postgres max integer in an alphanumeric column

select max(to_number(substring(COLUMNNAME from '([0-9].*)'),'99999')) from TABLENAME

removes letters from a mixed column ... can be used for generating a new id

Intersect ArcGIS Bug

There is a bug in ArcGIS with the intersect tool (I noticed it when intesecting lines as polylines) that causes the result to be an empty table. To fix this I exported all tables being intersected to a new location (and the output to point there as well). This resulted in the expected output.

Flipped Polar Coordinate System

Problem: NIC/NSIDC Antarctica data was appearing flipped 180 dg, without coordinate system or projection defined. When other polar data, thought to be in the same coordinate system/projection was placed with this data, the other data appears to be flipped 180 in the right orientation (though the data in question is still flipped).

Solution: Modify the projection of the data in question to have a central meridian of 180 instead of 0 (with "define projection" using a custom projection based the other data). THE DATA VIEW PROJECTION MUST ALSO BE SET TO THE PROJECTION OF THE "GOOD" DATA (e.g. 0 Meridian, Polar Stereographic)

On Simple Structure and Factor Analysis

"I had become increasingly unhappy with L. L. Thurstone's principle of so-called simple structure and his widely accepted idea that variables are best explained if based on a minimum number of "factors", on only one "factor" if possible. As far as I can see, varieties in nature are nowhere put on single poles, phenomena generally arise from relations of underlying building blocks, from interaction of components and complex combinations. On all levels of inanimate and animate organization wholes emerge from interweaving parts. I could not understand why factor analysts were doggedly attempting to construe a world of utterly independent "dimensions" and associated constructs in splendid isolation." (David M. Glover)

notepad ++ special characters as replace string

While copy over a newline special character will show up in the "find" field of the "find & replace" dialog if one of these is present in a highlight, these cannot be copied/pasted into the "replace" field notepad ++ allows an extended set of special characters to be used both in the find AND replace fields ... so for example if you replace ";" with ";\r\n", with the "extended" option checked on, you will get a new line after every ";"

ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap

I recently had a chance to test out ArcGIS Editor for OpenStreetMap (1.1 Beta3), an open source toolbox for interacting with OpenStreetMap (OSM). OSM, a popular open-source data repository, gained extra traction in the US after the Haitian Earthquake. This growth came from NGOs, and from some ArcGIS shops with open source leanings, who advocated on behalf of an extension to OSM from ArcGIS. I've been interacting heavily with OSM in building and maintaining the University of Delaware Map (UD Map). The data schema for UD Map is based on the OpenStreetMap schema, and interfaces with OpenStreetMap for data updates and publishing. As the project demanded it, and as a test of the new tools, I used the toolkit to publish some pending campus base layers. Alas, this trial ended disappointingly, leaving only manual editing of the vector layer. Append, which could have been used to join the vector input to the OSM polygon layer, did not work as expected: The OSM changeset was not updated, and therefore could not be uploaded to OSM for processing. The tools still look very useful for doing manual editing of OSM data and adding OSM data as fully editable vector layers in a map ... and of course, as code to be expanded upon ... this story is to be continued :-)

jquery accordion breaks out of containers on ie7 (ie6?)

fixed this issue by giving css position:relative on parent container further up the tree (in this case was the tabs parent)