Because cameras run on photons, most photo charter trains run during the day. Sure, we might leave before sunrise to be in position for a morning shot, or do some blue light shots at the end of the day around the yard, but they’re still fundamentally day trips. However, railroads run 24/7 and the other half of the day – while seldom captured – can produce some truly stunning images. Modern LED lighting and advances in digital cameras have made night photography more accessible than ever, no longer requiring the herculean efforts of famous night photographers like O. Winston Link. So why not a night photo charter?

Two years ago, the Durango & Silverton and Pete Lerro did just that. Instead of the railroad’s usual one day fall special, they substituted a two night train – the first night working up to Silverton, the night working back. They called in long-time charter operator and photographer Pete Lerro to work with the railroad to provide staging and lighting for the various shots through the canyon. I can’t remember why I missed it, but I’ve been kicking myself ever since. So when they announced they were doing it again this year, I didn’t even hesitate.

The results from last week are posted in a new trip report – The Night Train to Silverton. Enjoy!

Update (Mar 15, 2021): Apparently Lulzbot is actually building releases again, and they’ve released one compiled for Stretch. Just use that and you’ll be fine. Here’s the link. The rest of this is no longer needed, and indeed their source seemed to have a few bugs that I kept tripping over today (specifically multiply object). Then the power cable to the bed failed, and my fun is over until I get a replacement connector later this week.

Upgrading my workshop machine is one of those things that’s been on my “to do” list now for several years. Having had some time this afternoon on conference calls, I finally got around to it. Out with the old i5-3750K, in with the “new” (retired from my primary desktop) i7-6700K. I figured it would be an easy transition. Throw on Ubuntu 18.04 (can’t move to 20.04 for a couple reasons yet), copy over my home directory, set a few things, and bada bing, we’re back in business, right?

Of course there’s always those things you forget. One of those was that Ubuntu 18.04 and the packages of Lulzbot’s version of Cura don’t get along. Their deb for 3.6.23 was linked against glibc 2.28, which is newer than the 2.27 in 18.04 and derivatives (such as Mint 19.x, which is what I was running before). So it’ll install, but it won’t run. All you get is this fun error:

/usr/share/cura-lulzbot/cura-lulzbot: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.28’ not found

Shortly after the turn of the decade in January, I was perusing Reddit’s /r/dataisbeautiful and found someone who had built a location heatmap using OpenStreetMap, his Google location history, and some python to tie it all together. Given I’ve been carrying an Android phone and letting Google spy on me since early 2010, it seemed like a great way to end off the decade.

My maps for 2010-2020 are at the end of the post. For those wanting to do this for themselves, here’s the easy to follow instructions.

After eight years of completely ignoring my personal website, I’ve decided it’s time to make something out of it again. There’s almost no content up here at the moment, but hopefully moving onto an actual easy-to-maintain blogging platform will actually encourage me to write and post things occasionally.