Native people have pushed back against ASF’s appropriation for decades, but it’s always been shoved under the rug. As a kid when I first heard about the “Apache” server I felt othered by the name. Since then it’s really seeped into the background of tech but the ugliness of it is still there. I’ve heard from many other Native people who are offended by the name and branding, in general it’s pretty easy to see the settler entitlement involved in mascots and appropriation.
What other software project is named after a nationality or ethnicity? I don’t see any difference between sports mascots and software mascots: https://www.ncai.org/proudtobe
I don't think the aurora is a good example for reason you cited. The idea that we only see the aurora in shades of gray is false. I've sometimes been surprised by some extra color that the camera picks up but at least at upper latitudes the aurora's colors are bight enough to be easily distinguishable by the eye.
The tricky part with photographing auroras is getting the white balance right, as the unusual light source often confuses automatic color correction.
Global sea level has risen less than a foot in the past 100 years. Although in environments like this, I would assume isostatic rebound (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound) would play a large role in apparent local sea level changes.
And please stop using PNG when you should be using JPG.
Unless you're building a site where the primary focus is the photography, use a high quality JPG instead of PNG for photos, the file size increase with PNG usually isn't worth it.
I used to love Safari but they've lost me with the direction their UI has taken the last few years. There's something about not showing the full URL by default that bugs me.
Analogy or not, I'm not sure how appropriate it is. Try substituting the name of your framework with other ethnicities and see how it feels.
Even here in Alaska, where the name isn't considered offensive, I'd hesitate to name a project after a group of people, especially when the term's acceptability varies.
If you check out the abstract at: http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/5/10/5173 you'll see that it mentions a temporal resolution of a few minutes or so, for the entire west coast. A fleet of drones might be cheaper, but they wouldn't be able to cover that kind of area that often.
I worked doing something similar with using weather satellites to detect volcanic eruptions in the north pacific. This is totally feasible in the here and now, whereas I imagine public acceptance of massive surveillance drone use is a bit far off.
I’ve compiled a bunch of resources about this topic on https://www.endasfmascotry.com/ if you’re interested.