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Brian Mc Donald

@brianmcdonald.me

Humanitarian Aid Worker. Occasional whitewater kayaker. Based in Nairobi https://brianmcdonald.me https://fosstodon.org/@brianmcdonald

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19.11.2024
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Latest posts by Brian Mc Donald @brianmcdonald.me

ESF Convert - ECHO Single Form Converter

I just released a simple tool for converting ECHO Single Form XML documents to Word or Markdown. Try out the library here pypi.org/project/esf-... and the fully client-side app here esf-convert.brianmcdonald.me

29.12.2025 14:31 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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The Great Aid Recession: 2025’s Humanitarian Crash in Nine Charts The world faces unresolved conflicts, growing climate crises, attacks on aid workers, two famines, and diminishing political willβ€”alongΒ with significant aid cuts. Altogether, 2025Β hasΒ earned a grim n…

β€œIn 2025 Americans would collectively spend more on their Halloween candy than their government did on life-saving humanitarian aid.” From Sam Vigersky at the @cfr.org: www.cfr.org/expert-brief...

29.12.2025 14:08 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Announcing our VS Code and Cursor extension Bringing a native marimo experience to your favorite IDE

byoe (bring your own editor) for @marimo.io is here. built from scratch with LSP + uv

marimo.io/blog/vscode

19.11.2025 18:47 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Rendering H3 data with H3HexagonLayer

Rendering H3 data with H3HexagonLayer

Maplibre text labels rendered above Lonboard layer

Maplibre text labels rendered above Lonboard layer

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Released Lonboard v0.13!

- New layer types: H3, S2, Geohash, A5 and fixed HeatmapLayer
- Render data layers beneath Maplibre text labels
- Map UI controls: scale, fullscreen, navigation
- Significant performance improvements: fixing earlier regressions

developmentseed.org/lonboard/lat...

05.11.2025 21:26 πŸ‘ 13 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
relationship diagram showing different spatial interaction structure(s) underlying alternative concepts of spatial correlation and the Moran's I coefficient, as shown in https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/24694452.2024.2326541

relationship diagram showing different spatial interaction structure(s) underlying alternative concepts of spatial correlation and the Moran's I coefficient, as shown in https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/24694452.2024.2326541

cool news from PySAL world: the (imminent) next release of the `esda` module will have (1) spatial correlograms and (2) (more importantly) @levijohnwolf.bsky.social's partial Moran's I estimator described in

www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

(both already in main if you can't wait 😎)

25.09.2025 18:35 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
Screenshot of the DTM API portal

Screenshot of the DTM API portal

Screenshot of the DTM API portal

Screenshot of the DTM API portal

Want to know how many internally displaced people there are at a national or subnational level, their cause of displacement and their areas of origin? I have been very proud to lead the DTM team's work over the past months in launching V3 of their API. There's more to come dtm-apim-portal.iom.int

18.08.2025 04:22 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Fire Risk Index framework

Fire Risk Index framework

Fire Risk Index framework

Fire Risk Index framework

Comparing fires in Camp 8W to fluctuation in Fire Weather Index

Comparing fires in Camp 8W to fluctuation in Fire Weather Index

Uncontrolled fire in dense displacement setting such as camps are a large but sadly under researched area.

I worked with our IOM CCCM team earlier this year on development of the Fire Risk Index, a framework to better understand , quantify, and respond to these risks. reliefweb.int/report/niger...

25.07.2025 06:34 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
River Nile at Malakal

River Nile at Malakal

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In beautiful South Sudan this week. Listening. Learning.

30.06.2025 19:08 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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We’re chuffed to announce the 0.2 release of the GeoArrow specification! We released the first version in September, 2023 and have since worked with the community towards our vision that getting spatial data from one library to another should be fast, easy, and preserve properties like the CRS.

27.05.2025 16:27 πŸ‘ 18 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
UN Global Pulse Meet UN Global Pulse, the Secretary-General’s Innovation Lab

UN Global Pulse have launched a call for proposals for the next Cohort of their accelerator programme. www.unglobalpulse.org/2025-call-fo...

Read about some of work on the DTM API as part of cohort 2 medium.com/un-global-pu...

16.05.2025 14:42 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
A report by IOM's DTM. Annual Global Overview of Migration Routes 2024

A report by IOM's DTM. Annual Global Overview of Migration Routes 2024

A new report by the DTM team providing an overview of major migratory routes in 2024.
dtm.iom.int/products/the...

24.04.2025 06:21 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Opinion | To Understand Global Migration, You Have to See It First (Gift Article) These estimates, drawn from the location data of three billion Facebook users, provide a view of human migration in extraordinary detail.

This visual story of Global Migration derived Facebook data is very well done www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

19.04.2025 20:17 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Cover of a "Community Baseline Assessment" for Syria, from IOM's DTM

Cover of a "Community Baseline Assessment" for Syria, from IOM's DTM

New report from @iom.int's DTM on displacement and returnees in Syria.
Report: dtm.iom.int/reports/syri...
The dataset is on the DTM website and HDX and the DTM API is also updated.

08.03.2025 07:57 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

A project I've been working on for the last 6 months. I feel really strongly about making geospatial technology and data available and understood by as many people as possible. And that requires getting creative with the ways we share information. This is my small contribution to that effort.

20.02.2025 14:45 πŸ‘ 31 πŸ” 13 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1

The podcast popped up in my feed right as I was using OSMNX for some analysis of access to health facilities from camps for displaced people - it's such a wonderful tool. I really enjoyed the episode. Looking forward to the next one.

09.02.2025 09:54 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Pixi Global: Declarative Tool Installation Think Homebrew, but cross-platform and easy to share with collaborators.

On the line about installing/running QGIS using conda - Pixi global is a real nice option for this prefix.dev/blog/pixi_gl... It allows you to launch QGIS by typing "qgis" anywhere rather than having to remember/activate your conda environment each time.

30.01.2025 08:57 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
More than 10,000 buildings are likely to have been damaged or destroyed in the LA fires. Maps showing building damage from the Palisades and Eaton fires

More than 10,000 buildings are likely to have been damaged or destroyed in the LA fires. Maps showing building damage from the Palisades and Eaton fires

Map showing the perimeters of the fires in LA and evacuation orders and warnings currently in place

Map showing the perimeters of the fires in LA and evacuation orders and warnings currently in place

NEW: Maps showing estimated building damage from LA fires and latest fire perimeters and evacuation areas, huge thanks to Jamon Van Den Hoek and Corey Scher for the data.

Read @grimeslikedimes.bsky.social's account
www.ft.com/content/9400...

10.01.2025 14:24 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 13 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
main message

main message

The Global Climate Highlights 2024 report is now online.

Delve in the analysis and access all the charts, information, and data on temperature, sea ice, precipitation, and greenhouse gas concentrations. Explore the data that defined 2024: https://bit.ly/40kQpcz

#C3S #GCH2024

10.01.2025 07:00 πŸ‘ 329 πŸ” 249 πŸ’¬ 10 πŸ“Œ 59
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Watch Duty - Wildfire Maps & Alerts Real-time information about wildfire and firefighting efforts nearby

Not lost on me that it's nonprofit tech, app.watchduty.org, showing up & actually working in the midst of the LA fires (donate to them!)

Meanwhile platforms fail to surface key news, vital info is paywalled...

As I've been saying, we need a new tech paradigm, yesterday!

09.01.2025 14:13 πŸ‘ 3956 πŸ” 1177 πŸ’¬ 78 πŸ“Œ 64
A map of the Indian Ocean region that graphically depicts the 2004 Sumatra tsunami runups in meters in various places that ring the ocean basin.

A map of the Indian Ocean region that graphically depicts the 2004 Sumatra tsunami runups in meters in various places that ring the ocean basin.

Today marks exactly 20 years since the 2004 magnitude 9.1 great Sumatra earthquake and tsunami, one of the worst disasters of all time. It was the planet's first M9 quake in over 40 years. More than 225,000 lost their lives across 14 different nations, an unprecedented transnational disaster.

26.12.2024 07:50 πŸ‘ 283 πŸ” 144 πŸ’¬ 8 πŸ“Œ 16
Very long queue - thousands of cars

Very long queue - thousands of cars

Very long queue - thousands of cars

Very long queue - thousands of cars

Amazing images of Syrians going back home

09.12.2024 00:24 πŸ‘ 605 πŸ” 117 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 4

Superb work!

06.12.2024 21:07 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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OSMnx 2.0.0 has been released! πŸŽ‰ This has been a massive effort over the past year to streamline the package's API, re-think its internal organization, and optimize its code. Today OSMnx is faster, more memory efficient, and fully type-annotated for a better user experience. 🧡

26.11.2024 16:29 πŸ‘ 106 πŸ” 28 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 2
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Heartfelt gratitude and kudos to @developmentseed.org for making #satsummit Lisbon happen. Really enjoyed both the content and gathering of people. It´s all about a community working together in the end. ❀️

22.11.2024 10:59 πŸ‘ 33 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Quickly scrolling through a few interactive Python table examples made with reactable-py

Quickly scrolling through a few interactive Python table examples made with reactable-py

We are excited to announce reactable-py: interactive tables in #Python! 🐍

This tool is a port of the R package reactable. It offers quick options for sorting, searching, and paginating data, working with pandas and polars, and customization.

Check it out today! machow.github.io/reactable-py...

25.11.2024 15:28 πŸ‘ 84 πŸ” 12 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 3
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Quarto 1.6 – Quarto Quarto 1.6 supports unified branding across formats, updates to RevealJS, a new shortcode to reorder content, a landscape page block, and more. There are also a couple of breaking changes that will af...

Quarto 1.6 is out! πŸŽ‰ Download it here: quarto.org/docs/download/

Quarto 1.6 supports unified branding across formats, updates to RevealJS, a new shortcode to reorder content, a landscape page block, and more. Blog post: quarto.org/docs/blog/po...

25.11.2024 20:40 πŸ‘ 227 πŸ” 63 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 8