Contributing Advent 11: Mozilla's geolocation services
About a months and a half ago Mozilla announced its Location Services. It is "an experimental pilot project to provide geolocation lookups based on publicly observable cell tower and WiFi access point information". In other words, it is going to provide a similar service as Google's location service that Firefox currently uses for its location aware browsing.
In order to provide this service, they need geolocated data so that they know where WiFi access points and cell towers are. They have released a tool, MozStumbler, that allows everybody to collect this data and provide it to Mozilla. I believe that there should be open alternatives for important services like this, and I think that Mozilla seems like a good caretaker of this data, respecting privacy. So I have installed MozStumbler and turn it on whenever I go on a new route through town.
The application isn't the prettiest as you can see, but it does work well. There is also a "Test Mozilla Location Services" which uses their API to lookup the locationβwithout using the GPS. Ichnaea is the public API that you can use to do lookups yourself. The Geolocate API implements the same interface as the Google Maps Geolocation API endpoint. But there is a more extensive Search API as well. I will soon be upgrading Haunt to use this new API as the one it currently uses is discontinued.
Life Line
I went to my nieces' birthday party yesterday.
The theme was pink, and that included all the food, mostly died with beet root.
Shock and horror this morning when doing number two. Not only was my turd dark red, it was also glittering at me. Apparently the carrot cake had edible glitter...
So now I know what's worse than glitter.
π β¨ π© π£Long-Tailed Tit on a Branch with Lichen
I've been spending some time in random London local nature reserves.
Sitting and listening, and in fifteen minutes you spot countless species.
This one was in Ham Lands Local Nature Reserve near Teddington.
#london #BirdPhotogaphy #BirdsOfMastodon #Birds #LichenSubscribe
A Colourful Mandarin
In The Long Water in Kensington Palace Gardens, London.
#photography #Birds #BirdPhotogaphy #BirdsOfMastodon
Created 7 benches
Created 2 benches
Created a bench
I walked 7.3km in 2h28m39s
Added a note about a duplicate Papersmiths
I walked 4.1km in 49m02s
Fixed website
fix typo
Updated a bench
I walked 1.6km in 20m26s
I walked 1.1km in 11m49s
The Yellow Eye
A blue heron's head, with its very yellow stare-y eye.
#BirdPhotography #Photography #BirdsOfFediverse #BirdsOfMastodon #London
My little Lego box is telling me it really is quite warm outside.
Created a bicycle_parking and a crossing
I walked 3.3km in 41m56s
What the United States and Israel are doing to Iran is undistinguishable from Russia is doing to Ukraine.
Created 8 waste_baskets, 7 benches, and 5 other objects
I walked 2.7km in 42m28s
Updated a pub
Shortlink
This article has a short URL available: https://drck.me/adv1311-af3