After stepping outside, I heard birds making lots of noise. As I was about to get in the car, I saw what they were concerned about; a hawk was perched on a street light. I got my camera and telephoto lens instead. The other birds went as far as diving at the raptor, although it didn’t seem to care.
I was in Tucson, Arizona this past weekend for the AIAA Design Build Fly competition. One can find photos from the competition on Flickr. While there, I visited Saguaro National Park one afternoon after the competition.
Since living in Baltimore, I’ve wanted some sort of map of the city to hang on my wall. Unfortunately, I never found anything I liked. Something I did like is Stamen Design’s Toner maps. However, in its most easily available form, online map tiles, it is not well suited for high-resolution printing nor does it show the city limits. Fortunately, the style is open source. After cloning the repository, adding a rule to make an outline of Baltimore, rendering it to SVG, and clipping and editing the map with Inkscape, I was left with something I liked.
A vector-based PDF version suitable for high-resolution printing is available here. The map data is copyright OpenStreetMap contributors under the ODbL. The map itself is CC BY-SA Stamen Design (and me). Here is a photo of the map on my wall. Feel free to get the PDF printed.
During intersession, I took a class at the George Peabody Library that afforded me the opportunity to extensively photograph the gorgeous building. Designed by architect Edmund Lind and completed in 1878, the building is considered one of the most stunning libraries in North America. It houses part of the special collections of Johns Hopkins University’s Sheridan Libraries. Here are a selection of those photos.
Here is the complete set on Flickr.
Also, here is a panorama of the building.
During intersession, I’m taking a class at the George Peabody Library. The librarians were nice enough to let me fly my quadcopter in the library.
