Ilya Zverev

An excellent post by @maproomblog@mapstodon.space on LLM-generated maps and why it's important to know what's behind those:

https://www.maproomblog.com/2026/07/gatekeepers-luddites-haters-and-ai-generated-maps/

What touched me is the observation that it's mostly professional cartographers who post LLM-generated stuff. Which makes me sad, because I can no longer treat them as professionals, for obvious reasons.

It's the same with programming — you use LLM, you stop being a professional. Same with writing, painting etc.

Professional is to stand by every detail.

@AlSweigart@mastodon.social If only just computer science. I'm pretty sure future medics, architects, lawyers, and writers are also passing exams with LLMs.

@AlSweigart@mastodon.social 1) no thank you, I've seen so many failures I don't believe that's the proper way to go (and productivity is overrated). 2) not a good one

Bought a ticket to Riga for me and my bike. A ride on 5th is a go. Join me!

https://2026.sotm-baltics.org/

I wonder if we've got anything akin to highway=trunk/primary/secondary/tertiary/etc/etc values wrt walkable paths?

https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/mapping-paths-in-a-park/143570

Otherwise it's weird that OSM, while being positioned as the only non car-centric map, still focuses on car navigation in its tagging, routing, and display.

Today the 15 year old ticket in @josmeditor@en.osm.town was closed with "won't fix". Not the oldest one, but the second by popularity.

We won't be getting multiple accounts support in JOSM.

https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/2710

To compensate for the vibe-coding, I've spent a couple days on a script that makes GeoJSON polygons out of topologically drawn ways in an OSM file. It should save people some tedious hours.

Now when preparing a mapping party pie, you don't have to ensure every polygon is closed, and every node is followed. Why do that, when you can just sketch some ways, intersect them, add some more, and in the end press a button to get a correct result.

https://github.com/Zverik/mapping-party-tracker/tree/main/tool

In case you're thinking of an online mapping party (and you shouldn't, because the weather is excellent outside, organize an in-person party!), I have vibe-coded a web app that works on a geojson of polygons, and allows claiming pieces, grading the map quality, and releasing them. Just like HOT TM, but with arbitrary polygons and no automation.

https://mpt.osmz.ee/

(As requested by people in our community)

Naturally the readme mostly consists of the prompt I gave:

https://github.com/Zverik/mapping-party-tracker

RE: @rikviergever@mastodon.social

TIL about https://nperf.com and https://librespeed.org as a replacement for speedtest.net and fast.com.

https://isup.me still stays as a connectivity tester.

I've played myself into a corner. Burned out from developing Every Door the entire last year. Got myself two grants, but after FOSDEM discovered I want to work on neither of them. Can't get this potentially programmable $3 badge out of my head.

Grants do solve some of the open source issues, but generally they should work like arts stipend: not tied to any specific project, just kind of life-supporting salary for unbounded R&D.

Inspired by https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2026/03/07/money-isnt-going-to-solve-the-burnout-problem/ (alt: https://planet.gentoo.org/)

The last day of @sotmeu@en.osm.town as I saw it on the way to the university. Made this little game for you to remember the conference, or to learn how it feels to be an obsessed mapper.

https://zverikk.itch.io/dundee

@v@merveilles.town @openstreetmap@en.osm.town

A hundred people have sent their votes in less than a day! Excellent, though let's get to at least 500! Please vote in #OpenStreetMap awards!

https://awards.openstreetmap.org/voting

Ujaval Gandhi from @spatialthoughts@bird.makeup teams up with his daughter to uncover all the secret words you can type into #QGIS to be less bored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH9Am3FgRS0 #gischat