A geospatial career journey
Earlier this month, I attended TUgis, Maryland’s annual GIS conference. It was my first time attending since I gave the keynote address in 2017. That was due primarily to the conference being moved to early August - a reasonable adjustment due to the fact that the venue is always Towson University and the new timeframe … Continue reading TUgis Wrap-Up
At the time of my last post, there were a few outstanding issues that I wanted to address in the code of pg_webhooks. I've addressed three of them this week. There wasn't actually a route to unsubscribe from a channel, so I added that shortly after the initial release. Another key shortcoming was that the … Continue reading A Few Updates to pg_webhooks
PostgreSQL's NOTIFY/LISTEN method for subscribing to events from a database is a subject I return to periodically. I've touched on it in one form or another over several years. My latest run at it involves building a Node Express application that will allow external systems to subscribe to webhooks that are fired by NOTIFY statements … Continue reading A Simple Webhook Interface for PostgreSQL NOTIFY
Since the first of the year, I've been on my own. After considering a number of really compelling job offers, I decided to start my own company and take a contract position with company doing work that's meaningful to me (more on that in the future). I'm also picking back up with some GIS work … Continue reading New Directions
I few weeks ago, I described an integration I built to pull data from the Stripe via its API and load it into BigQuery. There were two main problems with this approach: First, it was incredibly hacky - a Wile E. Coyote approach to the problem involving cron jobs and EC2 instances and GCS uploads … Continue reading Stripe API Pagination in FME
I've had plenty of opportunity to tell my "story" lately. After my initial post that my current position is ending, there has been a pleasantly surprising amount of interest and activity. Others have told me that I shouldn't be surprised, but I feel like I've been fairly heads-down the past six years so it was … Continue reading Organizational Muscle Memory
It is rare that I use my blog to explicitly blow my own horn. I prefer to write about technology, leadership, and the good works of others, but I find myself in different circumstances now. I learned this week that my current position will be eliminated as of 31 December, 2022. After that, I will … Continue reading Turning the Page
Taking over someone else's code is hard. There is probably no better look at how a person thinks than looking at their code. It can be tempting to trash their code and start from scratch. This temptation often runs into conflict with a sunk-cost fallacy that says "The previous person spent so much time on … Continue reading Lessons from Maps and Old Code
Prior to my current role, I spent 25 years working in the federal contracting space. Almost all technology built in that world is one-off and designed for the specific needs of a customer. Often, those needs are complex and meeting them involves creating new technology. "Productizing" a solution is common trope around the Beltway among … Continue reading Services, Solutions, and Products
I've spent the last year or so doing very little with geospatial technology, but I find myself missing it tremendously. Of course "in my blood" and "how I'm wired" and similar aphorisms apply to how I'm feeling, but that's not what really has me missing geospatial. In a shocking (for me) turn of events, I … Continue reading Give Me a Standard, Any Standard