Hello,

Things have been slow and busy in this part of Denver since last time.

The full subject line says it all:

last email from me UNLESS you opt into new list, and an e-book about rock climbing, a bit about rendering path data on maps, and more

First, I'm about to switch from ConvertKit to Buttondown Email. Unless you joined this email list in the last few months, I'm probably going to not bring your email address to the new email list, so this will be the last email you get from me unless you click here to opt in to the new system.

to recap: You'll have to open the link and enter your email on the page:

​https://buttondown.email/josht

Go there, enter an email address, you'll keep getting stuff from me. Or, 👋, thanks for hanging out thus far.

I'm going to move everything over to that system, and would like to have a dramatically smaller email list.

Also, topically, I feel a change coming.

I'll be writing a lot more about some data/software specific things, as I sort out technical bits of the software project I discuss below. But that is in service of what I'm really unable to not think about - roads, streets, and mobility networks, in theory and in practice.

Second: I still climb, and will be sneaking more climbing stuff in the chain, too. For starters, I just stumbled across an 'e-book' I wrote/sold in 2016. It's pretty good: approaching the emotional discomfort we sometimes feel while lead climbing. That link is straight to the google doc of "the book". I think it's pretty cool!

Third, For the software-motivated people, here's the current status of a long-running data gathering project. I'm nearly positive I've talked about it here before, but maybe mostly in blog posts. If you click the following link, mobile or desktop (where do y'all read most of your emails?) you'll see something like:

👉 https://joshs-mobility-data-54dab943ebba.herokuapp.com/?zoom=17&latlng=39.737619,%20-104.969164​

This is a big project, long running, I'll talk more about it via buttondown email in the coming days/weeks.

The herokuapp url will be recognizable (and groan-inducing) to some of you. The url visits 'root', and passes in two query params, a zoom level and latlng things, which... looks just like that. There's about 1400 tracked activities in Strava, and every single one of them gets loaded on the above map. You can zoom in, out, etc.

The story is simple: long ago (2018) I was using the Strava app/platform thing to record running I was doing. Years later, I had the idea of pulling out collected data, and plotting it on a map. people smarter than I have written good guides about how to do it, I muddled my way through it.

Then I moved to Golden, proper, I got a bike, *and* covid happened, all within short order. I biked allllll around the city, and it was fun to "fill in" bits of the map.

Then I got a scooter, and it was over. I could, with the flick of a wrist, travel indefinitely at any speed, from 10mph to 50 mph, without sweating, with a functionally infinite amount of gear. mmm.

Here's what my biking activity in Golden is. Red is bicycle, yellow is on my feet:

Anyway, after that, I really fell backwards into the world of scooting (like, a 170cc motor scooter, the kind that is common in asia, but qualitatively different than perhaps a 50cc scooter you're thinking of right now.)

So, I started scooting, a lot. First 'just' in Golden, then all around Denver, then all around the USA, then the world:

​

The teal is the paths I've taken in Strava while riding my scooter.

Throughout all this, I became friends with this person:

He and his wife wrote this book, and it's ruined me. Continues to be on my mind, often. Perhaps daily.

next time, with some of you, if you opted into the new list, or signed up recently, we'll talk more about the software project perhaps and what's unfolding in Denver.

- Josh

PS if you want to keep getting emails, about programming, or climbing (more on that soon), cities, ethnic cleansing, mobility networks, scooters, jaywalking, or whatever, click here, enter your email address. I don't do click or open tracking in this email system, so I have no idea if you interact with the emails, nor do I believe any of the reported metrics anyway.

If you joined the list only in the last few months, I'll make sure to bring your email address over. Otherwise, to the degree you spent energy or attention on anything I wrote, 🙏 I appreciate it. Attention is real, valuable, not-nothing. 👋

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