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Frank: You're listening to A Very Spatial Podcast, episode 735, April 7th, 2024.

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Jesse: Hello, welcome to A VerySpatial Podcast. I'm Jesse.

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Sue: I'm Sue. Barb: I'm Barb.

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Frank: And this is Frank. Jesse: And this week we're going to be talking about some

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stuff, but first, some news.

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Barb: Researchers from the University of Bonsaro, Munich have been able

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to create a height map for a 3D city using just one single radar image.

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This is something that they plan to use for quick disaster response and planning.

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It's still not perfect, but it is a way to quickly respond to

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humanitarian aid in the future.

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Sue: I think this is, you know, creating 3d maps and

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recognizing how valuable they are. But the gold standard using LIDAR is really expensive

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and not everybody can do it. So this particular imagery used a SAR data.

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So synthetic aperture radar data and potentially this means.

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A way to do some of these projects without having to always

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go in for the expensive LIDAR. So a lot of places can't, can't actually afford that.

1:06

So I think it's really interesting. Frank: Yeah, the cool thing is it happens very quickly, which is as they note for

1:11

emergency response, you can use a SAR captured image that had been captured

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in the last day, week, month, whatever it may be to quickly get something

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developed because they're basically leveraging AI machine learning to do

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it, which is, you know, Really neat. Barb: So university researchers in the SAHEL region are working with the IAEA.

1:31

That's the international atomic energy agency to use isotopes

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to start mapping groundwater. This is pretty cool cause it's going to allow them to get a lot

1:40

more information on rivers, lakes, and the underground aquifers.

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Sue: And of course with climate change with all kinds of other pressures and

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water demand growing this is a huge issue in the Sahel region of Africa.

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If you're not sure that this is the area to the southern borders

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of the Sahara desert where that environment transitions well, okay.

2:03

I can't remember what it transitions into all of a sudden.

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Jesse: Well, the northern grasslands that butt up against the I was going

2:11

to say uplands, but that's only on the eastern side, so that's my bad.

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And actually, it doesn't really impact the uplands as much because of,

2:17

orographic lifting and the Never mind.

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Sue: Anyway. my my regional geography left me for a second

2:25

Barb: What's really interesting is this is a transboundary partnership, and as

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we know, water doesn't have boundaries. So they're going to be able to build on connecting everyone's data from

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previous work into building this.

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Frank: I like the fact that you're using isotope hydrology, which just

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sounds cool no matter what you're doing.

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Jesse: just by putting isotope in front of it. Frank: I think so.

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I think, I think it's like a hydro spanner.

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You know, it just, it's cool. Sounds cooler than it really is.

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Jesse: Also, things that people should be mindful of, not necessarily news

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items, but for those folks who are in high school going into college, and

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those people who are in college, and those people who are in grad school.

3:09

The annual Geoint, sorry, specifically USGIF, US Geospatial

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Intelligence Foundation. Scholarships are open and Have been since January, but there do may something

3:24

and maybe May 31st, but check the website to make sure it's coming up.

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Sue: So, so now it's the time to, if you're going to do

3:30

it, really think about it. If you've not already done so.

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Jesse: Yeah. And we know people who have gotten them. You you know, it is for the USGIF.

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So you think it's GeoINT but they do look at geospatial broadly.

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So any way that you're creating new ways of understanding geographic information,

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geospatial information, , geospatial intelligence information, any of those

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fall under what they're looking for. So again, it's one of those where it's always better to apply and, you know,

4:02

be in the running than if you qualify.

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Barb: I was looking to see, cause I think the NASA develop is also

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still open or might've just closed. Jesse: And what is that?

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Barb: It is similar in that it is a geospatial internship with NASA.

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We know several people that have done that and worked with them.

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It's an interdisciplinary program that focuses on earth

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science and earth observation. And it's open to U.

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S. Citizens and non citizens. Jesse: And of course, if you're interested in REUs, it's too late.

4:37

Almost all other deadlines have closed by now. So keep that in mind for next year and you can look for research

4:42

experience for undergraduates. Frank: So another thing in the news, which is very important to at least

4:47

half of VerySpatial, is that researchers are now predicting that in the

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United States, the Atlantic hurricane season is going to be pretty bad.

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Probably much worse than it normally is.

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They're forecasting up to 23 named storms, which is normal,

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which is 50 percent above normal. So normally it's about 14 or so named storms and 11 hurricanes.

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That's a lot what's driving this is essentially what everyone knows

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about or should know about is sea warming temperatures that are

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ridiculously high compared to how they have been in the past and they

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just keep getting worse and worse. That in and of itself is not sufficient to generate this degree of uptick.

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You also have low wind shear, which is.

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Something that basically destroys storms as they, as they form.

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So basically the, the heated seas are going to make them more likely to form.

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And then normal wind shear would make them, would make, cut a lot of them

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off before they got anything of note. But since it's low wind shear for various reasons, it's unlikely that

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they're going to, you know, the number of those storms that come out.

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So Jesse: Yeah. Kind of expected this with a La Niña year.

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So La Niña years generally have a few more hurricanes.

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And so we're kind of waiting to see what happens.

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That was Colorado . State's yes, I believe, yes, Colorado state, Colorado

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state or Colorado Springs their model, and there'll be a few other ones

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that come out in the near future. But that's. That's kind of the go to most years does fairly well, and they'll do an update.

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As we start getting more into the season in early June, but.

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Sue: Yes. And there are some other factors that, that come into play as well to see.

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So one of the ones I always I'm interested to see the, the kind of forecasts and

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observations of is the Saharan dust clouds that come across the Atlantic and stuff.

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I find that they often throw a wrench in the works, dampen stuff down.

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Jesse: Which because of El Nino last year, there should be more dry

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conditions and large portions of.

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That area, which could potentially lead to more dust, but we don't know.

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It depends on the strength of the winds bringing it out.

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So without the wind shear, you may not get the lift of the, you

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may not get the aeolian activity.

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Yeah, lots of things. We'll be ready though. We have our, our remote learning plans in place that we must all

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file because we, so Jesse and I are faculty at a near coastal university.

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We're about 12 miles from the ocean. So. Frank: near coastal

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Sue: in fact, deal with this. jesse_1_04-07-2024_110621: And we have close for them.

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We have knock on whatever this table is made out of.

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We've had some close shaves since we've been here.

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There's one in there somewhere, but aftermath flooding was

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our biggest, biggest impacts.

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And even whenever I was still in North Carolina at my school there,

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we, we would close for these as well. Yes.

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So, perhaps the force field will hold.

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Why would you, why would you threaten the force field like that?

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I gave the appropriate superstitions. You said maybe, and then you didn't knock after you said that one.

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Each statement requires its own set of superstitions.

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I will make the appropriate offerings Frank: Yeah, no group knock.

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the podcast. There's no blanket knock.

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You gotta, you know. Jesse: And that's it for the news.

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And this week we have no idea what we're going to talk about.

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So we're just going to talk Frank: Cool.

8:20

Jesse: it's, April, you know, if depending on where you are, you just saw March come

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in and like in lion out, like a lamb.

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We're getting ready to have April showers, bringing us May flowers.

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Of course, those of us further South have had flowers for a while now.

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Frank: Yeah, we had, we had flowers.

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Lion lamb flowers, lion lamb for the last four weeks, five

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weeks or something like that. So it's been very confusing.

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And I feel bad for the vegetation because it bloomed 21 days early this year.

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And then frost came along and said, nope.

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And then there's rain. And then there was cold.

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And then this week it's going to be warm and rainy.

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I had nobody. And then right. Predicting next week is cold again.

9:11

So it's crazy.

9:14

Sue: It's hard to see the trend line when you're in it. Frank: Yeah, it's,

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Jesse: Basically, Paxatanti Phil was feeling schizophrenic this year,

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Frank: yeah, it's, Jesse: shadow at least, sorry. Was shivering.

9:27

Frank: yeah, we had snow and Thursday, I think it was Thursday or Friday

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was one of those days we had a little bit of snow, which is not unusual.

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And I, I know this is not unusual because one of my favorite songs

9:38

to listen to whenever it snows is sometimes it snows in April by Prince.

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And I, Invariably end up listening that song most years than not, but given the

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amount of early bloom that we had, it was a little surprising how much snow we got.

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had not in Sue: last night in the thirties.

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It'll probably be like 70 today, but we are seeing some, and of course the high

10:02

stakes weather forecasting of the eclipse viewing is going on now the last minute

10:08

as they, they're starting to predict cloudiness and potential rain for some of

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the, the parts of the totality corridor.

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Jesse: So you guys are what? 90 some percent. Frank: 90 something.

10:20

Yeah. We're, I mean it's going to be 70 and cloudy tomorrow, so

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Sue: Yeah. Frank: it the effects of it. I mean, that's a pretty good eclipse.

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Jesse: We're only in the 70 some percent totality,

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Barb: Yeah. My glasses came in right? In time. They came in yesterday.

10:37

Recommended by the space gal, Emily Calendrelli, who's from Morgantown.

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That does that show Sue: I have the welder's goggles thing and I got them for last time.

10:47

And so here's where that, the forecast comes into play is that it was broke,

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I guess broken cloudy, but over, over us and Conway area, some clouds

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came through, dampened the fun.

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But if you went further South in South Carolina, they got a nice clear view.

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So the clouds do matter.

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Jesse: Or if you went a little bit further North and West to North Carolina.

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Sue: Was yours cloudy then? No. No? See, you got to see it great, but we, we did, I went out for a while.

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I mean, it was still neat because it got dark and everything,

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but this was 2017, I think.

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Yes. Yeah. So, but I felt slightly robbed.

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I mean, I had the welder's goggles and everything.

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Barb: I didn't know welders goggles would work because I've got mine.

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Yeah, they, they, Jesse: You, you have to have the thickest lenses, the number 14 or whatever.

11:35

Yeah. Scale 14, basically the thickest ones that you can get for them.

11:40

Sue: Yes. So, yeah, literally when you put them on, you can see.

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Nothing. Nothing. Outside of them.

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have to go to the, your position and then put them on.

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Frank: having used those for actual welding it's always fun because with

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welding, you've got to get, if you're doing stick welding, you have to get

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the stick at the right place, but you literally can't see anything and

12:00

you're like, I think that's right. And then it comes on and you go, no, that's wrong.

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So Jesse: Yeah. Hence the, the folks who learn how to do the lean forward and

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have it come down, look, place,

12:13

Frank: yeah. Yeah. It's, it's so it's, it renders you effectively blind until that light hits.

12:19

So, well, Sue: I tried them on in the corridor of our office and there were at least

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three people there laughing at me and I had no idea who or where they were

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until I removed the goggles of course. Barb: And this week too, I've had two instances of having to give

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people the link to the did you feel it, the USGS for earthquakes.

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Cause the one was the earthquake that happened in Ohio, right near the Ohio

12:44

West Virginia border that apparently everyone's reporting for Ohio, but no

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one's really reporting for West Virginia. And people are trying to figure out what the, you know, geologic

12:52

survey, what does this mean? And then one that happened in my hometown in New Jersey, right there.

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Where I grew up that made the news and sending everyone the

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link for, did you feel it? Which I always appreciate the science communication side of that, that they make

13:07

it just very clear on, you know, how to, how to report it and make it fun to find.

13:13

I think Australia's is, did it shake or something like that is, is what

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they use for you to find theirs. Jesse: Let's see.

13:21

What else is coming up in April? Tax day.

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Frank: Which I haven't done mine yet. So I'm well aware that there's a deadline looming that I had to

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Sue: In the U. S. it's tax Frank: in the U S. Okay. Thanks.

13:32

Jesse: Yes. A week from Monday. Frank: Yeah,

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Jesse: In fact, it's possible that most people will not hear

13:37

this until well after tax day. Yes. So, hope you got it done.

13:41

Or file an extension. Or another country where it's not April 15th.

13:46

Frank: mm hmm. So I have a question that has nothing to do with any of

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the things going on in April. This just recently came up in Subreddit for professors, I think is where was that?

13:56

That there was complaints about students not knowing how to use files and

14:02

folders and I thought that was a very interesting The number of what I found

14:08

interesting about it is the number of professors who presumably use their

14:13

phone and their cloud based devices and that sort of thing that similarly

14:17

do not use files and folders but don't really take into account that students.

14:23

Live there. Jesse: Never needed to. Frank: Yeah.

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And so it and they're always kind of a gas that students don't know how to do that.

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And I actually was a little gas that student that professors were surprised

14:34

by this because why would you? I mean, if you do cloud stuff, you don't have to even it just goes into a magic

14:40

cloud space and you don't know where it's located or why or anything like that.

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Jesse: I mean, we still say, you know, create a file to keep things together in the cloud.

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And, And, so you kind of think people would organize.

14:55

No, mean, they don't generate as much as you would think.

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Sue: Yeah. And, and the, the conversation is even changing, right?

15:02

So when I mean, those you'll remember on earlier episodes, years back in

15:05

the podcast, where I said, one of the things that shocked me is that people

15:07

didn't know what a zip file was. Right.

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So we've well progressed beyond that now to where I don't think

15:14

they get, they don't understand even any of that structure in

15:19

the sense of files and folders.

15:21

Right. As part of it. But the fact that there's something stored somewhere.

15:26

And it might be on the computer, might not be on the computer, because

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now they're shocked if something happens and say a folder gets wiped.

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They're like, what do you mean it was on the computer? Can't I just log into my account and get it back?

15:39

No. No. that's gone. You see how that folder says empty now?

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Gone. Jesse: You know how since the first day of class we said make sure to

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save it to the D drive because They like to wipe the C drive occasionally.

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This is why. Yes. And when we say wipe we mean gone, like physically from the, from, from this feed,

15:59

those bits are not backed up anywhere, Frank: Well, you know, it kind of surprised me.

16:03

My coworker. Now he comes from a a strong the position he had before position.

16:09

He has now he was a trainer for Microsoft enterprise level things.

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So he's, you know, his knowledge base is very strongly attuned

16:18

to what Microsoft does. And he does a lot with SharePoint, for example.

16:21

And that's sort of how he approaches a lot of this enterprise level stuff.

16:25

So it was interesting to me to watch him Trying to find a piece of

16:30

information and he was doing searches based upon what he called the file,

16:37

which is completely legitimate. I'm not suggesting that was weird or anything like that, but I thought, well,

16:41

that's kind of interesting because I don't actually pay that much close attention

16:45

that when I name files, I pay a lot more attention to where I saved files.

16:50

So the way I organize my brain isn't so much that I don't worry that I've

16:55

named this project X meeting notes.

16:58

I just meeting notes, but it's in project X folder.

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So I know that that hierarchy exists and I just got to look in that folder

17:05

and it's somewhere in there, I'm going to find a file is descriptive enough

17:11

that I know what it's about, you know project plan or whatever it may be.

17:15

Whereas. His more approach was a little bit making sure that his files were holistically

17:21

named so he could find them in a search and try to remember what he named things.

17:25

And it's, it, neither is wrong. It's just, it struck me.

17:28

Well, that's really interesting. It's just the way he organizes the way he thinks about it.

17:31

It's very different than how I organize, how I think about and

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something that struck me because shortly thereafter, I saw that

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discussion on the professor's subreddit, Jesse: which of course for GIS doesn't matter on ArcGIS online, maybe you can

17:45

get away with just naming the bits.

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But as we know, every project that you save in ArcGIS Pro is going to

17:54

have a folder, and if you move that folder, and you don't move every

17:58

other folder you reference along with it, then you're going to kill the

18:05

relative path. Now, the problem is, There's also this difference that those people who are

18:12

coming from ArcMap, who are used to the not relative path, unless you go

18:18

in and specifically chose it, aren't maybe necessarily thinking of ArcGIS

18:24

Pro and the relative path mindset.

18:28

So it's a different, yeah, but hopefully of course everybody's moved away from

18:32

ArcGIS or ArcMap now to ArcGIS Pro.

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Or they have moved to Frank: narrator, they have not

18:39

Sue: yeah, yes, yes, you know, and I think I, although I think for today, like, it's

18:43

too much in depth, but this conversation is kind of an interesting tangential

18:47

lead into stuff that I've been thinking about a lot more and that is the change

18:53

in, in how GIS is being done, right?

18:56

And we've talked about it. It's been happening. I mean, it changes not just at Esri, but other places.

19:01

I think, you know, It is a question for us because we're in the transition, right?

19:05

We remember the old times. A lot of us still do things with the old times, but for those of us in education,

19:13

the students that are coming to us don't have any attachment to that world.

19:17

And the things that they're seeing, right, the things they're used to

19:21

working with are in fact different. And so your options are to go back and kind of backfill in some of

19:27

the older things that we take for granted, like explaining, okay, so

19:31

you're working on a desktop computer. These are the things that must happen for you to be successful.

19:37

Versus do we then evolve and say, well increasingly things

19:41

are being done over the web. They're being done with these types of things, remote

19:44

processes, all this kind of stuff. And so I find myself struggling with, with the, which way to go with this.

19:51

I do some of each, but You know, again, it's a broader question

19:54

that I keep wrestling with. And I don't know if I want to give it the term modern GIS or whatever, but,

19:59

but I do think that the question is how much do I try to go back and say, look,

20:04

this is how you, this is how you do these other things, because this works this

20:08

way, but there's less and less chance. You're going to see this out in the working world.

20:12

Maybe it's because I'm not as connected to the working world

20:14

anymore to know how many people out there actually making this work.

20:19

this transition themselves are coming into it new and, and using tools that aren't

20:23

what we would consider traditional GIS. Barb: actually, what I'm finding is that a lot of my students are, are

20:29

already working a lot of them and they are seeing themselves as the, the

20:34

professionals that are bringing that transition in because the, you know,

20:38

it's the organizations they're in aren't necessarily, you know, even though you

20:42

have to make that transition, there are a lot of people that still are

20:46

thinking that they, you know, Don't have to work and find a way around it.

20:50

jesse_1_04-07-2024_110621: Around what? Barb: The switch over to the cloud and, and ARC Pro future,

20:57

future to the modern era, Frank: the inevitable movement of technology and time that they're immune

21:02

to it, that's and, and what I'm finding from our professional organization

21:06

side of things is I'm finding a lot of people who are, they do a thing.

21:12

And the thing works. So then I keep doing the thing that works, which is fine.

21:17

If you're, you know, doing woodworking or something like that.

21:20

But when it comes to technology like this, this stuff is evolving

21:24

whether you want it to or not. And 1 of the things that I find a little frustrating about this is The organ,

21:33

the companies mostly have a vision that they're pushing that I'm not sure

21:38

they've entirely tested completely.

21:41

And they're kind of like, well, it's just, I don't mean my test.

21:43

Is it does it work? Not work as in, is this a approach that makes a lot of sense?

21:49

And they're saying, we're going to do it this way. And then, you know, People go, I don't understand how to get my brain

21:54

around that, to do it that way. And I think it's, we're, we're doing a lot of live live testing

22:01

of concepts in, in not just GIS, but more broadly in technology now.

22:07

Jesse: I think this is, we've gone from a very small group of

22:11

people who are learning and using technologies to early, early days.

22:17

And, you know, there are people who, including ourselves some of

22:21

us that were still doing, you know, command line, ArcGIS, seven point,

22:25

whatever, whenever we started. And so we went through ArcView.

22:29

We went through Arc MapObjects, not ArcMapObject, just MapObjects.

22:32

We went through ArcMap and its various iterations.

22:36

And now we're in ArcGIS Pro, but The thing is, is that there are a lot

22:43

of people who aren't those people. And so I think that's the difference now is that we have this core

22:51

that was new and heavily into the early changes in the industry.

22:57

And keep in mind at that point, the industry technically was

23:00

already 30 or more years old.

23:02

Whenever we're talking about the late nineties and so now we have

23:06

this broad breadth of people who have entered at different points.

23:11

And so there are people who have been in the profession and are getting ready

23:15

to retire that didn't deal with things that I've dealt with whenever I started.

23:20

Frank: Well, yeah, I think that's, that's true. I don't know.

23:23

I, I don't know. I don't disagree with you at all. You're absolutely right about that.

23:26

But I just find it a little bizarre.

23:29

And admittedly, I'm coming from a point of view of being a heavy technologist,

23:33

you know, show me the latest whiz bang thing and I want to play with it.

23:36

So it is a biased point of view, but I am very surprised still to

23:42

this day, the number of people who look at this stuff as a static tool.

23:49

Jesse: No, I agree. Frank: Considering how much it's changed just since we started the podcast,

23:54

which is, you know, a relatively short period of time in in most careers.

23:59

So I find that a little, little bizarre.

24:04

You know, that that you don't sort of accept as a norm of the role that.

24:09

You're going to have to do it different in five years, whatever it is you're doing.

24:14

And I'm also impressed.

24:16

I'm very impressed actually with the sheer number of people I see that

24:20

don't do it different in five years that are able to just keep doing it.

24:24

I'm like, that's amazing that you can keep doing that.

24:28

And it works for you, which is both a Testament to the

24:30

resiliency of the technology and also the resiliency to change.

24:36

Jesse: Yeah. I mean, we have so many different takes on it at this point that it's just, we are

24:41

all baffled and at the same time, we're all confused why other people are baffled.

24:45

Barb: I was going to say, I just got back from an Open Education Resource

24:48

Conference, where both the state and the national groups involved with

24:52

open education were talking about it. And one of the things I noticed was and highly appreciative of, is that

24:59

for me, a lot of what I'm doing and working with finding and creating

25:04

It's, it's not brand new to me. It's not something that I have to think is this worthwhile doing because

25:09

the geospatial community has been very good because of these changes.

25:14

I think about doing a lot of open education and discussion and help.

25:18

I mean, I know I can go to YouTube. I can go to videos.

25:21

I can go to GitHub. I can go to Substack. There's so many places now, but they've always been where the

25:26

community has been willing to basically step people through these changes.

25:32

So that you can adapt quicker.

25:34

I know I can go somewhere and no one's going to make me feel that, you

25:38

know, I'm dumb for looking and asking.

25:40

Cause I'm going to ask a whole lot of questions yeah, the majority of people,

25:44

it's a very, I said, and I had to say, I said, you know, this we've been in

25:47

this, you know, in the open education for professionals and students for, you

25:52

know, the community a long time, it's a very, you know, very open community.

25:55

So I think that is also what lends itself to being able to adapt

26:00

and change is finding resources that you don't have to pay for.

26:04

. Sue: Well, and I think that very mindset, right, is also and I'm going to try

26:11

to, in my mind, it's taking me a second to kind of connect it back to when I'm

26:14

thinking about some of these transitions, right, is, is that very mindset, right?

26:18

That there's all these resources, there's all these things out there.

26:20

I can go get it. Also affects kind of or goes hand in hand with the, the changeover in mindset.

26:27

Right? So one of the things that I also see is happening is at least when

26:31

we first encountered GIS, right. And geospatial, it was again, it's just, he was saying a

26:35

smaller, much smaller community. Right. And the way that you passed on what you knew was among

26:40

your Your select group, right?

26:43

And I don't mean select I'm trying not to mean that in a bad way.

26:45

It just means it's a smaller group of people. And so the knowledge got passed on.

26:49

The core of what you did was at a physical computer, right?

26:53

The web part of it came later and it was, you know, it was kind of a rough, kind of

26:58

rough transition into some of that stuff. And so there was very much ownership and, and you go through your whole career by

27:03

doing it the same way because it worked and you were trained by someone else.

27:08

how to do it, whether you got that in formal education

27:10

classes or training on the job. And so that sense, right, that everything I, and, and that I think, and, and,

27:17

you know, Frank, you can correct me on this as, as somebody who's also,

27:19

you know, been in technology even longer than me or, you know, Jesse.

27:22

And Just that notion that where are my files?

27:25

I need to know where my data is. I need to know where my results are, right?

27:28

I have an ownership on that. I don't feel comfortable unless I can backtrack and do

27:32

those types of things, right? That has evolved as we've seen connections and cloud, the rise of cloud and all that.

27:38

And And so again, I think the next generation down doesn't really have

27:42

necessarily that attachment, right? Where I freak out, like, I don't know, where's my floppy disk.

27:46

Yes. Right. I don't know where the data was that created this result layer.

27:49

So I have to have that, or I don't really trust it. But as we change to other things, right, there's less ownership by the, the, like,

27:55

you know, some users now don't even ask where to go or where'd I get that layer.

27:58

They just pull in anything. And, you know, we try to educate about things like metadata and all that sort

28:03

of stuff, but it doesn't resonate. Right. And like it did, I don't think and this is just getting my, my experience with it,

28:09

trying to explain why this is important. I mean, they'll, you know, there'll be an understanding, Oh, obviously

28:13

if I create a data layer after 2011, it will have South Sudan on it.

28:18

And prior to that, it won't, right. Because it wasn't an independent country, you know, something obvious like that,

28:22

that there will be an understanding of why these types of things matter.

28:26

And again, I'm just pulling out one tiny example of this whole change,

28:29

but I think that some of it too, in that evolution, right, is the

28:32

notion of, , something we've talked about for the entire podcast, right?

28:36

Which is, you know, how this synthesizing and reworking and everything of sources

28:41

of, of perspectives and stuff that is allowed by sharing everything, you

28:46

know, just goes all the way through. The GIS world the geospatial world as well.

28:52

Frank: I recently got made fun of for hitting save.

28:54

It Sue: Hey, isn't that like a small microcosm example of this, right?

28:59

Frank: Yeah. was, and in fairness, we were doing, you know, working on a Word

29:04

document online and it just saves.

29:07

It just does, it just does. It's takes care of that.

29:10

And I don't have to hit the save button, but I can't not hit the save button.

29:15

I've learned that about myself. I've evolved to the point where no, I have to hit the save button that way.

29:20

I know, I know it got saved,

29:23

Jesse: I don't know how, completely off topic, but our IT has found a way to

29:29

turn off the auto save feature in Word.

29:32

And all of the Office. Frank: but yes, we have the exact opposite.

29:38

It's always saving in, in, real time, which, you know,

29:43

Jesse: because versioning. So they've also basically found a way to locally.

29:47

So if you're doing it in the cloud, yeah, your version, you're good.

29:50

If you're doing it locally, it's not doing versioning the same way

29:54

because it's not actively saving.

29:57

Frank: yeah. And so versioning is the thing that I like having an active hand in.

30:01

So. I will remember.

30:03

Oh, yeah. Version 17. I was going on this tangent.

30:07

So I need to go back to version 16.

30:10

And so I like positive stops that I understand what the

30:14

degrees of change might be. Whereas this.

30:18

This constant saving thing confuses me because what will happen is, is

30:24

that as an example, as I may do, I may rework a paragraph and then the

30:30

next paragraph, punch it up a little bit, and then go back to the paragraph

30:34

before that other paragraph and say, Oh, I got to make some word changes.

30:38

And then I realized, Oh, third paragraph I edited on is all wrong.

30:43

I need to delete it. So I need to, or I need to keep pieces of it.

30:47

You know, so if I hit starting control Z, I end up undoing things.

30:50

That I didn't want to undo in the, in this need to get to the thing that

30:56

I do want to undo, you know, it's sort of, it, I personally find it

30:59

easier to control that versioning, but you don't do that in the cloud.

31:02

And it's very hard for me to switch to that mindset.

31:05

Jesse: can, but you have the, but you have then the backup

31:10

because versioning I want is for the backup, not for the

31:12

change in ideas that I agree.

31:15

You created a copy of that.

31:20

I want something where. If I accidentally do something to a portion of the document I didn't mean

31:26

to, and I close it and come back to it, which means that it's no longer in the

31:32

undo list, then I can go back to the version and open up that old version

31:38

where this, and this could be just like you know, a one page letter, it

31:43

doesn't need to be a multi page document where versioning really does, you know,

31:46

having different different copies are important, just being able to Say, oh,

31:51

wait, the sentence I had in here is gone.

31:53

It was really great sentence. How do I get back to that now?

31:55

Versioning allows me to do that. Yeah, I like that too.

31:58

But also I, I think I'm in Frank's camp, right? I like active.

32:01

So that's why on, on my, on the game console for me.

32:05

Yes. But on gaming console, while there's 15 saves of the same game, because now I'm,

32:09

I see it saving, but I want my control.

32:12

I want to know what happens. So I want to actively see the event happening.

32:15

Well, I want to know that I can go back to this if I, you know, spam

32:18

myself in the next iteration, I can go back a couple of saves and fix it.

32:22

Sue: Yes, but, but that is, I think, but, but there's a whole group

32:25

that doesn't even see that as like something to take into account.

32:29

And that, that is a very different mindset. Frank: yeah.

32:32

I don't disagree. I like having both, but because of the degree of activeness, it's, it's

32:39

harder for me to trust the automatic thing other than the very last version.

32:44

Like, let me go back to the very, you know, the very last.

32:48

It's harder for me to understand what has changed in the versioning

32:52

going back to some extent. So that that's where, you know, if I have the positive stops,

32:57

I know exactly what's going on. And that's just easier for me to wrap my brain around per se.

33:02

Plus I hate hitting control Z 87 times in a row to get back to, you know, I

33:07

have, I have a bad habit of writing.

33:09

For example, I'll write a sentence and I'll delete part of it and then I'll.

33:12

Write some more and then I'll delete the bit that I wrote, you know, I'm

33:15

completely rewriting it as I go. And I'll end up with like 19 versions of one sentence.

33:20

And then I realized, oh, that whole sentence is garbage. So I need to go back to before I started, you know, that type of thing.

33:25

So it makes it a little harder for me to hit. Anyway, I understand both are useful and I want both, but at the same time, I'm

33:32

running into in the work environment, the version, the versioning that I'm used to,

33:36

where I have my own positive stops is. lesser used than just trusting the online versioning thing.

33:43

And that's hard for me to use both using only one and not the other.

33:49

Jesse: So, yeah, there's a conversation for the day, and hopefully you

33:54

Frank: Found something useful Jesse: stuck to this point. Well, yeah,

33:56

Sue: I think we are going to circle back around to maybe another more specific

34:02

conversation about evolving GIS. Because I think that GIS geospatial because it does have

34:09

a lot more implications to it. Jesse: You should head on and find out about some events in the events corner.

34:15

First up, State of the Map 2024 will be taking place September

34:20

6th to the 8th in Nairobi, Kenya.

34:22

A call for the academic track is due May 10th.

34:26

Barb: AGILE 2024, which is the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories in

34:30

Europe, is holding its annual conference focused on geographic information

34:35

science for a sustainable future in Glasgow, UK, June 4th through 7th.

34:40

And Geography 2050 is taking place November 22nd to

34:44

the 24th in New York City. Sue: The city's so nice they named it twice.

34:49

Frank: That's right. Jesse: If you'd like us to add your event to the podcast, send us an

34:52

email to podcasts at variouspacial. com. Sue: If you'd like to reach us individually, I can be

34:56

reached at Sue@veryspatial. com. Barb: I'm Barb at VerySpatial.

35:00

com. Frank: And you can reach me at Frank at VerySpatial.

35:02

com. Jesse: I'm available at Jesse@veryspatial.

35:05

com. And of course you can find all of our contact information over at veryspatial.

35:07

com slash contacts. Frank: As always,

35:11

Barb: we're the folks from Very Spatial. Jesse: Thanks for listening.

35:14

Sue: We'll see you in a couple of weeks.