Author: Max Limpag

How Metro Cebu residents moved around during Christmas holidays

Max Limpag

Mobility data gathered by Google showed how Metro Cebu residents did last-minute grocery shopping leading to Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and stayed home on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. This one is expected behavior but not only is having the data fascinating, it offers context on the extent of changes in how Cebuanos moved around.

Visits to Groceries and Pharmacies spiked two days before and on the eve of the holidays before falling off a cliff on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, when stays in Residence went up, although not as high as during strict lockdowns in May.

Mobility data in Metro Cebu
(The graph below is interactive. You can use the search field to drill down to specific locations)

The increases in visits to Groceries during the holiday rush were the only times Metro Cebu residents logged visits outside the Residence higher than the baseline in January, before restrictions were imposed on movements to deal with the COVID-19 spread.

There was also an increase in visits to Parks (which covers beaches) in the days leading to Christmas and New Year but these were way lower than those recorded in January. The highest recorded visits to parks and beaches were on December 23 (-7%), December 24 (-8%), and December 30 (-8%).

There were spikes in visits to Workplaces on December 19 (-10%) and December 20 (-11%). I wonder whether these indicated office gatherings for the holidays.

Retail and Recreation, which also covers restaurants, went up to -14% on December 23, which probably indicates people going on Christmas lunches and dinners. Retail and Recreation visits in Metro Cebu for the rest of the year were very low compared with other locations and in relation to the baseline.

Compared with other urban centers in the Philippines, Metro Cebu recorded significantly lower visits to locations outside the Residence.

Google mobility data of visits to Parks, Groceries, and Retail locations in Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo, Bacolod, Manila, and Pampanga.

The data is gathered from users of Google Maps. The changes are calculated by Google “using the same kind of aggregated and anonymized data used to show popular times for places in Google Maps.”

It was made available by Google to help inform governments and institutions in the fight against COVID-19.

The post How Metro Cebu residents moved around during Christmas holidays appeared first on Leon Kilat: The Tech Experiments.

Tabula rasa

Max Limpag

I like to start on a new notebook on New Year’s Day. It’s symbolic both of a fresh start and a clean slate. Or scraped tablet as the phrase “tabula rasa” translates to, describing the process by which wax tablets of old were reused, blanked by scraping off the writing. I love that idea, like shedding yourself of preconceptions to imbibe something new.

I keep several notebooks for different uses: reading and research notes, project logs and ideas, article drafts, and musings.

BLANK SLATE. Opening the Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Journal to start taking notes on New Year’s Day.
BLANK SLATE. Opening the Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Journal to start taking notes on New Year’s Day.

I’ve long wanted to own this Atlas Obscura notebook. I’m a fan of the site and one of its founders – the writer Joshua Foer. In the course of writing his wonderful book Moonwalking with Einstein, he won the US Memory Championship.

But I could only find the Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Journal online and at considerable cost for a notebook. I’d rather splurge on locally crafted leather journals.

ON SALE. Bought these Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Journal from Book Sale branches in Cebu City.
ON SALE. Bought these Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Journal from Book Sale branches in Cebu City.

It turned out several journals were (take note of the tense, I bought everything I could get my hands on that day) available in Book Sale for a fraction of the original price. After a quick side trip from yearend engagements, I got my haul. Some I set aside to give away, others I reserved for my use.

Today I opened one, wrote my name and contact details on the first page and jotted down my first written notes of 2021.

The post Tabula rasa appeared first on Leon Kilat: The Tech Experiments.

Mobility data show how Cebuanos rushed to groceries on Dec. 24, stayed home on Dec. 25

Max Limpag

This was expected but it’s fascinating to see actual data. Google Mobility Data showed how residents of Metro Cebu rushed to Groceries and Pharmacies with visits hitting 19 percent higher than the baseline figures of January 2020.

It was the only time that visits to Groceries and Pharmacies – or to any location outside the home – in Metro Cebu exceeded the baseline. Other urban centers in the Philippines logged visits to groceries higher than the baseline several days in mid-December leading to Christmas Eve.

Mobility data in Metro Cebu

(The graph below is interactive. You can use the search field to drill down to specific locations)

On Dec. 23, data showed spikes in visits to Parks (which covers beaches) at just -7%, the highest since before our strict quarantine lockdowns. On the same day, visits to Retail and Recreation (which also covers restaurant visits) hit -14 percent, also the highest recovery since before lockdowns.

Visits to Workplaces, on the other hand, hit the highest recovery compared to baseline on Dec. 19 at -10%. That figure was the highest since before the strict lockdowns. What does it show? Does it indicate a rush to the office to get something in preparation for the long break? Or does it indicate people going to the office for Christmas gatherings?

Data for Residential locations, on the other hand, showed the highest percentage rise compared with baseline but not by much. It’s not a significant increase compared with recent months, even during the strict lockdowns.

The data is gathered from users of Google Maps. The changes are calculated by Google “using the same kind of aggregated and anonymized data used to show popular times for places in Google Maps.”

It was made available by Google to help inform governments and institutions in the fight against COVID-19.

The post Mobility data show how Cebuanos rushed to groceries on Dec. 24, stayed home on Dec. 25 appeared first on Leon Kilat: The Tech Experiments.

Christmas rush? Mobility data show Pinoys in urban areas flocking to groceries

Max Limpag

For a country known for its early and long Christmas celebration, the Philippines saw people in urban areas returning to groceries in mid-December in numbers not seen before quarantine lockdowns in the first quarter of 2020.

Bacolod recorded the highest percentage recovery on December 19 at +26% of visits to Groceries and Pharmacies, according to mobility data gathered by Google. This means that visits to these locations were even higher compared to the baseline period taken in January 2020.

Visits to Groceries and Pharmacies in PH urban areas

Other urban areas that have recorded visits in higher percentages compared with the baseline are Pampanga at +21% on December 20, Metro Manila at +15% on December 20, Cagayan de Oro at +11% on December 19, Davao City at +10% on December 19. Iloilo City matched the baseline of Groceries and Pharmacies visit on December 16.

Metro Cebu’s highest percentage recovery is at -2% on December 20. Baguio City is still way down, logging only a -13% on December 17 as its highest recovery. This means that for these two urban areas, visits to Groceries and Pharmacies still have not exceeded those recorded during the baseline period in January 2020.

Visits to Groceries & Pharmacies in different urban centers

Only visits to Groceries and Pharmacies have recovered in terms of percentages to match or even exceed the visits before the quarantine. The other locations Retail and Recreation (which covers restaurants), Parks (which includes beaches), Transit Stations, Workplaces are still substantially down compared with the baseline.

The data is gathered from users of Google Maps. The changes are calculated by Google “using the same kind of aggregated and anonymized data used to show popular times for places in Google Maps.”

It was made available by Google to help inform governments and institutions in the fight against COVID-19.

The post Christmas rush? Mobility data show Pinoys in urban areas flocking to groceries appeared first on Leon Kilat: The Tech Experiments.

Photo byline

Max Limpag

I love how the New York Times displays its bylines. It comes with a photo of the author. Apart from looking good on the screen, a photo byline makes the reader “feel they know the reporter better,” according to a study by the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas. While the study said it does not increase trust or engagement on the article, that should still count for something, no?
It’s easy to duplicate this on WordPress. Its open source and community-developed nature allows anyone to tweak how their site looks or functions just by referring to the extensive documentation maintained by its global network of users.

New York Times photo byline.
Photo byline at the New York Times.

To duplicate the photo byline, one needs to 1) sign up for a Gravatar (short for globally-recognized avatar), 2) edit theme files, 3) tweak the CSS to control the design.
Gravatar.com is a service started by Automattic, the company behind WordPress. What it does is designate an avatar to display, when configured, in web forums and comment forms, based on the poster’s email address. Make sure that all your site users have a Gravatar. It’s just a matter of signing up and choosing an image.

The next step is to edit the theme files. Look for The Loop, the part of the template that displays content. If you decide to use the beautiful and new default theme Twenty Twenty-One, it is located in Template Parts > Content > content-single.php.

The byline code should be placed after <?php the_title(); ?> which prints the title and before <?php the_content(); ?>, which displays the article text. In Twenty Twenty-One, it should be before <?php twenty_twenty_one_post_thumbnail(); ?>.

I use this to render the byline: <h3><?php echo get_avatar( get_the_author_meta( ‘ID’ ), ’85’ ); ?> By <?php the_author_posts_link(); ?></h3>. What this line of code does is render the byline in level 3 heading (h3) and link the name to a page listing previous articles by the author.

On print, a byline is a reward for good work and great writing. To get a print byline is a cause for celebration. Online, however, a byline provides reader added context – through a short bio, listing of previous stories, and a link to the author’s social media accounts. All these will allow the reader to examine an author’s body of work for bias and competence.

Photo byline.
Using a photo byline in our WordPress-powered website on Cebu.

The last thing to do in WordPress is to style the photo byline. If you only do the steps above, you will get a square photo displayed on top of the author name. To display a round avatar and have the byline displayed beside it, edit your CSS by going to Appearance > Customize in the WordPress admin. Add the code below:

.avatar {display: inline-block; border-radius: 50%; -moz-border-radius: 50%;-webkit-border-radius: 50%; }

Of course you have to implement this as a child theme so that when developers update Twenty Twenty-One, you don’t need to edit the changes again.

The post Photo byline appeared first on Leon Kilat: The Tech Experiments.