seemed to really like it.

I had a headache today, likely from waking up early and skipping a nap. I wanted to sleep early, but Hamer wasn’t ready for the weekend to end so soon. She struggled to fall asleep, feeling unsettled as the weekend drew to a close. Despite distractions like TV and toys, bedtime felt heavy with loneliness and reluctance as she deeply missed her mom.

Xiao Yan left for a business trip to Thailand after spending the morning at Pop Mart with Hamer.

During driving practice, I struggled with navigation, turning what should have been a 14-minute route into over 30 minutes.

In the afternoon, I watched the 2024 DiscX Elite Club Ultimate match. Later, Hamer and I had dinner at a mall food court, where she enjoyed watching the food preparation. Back home, we watched The Simpsons, and Hamer fondly said, “Watching TV with Dad is so much fun.”

This morning, I practiced driving with Xiao Yan, feeling less nervous, while Xiao Yan improved steadily.

Afterward, I took Hamer to dance class and then to her dental appointment for sealants, but three of her permanent teeth hadn’t grown in yet, so we scheduled another visit next month.

For Winter Solstice dinner, Hamer and I bought dumplings—she made hersef the dough while I cooked dumplings.

In the evening, Xiao Yan packed her luggage while Hamer and I cozied up to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol.

2024-12-20 TIL: Photos Privacy, Duffy the Disney Bear, Osborne Effect, and BMJ’s Christmas Issue

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They See Your Photos

Your photos reveal a lot of private information.

• “They See Your Photos” is a privacy research experiment that uses generative AI to describe uploaded images.

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Duffy Bear and His Friends

Duffy Bear(达菲熊) is a popular Disney character introduced in 2002 at Walt Disney World, Orlando. Initially called “Disney Bear,” he was later renamed Duffy at Tokyo DisneySea in 2005. Duffy’s Friends:

• ShellieMay (雪莉玫): A teddy bear made by Minnie for Duffy, adventurous and crafty.
• Gelatoni (傑拉多尼): An artistic cat from Italy who paints with his tail.
• StellaLou (星黛露): A lavender rabbit who dreams of being a Broadway dancer.
• CookieAnn (可琦安): A yellow dog who loves inventing new foods, optimistic and passionate.
• Olu Mel (奧樂米拉): A Hawaiian turtle skilled in music, playing the ukulele.
• LinaBell (玲娜貝兒): A curious fox who loves puzzles and nature.
• Tippy Blue: A clumsy seagull and Duffy’s mailman friend.

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Osborne Effect

The Osborne effect is a social phenomenon where customers cancel or defer orders for the current, soon-to-be-obsolete product due to a company announcing a future product prematurely. It is an example of cannibalization.

BMJ’s Christmas Issue

Each year, The BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal, publishes a special Christmas issue. The edition spans a wide array of topics and formats that are unlikely to be published any other time of year.

• What started in 1982 as an experimental roundup of fun research for the holidays has since grown into one of The BMJ’s most highly anticipated issues each year.

Today, I picked up my new passport and exchanged 10,000 baht at the bank after several unsuccessful attempts.

In the afternoon, I got a call from the restaurant where Hamer had left her black pouch, and it was found, which was a pleasant surprise. Hamer was initially too scared to go get it, but eventually, she asked her grandmother for help.

After dinner, I decorated a small Christmas tree with Hamer and watched an interview with Billie Eilish.

At work, I spent the day addressing compile warnings and exploring solutions for TreeView’s ItemDataTemplate, but ended up copying a new one.

2024-12-19 TIL: Nullable Reference Types, ArcGIS Survey123, Bozo Flag, Parenting Advice, and Slang Insights

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Enabling Nullable Reference Types

The ability to enable Nullable Reference Types was introduced in C# 8. There are two ways to enable it: via file-based declaration or a project-level flag.

• To use file declarations: #nullable enable
• To enable at the project level: <Nullable>enable</Nullable>

Installed ArcGIS Survey123 Website

Organizations may sometimes need to work in completely disconnected environments or be required to host the ArcGIS Survey123 website and/or Survey123 REST API on their own infrastructure. The Survey123 REST API is used to convert survey configurations into forms for use in the Survey123 apps. The website provides functionality to create and manage surveys and to view and analyze the collected data. Both components are separate but work together to offer the functionality seen in the ArcGIS Survey123 website.

feed.bozo

In the context of feed parsing with Python’s “feedparser” library, “bozo” refers to a flag that indicates whether an RSS or Atom feed is not well-formed XML. Feedparser automatically sets the “bozo” flag to “True” when it encounters a non-well-formed XML feed during parsing.

• Why the name “bozo”? Informally, “bozo” is a slang term for a silly or clumsy person, making it a fitting analogy for a poorly structured or non-standard feed.

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Should You Let Your Kid Quit Something?

The advice given in the show was to first reflect on your own intentions, consider your child’s personality, ask how they feel, create a non-binary action plan together, and, finally, have a reflective conversation with your child.

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Tough It Out

To deal with a difficult period or situation without becoming less certain or determined in your plans or opinions.

Body Count

Slang. Refers to how many people you’ve had sex with.

• A “high body count conversation” typically refers to a discussion where someone mentions or boasts about having many romantic or sexual partners.

Hamer’s missing coupon pouch didn’t cause her much worry. After dinner, we arranged some flowers with fairy lights in a tote bag and reviewed her daily schedule together, referring to each other as “teacher.”

At work, I discussed session structures with colleagues, resulting in new ideas, including adding a fun game segment. In the afternoon, I clarified some portal item issues and organized my 230 Earth tips project, which aligned with a tip ChatGPT gave me.

I also spent time at the gym and listened to 3 hours of podcasts, including one on handling kids quitting activities, which gave me useful advice.

Today is a special day—seven years ago, Xiao Yan and I got our marriage certificate. To celebrate, our family went to Sultan for dinner. Hamer wanted finger-shaped ice cream, but there were no finger waffles. Noticing her disappointment, the waiter thoughtfully broke a large waffle into smaller pieces with ice cream. Hamer smiled brightly, holding four small ice creams.

Today, I spent time solving the S123 JS API offline installation issue and researching Arcade expressions for edit summary.

These past two days, Hamer has started using the big alarm clock to wake herself up.

I didn’t write in my journal yesterday because I was busy adjusting and improving the iOS writing app I’m developing.

2024-12-16 TIL: iOS Launch Screen

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iOS Launch Screen

• All iOS apps must include a launch screen storyboard, even if the rest of the app is built without storyboards. Without it, the app defaults to supporting only older 3.5" (or possibly 4") iOS device sizes, resulting in black bars (letterboxing) on larger devices. Including a launch screen storyboard ensures the app can accommodate all screen sizes.
• For SwiftUI, simply adding an empty image name to Info.plist should also work.

This morning, Hamer, like usual, woke up early (although I don’t know exactly when). When I went to wake her up at 7:10, I saw her flipping through a book. I said, “It’s already 7:10, time to get up.” She replied, “Oh no, it’s not even daylight yet.” I guess she might have gotten a bit worried because the teacher told her on Friday not to come too early. To solve her habit of waiting for daylight before getting up, I went to IKEA after work to buy an alarm clock, hoping to give it a try.

Today, I spent almost the entire day using Cursor, trying to see if I could create a complete iOS app with it. So far, I haven’t had any success. The results always turn out much different than expected, and I’ve run into many problems I don’t really know how to fix, which has been making me increasingly frustrated. Now, I can use Cursor to build a simple framework and create beginner-level apps, but when it comes to implementing more advanced features, it’s still not quite right.

I feel like I still need to take a nap at noon; otherwise, it’s really hard for me to concentrate in the afternoon.

Today, I drove on the road for the first time by myself. Though my instructor was in the passenger seat, I felt nervous from the start. Every lane change, turn, or U-turn made me panic, forget to check my surroundings, or freeze. The two-hour session was tense, but also rewarding. I realized that, beyond my mindset, my driving skills need a lot of improvement. I’ll keep practicing to get better.

In the morning, Hamer was doing her homework when I left for driving practice. She and Xiao Yan later went to Pop Mart and the mall, returning in the evening.

After lunch, I lay down on the sofa to rest and watched a movie until around six in the evening, when the exhaustion finally started to fade away.

2024-12-15 TIL: A Map Rap

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A Map Rap

This rap is absolutely brilliant for GIS day! For the list of Inspiration From Other Famous Mappa Rappas, each name combines rap artists with GIS terms for a fun crossover:

1. Mapplemoore: Based on Macklemore, with a mapping twist.
2. Way-Z: A play on Jay-Z, referencing way (map data term).
3. Lil' Pane: Refers to Lil' Wayne, with “Pane” for map window.
4. Cardi-(graphic)-I: Based on Cardi B, adding “graphic” for mapping interfaces.
5. Post ma-layer: A play on Post Malone, with “layer” for map layers.
6. Known Bugz ‘N’ Symbology: A twist on The Notorious B.I.G., also known as Biggie Smalls, referencing bugs and map symbology.
7. Fat Geo: Based on Fat Joe, with “Geo” for geography or GIS.
8. The Notorious G.D.B.: A play on The Notorious B.I.G., with G.D.B. for Geospatial Data Base.
9. Ludaclips: Refers to Ludacris, with “clips” for map sections.
10. Snoop Catalogg: A twist on Snoop Dogg, with “Catalogg” for map data catalogs.
11. MXD: A reference to Max B, with a nod to the MXD file format in ArcGIS.

Yesterday, Hamer woke up exceptionally early and was ready for school by 7 AM, but arriving too early prompted her teacher to ask us not to repeat it. I reassured Hamer that I’d keep her company in the mornings if she wanted to wake up early. Later, our product’s new version was released, marking the end of one phase of work.

Today, after a late start due to a midnight meeting, Hamer made a toast breakfast. In the afternoon, we met her best friend after dance class, enjoying a park stroll and roast duck. Meanwhile, I explored building iOS apps with Cursor, gaining insights after initial challenges.

2024-12-12 TIL: Web-to-App Linking and Situational Awareness

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Web-to-App Linking

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Situational Awareness

This morning, Hamer had a mild nosebleed but quickly recovered with Xiao Yan’s help. She got ready for school, and I started my day listening to an English news podcast, Up First, which has become a refreshing morning habit.

At work, I focused on the App Link, identifying potential bugs and improvement areas, which fueled my motivation.

On the way to the gym, I had the idea for an app to help parents and children learn Chinese characters. After returning home, I dove into building a prototype, using Cursor to write code, and got fully immersed in the project.