Gavin Rehkemper

NPR, Where are the Landing Pages for Podcast Episodes?

I was just trying to share a single episode of NPR’s Podcast “How I Built This” with a friend. When I searched for the episode, no authoritative episode landing page showed up. Odd … so I go to the podcast general show page. For each recent episode you have options to:

Listen (on same page)
Add to Listen Queue (on same page)
Download (Direct link to MP3 via Podtrac website)
View a transcript

Well-run podcasts should always have an episode landing page, where you could go if you’re linking to an episode, find show notes, and also be the place for search engines to return if a user is searching for a particular episode. This last case, SEO, is particularly interesting in NPR’s case, because if you do search for this episode, you can see that many other websites are grabbing the users that should be landing on NPR’s site.

NPR, I want to share your podcast episodes, so please provide episode permalink landing pages!

Using the R-ArcGIS Bridge in Jupyter

I was sitting in a presentation a few weeks ago on the R-ArcGIS bridge and I had a question: “Can I use the R-ArcGIS bridge in my Jupyter Notebook?” When I asked one of the presenters if this would be possible, he said, “Yes”. So, after the presentation, I set out to get the R-ArcGIS bridge running in Jupyter.

Installing the ArcGIS-R Bridge

The first thing I did was install the R-ArcGIS bridge. I installed it using ArcGIS Pro by following the installation instructions. I am currently using R-3.4.2 and arcgisbinding ‘1.0.1.208’. I can verify this by going to the Geoprocessing tab in the Options section in ArcGIS Pro.

Cloning My arcgispro-py3 Environment

I did not want to break my arcgispro-py3 conda environment (the default ArcGIS Pro Python environment) so the first thing I did was clone the environment. I named the cloned environment arcgispro-r. I did this from the command line using

conda create --name arcgispro-r --clone arcgispro-py3

Switching Environments

Next, I switched to the cloned environment by deactivating the arcgispro-py3 environment and activating the arcgispro-r environment.

deactivate
activate arcgispro-r

Installing R-Essentials

Then, I installed r-essentials, a bundle of over 80 of the most used R packages created by the Anaconda team.

conda install -c r r-essentials

Running arcgisbinding in Jupyter

After I installed r-essentials, when I launched my Jupyter Notebook, I had the option to create a Python or an R notebook.

I created an R notebook. To test whether the ArcGIS-R bridge is installed and accessible to my notebook, I loaded the arcgisbinding package and checked the product version number and there it was, package version ‘1.0.1.208’, the same one I see listed in ArcGIS Pro above!

But Does It Work?

Yes, I can use the arcgisbinding package to read spatial data into R! In order to test whether I could read in data, I used arc.open to read in a point feature class of seagrass data. I was also able to use arc.select to put that feature class into a dataframe.

I shared my sample notebook on GitHub at the repo arcgisbinding-in-jupyter. I am interested to know if there is anyone else out there who has tried this or is interested in using R, ArcGIS, and Jupyter. If you are, let me know!

~ A guest post by Gregory Brunner

Inline Footnotes WordPress Widget – Version 2 Released

Version 2.1.0 of one of the WordPress plugins that I manage, Inline Footnotes, has been released.

This new version:

Fixes mobile issues by showing the footnote content in the center of the screen when on mobile.
Allows `background_color` attribute in the footnote tag.
Adds option to show footnote on hover
Has minified JS/CSS files

To facilitate the first item above, I had to change how the show/hide behavior of the footnotes works a little bit. After this update, if you click a second footnote open while a footnote is already open, the first one will close (previously both would stay open).

Here are some of the new features in action (The third footnote is colored “red” with the new “background_color” attribute):

Please check out the plugin over here.

2017 Lambert St. Louis Airport Passenger Data

The St. Louis Airport recently released the 2017 information on passenger data. I really appreciate that they are releasing this information, but would love if the data was in a better format for working with this. To help others use this data, I’ve created GitHub repository where you can download this data. I’ve also created a few graphs based on this live data.

The data is here: github.com/gavinr/stl-lambert-airport-data

And I created a few graphs here: gavinr.github.io/stl-lambert-airport-data

It’s not a lot of data. I would love if the Airport released other data, like:

Carrier information on how many flights are in/out of the airport
How many flights per date
Information on revenue sources
How many flights to each destination?

Top 5 Parking Locations at Lambert St. Louis Airport (Updated 2018)

A few years ago I posted an analysis of the best airport parking providers near Lambert St. Louis Airport. Even though I usually post technology and mapping related posts, this is actually one of the most popular posts on this blog. (Lol!) In the intervening years since that was posted, some of the information has gone stale – most notably the parking prices changed which, it turns out, changes the order of the list!

Super Park Lot D is now the best deal based on price alone. But it is a little farther from the terminal than Sky Park, so in cost per time, it may be closer than you think.

1. Super Park Lot D – $7/day

It’s a bit farther away from the terminal than Sky Park (#2), but at $7/day this is the winner for the true cheapskate. This lot is often close to capacity though, so make sure you check the availability on their website.

Distance to Terminal A: 1.5 mi
Uncovered parking rate: $7/day

2. Skypark – $8/day

This used to be my #1 pick, but prices went up recently. They also used to send out coupons to their email list, but that ended in 2015. You can still get a solid rate of $8/day here, so it’s still my backup if Super Park Lot D is full, or if time is short (Skypark is 0.5 miles closer to the terminal)

Distance to Terminal A: 1 mi
Uncovered parking rate: $8/day

3. EZ Park – $9/day
As a neighbor of Skypark, EZ Park is often in direct competition with them. They are the third most expensive, but often have specials (right now they have a coupon for $7/day)

Distance to Terminal A: 1 mi
Uncovered parking rate: $9/day

4. Super Park Lot C – $9/day

This has the same price as EZ Park above, but is just a bit farther away from the terminal. This is probably the lowest cost for covered parking if you’re looking for that feature.

Distance to Terminal A: 1 mi
Uncovered parking rate: $9/day
Covered parking rate: $11/day

5. The Parking Spot East – $10/day

Even from the East (Southwest Airlines) terminal, this is a 3.1 mile trek on the bus. Unless you’re loyal to The Parking Spot, I don’t see why the rates of Super Park Lot E above don’t win out over this option.

Distance to Terminal A: 4 mi
Uncovered parking rate: $10/day
Covered parking rate: $15/day

Runner Up: The Parking Spot 3 – $13/day

As the closest option (0.8 mi), this is on the list only if you’re running late and need to get to the terminal quickly. They typically have coupons that might get your rate closer to some of the earlier cheaper options.

Distance to Terminal A: 0.8 mi
Uncovered parking rate: $13/day
Covered parking rate: $18/day

Map of all the options below: