Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
LightNews LightNews
borlafgis.bsky.social
Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
@borlafgis.bsky.social
80 followers 440 following 25 posts
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
jmbecologist.bsky.social
“A downside to the use of metaphors is that it is easy to regard them as real aspects of nature. This occurs via a fallacy known as reification”

I’ve always liked this paper on the unacknowledged use of metaphors in ecology:

eg, niche, competition, tipping points, habitat
doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...
December 5, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
nceoscience.bsky.social
🌍 Delighted to share @esa.int #Biomass Mission Update!

✅ IOC completed (20 Nov)
✅ Operational phase started (21 Nov)
✅ Open data access begins (12 Dec)

🔗 Details: ESA Biomass Data Portal: tinyurl.com/3npr9v85
📢 Workshop: Register here: eebiomass.org/workshops/

#ESA #BiomassMission #ClimateScience
Biomass Data - Earth Online
Find out what data are available for the Biomass mission.
tinyurl.com
December 4, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
uk-comet.bsky.social
COMET InSAR Training Workshop 2025 Resources Now Available!

📹 Full video recordings are live on the COMET YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0tb...

📊 Presentation slides and practical materials are available on GitHub: comet-licsar.github.io/ciw.html#com...
November 28, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
rsimmon.bsky.social
I just published a new installment of “A Gentle Introduction to GDAL” — Python & the Command Line.

#dataviz #cartography #python #gdal

medium.com/@robsimmon/a...
A Gentle Introduction to GDAL Part 10: Python & the Command Line
Scripting directly on the command line with Bash or Zsh is relatively straightforward: work out a sequence of commands, then wrap them in a…
medium.com
December 3, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
irssubc.bsky.social
📣NEW PAPER 📣A Review of Dendrochronology and Remote Sensing Integration for Forest Growth and Disturbance Monitoring

✍️: Leduc, Coops, Morin-Bernard, Moreau & Achim (alexisachim.bsky.social)

📖: Current Forestry Reports

doi.org/10.1007/s407...

#RemoteSensing #IRSSlab #Dendrochronology #review
December 2, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
giswqs.bsky.social
🚀 SAM3 is now available on conda-forge!
anaconda.org/conda-forge/...

You can install it directly with:
conda install -c conda-forge sam3 "pytorch=*=cuda*"
December 2, 2025 at 3:40 AM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
knaaptime.com
wow.. where did lets-plot.org come from?

...undeniably impressive, especially the the geo-support.
Lets-Plot - Multiplatform Plotting Library Based on the Grammar of Graphics
Lets-Plot - a faithful port of R’s ggplot2 to Python and Kotlin.
lets-plot.org
December 2, 2025 at 4:39 AM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
openforest4d.org
Generate #forestry products from #lidar topography data with lidR! Reproducible R notebook guides users through #pointcloud filtering, raster generation & forest metrics extraction to produce key outputs like canopy height models. Explore notebook: github.com/OpenForest4D...
#googlecolab #geospatial
Canopy Height Model + representing tree tops on smoothed CHM Crown Max Height
December 1, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
olivia.science
Normal and great 🫩

> Microsoft triggered a viral furor when it revealed a Teams update to tell your company when you’re not at work. Now Google has done the same. Forget end-to-end encryption. A new Android update means your RCS and SMS texts are no longer private.

www.forbes.com/sites/zakdof...
Google Starts Sharing All Your Text Messages With Your Employer
Warning — what happens on your Android phone, doesn’t stay on your Android phone.
www.forbes.com
November 30, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
librarykirsten.bsky.social
Worth noting that while this journal has been removed from Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate owned), it has not been removed from Scopus (Elsevier owned). I don't know if this is the result of conflict of interest or just different standards and processes. www.scopus.com/sourceid/25349
November 29, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
palubad.bsky.social
Now you can watch the recording of my presentation on estimating #NDVI, EVI, LAI and FAPAR using #SAR and ancillary data through #machinelearning approaches during the @pangeos-ca22136.bsky.social webinar, summarizing two studies: doi.org/10.14712/233... & doi.org/10.1080/2096...
#geosky #GEE #EO
Can we estimate optical vegetation indices and biophysical parameters usingSentinel-1 SAR data?
YouTube video by PANGEOS_COST
youtu.be
November 28, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
fionag11.mapstodon.space.ap.brid.gy
How field data collection and satellite monitoring should exist in a continuous virtuous cycle of mutual improvement of sampling design and modelling. #earthobservation https://newsletter.cecil.earth/p/towards-mutualism-reconciling-differences
Towards mutualism: reconciling differences between field and EO data
Towards mutualism: reconciling differences between field and EO data
newsletter.cecil.earth
November 26, 2025 at 3:53 AM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
ajpelu.bsky.social
mappestRisk is on CRAN!
ecologyr.github.io/mappestRisk/
It helps to create pest-risk maps based on experimental thermal biology data of crop-pest species. See bsky.app/profile/dari...

Happy to be part of this collaborative project @dario-ssm.bsky.social @frodsan.bsky.social
@ambarbosa.bsky.social
November 24, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
knaaptime.com
ah, ok, so i think the issue is when you fire off a `df.plot()` (or `gdf.plot()`) it only emits the matplotlib *axes* object, and quarto needs an actual Figure object to recognize a figure. So you need to force the cell to emit a *figure* by doing `pyplot.show()` if no explicit pyplot in the cell
November 23, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
yutannihilation-en.bsky.social
I talked about GeoArrow at FOSS4G Auckland 2025! Here's my slides.

GeoArrow on Web; Can We Live Without GeoJSON?
yutannihilation.github.io/foss4g-2025-...
GeoArrow on Web; Can We Live Without GeoJSON? - Slidev
yutannihilation.github.io
November 21, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
henk.waag.social.ap.brid.gy
"Qualcomm-owned #arduino quietly pushed a sweeping rewrite of its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and the changes mark a clear break from the open-hardware ethos that built the platform."

(source: Adafruit […]

[Original post on waag.social]
Qualcomm-owned Arduino quietly pushed a sweeping rewrite of its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and the changes mark a clear break from the open-hardware ethos that built the platform. The new documents introduce an irrevocable, perpetual license over anything users upload, broad surveillance-style monitoring of AI features, a clause preventing users from identifying potential patent infringement, years-long retention of usernames even after account deletion, and the integration of all user data (including minors) into Qualcomm’s global data ecosystem. Military weird things and more. Several sections effectively reshape Arduino from an open community platform into a tightly controlled corporate service with deep data extraction built in. The most striking addition: users are now explicitly forbidden from reverse-engineering or even attempting to understand how the platform works unless Arduino gives permission. That’s a profound shift for a brand long embraced by educators, makers, researchers, and open-source advocates.
November 20, 2025 at 7:37 AM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
booksofm.com
If you use GMail, AI (Gemini) was turned on yesterday by default and now scans all of your content for machine learning. To turn off, go to Settings>General and scroll down. Uncheck the box for "Smart features."

There's other "Smart" add-ons as well, but that's the one that reads your content.
November 20, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
eric.ness.net
Wildfire modeling just got faster. PROPAGATOR uses stochastic cellular automata + rate-of-spread physics to simulate fire behavior in minutes — helping emergency teams make real-time decisions. #GIS #EmergencyManagement #RemoteSensing www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/3/...
November 20, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
eric.ness.net
This looks interesting — Lonboard 0.13 just dropped and now supports H3, S2, Geohash, and even A5 layers. Lots of new ways to explore geospatial grids in Python.
#GIS #GeoPython #Lonboard - github.com/developments...
GitHub - developmentseed/lonboard: A Python library for fast, interactive geospatial vector data visualization in Jupyter.
A Python library for fast, interactive geospatial vector data visualization in Jupyter. - developmentseed/lonboard
github.com
November 19, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
ecoinf-aeet.bsky.social
Seguimos con el #30DayMapChallenge, y hoy tocan... proyecciones! 🌏🌍🌎

En GitHub @iramosgutierrez.bsky.social ha dejado una función con varias decenas de proyecciones!!

Como muestra, PeirceQuincuncial (un favorito personal), Bonne, August y PolyhedralButterfly 😍😍

💻⤵️
github.com/ecoinfAEET/2...
PeirceQuincuncial August
November 19, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
jacobtomlinson.dev
For Python package management I use a mixture of pixi, uv and conda depending on the task I'm doing.

I wrote up a long form post about the history of these tools, why each one exists, and why I settled on these choices in my workflow.

jacobtomlinson.dev/posts/2025/p...
Python package managers: uv vs pixi?
When I talk to people about Python package management in 2025 I see the following tools in active use; uv, pixi, pip, conda, mamba, micromamba and poetry. There may be others, but I don’t hear much ab...
jacobtomlinson.dev
November 18, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
python4data.science
We have updated the section on pytest with many exciting use cases
* on command line options
* on generating markers
* and on parameterising exceptions
python-basics-tutorial.readthedocs.io/en/latest/te...
#Python #Testing #pytest
pytest
pytest is an alternative to Python’s Unittest module that simplifies testing even further. pytest automatically recognises tests based on filenames and functions that start with test_, while unitte...
python-basics-tutorial.readthedocs.io
November 17, 2025 at 6:18 AM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
wildwoods.bsky.social
We can map the world's existing forests with incredible accuracy now, but clearly we cannot (or will not) stop them from disappearing at rapid rates almost everywhere. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🌎
Natural forests of the world – a 2020 baseline for deforestation and degradation monitoring - Scientific Data
Scientific Data - Natural forests of the world – a 2020 baseline for deforestation and degradation monitoring
www.nature.com
November 15, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
paolocrosetto.bsky.social
What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.

It's *scientific publishing*.

We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...

Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇
November 12, 2025 at 10:31 AM