Wired has a trick for downloading Google Maps to use offline. I haven’t tried this.
TO ACCESS ONE of Google Maps’ best hidden features, you have to know the magic word. Well, it’s a phrase, really, and that phrase is: “OK Maps.” Enter this phrase into the Google Maps app and the portion of the map that’s currently visible on your screen will be saved directly to your device. Once saved, you can access that map even without a data connection.
One of my nerdy interests in box plots. And no, you can’t make great ones in Excel. Here is a blog about making fantastic ones in the R package ggplot2.
You can snap a picture of a plant or animal, and Google Lens can often tell you exactly what it is.
Union of Concerned Scientists has tried to combine inundation mapping, property value estimates from Zillow, and property tax information to give an idea of property value and tax revenue at risk from rising sea levels. They chose a time horizon of around a 30-year mortgage. It seems a bit coarse to me, but it still illustrates that with available information, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and real estate markets are going to start piecing this together and it is going to start showing up in buying decisions and prices.
Marion Brady is a retired teacher who has written a book and provided a detailed curriculum online for teaching middle and high school students using general systems theory as an organizing principle.
This is pretty cool – a phone app to help you identify backyard plants and animals.
Drawing from millions of wildlife observations on iNaturalist, Seek shows you lists of commonly-recorded insects, birds, plants, amphibians, and more in your area. Use our maps and charts to determine what you want to look for and snap a photo when you think you’ve found it. Our image recognition software lets you know if you got it right and, if it’s a match, adds it to your collection. The more your collection grows, the more badges you’ll earn!
See something that’s not on the list? You can still take a photo of it and Seek will add it to your collection if it’s recognized!
Also on the topic of online courses I don’t have time to take, here is a free course that purports to help you get started, or finished, writing a novel.
I’m reading (listening to, actually) Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright, a visiting lecturer at Princeton. It turns out he has created a free online course with the material.
This page has links to some academic/professional models of movement ecology and population ecology, such as predator-prey interactions. It’s something that interests me because with an accurate theory of how animals and plants function and interact in ecosystems over time, it should in principle be possible to design networks of urban, industrial, and agricultural areas that maximize ecological function.
Developing this knowledge would be step one. Of course, there would still be the small matter of our civilization deciding this is something it would like to do.
This Learnvest article mentions a few apps for splitting bills that I hadn’t heard of.
- Splitwise: If your group is taking turns covering expenses (“you get this dinner; I’ll get the next”), track them with Splitwise. This app keeps a running total of who’s covered what, so you can settle the difference at the end via Venmo or PayPal.
- Billr: Perfect for large parties, this app lets you split a bill with up to 16 people so each person pays for what they ordered, plus their portion of any shared items, tax and tip. You can also send each person a copy of the split bill in a text or email.
- Divvy: Snap a photo of your bill and drag each item to the appropriate person (uploaded through your contacts) and Divvy will automatically add up what each person owes, plus tax and tip.