You're listening to A Very Spatial Podcast, episode 739, June 19th, 2024. Hello and welcome to A VerySpatial Podcast. I'm Jesse.
I'm Sue.
I'm Barb.
And this is Frank.
And Sue and I are still quasi without voice. It's still not quite back. So we were gone to Japan. Thank you to Barb and Frank for, for covering us on that episode. Then we got back and we're supposed to do another episode. So it's been a month now since we were supposed to do, or since our last. episode a month and a half since Sue and I have been on because we were in Japan and then we're sick from coming back from Japan. And that's the thing is in Japan, fine. Get back from Japan.
I know it was, it was tough. Like in Japan, I didn't even have my allergies in Japan. Like it was amazing. I could like breathe all the time and my eyes weren't itching. Get on the plane system, the train system, whatever the transit to come back and come back a full force got sick The allergies came back
They had to make up for lost time
absolutely Yeah
And then and then this was recorded on sunday, but then I was in chicago for work. So it's been a whole thing
Yeah, thanks happy,
but yeah, so that's our housekeeping. Thanks for joining us. Have a good night So kicking off this week in the news Google, Google, of course, has been maintaining your location history for, for a long time. Over a decade now and you can go in, you can, if you haven't turned it off, at least go in, look at your location history, see what you've done, where you've been. And all of this is just in the cloud until December.
So if you've been using Google location history and you want to have access to that data, that is one changing names because it's Google, it's going to become Google timeline. And to Google timeline is going to live on your device. So security is going to be better. You know, nobody can really ask Google for your location history if they don't have it on their servers. So, you know, it goes into security.
It goes into just more modern ways of dealing with a lot of this data is, you know, to keep it on device, as opposed to putting up in the cloud, we could talk about the whole conversations at both Google IO and Apple's WWDC about doing things on device as opposed to pushing everything to the cloud. All the way to AI. So there's, you know, this general trend to take advantage of the more robust devices that we have to keep more things there. And this is just another trend of that.
But in the end, if you are using Google location history, if you want to have access to that data in the future, beyond December, 2024, be sure to go to your account and download that data because after December, it's going to go away.
Can we talk a minute about the. A little bit of history here. Everything's on the device. No, it goes to the cloud. It's better. Now it's back to the device. Come
on. I know. I was just thinking that right back and forth, back and forth.
It's just like, it's just, I mean, it's because your phone's better than it was. Well, yeah, but I mean, come on. Computers are better than they were too. And then
we all know that really what it means is they're tired of answering Request for data from various agencies, and this just, you know, makes it easier for them because they don't have to have somebody there providing that data or saying, no, you can't have the data.
My guess is the network storage and network traffic bill came and they were like, how much?
See, that's, that's what I thought when I read this. I'm like, they're just tired of storing it. I mean, not that it's like a drop in the bucket of what Google stores may be, but I'm like, I think they're just tired of doing it too. But then when you said that, I'm like, that's a good point. If you don't have it, people can't demand it.
Well, also tie into that. More and more of their pointing Gemini at their own servers to look at things. And so people can't say, well, you used my location data to train your A. I. If the location data isn't living on the server,
it's just it's a little bit exasperating for me as at, Having been around long enough to see this trend and then, you know, what it is, is, is the verbiage, the, the PR around some of this stuff has moved to the cloud. Cause it's just better in the cloud and everything's in the cloud. You always have a cloud and cloud cloud cloud cloud, always cloud. And then those of us. Myself included went, well, maybe not always cloud. There's some pluses and minuses. No, you're an idiot. It's always cloud.
Okay. Hang it on board. And now they're like, Oh, when the back to the device is better, it's device better devices. Come on, man. It's just,
well,
a
lot of this too, is going back to, to you being responsible for your data and manually, you're going to be able to sync across devices still, but it's not going to happen by default. And I wanted to figure out like. How much time do you have with this location history? And now it's going to be, they're going to delete past locations after three months.
So you're going to have to have a backup plan, like when, you know, back to when am I going to do this every month and go through all my devices and in apps and figure out how to store things.
If you, if you're someone who wants to have a long term history of your. There's also lots of apps that'll do it for you. So it's not like you're limited to just Google or Microsoft or Apple's storing your data. You can actually run apps that'll do this for you in the background. Speaking of Google, of course, there were updates to Google maps for a Google IO. Yes, it's been that long since we had a conversation about news. Is that Google IO?
Microsoft build and WWDC have all happened since our last podcast. So as you might imagine, they're pushing more of AI into the places API. They're kind of rolling out more capabilities in the 3d maps and the maps JavaScript API. Again, not, New but just kind of adding more and this includes some of the things from the what was a geospatial ar That they announced last year more of that's coming into.
Oh, what's it called Street view and The 3d view in maps, yeah an open source react components so you can if you're making react interfaces They're making that theory a little bit easier and I have since react is more javascript I haven't really done a lot of it So i'm assuming frank since he's not doing as much web stuff hasn't even really done a lot with your act yet
So react is one of those frameworks. So what the annoying thing about this entire world is that there's like 70 or so frameworks are released a week. It feels like it's like there's so many of them and trying to figure out what is the one that's the dominant one. React actually has come out ahead. And so if you're doing anything in javascript, you really should start embracing react.
But I personally found for most of my work, it was way more overhead than I needed to do the things that I needed. So it was kind of I didn't use a lot, so I'm familiar with it and I played with it and I'm not really implemented a whole lot because it's creating a huge infrastructure around what wasn't a lot of change for my particular application. But it's pretty cool if you're adding in a map to a bigger platform or bigger application.
This is a really good addition because react makes it pretty easy to just go. Put widget here more or less.
Yeah, so all of these things are things that they highlighted in their Announcement and again, there are it's not like these were the only things Geospatial related at Google IO so you can go and search more things But this is the one that we pulled that kind of highlighted a few of these.
How do we feel about Gemini? I have not used Gemini. I'm
not trying to either
I have And I'm not sure that was a bull and it's a bold move. Google. Let's see how it plays out
I was actually thinking that too that they're always at the forefront of this type of Of capability, you know going back 20 years with the the original Api, but I also am very conflicted about this on the one hand. It's really cool On the other hand, I I keep thinking about the digital divide and bias and so I I go back and forth on it. It's it's just Again, that conflict of it's just so cool, but I also wonder what the impact is going to be that only geographers see.
Gemini is interesting because I feel like it's the the, the equivalent of that meme of wrong answers only. And it's really off brand for Google because they're usually so good at making a product that is very robust and good, but Gemini is just not. It's the bing of AI, I'll put it that way.
Wait, I thought Copilot was the bing of AI.
No, Copilot is actually not awful. It's just. It's copilot is all right. So having played with all of these now, I can say a little bit about it. Copilot is very Microsoft centric. So basically, if you live in a SharePoint environment and you have a lot of office things and exchange and outlook and all that stuff like that, it's in teams. It's great. It's absolutely great. If you don't. It's all right. It does fine. It's adequate. It does a reasonably decent job.
However, it's nowhere near, you know well, you know, it's a little harsh to say that because it does get chat GPT on the back end and whatnot. And chat GPT is actually pretty decent as these things go. But anyway, it's okay.
Cause we're still early days and they all suck. And even though people think they're wonderful, they're not yet.
Well, again, I'm just comparing them to themselves, but Gemini is definitely the big K of sodas in the AI world right now, I find Gemini among all of them is uniquely confident in its wrongness. Like all the other ones are a little bit like, well, it seems to be this, this is our source, but generalize it's this. And you go, no, that's not true.
I was going to say, one of the other things that came out was the photo, photorealistic 3d maps. They are experimental launch. And it's just, it wanted to ask Sue what she thought just because of working in that, that space of, of 3d. And Frank, just looking at, you know, realism it, Looks really nice, you know, the, the terrain and the topography is just amazing.
So I will say I have played with them, but in the setting of unity. And so, which to be honest, actually I wanted to talk about this at some point, so they're really gearing this to, to be part of their web experience. Right. So it's actually not that easy to, to use the 3d top, at least when I was playing with it earlier in the spring with a, Desktop development environment like unity. But anyway it's really, really good for certain places.
But re I mean, like when I was doing it, I was trying to do it for an area of Japan. That is an urban environment, but not Not one of the big cities and, and the building generation was horrible, but but for the, the original demo I saw. So again, this, this info is a few months old that I was playing with, with Tokyo when I decided to try it out. I mean, that was amazing. And so I think that that technology is getting better.
So what I think is if you want to use it in an urban area that gets a lot of good data processing. It is very, it is actually pretty realistic now ground level, which is what I was looking for. And again, this is the difference in your use of it. It still wasn't, wasn't up to snuff, but that's, that's not surprising. But the, the flyover and look at it was really, really impressive.
So again, it's improving even at the ground level, but but yeah and they're, you know, pushed to keep it in the web and the AR experience. Yeah. I think it's interesting. So again, that was a few months. So that was, I think, March when I was playing with that. So, a few months old information now, but, I mean, there was a lot there that I liked. I don't know if it was for my application.
I ended up ripping it out of my application because there's just too many issues with, Tokushima, which was the city I wanted to use it for. And
well, the licensing too.
Yeah. And then there was a licensing issue, like you had to embed it a certain way and, and stuff. So, so those are our asides, but, but in terms of, of as you were asking Barb, the, the look of it and everything, it was actually pretty impressive. So,
yeah, so it's the same challenges. It's had all along. It seems like it looks real.
But that was the question I'm going to ask at some point in the future to, for us to talk about is, is for those of us. And, and, and this is just total opinion is like, I'm starting to see the is desktop is desktop dead dying because you know, we're back to on device. I think Google and some others are clearly saying, well, if you're going to pick one device that you can afford to have, it's going to be your phone. And so, so the cloud idea of, of having many devices. Susan.
And, you know, having to switch between them maybe isn't, isn't as big a deal anymore because it seems like it's just one device now. It's your phone. For a lot of people. Or maybe I'm not. Maybe it's just, you know, my anecdotal experience. But since I am a desktop lover, I'm, I would be sad to see that happen. But it just seems like a lot of the push is to just say, look, let's just get all this stuff on your phone. Including the, The 3d mapping and stuff for Google.
Next up in the news Apple has rolled out some new features and Apple maps. Particularly if you're into hiking and running, there's a whole new topographic map for trails. You can download it. You can customize your route. You know, links to your watch and your phone. It's, it's pretty neat looking. I can't say that I'm a big hiker, so not necessarily something that I would use a lot, but it's pretty nifty. I will say this about apple maps.
I drove to Chicago and back and because my new car has carplay, you basically have to use apple maps for that. But actually I found it to be a little, quite a bit superior to google maps, which was a bit of a surprise to me. Having been a google maps devotee for years and years and years. So it's a pretty cool product. If you haven't checked it out, check it out again. It's worth the time.
I'll say that, that we tend to still use wise. In car play.
I it I, all I know is that I, you know, sitting in Chicago and it's if you take the toll roads at seven half hours. Yeah. And I was trying to avoid some of the tolls because it's a brutal amount of tolls between here and Chicago. And so I plugged that into Google maps and it was like, it's going to take eight and a half hours. And I was like, okay, well, that's an hour. But but Apple came back and went, yeah, we can do it in seven 50.
And I was like, oh, I'll take 20 minutes to avoid 50 in tolls, literally 50 in tolls. So I did see some interesting backwoods. I use the word woods in the air quotes of Indiana. But it worked.
Yeah, when I looked at this with the topographic hiking trails, I could see how it's really useful. It makes me think a lot of times of when I've seen this. It's been with again that desktop to cloud municipalities using and you know this with desktop analysis, but now having it available to someone to have it on their phone, which they have with them. I could see being a good way to keep people healthy and safe. If it's available for the trails that people are going to.
They also, I think, said they had like a Yelp of trails, which. You know, it was interesting.
Next up, the USGIF has announced the most recent additions to the GEOINT program accreditations that South Dakota State University and University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, which brings the total up now to 23 million. Institutions who are currently U. S. G. I. F. accredited. I think U. S. S. S. S. T. S. U. S. As an undergraduate certificate Urbana Chapain's is their graduate certificate and master's degrees in cyber G. I. S. And geospatial data science.
So again, kind of a variety just depending on what you're looking at in terms of, you know, what you're GEOINT and the direction that you want to go in, you know, each of these 23 have different focus areas both at the undergraduate and graduate level. We of course are probably actually may have missed it, but the announcement for the, no, the deadline was at the end of last month.
So we should be seeing in the next month or so the announcement of those people who got the scholarships because the scholarship
program, yeah.
So if, if you are a student and you are interested in GEOINT and again, USGIF takes that as a very broad definition of what GEOINT is, then you should definitely be looking at both the accredited programs, membership as an individual as a student and definitely at the scholarships. And those of course, we'll come back around next year in the spring. And finally in the news, Wintra. Released a piece of mapping software called wing cloud. Wingtra is one of those UA, UAV UAS companies.
And the only reason I point this out is not because wing truck cloud is something that is unique. In fact, it's probably built on somebody else's application, but it's. The fact that so many of these are creating stacks that include their own mapping applications.
So whether we're talking about DJI, DJI, Wingtra we can, you know, point to other companies like Pix4D, which of course, those of you who are using the advanced version of drone to map part of Pix4D, those of you who are using the standard are using essentially the stuff that was part of the bot, the software that was 3d robotics, whose name I just forgot as well.
Well, there's actually some pics 4D in the standard 2, which I don't understand exactly why, but it's a piece that I guess, as we talked them into letting education.
Yes, but it's not doesn't require the extra tier of as repaying.
Yeah. Yeah. There's there's I mean, the interesting my drone to map is that there are magic. Algorithms behind the curtain that the it's a secret sauce and they go, we change it. Don't don't ask.
And so all of the different drone companies have one of these. I think also has one. I'm not sure about the company that's in California who starts with an S Skydio. I'm sure they do too.
I mean, basically, if there's a drone manufacturer that considers themselves to be enterprise, then they probably have an app and that app is probably Either built on open source tools like open open drone map, or is pulling in from someone else's and praying them to use the software in the background, the cloud. So it's just a nice thing about the cloud is that, you know, you can just kind of toss things in there and pay for the, the licensing and call it your own.
Unless they want to push it to your device.
I think, you know, anything that, that helps to make, like they said, they're working a lot with onboarding, streamlining, organizing files and basically coordination and connectivity and having worked a lot with students and surveying and also surveyors. I think this is a good idea. Because it's necessary. You know, if you're a company or a business to have anything that makes doing all this easier.
Yes, it is. It is good for the business to keep you in their ecosystem to keep giving them money. I agree. And that's, I mean, that's kind of what it comes down to, whether it's Wingtra or DJI or anybody. It's, you know, it's the fact they want to keep you there, giving them the subscription as opposed to going to a mass made easier ArcGIS or whoever Yeah, it's 40 or, you know, that is out there. So just keep in mind that your hardware manufacturer may not be the best software for your use case.
It might be. So check out what's out there.
I think that having a plan and knowing why you're using something is, is good.
Yeah, but the marketing people and of course the money people are betting on you, not. Knowing a lot and just kind of following along.
The marketing people are going, are saying, we have a plan. It's shiny, shiny. And you just hit a button and the magic all works and you go, well, I like just hitting buttons and magic works. So that's what happens.
But now I've got 25 buttons, right? We're back to that again.
I'm rocking five different pieces of software from data collection through to output in my, my drone processing. Why? Just because it's the way I've done it for the last five years. So why change it now?
Sometimes, sometimes you find a tool set that works and it just works the number of people that try to talk me into QGIS and I'm just like, no, I don't want to like it, but you just do these. And I'm like, I get your little, in my opinion, duct tape, but your infrastructure. Works for you, but that took energy to build and I know it and I don't, I don't expect you to abandon that,
but I've, I have spent X number of years using this and so my duct tape works well for me. Yes, your duct tape works well for you.
My, my feeling is something's better than nothing in. You know, there are a lot of people out there more than you, they think there should be that are operating with nothing and
no, I mean, don't get me wrong. I love QGIS. I don't use it every day. I do use it. So I don't have the same feelings that Frank does about duct tape. In that context, but I definitely agree with him that, you know, all of us are, you know, the things that we have put together over decades are duct tape. And maybe that's the conversation today is what duct tape have we put together to keep us going this long?
Because, you know, From, I guess I would argue probably Sue is maybe the longest in the official GIS, though I might parallel her with using CorelDRAW to make maps for,
for sites. Oh, you mean my, my, my brief encounter Sideswipe with grass way back in the day?
Yeah, well, and the pluggers and, and those type of things where you were collecting the points.
Sideswipe on the grass, that's what I'd do.
Well, it was more like a convergence in space and time, and like, ah, not any attempt to go out and get it.
Got his job, what was it, 99, 2000?
2000, I got my job, and I said in the interview that I've always been fascinated by GPS. And they went, GIS. And I went, oh. And that's it. That too. That's it. Be sure to hire me. There you go. Yeah. And then they're,
they're not the same. Yeah.
So I knew nothing going, starting that job, but obviously on the job training has been key to my career.
So I just completed the a's early career training and for you know, pre. tenure faculty. And we had to say about what was our exposure to geography and GIS. And a lot of people are like, I love maps since I was, you know, in kindergarten or I was exposed to them early. And I was like, well, let me tell you about the time I showed, you know, Jesse and Sue and Dr. Martis, this really poor map I made for my master's degree. And they said, do you realize you're violating all these principles?
And. This map's not actually as good as you think it is. That was a map. It was a map, but it was not a, it was a learning experience. It was a start.
It's a little more recent, what we'd call that 12 years ago.
Something like that. Right around 2010, give or take. 14, 14,
15.
Yeah,
I was working with, I think that was in SPSS or R, it was one of those.
No, it was before R was big.
Before R, so it SPSS or something.
Yeah, well that's what we used in the political science program, was SPSS.
All I know is I had maxed out. All the things I could and they were like, could you just do less counties? And it was like, no, I want all these counties.
But so, yeah, we have, we all have duct tape from decades now of using this stuff. And I don't know, what is it? You know, we're, we're all teaching at some level and we're supposed to be moving into the modern GIS. And so I think my question vis a vis the duct tape is how much are you focusing on the quote unquote modern GIS versus a combination of, yeah, these things are cool, but people still need to know these things on desktop. Okay. So what are your thoughts on that?
Where do you stand right now?
So I like having my foot in both sides of this camp simultaneously. On the one hand, for example, I have a, as part of my director of institutional effectiveness role, I, we take our, the addresses of our students and we, we put them on a map. And honestly, I've not found a better way to do it than ARC pro. It just, it's, Works bringing in the data, geocoding it, you know, moving on from there. And when I tried to do it in the cloud, it doesn't work very well.
Part of that is because the state of West Virginia has a very good geocoder. Cause the, the, there's a lot of money spent on that. But the cloud, I have trouble connecting it with the state of West Virginia's geocoder. I don't know if that's. The state's problem or as a problem, but all I know is that when I go into pro, it works. So since 88. 43 percent of our student body is West Virginians that's important. So I get, I need to have that geocoder first. And then I use Esri's credits to do the.
The number 11. 57 percent that aren't West Virginia. So I like using the cloud for a lot of the stuff and I've been trying to, I find it a very good way for our student body to get their feet wet without being frightened. And I enjoy that story maps in particular, I find it'd be a gateway drug because they can get their head around that fairly easily because it's kind of like building a website basically. And they understand that.
But. Largely, I feel like you've got to learn the, some of the mechanics on, on the desktop. And I found pro to be the best way to teach that stuff. I would never show them QGIS because, well I hate it
again. That's a personal thing.
I, I, the reason I hate it is the way it, the way it thinks about the world, like the way it goes, you know, go here, here and here. That's just not how I would conceive of doing whatever task it is. I, you know, I'm going to go there here in the other place. So it's a really struggle for me to think like QGIS, which is why I don't dislike it. But it actually is very effective if you can understand how to think like it.
And so if you've used map info, if you've used, Oh, what's it called? hexagon geospatial's GIS. I can't remember the name of right now.
Wait, who had map 3d? They literally called it map 3d.
No, that's Autodesk.
That's Autodesk. Oh, yeah.
No it knows something else but yeah, their interfaces were very much Well QGIS, I think builds on a combination of ArcGIS and those other two products Which were the big products when QGIS started and QGIS just hasn't changed its interface To go to the ribbon interface and that's Fine. It shouldn't if it doesn't need to. And so I think since I use those products back in the day, my mentality of understanding where QGIS is coming from is a little bit easier.
If you didn't have a reason to use, I can't remember the name of who owned it back in the day either. That hexagon geospatial bought it from. Yeah. Intergraph. Intergraph. I still can't remember the GIS program. I can't remember
the name of the software that was in your graph.
But yeah, I mean, if you've used that, if you've used MapInfo, if you've used ArcView a lot, then some of these things make a lot more sense. I don't know where I was going with that. But that's, you know, so, Then what are your thoughts on the duct tape that you're using that you're kind of passing down to the next group? I mean, are you mostly just are they just mostly working in ArcGIS online or do you have them do something in another class? That goes beyond that
Well, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to toss this to Barbara in a second, but I do want to say that a difference in my career now that literally has been the last two years than before is that as a developer, my duct tape was, I'll just write the damn thing myself. That was more or less my go to move. And so I wasn't using the tools quite as much as I'll just give me the APIs, get out of my way, I'll take care of it. And in my current position, I just don't have the need for that.
And to some extent, the latitude for that. So I've had to start kind of rethinking my duct tape tool belt from a more application centric. And I, that's part of the reason I think I've, I've fallen back on some of the ARC pro that I know, but also let's see what the cloud can do. Let's do it and figure that out there.
Now, as the curriculum is certainly currently laid out at Fairmont state, I'm basically teaching intro to geography courses and Barbara teaches the GIS classes, so she should better answer this question.
So because remember, this is a fairly new program and we had so much trouble getting our license again, something that is a learning experience
context
for
you've had your license for like 3 months.
No, no, we yeah, we've had it for. Since March. Yeah. Since March. So basically it took us over almost a year to get to the purchasing of the state. It had nothing to do with, as
before that he had a lab license, right? For a little while.
Yeah. Lab license, but it was very, very limited. They don't, there's only a few things you can do. Now we've got an institutional license, which is basically like everybody else's, you know, it's just the amount of money you pay and the amount of credits and seeds you get depends on the size.
So that was the whole context. I just wanted to make sure everybody understood whenever you say new, we're talking like. A couple of years, three years, four years
less than three.
Yeah. Cause there's a lot of things that are not in the lab license. The, the, the, our institutional license,
but I will say my approach is one that. respects the duct tape. And here's why. Because I have students that come from a lot of different professions, and some of them are already in their fields. And we talk about best practices and using what is used in your, your area in your profession. And then also how you bring in the, you know, can basically convince people to, to transition into modern GIS if it's so we try to use different products similar to the way that I was trained.
And then we spent a lot of time reflecting and talking about the process of using them. Because this is something that they're going to have to grapple with. If, you know, if you go in into the workplace and you are only given certain things, you know, certain tools.
So, for example, in certain fields, they're only going to have QGIS, but in others, they're going to have ArcPro, and others, they're still going to be using other things, especially if they're coming out of somewhere that's survey engineering so it, the, since it's still a new program, we're starting out by doing basically a survey, an overview, and touching everything and finding out what you use in your profession, what you like.
what's, what you're struggling with how you would approach using this if you're in somewhere that has to do the, the transition. Because I think for a lot of professionals now, even at the level of the state and region, they're being asked to do that transition that we're in with varying degrees of acceptance or resistance. So I guess I'm, How am I doing it? I'm living in both worlds because I think everyone, at least in certain areas, is going to end up living in both worlds, but we're heavily.
Yes, right.
Yeah, so as part of the Western Union Association of Geospatial Professionals, which Barb and I are both board members now, a lot of our, our, our membership is still kicking and screaming over ArcMap from August. So. You know, they are, there is a lot of duct tape built around ArcMap that they've got in their day to day jobs, and they have no interest in moving into the new age at all of ArcPro, much less an online thing.
So, there is a lot of initiative or Not an initiative, but there's a lot of momentum basically in one direction. So the expectation that you would hear it at UC is not the existence that we have in West Virginia, by and large.
And I think it's going to be a lot of places are going to be in the same boat. And so I think it's, I think that disconnect between how you'd want it, if it was a perfect world and how it is in the real world, I think people need to learn about the duct tape. Because it's how we all live or most of us do with the resources we
have the big thing here just to talk about the transition is it's the mid career and late career people that are going to be the most against doing it because it's what they've done. Why should I have to learn how to do another thing? This is what they were taught and in school and you know, it's, it's the problem, right? Whenever we are teaching. A piece of software, people just embed themselves in that mentality, Frank.
And just, you know, how do we, I don't know, that's, that's part of the duct tape is, you know, how do we keep. the the ideas and stuff that we've been building over the last few decades in the G. I. S. Education space with this push for the modern G. I. S. That Esri and a couple of other companies really want to push for the cloud movement. So, yeah, it's part of that question.
Well, I think it's actually so I'm not I don't think I'm necessarily disagreeing with everybody here, but I think it's, it's more than that, and I think that, you know, the points that that you and, and, and Barb have, have raised, Frank, is that, And I'll give an, I'll give an example, sort of an area in which, that I see this, right, that, that having to understand the duct tape, and that's around handling data.
And yes, you could say, well, the people that don't want to move from Arc, I mean, there was a, I don't remember it being quite as the move from ArcView and, and ArcInfo, I don't remember as being quite faint painful. Maybe that was because there were fewer, like the community was smaller then.
We were moving from command line to a. Yeah, but our view was, was our
kind of visual one. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So it was more of, wow, this is amazing what this can do and, and the pro one is maybe a little bit more lateral in terms of like what it looks like and stuff. But anyway but I think when you think about data, right, is that the modern GIS approach, and this is just my opinion, like when I'm working with, with students in the educational environment, right, the, what data is like. is much less overt, right, in, in using stuff, right?
So students struggle when you, when you say, when they say, Oh, well, I did this, I did this analysis and, and, and I gotta admit, I don't, I don't use the online tools. If I do analysis, it's still in Pro. And my duct tape is, if Pro throws me one of those ridiculous, ambiguous errors, then I go and run it. I still sneakily, like, like, hide behind the, the counter, I still sneakily run the data in ARCVAN because I can recognize the result, right?
Not anymore, but that's, that was my duct, that was my duct tape on duct tape, right? Is, if I couldn't get it to process the way I wanted, I would try to go see what was going on. But I think that as you see this transition, right, in how we understand those fundamental pieces, we run into the problem of legacy, right, which is a problem for everybody, right? We all remember now, like, the physical hardware legacy of how storage devices changed.
And when somebody would come, you know, like, I still remember, and I use this example, I think a half dozen times on the podcast over the years, right? The student that came to me holding up a zip disk and said, my biology professor needs the data on this. And then she stopped, and she went, What is this? And I had to tell her it's a zip disk. And she's like, all right, so how do I get the data off it? And I laughed. I'm like, you have to have a zip drive.
And then their brief moment of time, right? That the zip drive had their glory, which lasted what? Eight months. You know, you could get computers with zip drives in them or buy portable zip drives. I'm like the data, the data, as far as the rest of the world. I guess concern does not exist if you cannot extract it from this device. But I think in this transition, right, in our duct tape processes, right, a lot of them revolved around data.
And it's why I still make students work with shapefiles because they could potentially end up in a place where there are shapefiles and, and products that are outside of the Ezra ecosystem where we're making this move to modern GIS, right? If they're not doing the same thing, they're still going to be in that world. So QGIS. In other worlds, they're still going to work with these more traditional data format. So, so I'm using kind of the data thing as an example.
So I think that it's, it is, it's, it's, it's a broader question, like how much do you pass that along? Because as part of working with physical data, that's why I kind of joked earlier in the news about kind of the death of desktop, right.
Because understanding File types and file structures and I can remember like everybody we were using when this qgis was one of these right if you didn't understand Or city engine as an example in the esri ecosystem, right if you didn't understand how file directories and hierarchies worked right because people who constructed their Their data storage around those you were just like what is happening, right? I don't know where this file went I don't know why I can't save it.
I don't know why it's thrown me in here All right. Now we pass it along to the cloud And a lot of that is, is hidden because, you know, you run something in, in an ArcGIS online, it'll go into your content as a user, right? Which is a very different way to see where files are going. And it's not truly necessarily a file as we would understand it. Right? So they're trying to, to wrap their heads around that and then see something on a physical device.
So anyway, so it's kind of a long way to get back to, I think are, I think it is important that we, that we expose them and preserve some of these things because as, as Barb said, right, we're in the transition time and the cloud very much is dependent on having this offsite server and somebody managing this in a place where your, your data and your products are going and that you generally don't have control over. So that's another issue with it. Right.
So, but if you don't understand kind of the legacy of the transition into it and how to work with those other things or or find somebody who, who did know then. Then it's really going to be hard to, to accomplish your projects.
So my question real quick is when have we not been in a transition period?
Well, that's fair enough, right? I was thinking that because I was also laughing cause at the, our, our state conference, you know, I was telling people about a project or my students had done where they were doing had them do the, the audit of where everything is Sue for a cemetery. You know, you can't start just.
Making the map, you got to start somewhere and for the good of this organization, you have to start with what do they have, and of course, they're going to swear they have information and what form is it in. It's in a PDF Excel sheet, you know, Excel spreadsheet in a PDF. And I think everyone's been there and everyone at the conference, you know that it's a shared experience of.
Having to your best laid plans going you know, getting off track because you have to go back to what to the people you're working with have not what what are you doing in your ideal environment? But what's the real situation here? So it was
It's a big chunk of confusing the difference between data and information. Do you have the data? Yes, we have the data. No, you have the information. You don't actually have data, not in a meaningful way. And now we get to convert your information back into data so we can create more information.
That's always a big frustration, particularly when talking to non GIS people, but, you know, so you brought up something that is my, this is my, Oh, I hit an error of technology that I'm struggling with. Which is the first time this has really happened in my career is this notion of a data lake.
So, essentially, that's what our GS online is, is that we throw the data up there in this big lake and the way you access it is you, you know, you connect with it because you know, the name of it or, you know, who made it or, you know. You know, some attribute about it. That's the way you connect it. Me, I don't organize my brain that way. I'm used to organizing files and folders and sub folders and all that sort of stuff.
So I won't necessarily remember what the hell I called something, but I'll remember, Oh, it's a project. So it's in the project folder and it's Oh, that looks right. 2024 that's on 2024. Oh, what is this? This is something to do with this process. Oh, right. There's a folder for that type of thing. And so I can kind of find my way to wherever the heck it is that I saved it.
And this data lake thing is just throwing me for a loop because I got to be, I get to remember a whole different types of things and I have to come up with name to, to mimic my thing. I have to come up with names that are really obnoxious for files because then it helps me go, well, one of these words would have gotten me there. This is where I need AI to get better because if I use synonyms for things that I go, did you mean these things? Like, yeah, that's the thing I needed.
That, you know, If I don't use the exact term and, and that's been a huge challenge for me and what keeps me from wanting to engage with the cloud is fully, I actually like it and I use it a lot. But the fact that I had trouble finding things because of this data lake concept, whereas if I use pro it's in this folder, which is that subfolder and this subfolder and this is the file and you know, that's a lot easier for me.
And so these are different. tape, gaffing tape, translucent scotch tape, whatever kind of tape you use to, to keep things going.
Wishes and prayers
And Yeah, I mean, we're always making it up as we go along because there's always new things that we need to embrace and include and you just can't cover everything because there's so too much.
And if this safe space, I'm going to admit that I'm not going to uninstall ArcMap. Not yet. It's not happening.
You're not going to have a license for it, so it doesn't matter. That's it. There's no more licenses.
As we did. I'm still not going to uninstall it.
But it won't run without a license.
I wonder if I can generate a
No. There are no There are We will not have licenses to generate a license file for the license server.
It has sailed. It has sailed. But I'm probably just not going to uninstall it just because the icon comforts me. For all that we hated and let it to burn down ArcMap, it's just the idea of uninstalling it and not having an icon on my desk. That just makes me sad.
But I wanted to say it shows how creative we are. If there's one thing that connects us, I think that duct tape shows that we're creative and dynamic. You know, that it's, it's one of the things that people always say once they start getting into geospatial stuff is that, you know, we're, we're just. We are able to move with whatever's thrown at us. And I think that's a plus.
I know they're not listening but I would like to caution all you public health people and your, you know, ecology people and all the people who use GIS occasionally, particularly for an academia, you'll find a paper that was written in 2008 that has an algorithm that does the type of analysis you want to do, and it's not been upgraded since. Arc nine point, whatever the hell work and there's nothing we can do about it. There's nothing you can do about it.
You can probably find it. It's probably built in now. The number of old tools that are now part of. Just the existing
there are a bunch, but there are a lot that aren't because
you have to know what the stupid tool is called
some master student somewhere wrote it in a thesis and trust me, when I was at an R1, this is this happened at least 3 times a year. They would say it only works in arc 9. 2. Two or whatever. And I go I don't want to tell you the algorithm is in the article.
You have the developer capability.
And they were like, can we just get a license for that? And it was like, no. And, and Esri was good about occasionally giving me those, but you know, Maverick maps gone now. So you're going to have to rewrite that thing. That sucks.
This is something I learned about GIS journals. Which is they are making these algorithms and everything available. They're open.
And that's the thing. I mean, as much as I complain about R and people trying to do GIS in R, you know, you can run these tools, pulling from your GIS data set, run the tool, bring the data back in to do your cartography or take your, you know, wherever you're going to do your cartography. So I mean, The duct tape is all the different pieces that we have access to. Yes, we have our ones that we've used more than anything else, but all of us, you know, we use the tool that we have.
Is needed to get the project done, even if we have to learn that tool.
And please bring it into a cartographic tool. Asterix and at symbols are not cartography, not anymore. So much beyond that, bring it into a proper tool.
So there you go. That's it for this time. Hopefully we'll be back in two weeks. We'll see how it goes as we are now one month ish. One month and five days from our 19th anniversary.
Yeah, one nine.
Look at that. We should start wearing berets.
I am disturbed by that 90s reference.
Well, you know, it says about 19, you're in college. If you were, you were in the 90s,
yes. But now, I don't know what they do at 19, but it would not be a beret.
No, probably not. But there's still probably reading, you know, Proust and other things.
We had a student like to dress like Karl Marx. And used to wander the history halls. Perhaps Jesse didn't see him. Yeah, full on.
Had those at WVU.
Or, well, maybe not Karl Marx. More intelligentsia, we'll call it. Like late 19th century. I shouldn't tell again.
That's back. Dark academia, students dress in the full outfit, early 19th century garb.
And that's it for this week. So of course, if you'd like us to add your event to the podcast, send us an email podcast at very spatial. com.
If you'd like to reach us individually, I can be reached at Sue at VerySpatial. com. I'm Barb at VerySpatial. com. And
you can reach me at Frank at VerySpatial. com.
I'm available at KindaSpatial. You can find all of our contact information over at VerySpatial. com slash contacts.
As always,
we're the folks from VerySpatial.
Thanks for listening.
And we'll see you in a couple weeks.