Advent of Code 2022

This is my first year trying the Advent of Code. I'll be keeping my journal here.

I'd heard about it on podcasts on the TWiT network for a few years now (specifically, Security Now), and I'd like to see for myself how hard the puzzles get toward the end.

I am writing my solutions in python 3 — usually just the minimum effort to get the answer, perhaps with some comments here and there. I am not looking for hints on reddit or anything, as the Advent of Code site suggests.

I've made my code available on GitHub. Obviously, THERE ARE SPOILERS ahead. Don't continue reading if you want to solve these puzzles yourself.

RSS Feed

I've added an RSS feed output to my static site generator scripts (written in bash). The feed file is now available at feed.xml.

It was pretty quick and easy to output the XML for the feed. I wanted to include both blog articles and birds galleries in the feed, so I write out both of those to XML files (containing just a series of <item> elements) in their respective bash scripts. The final step was reading the <item> elements and sorting them based on their <pubDate> (NetNewsWire didn't sort the items based on date, as I assumed it would).

September 3rd 2022 Moon

We had a half Moon and clear skies on the evening of September 3rd, and the Moon was in a good position to be photographed from the deck, so I took a bunch of photos.

Unlike my previous attempts at photographing the Moon, I used a tripod. I didn't have my star tracker with me so I had to manually adjust the tripod every few shots.

I'm happy with the results. Compared to my previous photo (from this February post) I ended up with a photo with a lot more contrast and detail.

Birds Favorites Pages

Now available for viewing: gallery pages of my favorite bird photos from each year.

The new pages are organized by year, and include all my favorite bird photos:

• 2021 Favorites
• 2022 Favorites
• 2023 Favorites

June 24th 2022 Planetary Alignment

Before sunrise on Friday June 24th, 2022, I took some photos of the planetary alignment. From left to right, Venus, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were visible. The Moon was to the East, and Saturn was all the way over to the South so I couldn't get them all in the same image. I didn't have a clear enough view of the horizon to see Mercury, but it was there ahead of Venus in the procession.

There were a few clouds occasionally covering Venus, but I was fortunate enough to get some shots including Venus while it was still dark. The sunrise was brightening by the minute as the clouds disappeared.