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Akkana Peck
@akkana@fosstodon.org
mastodon 4.7.3Linux/open source/Python geekette, mapping/GIS enthusiast (with FOSS tools), photo fiddler (mostly with GIMP), hiker and mountain biker, amateur astronomer and geologist, crafts (welded metal art, crochet/knitting, sewing), microcontroller projects, writer, speaker, LWV. Northern New Mexico. She.
641 Followers
287 Following
50 Posts
Joined November 10, 2022
Website:
Github:
Art website:
Nambe Lake from the trail up to Deception Peak.
Our rock #squirrel mama had 5 kids in her second litter this summer. Biggest litter we've seen yet. Here's one of them splooting in the heat wave.
Waded up the East Fork to the Jemez Box, a small but beautiful waterfall.
The wading was tricky because of beaver dams. We met two older women, one wearing an oxygen cannula, who said they'd turned back because it was more than waist deep in spots. We managed to find places that weren't quite that deep, but we got the bottoms of our shorts wet (glad I wore quick-dry nylon shorts).
Cut the hike short when the thunder/lightning started. We did get rained on coming out.
Nature's calligraphy.
I wrote up my adventures playing with the UV flashlight in the yard, with some more photos.
https://shallowsky.com/blog/nature/fluorescent-backyard.html
I got a PineTime watch recently, and spent the last couple days hacking PyTopo to be able to read heart rate data from an OsmAnd GPX file and correlate it with the map. Yesterday I also got an armband that makes HR data much more reliable (turns out pulse sensors on a wrist don't work well). I went for a morning #bike ride to test it, and I'm so jazzed about the result! Still needs lots of polishing work, but it's doing the important stuff already.
Replying to
@ascentale@sfba.social @bikenite@fedigroups.social #BikeNite A8. The library had a smartphone photography workshop last night, and it had cooled down enough that I biked there. As long as we were walking around taking pictures, I snapped a pic of my errand-running bike.
Baby rock #squirrels watching me as I put out the morning birdseed. Or maybe a single baby-squirrel-headed hydra?
Replying to
@ascentale@sfba.social @MarkBrigham@universeodon.com @bikenite@fedigroups.social A7 I had a COVID-induced heart problem last year, so my goal this year has been to get back to my previous (nothing special) fitness level, easily measured by things like whether I can make the short steep hills at Gates 9 and 11. (Plus some hikes, like Deception Peak and Nambe Lake.) I'm happy to say that though the heart issue isn't fully resolved, I can make those climbs again.
Replying to
@ascentale@sfba.social @nwarner@tenforward.social @bikenite@fedigroups.social #BikeNIte A1. Posting from Northern New Mexico.
When I think about it (maybe every fifth ride on my errand-runner, every other ride on the MTB) I squeeze the tires and see if they seem too soft. I never actually check them with a gauge. I do use the gauge when I fill it from the compressor, not when I fill it from a pump.
So weird how a company with Google's resources can't manage a seemingly simple thing like limiting battery charge to 80% (when they even have a setting that claims to do that). #Android
Driving toward Hite, with the Henry Mountains in the distance for #MountainMonday
Replying to
@ascentale@sfba.social @MarkBrigham@universeodon.com @bikenite@fedigroups.social #BikeNIte A2. My husband, when he was chair of the Transportation Board (purely an advisory board, no power) commented at a board meeting on the big open cracks on one multi-use path near us. The next week, workers appeared and started filling the cracks. Which isn't as great as it sounds, since now, there are big filled lumps where the cracks used to be. I'm not sure if they're better or worse than the cracks. They haven't been back to fix the lumps.
Neat -- someone made a 25-min video about the feral cattle wrangling operation here in Los Alamos county. The county, forest service, park service and pueblos all have problems with the feral cattle, and my hiking group has had a few run-ins with them over the years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-74jf8GTX9g.
Another interesting piece of measurement equipment we happened to notice while #hiking a few months ago. I guess they're measuring how much the stones in old adobe construction pull apart over time, and it's a pretty cool simple piece of kit. It's installed in a ruin that dates to about 1916, that was built with stones from an older 1100s ancestral puebloan #ruin. #NewMexico
A couple of locals are curious where we're going on today's Ghost Ranch hike. Pedernal visible in the distance.
First horned #lizard (aka "horny toad") of the season -- a fairly big guy, and such beautiful colors! I don't think I've ever seen colors like that on a horned lizard before.
Cavate in Pueblo Canyon with lots of petroglyphs carved on the roof. From last week's hike.
Alligator juniper. It's always fun to find these; they're fairly rare around here.
We saw a few of the bighorns on a ride down to Overlook yesterday morning.
Two views of Orphan Mesa at Ghost Ranch, as the light changes, with Pedernal on the skyline. From the lunch spot on yesterday's hike.
Replying to
@ascentale@sfba.social @BongoTwisty@social.vivaldi.net @bikenite@fedigroups.social #BikeNite
A6. I have bar ends on all my pedal bikes (all with straight bars, not drop). On a steep climb, I hold on to the bar ends and pull backward: my arm (and maybe abdominal?) muscles are helping me push harder on the pedals than I could with just my weight alone. (Even aside from reducing hand/arm fatigue by giving me more varied hand positions.) I don't get why people don't use bar ends any more.
Capitol Reef.
I've been spending a lot of time this past week learning how to write unit tests for #Python #TkInter GUI apps, something I've been wanting for quite a long time. I couldn't find much information online about how to test a TkInter GUI, so I wrote up what I learned (part 1).
https://shallowsky.com/blog/programming/tkinter-unittest.html
Anyone know how to disable "silver alerts" on Android? Really tired of getting alerts for people who went missing 90, or 150, miles away. Already disabled amber alerts, but there's no setting for silver ones.
(Maybe the best answer is to disable ALL alerts; flood alerts for 100 miles away aren't exactly useful either. Is there really no way, in 2026, to limit alerts to the local area??)
Replying to
@ascentale@sfba.social @elliek@zeroes.ca @bikenite@fedigroups.social #BikeNIte
A4a: I've been without a bike stand most of my life. I just flip the bike over. It's especially easy if you have bar-ends; otherwise, put wood blocks under the handlebar grips.
A4b: I love Slime. We'd have a hard time getting by without it here in Goathead City. We've even taken to using it in tubeless tires instead of the special tubeless sealants: Slime seems to last longer and seal better. I'm not sure Slime would fix a screw hole that large, though.
RE: @indivisibleteam@mastodon.social
For those who just want a list of the 42 Democrats who voted to extend FISA, you can find one here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/fisa-section-702-reauthorization
Happy to see no #NewMexico reps on the list.
I always like seeing this cute #petroglyph at Tsankawi, though I suspect it's not ancient based on the style.
Our public library also has a couple of telescopes -- no "giant telescopes" but like the one shown in this picture, an Orion Starblast, an excellent low-cost beginner scope. Hooray for public libraries!
Replying to
@hollie@social.coop Thanks, great page!
I don't go actually barefoot since moving here to the land of rocks, spiky plants and cacti. But in summer I pretty much live in Xero shoes or sandals (do you not know about xeroshoes.com, or don't like them?) Thick enough to work in our basalt-and-prickles yard, but still light and flexible, grippy, and tons of toe room.
Lately I'm searching for moccasins like some I had as a teenager: suede uppers just above the ankle, with soft bendy 4-5mm foam soles.
Replying to
@hollie@social.coop On the other hand, I raved about Xero to my husband, and he tried some and they gave him plantar fasciitis that didn't go away for many months. So people's feet are definitely different! His apparently need a lot of support.
Another shoe I like: generic water shoes with soft flexible rubber soles. Super grip on rocks. I wore mine hiking last week expecting a lot of stream crossings; we turned back before the crossings, but I had fun dancing over the forest floor in soft shoes.
Replying to
@deepmud @TheBreadmonkey Looks to me like the legs are elevons (see wikipedia entry). But I'm less clear on the power: I assume it's a ducted fan, but it doesn't look like there's much room for a fan between the legs. Is there any more information on the design?
Anyway, love it! It flies a lot better than I expected.
Replying to
@croyle@wandering.shop It looks like it's meant to be secured with two screws on each side, but in this case, if I zoom in to the full-res image, I'm pretty sure it's glued on with something that looks like caulk or silicone glue (whitish-clear goop) -- though those are flexible, and you'd think it would need to be something rigid, so maybe it's some other glue that looks similar.
I'm guessing it's just research rather than a plan to actually repair it if it spreads too much, but that's just a guess.
Replying to
@kinsale42@mstdn.games Cool!
I bet there are a bunch of similar gauges in places like Hollister and San Juan Bautista, CA (over the Calaveras and San Andreas faults)
Replying to
@elaterite Neat! I never would have expected to like a B&W of House on Fire, since it seems like the color is the point. But you're right, the B&W really brings out a lot of interesting contrast. Very interesting, nice shot!
Replying to
@flyhigh I just read that recently; somehow I'd never gotten around to it before. It was fun reading about places I knew from travels around the southwest. It still holds up pretty well!
Replying to
@josh0@babka.social @timo21@mastodon.sdf.org Ha! Turns out they're famous burros! And the burrito looks pretty yummy.
Replying to
@IOUnix@fosstodon.org I haven't, and their website isn't super clear on what it offers, how their widgets are better than the standard Tk ones. I'm always hesitant to add dependencies unless there's a significant advantage, since it makes it harder for people to re-use my code. What's the big advantage here? Do you know?
Replying to
@ascentale@sfba.social @bikenite@fedigroups.social @DeltaWye@tiggi.es @trouble@masto.ai #BikeNite A6. Pedaling and knees are funny and a matter of preference. I keep my seat pretty high and try to keep my cadence up (it's still pretty slow: I'm a MTBer, not a roadie) because my knees used to hurt if I didn't. My husband thinks I shouldn't spin so much and would have more endurance if I pedaled more slowly. Which I think is weird because I'm the one with the slow-twitch sprinter build and he's the long stringy one who also has a bad knee.
Replying to
@alison@burningboard.net I keep GPS turned off all the time unless I'm recording a hiking/biking track, or unless I want to use Merlin (which has the super annoying misfeature of refusing to do anything if Location is off).
Is A-GPS the "augment GPS with whatever you can snoop from local wifi signals"? I used to keep that disabled too, but I finally gave up and left it on (because Google would keep turning it back on no matter what I said). I'm not clear if it does anything when Location is off.