Eugene Alvin Villar
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seav4f.bsky.social
Eugene Alvin Villar
@seav4f.bsky.social
digital crafter (coder, cartographer, graphic designer, tech writer) ▪︎ open data/knowledge advocate ( #OpenStreetMap, #Wikimedia, #Wikidata) ▪︎ Oxfordian commaist ▪︎ 🇵🇭 ▪︎ he/him 🏳️‍🌈

primary microblog: https://en.osm.town/@seav (Mastodon)
Pinned
Last October I finished implementing the classic 15 puzzle game but using the standard @openstreetmap.bsky.social tiles as the sliding pieces! 🗺️🧩

Currently you can play any of 20 map locations. Enjoy! 🎉

seav.github.io/osm-15-puzzle/
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
Better headline: "Luxon raids $6.5m from fund intended for infrastructure upgrades to support tourism, buys some French guys dinner"

www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...
Michelin reviewers to rate New Zealand restaurants for first time
They will dine at restaurants in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown for a New Zealand edition of the famous food guide.
www.rnz.co.nz
November 5, 2025 at 8:51 PM
1/4: #TIL but not surprised that the Dewey Decimal Classification, like many old things, is racist and bigoted.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_D...
Dewey Decimal Classification - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 17, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Not sure about a new career but fulfilling is what I hope to get.

#fortune #FortuneCookies #PandaExpress
November 17, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Cummingtonite - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 17, 2025 at 4:39 AM
This new OCR feature in @kde.org is fantastic! 🎉 Sadly it’s only for Spectacle for now but having OCR as a library is on the road map and I hope it gets added to Gwenview next. The built-in OCR in macOS Preview is so useful that I wondered why #KDE didn’t have it.

blogs.kde.org/2025/11/15/t...
This Week in Plasma: OCR in Spectacle and many UI improvements
Welcome to a new issue of This Week in Plasma! This week Spectacle gained OCR (optical character recognition) functionality, allowing you to turn words in images into selectable text!
blogs.kde.org
November 16, 2025 at 5:48 PM
November 16, 2025 at 9:16 AM
If you’re Colombian or in #Colombia 🇨🇴 and an @openstreetmap.bsky.social user, we would appreciate if you can give your opinion on whether Asociación de Cartografía Colaborativa de Colombia (AC3) is fit to become a local chapter of the OSM Foundation.

community.openstreetmap.org/t/138115
AC3 - Aplicación a Capítulo Local de la OSMF
Buenas comunidad colombiana de OSM, Como representante del Grupo de Trabajo de Capítulos y Comunidades Locales (LCCWG por sus siglas en inglés) de la Fundación OSM, les escribo para consultarles sobr...
community.openstreetmap.org
November 16, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
It’s been a year to the day we bought (and then didn’t, for reasons we still don’t fully know) InfoWars. We’re still trying. In the year since, we built The Onion into one of the biggest newspapers in the United States. I’m so proud of this place. I’m proud we do hard stuff. Thank you for caring.
November 15, 2025 at 12:12 AM
I love it when @hankgreen.bsky.social goes on long nerd dives on YouTube and the topic of his latest video focuses on why Jesus is depicted with long hair.

An icing on the cake is that early in the video he donated $250 to @wikipedia.org because “it’s better than Google now”.

youtu.be/9nPLAlqsWgM
People Really Don't Like the Way Jesus Actually Looked
YouTube video by Hank Green
youtu.be
November 15, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
This is the other one. With fossil fuels, discovery costs rise while tech costs fall, meaning prices stay roughly the same (inflation-adjusted) over time. With electrotech, discovery costs are $0, so the only dynamic is falling tech costs. Victory is inevitable.
November 11, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
We spoke to Errol Musk, Elon's Musk's dad, for MisinfoNation: White Genocide

Sunday 8p ET on CNN
cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2025/11/10/d...
November 13, 2025 at 2:16 AM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
I thought the @sarahkendzior.bsky.social suspension was an interestingly nontrivial moderation scenario. I wrote up a little case study/explainer on how it might have been handled on Mastodon. Probably only for people who care about moderation nitty-gritty.
www.tbray.org/ongoing/When...
November 14, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
Dear World: Now is a good time to get off social media that’s becoming any combination of “less useful”, “less safe”, or “less fun”. I’ve been on Mastodon for 3 years and am convinced that right now, in late 2025, it’s the best place to go. Come join me. Here’s why.
www.tbray.org/ongoing/When...
Time to Migrate
www.tbray.org
November 12, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
In which, on the occasion of my 3-year migration anniversary and the release of Mastodon 4.5, I assemble all my arguments as to why Mastodon is great and why anyone else on a service that’s becoming less fun/safe/useful should migrate to Mastodon and do it now, in late 2025 […]
Original post on cosocial.ca
cosocial.ca
November 12, 2025 at 10:44 PM
From Tim Bray, co-author of the XML Spec:

"This month marks the third anniversary of my Mastodon migration and I’m convinced that right now, in late 2025, it’s the best place to go."

www.tbray.org/ongoing/When...

#Mastodon #Fediverse #SocialMedia
Time to Migrate
www.tbray.org
November 14, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
#30DayMapChallenge Day 10: AIR - THE LISBON NOISE MAP DURING NIGHTTIME - Based on data from April 2021, the blue–green tones indicate quieter zones, typically open, forested, or residential areas.
Tools: #QGIS, #Photoshop, #Illustrator
Files: github.com/LX-Files/30D...
November 13, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
we need a department of kerning
November 13, 2025 at 2:54 AM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
Best case: The President of the United States knew about a pedophilia ring and did nothing to stop it.

Medium case: He also used his office to protect the perpetrators.

Worst case: Because he was one of the perpetrators.
November 13, 2025 at 2:39 AM
I saw a short video about this new #Apple product called the #iPhone Pocket. I thought that it had to be fake, but no, it’s real!

www.apple.com/newsroom/202...

To quote from the press release, it is “inspired by the concept of ‘a piece of cloth’”. #NotTheOnion

Starts at $150.

Crazy.
Introducing iPhone Pocket: a beautiful way to wear and carry iPhone
ISSEY MIYAKE and Apple today unveiled iPhone Pocket, designed to fit any iPhone as well as all pocketable items.
www.apple.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Loved seeing people’s aurora photos. Unfortunately, I live in the tropics so no sky lights for me. (Actually, that might be really fortunate. 😉) Anyway, here’s a video released almost exactly 14 years ago compiling sped-up video of Earth from the #ISS, many featuring auroras.

vimeo.com/32001208
EARTH
Time lapse sequences of photographs taken by the crew of expeditions 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011, who to my…
vimeo.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:20 AM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
The most horrifying AI slop of ICE raids you can possibly imagine is wildly viral on Facebook, collectively totaling tens of millions of views from a single account. First spotted by @chadloder.bsky.social

www.404media.co/ai-generated...
AI-Generated Videos of ICE Raids Are Wildly Viral on Facebook
An account is spamming horrific, dehumanizing videos of immigration enforcement because the Facebook algorithm is rewarding them for it.
www.404media.co
November 12, 2025 at 5:51 PM
This news about the final pennies 🪙 to be minted reminded me of the now 14-year-old @cgpgrey.bsky.social video advocating for this very day to come.

apnews.com/article/us-m...

youtu.be/y5UT04p5f7U

#coins #numismatics
US Mint in Philadelphia to press final penny as the 1-cent coin gets canceled
The U.S. Mint in Philadelphia is set to strike its last circulating penny as the president has canceled the 1-cent coin.
apnews.com
November 12, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
#30DayMapChallenge
Day 12: Map from 2125
What if all of Greenland's ice melted?

For today I played around with Greenland’s terrain elevation data beneath the ice sheet.

Note: This visualization doesn’t account for post-glacial rebound or sea-level rise.
Data from nsidc.org/data/idbmg4/...
November 12, 2025 at 2:03 PM
#TuneTuesday (Nov 11)

#Madonna has produced a lot of music in over four decades—some good and some not my cup of tea. Among the good ones, “I’ll Remember”, from the soundtrack of the 1994 film With Honors, is definitely in my S tier of Madonna songs.

youtu.be/5URwFSmT1XU
I'll Remember (Theme from the Motion Picture With Honors)
YouTube video by Madonna - Topic
youtu.be
November 11, 2025 at 6:47 AM
Reposted by Eugene Alvin Villar
Since 1990, the emissions share of the richest 1% has increased by 13%, and the richest 0.1% has grown by 32%, while the poorest 50% has decreased by 3%.

policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/cl...
November 10, 2025 at 9:01 AM