Nick Santos
nickrsan.mapstodon.space.ap.brid.gy
Nick Santos
@nickrsan.mapstodon.space.ap.brid.gy
Spatial data engineering architect and research software engineer focused on spatial data, open data, and decision support, especially in California […]

[bridged from https://mapstodon.space/@nickrsan on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]
Reposted by Nick Santos
This, by @giacgrassi.bsky.social, remains one of the simplest and best climate visuals
November 23, 2025 at 9:30 PM
My department is hiring a digital accessibility specialist! It's a great team that works on websites all over the State of California: https://calcareers.ca.gov/CalHrPublic/Jobs/JobPosting.aspx?JobControlId=498274
Digital Accessibility Specialist
Looking to make a difference? Join our strong and mighty workforce. We offer benefits and growth opportunities and impact the lives of millions of Californians.
calcareers.ca.gov
November 10, 2025 at 5:12 PM
OK, this time, a #job that is related to my work! The California Department of Technology is hiring a DevSecOps team member - I worked closely and regularly with the last person in this role to deploy secure Azure-based services […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
October 22, 2025 at 11:17 PM
California Department of Transportation is seeking a Chief Data and AI Officer

Not GIS specific, but lots of data management and policy, and they have a huge GIS program (with great people running it), so there'd be a GIS component […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
September 29, 2025 at 4:34 PM
I usually avoid politics here, mostly because I don't think it helps. I'm going to share something #uspol now.

This is a very good episode of the Law and Chaos podcast - I see it's paid subscribers only though - the intro monologue is what I wanted to link and the summary covers it […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
September 23, 2025 at 5:12 PM
I'm also writing it to just share thoughts publicly about what I see as the real uses of generative AI. I don't think it has the ability to do the work of most human workers, no matter what the people who want your money say. But I hear a lot of people saying they have to hop on because it's the […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
September 17, 2025 at 5:28 AM
I realize that's just super-search, where the search is likely still coming from an index and the LLM is just interpreting my language to perform the search on my behalf, and that makes me skeptical of the overall technology at the same time as I think I finally have a use for it that I […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
September 17, 2025 at 5:21 AM
Similarly, I'm finding some uses asking LLMs not for answers, but for where to find the answers on particularly thorny questions. The generated answers may still be wrong or lack nuance, but if I ask it where to find the answers, it can often process my language and intent to connect me to the […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
September 17, 2025 at 5:19 AM
I'm getting increasingly tired of suggestions that LLM-based AI can generate content from prompts or that it can truly answer questions when it just can't do it reliably. In a world where we expect computers to provide deterministic outputs, it's so far from crossing the reliability threshold […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
September 17, 2025 at 5:12 AM
For something a little sillier and fully in the GIS realm - thought of this at work the other day.
September 6, 2025 at 8:36 PM
The unit I'm in is hiring again - this time for a Web Domain Specialist - see the job description at https://calcareers.ca.gov/CalHrPublic/Jobs/JobPosting.aspx?JobControlId=490145

We've hired a few cool positions recently. I don't work on the specific team in this link, but I know the managers […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
August 31, 2025 at 7:57 PM
Are there any options for running a serverless patterned STAC endpoint? Or even better, a fully static STAC-metadata store that requires the client to do the filtering?

I see that https://github.com/stac-utils/stac-fastapi can use a parquet storage as its backend, which seems like it could get […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
July 25, 2025 at 4:03 AM
Three job openings across three different State of California departments - in thread:

1. GIS Enterprise Architect with the State Water Resources Control Board - closes May 1: https://calcareers.ca.gov/CalHrPublic/Jobs/JobPosting.aspx?JobControlId=474362
GIS Enterprise Architect
Looking to make a difference? Join our strong and mighty workforce. We offer benefits and growth opportunities and impact the lives of millions of Californians.
calcareers.ca.gov
April 17, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Today I got a vendor to reproduce a bug in a clean environment that causes the browser tab to fully lock up in a loop repeating the same request to their servers over and over again because the user is signed in, but is in a specific unauthorized state. They replicated it, then told me it was […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
April 10, 2025 at 5:42 AM
Reposted by Nick Santos
The most iconic figure in the environmental sciences is the Keeling Curve, the CO₂ record from Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

NOAA had a wonderful site where you could visualize and download these data, and now it's just gone. These data belong to us and we should not let this happen!
February 5, 2025 at 12:09 PM
Reposted by Nick Santos
I set up a quick uptime tracker for websites that Trump & Musk are most likely to screw with. (It's only tracking whether the home page loads, not whether data sets disappear or whatever.) https://updown.io/p/ldv2p
February 1, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Incredibly mad that many people I know, who have devoted their lives to helping others, are out of a job right now because Elon Musk has some kind of grudge against USAID. Far worse things will happen around the world - thousands of people will die, millions will be harmed. Musk isn't elected […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
February 3, 2025 at 6:45 AM
The State of California is hiring a senior leader in web strategy - officially the Web Services Manager - this person leads web development and strategy for the state, building the design systems and platforms that other departments use to run their websites, including the main ca.gov portal […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
December 24, 2024 at 5:25 AM
If restaurants priced like cloud computing providers:

Guest: "Hi, I'd like you to deploy one plate of pasta to my table please. How much would that cost"?

Server: "Hard to say. You'll need to subscribe to the ingredients service, which has a spot pricing option. You'll need to add on the […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
December 4, 2024 at 10:38 PM
The California Department of Technology is hiring a senior web developer. This is a great team full of forward looking people and building websites and services that support many, many agencies. Hiring details at https://calcareers.ca.gov/CalHrPublic/Jobs/JobPosting.aspx?JobControlId=458256 […]
Original post on mapstodon.space
mapstodon.space
November 27, 2024 at 11:28 PM