iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

I've done it again: held on to a bike computer long enough to fill up the screen. 9,999.9km. Downside: it's stuck on 9999.9 and the 2nd button no longer works so I can't reset it.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Ridiculous maybe, but no laughing matter. #LOL

Torso of a man in shirt and tie, wearing an Orange Order sash with LOL (Loyal Orange Lodge) on one side and the lodge number on the other

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/08/2026

Idle coding: I found an API for tides in France at api-maree.fr #julialang It allowed me to relatively quickly answer a long-standing question of mine: how much bigger are the tides in Brittany than elsewhere in France. Answer: quite a lot higher in […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Bare map of France (a string of ports on the Channel and Atlantic coasts, with no other detail) where the tidal range for each port is represented by a circle of varying size

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/08/2026

The line of cyan markers runnung WNW from approx Roscoff in Brittany shows vessels working on the new France-Ireland electrical connector. Cables already on the seabed. From Sibiril to Youghal!

Screenshot from marinetraffic.com showing vessels off north Finistère including 10 or so connected with this project

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/07/2026

I've been playing with the Oireachtas API to see who's voting for what, and thought I'd try to see who's skipping votes. Here's a list of those missing more than 1/3 in 2025 (Holly Cairns: maternity leave; John McG leas ceann comhairle, RBB ill, Catherine C campaigning) #mastodaoine

% N
Máire-Devine 4.00 65
Timmy-Dooley 4.37 71
Michael-Fitzmaurice 4.68 76
Thomas-Byrne 4.68 76
Catherine-Connolly 4.74 77
Hildegarde-Naughton 4.99 81
Mattie-McGrath 5.48 89
Danny-Healy-Rae 5.91 96
Paschal-Donohoe 6.10 99
Micheál-Martin 6.41 104
Simon-Harris 7.70 125
Mary-Lou-McDonald 8.13 132
Richard-Boyd-Barrett 10.35 168
John-McGuinness 10.41 169
Holly-Cairns 12.01 195
Total 100.00 1623

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/06/2026

All of France (and whatever else is in the bounding box). More and worse artifacts later on: west coast seems to be dealt with differently, and there's a huge rectangle near Belgium that isn't consistent. I imagine different models being used.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/06/2026

Equivalent for Limerick (much less range, some evidence of temps moving SW-NE, e.g., with the prevailing cloud-bearing winds)

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/06/2026

‪Brendan Halpin‬ ‪@bthalpin.bsky.social‬ · 21s I've been playing with the API at open-meteo.com and have downloaded the temp forecasts for a 1°×1° "square" around where I am ATM for 7 days. I like how the topography emerges from the data, and how the spatial […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/05/2026

The phrase "ultra-low density suburbanisation" is now in print, a goal of mine for several years now

Search results screenshot, 'No results found for "ultra-low density suburbanisation"'

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/04/2026

I was in Donegal Town recently, and was impressed with the audacity of this business name. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_homo

Shop front, home furnishings, named Eske Home.

In Donegal Town, on the River Eske.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/04/2026

Macra na Feirme person: "young people from farming backgrounds building on family-owned land" 1: already exemptions for them 2: they represent a TINY %age of the demand MnF is for it because farmers like selling sites. Ultra-low-density suburbanisation […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Map of Ireland showing rural census small areas marked by population living in recent housing stock: really significant ultra-low-density suburbanisation, worst perhaps in east Galway

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/04/2026

I think we should be checking YOUR internet connection, not mine, Bluesky

Screenshot of Bluesky outage message saying "Please check your internet connection"

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/04/2026

I saw this on Reddit, and having the data to hand, I thought I'd replicate it: www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1s… #mastodaoine

Line graph showing population density by distance from centre for Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway. Dublin centre peak at c9000 per km².

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/03/2026

I've been wondering if "one-off rural housing" can be described as ultra-low density suburbanisation. I've been looking at data: Census Small Area statistics, in fact. Result, this map: Rural Census Small Areas with >40% of housing stock build in the period […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Map of Ireland with dots for each of 19k Small Areas, showing whether >40 or >50% of the housing stock was build since 2000. Some remarkable clusters.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/03/2026

Enough of my commute is due east-west, and with solar time about 35mins behind UTC, I like to catch equinoctial sunsets when I leave work a bit late #equinox

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/01/2026

Interesting article on fertility in Ireland www.irishtimes.com/your-money/2026/… Since I have the data to hand, I attach a graphic showing the rate of first births by […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Heat map of first births by age (15-45) and year (1980-2024) as births per 1000 women. Early there is a strong peak around age 23-25 of about 75 births per 1000 women, later a peak at around 32, of circa 65 births. However, most of the shift of the peak occurs between 1980 and 2010, and the main change seen 2010-2024 is a systematic drop-off in births in the teens-mid 20s range.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/01/2026

A bit more clarity re the difference between these measures: the cohort data excludes early (higher age) and later (lower age) data to present complete data from age 15-45.

Heatmap showing birth rates by year and age, for all on left, and only for complete cohorts (on right)

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/01/2026

Total Cohort Fertility Rate and Total Period Fertility Rate for Ireland, using birth data up to end 2024. Consistent downward trend in both, the relative pause in the middle of the TPFR decline is associated with large net in-migration (including of young […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Line graph showing TCFR, cohorts born 1965-1979

yob rate
1965 2.215733
1966 2.164518
1967 2.14942
1968 2.157932
1969 2.167489
1970 2.129435
1971 2.115767
1972 2.111211
1973 2.096808
1974 2.090011
1975 2.075691
1976 2.057024
1977 2.057001
1978 2.060712
1979 2.051204

Line graph showing TPFR from 1980 to 2024

year rate
1980 3.188579
1981 3.039495
1982 2.935899
1983 2.735562
1984 2.575918
1985 2.469561
1986 2.414214
1987 2.293106
1988 2.142045
1989 2.046095
1990 2.080176
1991 2.064848
1992 1.977451
1993 1.889898
1994 1.830521
1995 1.839855
1996 1.888151
1997 1.937662
1998 1.938642
1999 1.900179
2000 1.891016
2001 1.947699
2002 1.962651
2003 1.956282
2004 1.929927
2005 1.873278
2006 1.93155
2007 2.018963
2008 2.056446
2009 2.048759
2010 2.044702
2011 2.020768
2012 1.974928
2013 1.923056
2014 1.890823
2015 1.849777
2016 1.805458
2017 1.756228
2018 1.740084
2019 1.6948
2020 1.623949
2021 1.732843
2022 1.619668
2023 1.526601
2024 1.49529

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/12/2025

Everyday #Emacs #orgmode task: merge two tables I'm grading, and want to merge the class list with the list of assignment submissions. Include the two lists as named tables, and a tiny R-snippet will produce a merged table (also named).

Screenshot of Emacs buffer. Contents:
#+NAME: classlist
| sname | fname | ID |
|-----------+-------+----------|
| Doe | John | 22339574 |
| Belafonte | Harry | 23420537 |
| Show | No | 24135666 |

#+name: submissions
| ID | timestamp |
|----------+------------------------|
| 22339574 | 19 December 2025 17:59 |
| 23420537 | 19 December 2025 10:53 |

#+name: results
#+begin_src R :var students=classlist subs=submissions
library(dplyr)
left_join(students, subs, by='ID')
#+END_SRC

#+RESULTS: results
| Doe | John | 22339574 | 19 December 2025 17:59 |
| Belafonte | Harry | 23420537 | 19 December 2025 10:53 |
| Show | No | 24135666 | |

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/12/2025

We're not made of sugar. We're made of sterner stuff than the coders or this weather app!

Screenshot of forecast summary showing light to dense intensity drizzle for the next week

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/11/2025

Even my browser doesn't think islamophobia is a word🤦

Screenshot of previous post in edit box, islamophobia underlined with wavy red line

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/11/2025

The DST switch has two advantages: moving an hour of summer daylight we'd normally sleep through into our evenings, and reducing the variation in the time of sunrise (avoid dark mornings). A 1-hour adjustment makes quite a big difference in middle latitudes […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Line graph showing time difference between latest and earliest sunrise, by latitude. Close to zero at the equator (effect of elliptical orbit), rising steadily, c2.5 at 40°, c6.5 at 60°. A little north of 63° there is no sunrise part of the year.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/10/2025

Playing with #Julialang and GEOjson.jl, trying to figure out how to draw Irish constituency maps from osi.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?… Far too much detail! But the polygons! Three constituencies have more than 100 polygons, Galway has 277!!!

Constituency map for Ireland (Republic, obvs) with Cork Southwest, Galway, Mayo and Donegal in red: lots of islands, lots of polygons

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2025

I had fun with OpenStreetMap data and Julia yesterday, so I wrote some notes on how I did it (i.e., access OSM data, process it with Shapefile.jl and plot it with Plots.jl). Details at brendanhalpin.net/blog/osmnjulia

Minimal map of Limerick city, containing only paths (roads, cycleways, footpaths). Service roads in grey, cycleways in blue, other in dark red.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2025

I haven't been paying attention, but apparently it's been a bit stormy today. #mastodaoine

Line graph showing a count of electrical outages in Ireland over 2+ weeks, mostly under 5, peaking at over 450 just now. Based on https://powercheck.ie.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2025

A map of Ireland (north and south) drawn only with motorways, primary and trunk roads, from OSM data provided as shapefiles from download.geofabrik.de/europe/irelan… (updated daily). Decoded and drawn entirely with Julia […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Map if the island of Ireland drawn only with major roads

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2025

Of FFS! #Brightspace is fucking up my #Julialang teaching materials for tomorrow by being too clever. It can interpret latex code and show formula. Brilliant. It just can't not do it, so my regular expression example of r"\$[0-9]+\$") is showing up as […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

$Code example r"[0-9]+" where the [0-9]+ is in Latex format, Computer Modern Roman font, instead of the r"$[0-9]+$" required.$

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2025

Maria Steen and husband, with two entirely unrelated images What a pity we're not going to hear from her as much as if she had been nominated. #mastodaoine

Maria Steen and husband, outside Oireachtas, on her failure to be nominated for the Irish presidential election. Sharp shoes, and her husband reminds me of someone

Lotte Lenya/Rosa Klebb's sharp shoes from "From Russia with Love"

Image of Groucho Marx mask (bushy eyebrows, big glasses, big nose, bushy tache)

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2025

The R/tidyverse "pipe" tri-graph reminds me of something but I can't put my finger on it... %>%

Barney Rubble from the Flintstones, in a doorway, laughing helplessly with his eyes closed

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/09/2025

I'm putting together notes for novices to do simple data analysis with R and the fact that I'm telling them to "cut and paste this inscrutable block of code at the start of your file" reminds me of nothing so much as when I worked for the ESRI in Dublin in […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Block of R code:
library(data.table)
library(ggplot2)
library(epiDisplay)
library(foreign)
nlsw88 = read.dta("nlsw88.dta")

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2025

Looking for the local tides, and Duckduckgo helpfully gives me an AI summary that is approx 6 hrs out. Which is about as wrong as you can be.

AI Overview

+1

Les marées à Xxxxxx aujourd'hui, mardi 12 août 2025, sont les suivantes : la marée haute sera à 03h05 et 15h22, et la marée basse à 08h58 et 21h13. Le coefficient de marée est de 95, selon les prévisions de Météo Marine.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/07/2025

I also looked at elevation. The old phone has been pretty poor at this, but I assumed that was just a GPS thing (comparing GPS elevation with e.g., SRTM elevation shows the phone can be slow to respond (ofc GPS and local height above sea level don't agree)) […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Elevation by time, now. The new phone is higher as we climb, but lower as we decline. Elevation rises steeply initially, flattens, and shows a circa 30 minute downhill.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/07/2025

Time on the X-axis might make more sense. Shows that grinding up the hill takes longer!

The x-axis is now time, not distance, so the slow bits take longer!

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/07/2025

I replaced my ancient phone with a Fairphone 5 and decided to do the ultimate comparison test: how accurate is the GPS when I'm riding my bike? Answer: on a map the tracks are v close but the F5 is consistently better, fewer wobbles. Errors in location mean […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Line graph of speed by distance, two records largely in agreement but the old phone's one distinctly more jittery.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/06/2025

Solstice thought: the earth's transit around the sun is like climbing the spiral staircase of the Tower of Pisa. You begin leaning left, after 1/4 you're more or less upright, 1/4 further leaning right, then upright again. Then left again, etc.

Leaning Tower of Pisa partly obscured by a cypress

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/05/2025

My old bike* is permanently out of commission, and I'm temporarily on a borrowed bike. It's fine, but it felt not quite right. I swapped over my old saddle (Brooks¸c20yrs old) and, with the help of a tape-measure, adjusted the positioning to be as close as […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

The remains of my bottom bracket after the mechanic tried and failed to remove the cup, locked in place by corrosion

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