FANTOM PLANET

To quote a line from Jack Ryan:

[imitating the Admiral] “The average Rooskie, son, don’t take a dump without a plan.” Wait a minute. We don’t have to figure out how to get the crew off the sub. He’s already done that, he would have had to. All we gotta do is figure out what he’s gonna do. So how’s he gonna get the crew of the sub. They have to want to get off. How do you get a crew to want to get off a submarine? How do you get a crew to want to get off a nuclear sub…
[eureka!]

Someone doesn’t have a plan, or they’re friggin’ geniuses. Think about this. There’s going to be Google data going to ESRI users and ESRI user data will be visible to the Google indexers. That leaves us with some unanswered questions:

• What is going to be the EULA going to look like on both sides?
• Will data made w/ gData be the user’s data, or Google or ESRI’s data if it’s exposed to Google’s web?
• Will the analysis layers be indexed by Google and will they own a copy?
• Will “Big Iron GIS” users even want to expose their data to Google and the web?
• Where’s Microsoft in this? ESRI + Microsoft makes for quick and easy GIS. Does (ESRI + Microsoft) * Google = Cloud Geoprocessing? Or, Google using Microsoft server and database platforms?

Getting back to ESRI users exposing data. Some of those users don’t let that stuff out of their command line. A friend was telling me today that cities in his region are ultra resistant to sharing data with other cities. So, how does Jack get his users to expose their data?

That’s what I really want to know.

The typical ESRI user “is an expert.” Or, at least in their own mind; and they typically don’t want to be usurped in anyway. Their Matrix gets turned off like that doll house by SAP. You may get a county to do something, but local sites are going to be a pain in the butt to turn onto the web by ESRI. Unless it’s ESRI’s responsibility in the pre-nup to bring in the “trusted interlocutors” to Google.

Something is askew.

On a side note: I spoke with Lisa Parks, who spoke yesterday about slippy map makers framing spatial media context, today. She has a grad student tracking the changes to the Google license agreement almost daily. That is because it changes almost daily.

Hey if millions of people aren’t having an edit war on this, then I might as well be the one who starts it. . .

Wikipedia defines GIS as:

A geographic information system (GIS), also known as a geographical information system or geospatial information system, is a system for capturing, storing, analyzing and managing data and associated attributes which are spatially referenced to the Earth. GIS is referred to as geomatics in Canada.

In the strictest sense, it is an information system capable of integrating, storing, editing, analyzing, sharing, and displaying geographically-referenced information. In a more generic sense, GIS is a tool that allows users to create interactive queries (user created searches), analyze the spatial information, edit data, maps, and present the results of all these operations. Geographic information science is the science underlying the geographic concepts, applications and systems, taught in degree and GIS Certificate programs at many universities.

Geographic information system technology can be used for scientific investigations, resource management, asset management, Environmental Impact Assessment, Urban planning, cartography, criminology, history, sales, marketing, and logistics. For example, GIS might allow emergency planners to easily calculate emergency response times in the event of a natural disaster, GIS might be used to find wetlands that need protection from pollution, or GIS can be used by a company to site a new business to take advantage of a previously underserved market.

It’s not so different than from what is in all of our textbooks. It says nothing about neogeography. Huh?

That doesn’t mean that neogeography isn’t GIS. The definition of GIS itself above is as a system, but can mean a science, or a service. Data in, gospel out. Same would hold true for neogeography applications and knowledge using the systems, the science and the services. I hear often enough from certain people in town that the web mapping applications that neogeographers build aren’t GIS and their data isn’t reliable. It’s all about the right tools for the right job folks, and it’s the right data for the right job too. As Tim O’Reilly once said, “It’s about the data stupid.”

We know our media is changing, but know that some things will remain the same: the geoid as an equipotential “lumpy potato”, Tobler’s First Law of Geography, and people will always say they like maps when you tell them you’re a geographer. I suggest we as GIS and geographer folk understand that change is happening otherwise. If you’re not down with change, get your acetate out and exacto knife and go start a hobby and preserve that lost art.

It has always been about the story of human life. Mine, yours, and the Fake Ed Parsons. (BTW: When the Fake Ed was at OS, he wrote the story of human life.) And we better damn well work together to help us tell it together. It does us no good to dump software packages into the deepest darkest collection of cubicles and say, “This is GIS, this will make your life so much better.” Then leave with no training and no discussion about sustaining a GIS. Employees with spatial info will blow it off, and it’s already been blown off inside the home. That’s why building the canvases of geography around the world are important. Google Earth, Virtual Earth, Yahoo maps, just to name the big guys. The likes of OpenStreetMap and Wikimapia, and Flickr and others where we’re mapping our communities and mapping our lives. Yes, this is great stuff. We need to let it grow and understand it, and not to kick your grandma off of Google Earth while she’s mapping her life’s story because “she’s not a geographer.”

(Written from the ESRI infirmary using Jack’s laptop.)

Open Source is like Voltron.  Bad ass.

I happened to come in to a copy of A to Z GIS (ISBN 978-1-58948-140-4), by ESRI. It’s a nice pocket-sized book that tells you all the definitions and concepts of (ESRI) GIS. I like it because, even though I know a lot, I sure don’t apply or remember everything about GIS. This is a handy reference guide not only for GIS beginners, but also for those of us long in the GIS tooth.