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What niche subject do you know a lot about?
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Compost
Bollards, roads signs and other road signalisation. It is honestly a problem.
what's your favourite type of bollard and why?
I am a big fan of the Slovenian/Austrian combo snow pole+bollard. I think they are such a clever thing for places where it snows enough to cover the actual bollard and doesn't require workers to drag around a bunch of snow poles every winter, they just gotta pull them out.
What's the reason to not just have the pole permanently attached on top, instead of retracting?
Honestly I can't give you a proper answer here. I never actually thought about it before so I just looked up the Slovenian law about it (I don't speak German so I didn't bother with the Austrian one) and I couldn't find anything that specifically says that the snow poles must/can't be there between XY dates (just a bunch of stuff about how they gotta be positioned). If I had to guess it is a mix of these things:
- Aesthetics
- Visibility
- Giving the road workers something to do
- It is how it has always been done. Before these combo bollards became a thing and in places they still haven't replaced the old ones they still add/remove a full on wooden snow pole next to the bollards every year.
There might be some other reasoning for it too, but this is what comes to mind as possible options.
The history of food culture in Asturias in northern Spain.
I surfed the north coast of Spain many years ago, and the food was epic. I never forget that trip. Where can I learn more of the Asturian food history?
I write about it in English at https://eatingasturias.com, assuming self promotion isn't a terrible sin here
Lord of the Rings. Not as much as the insanely awesome folks who memorized the Silmarillion, but I know a lot about The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Username checks out
Grammar
.
Sexual kinks
Current Canadian politics.
GIS (Short for Geographic Information Systems)
My brother had expressed interest in this, but I don't entirely understand what it means. Would you give me a brief eli5 overview maybe?
Sure, I'd love to. It's more ELI10 that ELI5 tho...
It's very likely that you or your brother played an adventure game or an RPG on your computer. When you get lost in such games, or simply want to know where your character that your playing needs to go, you open up a digital map. On that map you usually get all the information you might need - what is your current location, where your active quests are, maybe even different parts of the world, if it's divided into 'zones'.
Such interactive maps are a great example of what GIS does. The town or city you live in, usually uses a similar interactive map. Instead of active quest, their system might show things like parks, points of interest like turist spots or parking spaces. It might also show how many people live in what part of the city, their average age and income.
Beside your local municipalty, other companies or organization also use GIS. Their systems might show other (spatial) data that interest them.
Fire department might have a system that shows historic data - where they've had most fires, what the current situation is and where their units are dispatched at the moment.
Your Internet provider might have a map of their network and any issues along it. Maybe even overlay of property lines, so that they know who to contact when they'd like to expand their network and put new optical cables in the ground.
The system that collects and shows similar data as mentioned above is usually referred to as a Geographic information system. In it's most basic definition it is a system for collecting, storing and displaying spatial data.
Thanks, this was helpful! It seems then that it's a bit of a broad field with a lot of different applications. Do you work in the field? What does a typical workday typically entail!
Yes, you are right. It's a lot like working in IT, with special data types and some processing.
In typical setting we basically separate the system in three layers: (1) data - file servers and databases, (2) services - Servers that read this data and offer API endpoints that programs can call, that return visualised data in form of images or individual features (see: WMS, WMTS, WFS...) and (3) User/presentation layer - the (web) applications that endusers access (think Google maps / Google Earth and similar type of apps)
On my typical work day I work on one or more of above "layers". Be it data aquisition, server administration, debugging services, programming end user application, or simply helping our users understand how to use the data... being in IT though means that there also are a lot of nonse meetings involved :)
Medieval European building techniques, specifically heavy timber framing and lime plaster
Depends on your definition of "a lot," but I know a fair amount about Star Trek
The TV show Big Brother.
Car painting and repairs, high end wholesale bicycle market from 2009-2017
Fireworks and pyrotechnic chemistry.
The history of computing and video games.
I wouldn't say I'm a world class expert or anything, but I know enough to talk your ear off at a dinner party.
The appearance and behavior of quite a few types of cancers
Growing and managing strawberries in a commercial setting.
The lottery, suits and the pope.
Obscure game history
Southern Appalachian medicinal herbs
Just: Brain jank related to plurality (the situation of multiple people living in the same brain).
Cat: For clarity, much of it was learned through direct practical experience.
Supreme court cases. There are some real doozies, not that anyone irl cares.
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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