A VerySpatial Podcast - Episode 744

you're listening to a very spatial podcast episode 744 august 18th 2024

hello and welcome to a very special podcast i'm jesse i'm sue i'm barb and this is frank

and this week we're gonna kind of reminisce it's not quite our 20th anniversary but it is

others 20th anniversary so we'll talk a little bit about what was going on back in 2004

but first of course there's always news first up this week there have been a couple of recent

cases that have made it up to the federal level that have looked at the idea of geo-offensing

warrants the most recent one

is the fifth circuit stated that they're not constitutional but they did accept the one that

was being done because it wasn't something that there was a lot of precedence about for the

people who had sought that particular warrant this kind of is to the counter of

what the fourth court or fourth circuit last month stated which was

that they were

unconstitutional so we've got kind of two different perspectives on it and i think both

of them are saying it's somewhat contextual but it's one of those things where you know

whenever you're talking about okay tell me everybody who was in this area that goes beyond

of course looking at an individual and the main things that are the the precepts behind

the fourth amendment and so it's it is

one of those things that it is a question mark of you know how much especially in our data era

is appropriate whenever you're talking about warrants and things that can you know

have very significant impacts on people's livelihoods both that are involved or

potentially involved and those who are just near the incident how much of that information

should be shared yeah just for uh edification for those who aren't u.s citizens and don't

necessarily know what they're doing and i think that's a good point i think that's a good point

all the amendments pretty particularly well even if you are u.s citizens the fourth amendment is

the protection against unreasonable searches and senior seizures as well as uh indication about

how warrants can and cannot be issued and particularly it relates to probable cause so

that's why this is you know basically butts up against a lot of things that are stated in the

fourth amendment the flip side of this is that if you've got two circuits the fourth and the fifth

that are at odds with each other that does increase the probability that you're going to have a warrants

ends up at the supreme court at some level and to to clarify the nuances so there's a good chance

this ends up at the supreme court given this particular court it's kind of a crapshoot how

that gets interpreted so it will very much be up in the air yeah yeah and that's by the way another

part of the u.s justice system is that when you appeal a decision made in a court the u.s is

divided up into appeals districts at the federal level and so that's what the

the fifth amendment does is they're going to be able to make a decision about how they're going to

circuit and fourth circuit refer to is which sort of federal appeals district you're in

for that case. And so decisions handed down as precedent in one, as in this case, right,

may not be the same as what gets handed down in another. And then the next level up is the

Supreme Court. So it can make for differing interpretations when cases come through.

When I was reading this and I saw the one that they had said, well, they, you know,

we're letting it through because they hadn't realized the scope of what they were asking.

It made me think beyond the law to what we understand about technology. And I kept thinking

about when we watch police procedurals and we see people go enhance, enhance, enhance.

I felt that very much this was very similar and that it can feel like, you know, let's just do

the geofence and collect everything in it without understanding that it's not going to do exactly

what you want it to do.

You think it is or that it's possible to do what you think it does. Again, the idea that we see

things on TV that we think are possible but aren't really possible at this time.

Next up in the news, Overture Maps has released its general availability of a lot of its global

open maps data sets. I think all of them actually. This is the Overture members are a meta,

Microsoft, Esri, and TomTom. So we're talking about a lot of data capabilities.

Yeah, there's a lot more too.

Yeah, there's a lot more.

Those are the big ones. Obviously, we're talking about a lot of data and a lot of stuff that can be

out there. They're all global data sets. They're all the open data sets. And it's kind of nice that

because they've released this as a general availability, that means that anybody can use

them more or less for any purposes. I'm sure if you look at the details of the license,

there are some limitations. But, you know, they're generally available. I'm guessing they're going to

be centered around you can't repackage it and sell it. But if you're doing anything else,

they're open data now.

So, of course, we talked to Overture Maps about a year ago, and that was when they were first

going into their first alpha release and beta and moving through beta. And, you know, it's exciting

for them to get to that point where they are releasing these to general availability. And

in addition to that, they're also releasing an alpha of over 200 million addresses as well.

So they're starting a different data theme in addition.

So for addresses, and this is going into alpha. And I don't think that one is global. I'm not sure.

I didn't look to see what the extent of that was, but 14 countries, I guess.

I think the intent is to move it beyond alpha into global because the other the other alphas

weren't quite all global on all the themes. So.

So but it's another one. If you're looking at their data sets, this one is one that you can.

And, you know, whenever we talk about Overture Maps data, it's been available. You've been able

to use it.

But, you know, they did have that caveat of it's not finalized data. Now they've moved on. People

have used it enough. They've fact checked it enough. That's not the right word. They've QC'd

enough. There we go. So used to hearing fact checked in the news these days that it just stuck

in my head. But it's now been QC'd to the appropriate level that they're comfortable

putting it out as general availability. And again, it's made available through Overture Maps. But

there's so many organizations who are feeding into this, both open source and open source data.

Open source and for profit organizations that are feeding into the data because they want their goal is to have a shareable kind of consistent data set that everybody can use if they choose to for commercial products, for their day to day use, whatever it is.

Yeah, really cool thing is that one of the layer themes is buildings and it's two point three unique built two point three billion unique building footprints worldwide.

That's pretty cool. So I think that's that's the best thing that's going to happen in the future. But it's what's already in Bing's and Esri's Living Atlas. So if you like that data, you can just now get that data. That's that's pretty cool without having to necessarily be a Microsoft or an Esri customer.

Moving on to some drone news, the Beyond Visual line of sight rules are coming. That's kind of it. There's not a lot of details yet, basically, as part of the reauthorization that just took place for the FAA that was mandated that within, I don't know, six months or so, that the FAA would be able to have a control over the data. So that's pretty cool.

the FAA had to put into place initial guidelines for beyond visual line of sight, you know, more

than what they have in place right now. And so those initial expectations and ideas about what

it will be should be out before the end of the year. And they're suggesting, or at least one of

the upper levels in the UAS space at the FAA was saying that, you know, by 2026, these should be

going into play. So if you are someone who's looking at some of the beyond visual line of

sight, and, you know, for monitoring, for just mapping in general, there are use cases for being

able to do things where you can't, you know, necessarily see or have someone in the flight

line that can see the drone while it's going over. So, you know, looking at things like linear

features, such as utility lines or pipelines.

And using a drone to inspect those, you know, your drone can go 10 kilometers without having

too many issues with frequency distortion and can come back to you. But right now, you basically

have to drive along with the drone, so you keep it in sight. So you have a driver, you have the

pilot and other observers, or have different people along the line. So it's a whole thing

right now. So, you know, for the mapping portions of this,

you know, there are reasons for beyond visual line of sight. Of course, most of this is for the

people who want to deliver packages, but whatever.

I think that what's interesting about the news is how much there is mention of, it's so surprising

that the implementation is happening along the timeline they set. That that was the unusual

thing that this is, you know, proceeding as planned.

I mean, if it's in the legislation,

that's what they got to do. That's what they did last round. So it's how we, we got some of the,

the nighttime flying and things like that, that came through in the last. And of course,

the licensing of, of non-commercial pilots, that was also part of the last reauthorization bill.

And then.

So University of Maryland has created what they're calling a topography of the news ecosystem.

And there is,

a lot of convergence, a lot of times between the media and mapping, especially in recent years.

And this is looking at scale. They don't use the term scale in here, but what they've done is the

first of its kind look at the scale of the state. So instead of looking at news deserts across the

US, they're looking at a very, very, at a scale of what's happening in the local news. And let's

look at how this is spread. The local news is spread and where those dead spots are and where

are parts of the states that are getting coverage. So it's really interesting what they're doing

because it is taking a look at local news at a very local level. And what they're trying to do

is create a framework for these news ecosystems. Right. And I think this is a really important

and really interesting study in the United States, because coming from a small area, I can say that

I've seen a lot of, I've seen a lot of, I've seen a lot of, I've seen a lot of, I've seen a lot of,

I've seen a lot of, I've seen a lot of, I've seen a lot of, I've seen a lot of,

I've seen even just monitoring, I've moved away from my hometown for a long time ago,

but to see kind of the changing landscape there of local newspaper, what was local newspapers first,

then what you have is kind of a local TV market. But these types of news sources that, you know,

allow people to see kind of not just the events in their area, but how they maybe relate to what's

going on at other scales, I think are really important. And when they go away,

right, that connection that you have with what's happening in the news, I think,

you know, starts to erode a little bit. So I think this is a really interesting study to like,

take a look at. And like you say, Barb, it's that conversion kind of how we see things

across space. But, you know, look at those different scales. So I noted, I think I noted

in the news article that we were looking at that they're actually going to make this structure

available to other universities if they want to do a similar type of study.

Yeah, the interesting thing here is, is the, it would be neat to overlay this with other,

they don't, I don't think they use the term deserts, but really, you're talking about

somewhat news deserts.

Deserts, when you're talking about the local, it'd be interesting to overlay that with

common rural deserts, like food deserts and healthcare deserts and education deserts.

You know, I obviously, I think it's going to be fairly obvious that we see a lot of overlap,

but it'd be kind of interesting to do that to see what degree.

And that's it for the news. You know, this is 2024 and 2004. A number of things began,

podcasting first began about this time of year with, well, what was his name? He was

VJ.

The blonde guy.

Mark something.

Yeah, I can't think of his name right now.

The guy. Go look it up on Wikipedia. You'll figure out. Those of you who are old enough to

remember the beginning of MTV.

There are others involved too.

Well, he was kind of the first one who used RSS to push out audio files. And then a lot of people

within the next month or two were like, that's a great idea and started doing it as well. And

then by 2025, of course, we had the, the first wave of podcasting come about.

Oh, I could see, I could see him too.

Sorry. 2022.

2005, not 2025.

Is it Adam Curry?

Adam Curry. Why did I, oh, Mark is the other one.

Mark is the black curly hair, isn't he? Isn't that Mark?

I don't remember anymore.

Yeah.

But yes, Adam Curry was the one with the big flowing locks and all that.

Yes. That's what I remember.

That was his big thing in the day. I don't know where I was going with the, the Adam Curry thing,

but so yeah, that started at that time. We saw the transition of course, of

Keyhole

to being bought by Google and the introduction of a lot of those technologies of course, of course,

first of course, you have in 2004, the rollout of Google maps as a separate product. And then

of course, the introduction of Google earth and that's kind of, I think that happened more in the

transition. Yeah. So that was more of the transition, but all of these things were

happening and at this time as well, we began to see more open, open the world.

Yeah.

source software coming out for mapping we saw more companies getting into mapping and we saw

a larger attempt to create open data sets because places like the uk were still charging for the

ordnance survey data and so for people to be able to actually use gis data for the uk they were like

well i guess we have to create it instead of spending millions of dot or millions of pounds

sorry i must use the wrong monetary unit you could have done in dollars but there's an exchange rate

problem and all that stuff but yeah to the to the ordnance survey and so hence was born the open

project open stream app well i think to add in that that another another really important thing

or other important thing that went on at this time was the rise of high-speed internet because that's

the thing right is that one of the things that drove this was

people could access because those of us who were in gis will remember that there was online map

sharing but very few people could take advantage of it because of the hardware requirements or the

you know network requirements and then the development of web 2.0 that allowed stuff to

pass quickly right so all those things are converging around the same time in this this

mid-2000s but those are the things i remember because i remember for example and those of you

who are ancient in gis like us will remember things like the early versions of the gis

versions of arc ims and things like that which if you had the connection were fine but most people

just couldn't access those things so once you had high-speed internet available to more people and

you had now with the web 2.0 technologies that for on the podcasting side and on other types of

technologies where now you could pass things back and forth much quicker and do more things then you

start to see this and and that but that was when people realized wow if we want to do something

like this a lot of the data is going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to

isn't available for us to do ourselves and for the mapping portion of it the perhaps for me the

most important part was at that point you no longer had to have a download you didn't have

to download an extension for your browser to be able to run the software and we were talking about

it with burn with silver light and things like that but just the the xaml the javascript and xml

core of web 8.0 ajax yes thank you asynchronous

asynchronous that was that was the hot word at the time yeah access it was asynchronous javascript

and xml thank you we it's it's it's everything i mean everything on the web now is basically ajax

we just don't call it that anymore because at the time we talk about silver light because it's

anyone to remember but adobe had one too that was arguably more popular yet i cannot for the life of

me remember its name even though i developed in it for like two years well i mean we had flash but

there was another one as well no no there was the other one okay the thing was built on flash

that no more accurate flash was built on a bit of technology that's like silver light and i cannot

for the life of me reflex something like that something like that i can't remember what it's

called it doesn't matter it's a historical thing that nobody uses anymore and it's gone away

but it required the flash plugin to run silver light was built in microsoft's it was microsoft

solution i think it was built into one of the updates to ie internet explorer

or like if you

downloaded not dot net because it predated dot net but one of those things that you up you

downloaded it kind of just stuck it in there automatically and for a long time those it was

really to get to date ourselves even further it was really the blu-ray hd dvd nobody knows what's

going to come out on top thing it was happening let's go even older it was the vhs betamax i

wasn't going to go that old i feel that more people remember vhs betamax than

the the very small blip it was the zune ipod don't hate on you i still have one i mentioned

i mean i but the point is is that it was a three-way race that was going on at the time

and honestly ajax didn't wasn't the silver bullet there it was harder to develop in

and there was a lot less standards and you could do anything which was the reason it won because

do anything and like there was nothing that would say nah you can't do that whereas the other two

had very well developed software packages and software principles that said no that's not a

good idea i'm not gonna allow you to do those things so the fact that it would run natively

in the browser was a big help because nobody had to download anything not that it was a big deal

because a lot of times people were downloading in any way so it wasn't it tended to exist everywhere

and then me i didn't i didn't like to have to do the downloads well there were there were people

who balked but for the most part it tended to exist everywhere and then one of the challenges

was one of the browsers i don't think it was chrome i think it was firefox one of them said

this is a problem this is like a massive security hole and it could you know cause the queen to lose

the war and make you get scurvy and all sorts of terrible things it would say it would do

you

and you would go oh i shouldn't do that because i can very clearly remember a conversation with

my parents that they were like we went to this website they wanted to download this flash thing

and i don't think that's a good idea because i saw in the news and i was like okay this is turned

this is when this has turned that okay these download these plug-in things isn't going to

work so much for a development suite so that's really when ajax exploded and furthermore the

other big thing that really made a positive difference to ajax is that it was free and

anybody could get it whereas the other

ones were harder you could do it using text editors and you could do it using compilers

that you could download for free but it was a nightmare whereas with ajax you just did it in

text editor and hit refresh in your browser and you knew whether or not things were working or

not it was a very quick development and that's why a bazillion kids got out there and started

doing everything and that's where it really exploded and you can see why keyhole and then

google sort of developed on that way and that's where it really exploded and you can see why

that platform primarily this gave us you know our entree into what would be the next 20 years of

technologies and data well yeah well i mean yeah i think because i think it's an interesting

question right because prior again i'll go back to i think i mentioned it right prior

to when all this technology kind of exploded at the same time there were segments that that knew

that that geospatial data was being collected and used it

but kind of the push to say that more people should have access to that i think i think and

and you know correct me if i'm wrong like in the timing of it but i think awareness was a big part

of what drove that right is that you see people using it and then they're like oh but you can't

yet and then you're like why not and they say well you got to pay for it or it's government

restricted or something like that and and i don't and it wasn't just in the mapping sphere that this

happened but i think that that was a big part of it and i think that's a big part of it and i think

push right you didn't know to to try to access it or to ask for it until you knew that it was

something out there and it was really cool right so that's the google maps push is like

this stuff is really cool but yeah there were professional sites that had access to all the

imagery in the united states for people to go find their house and the rest of the world as well

but it was google and it being a place people were going to more and more anyway and suddenly

there you could go

and not have to download anything and just go to a site and be able to find your house

that was so powerful yeah and you know this is the time period when you're thinking about google and

it's a term you don't hear as much anymore but the neo-geography where you know people are out

there using this that aren't professionals but i remember at this time period this is where you

hear a lot like sue said of who has access and who can do things with it and who controls it but the

beginnings of talking about what's a gratuitous use because a lot of people saw it and were like

there are things i want to do with it but they didn't have the the ability to access and do

something with it but like frank said you know you had a whole bunch of especially young people who

did now had access to all the data and to the technology to do something and to make something

and to see something that they imagined in their heads was missing in the world right so i think

world i'm going to make a bit of a radical assertion that i can't defend but i have this

is my opinion feeling so i remember very clearly working at the gis technical center before 9-11

and we had a data set out that was the oil and gas pipelines in west virginia and it was just

it was public data just anybody can get to it download it was there it was in the topo sheets

that's why we had it is because we made a digital line conversion of all the topo sheets and that's

where it came from and then we got an update from i think the geological survey gave us an update

and then i think it was homeland security called us october november of 2001 and said why is that

on there what the hell is that doing there you have to get that rid of that because of security

issues after 9-11 there was a lot of data that was pulled that was was publicly available it was

annoying you had to go to every damn state individually if and some of them had a bunch

of stuff and some

of them had a bunch of stuff and some of them had a bunch of stuff and some of them had a bunch

them had nothing and it was mind-numbingly irritating. I actually think that that desire,

need, whatever word you want to use, to hide data for several years helped fuel this more open

street map approach, not open street map itself, but its approach of we need to get our own

publicly available data out there that isn't controlled necessarily by a government agency

that can say, no, that's no longer information you can know. I think that really gave a lot of

people an impetus to say, I want to make sure I have a data set that I can always access.

Well, I think that helped spur it in places like the United States. But again, just the lack of

access, even to what, you know, we take a lot for granted in the United States because of the way

things are set up. Whenever we pay taxes, anything created with our tax dollars should be, unless

there's some reason such as that, to keep that data.

In a closed off area, then everything else should be available to us. And we just take that for

granted. And for so long, there were a lot of other countries, especially those that were under

the British crown and such, they didn't have that because the data was the Queen's. And so if you

wanted, you know, the permission and privilege to be able to use that data, you had to pay the Queen

for it because she had collected that data, not the people.

And it was stupid expensive.

I remember at the time, quote, they're like, yeah, I just want to cover, I want to say, I want to say like

Edinburgh. It was a city and it was like thousands and thousands of pounds.

I was like, who the hell can do that?

And at the time, you know, this is where I remember, you know, I wasn't even really adjacent to GIS yet, but

working with research companies that work with technology that were the early days of drones and things like

that, where they had the technology, but they needed the data.

But yet they couldn't afford or get the location based data they needed to basically keep moving forward

with the ideas and they had they had in their head for these type of technologies that we would know, you

know, later on and be very familiar with.

So that was also coming from outside the geospatial realm and, you know, not just individuals, but to

small companies that were growing at the time and probably a large lot of larger companies.

They were outside the that realm.

And so that swung the door open for the need and people to start doing it.

Well, yeah, the need and also, again, seeing examples of of that and people, I think that how quickly it grew just so

the people did want to contribute, because a lot of the idea behind having that data available is not is not just the I

can find my house, but also look at all of the the problems that we can address by seeing conditions, right, that are

spatial. And also, I think one of the things that was learned, too, in these early days is if you had to rely on government

data sets, those were data data, which we now all know to call them data layers, right, that were collected for specific

purposes. So if you want something so in addition to that, right, having that kind of authoritative thing of what's on the

surface of the earth, if you want other things, you either have to find somebody who's collected them and will sell them to

you or give them to you or you have to collect them yourself.

And so that was another thing that came out, too.

Is.

Is look at all the things we can collect.

But we do need these these base layers to help make that happen.

And of course, being able to have the technology in the background kind of takes us back to where we were talking about having the ability to do these things in a web editor, which was basically a wiki style event provided a lot of opportunity.

I think two seminal events really exploded of the use of this data and the public consciousness, because all this stuff that we're talking about, like getting data and all that stuff is just map

nerds doing map nerd stuff.

They don't know anything about it.

I did say I was going to say two things.

The second thing I was going to point out is that actually in the beginning you did have to download something else to get a lot of this data or this information if you're just a general public.

And that was Google Earth, which was its own is still is, I think, but it was basically its own standalone thing for other data, not specifically for OpenStreetMap that was web based and download.

Right.

But I'm just saying is that as the public started, you know, getting this Ajax generated data, you did.

Download a standalone application that eventually got folded into the browser anyway.

And Google Maps was I don't want to use the word lesser, but that's the word I'm going to use.

Lesser version of the two.

It just had less data and functionality.

And then it turns out most people really just needed Google Maps most of the time.

So that's kind of how that evolved.

But I think two seminal events really pushed the utility of mapping to the public.

And all the while in the background, we're using Google Maps to.

To try to figure out how in the hell to get to a city I've never been to and all these things because MapQuest.

Which existed from, I don't know, ninety six, seven, six or something.

Yeah.

So it was, you know, kind of clunky and weird compared to Google Maps.

The 2007, I think, wildfires in California around the San Diego area.

Really pushed the utility of mapping, because what happened was, is that we were the people were using a lot of.

Social media to, say, communicate information much quicker than governments could communicate information and say, well, this shelter is closed, this is overrun or this fires are spread here and that sort of thing.

And it was going into tweets and tweets were then being mapped by news agencies and people could pull up a map and figure out, oh, where can I go in this crisis?

And I really think that that was kind of a culmination event, all that kind of stuff had been happening up to that point.

But at that point, people started.

Realizing that there's broader utility here, that we can use it for a lot more.

And by people, I mean the general public, not map nerds.

We knew it for a while.

The second big event, I think, was the 2010 Haiti earthquake, where literally and this directly impacted open street maps.

Like the day before the earthquake, if you if you could, I'm sure there's images out there you can find on the Internet.

If you look at what was in open street maps for Haiti a couple of days before the earthquake, the answer.

Was here is Haiti.

And that's about it.

That was a dot.

There's very little information was in there.

But then this this catastrophic earthquake happens and thousands and thousands of people are trapped and killed.

We didn't know anything.

And suddenly the community came together and did this massive map out of Haiti at a level that, you know, if you look at just a week after the tragedy, what the data looks like.

And we knew so much more by we mean the general public knew so much more than we knew.

The week before in terms of what was in the the map data.

I think that those two events really got people to think about.

We can use this stuff beyond just map nerds using this stuff again in the public consciousness.

Yeah, I think and I would add to that on a lesser scale, like in terms of of how much Katrina, Hurricane Katrina.

Yeah, as well.

But the technology hadn't quite evolved at that point.

So, yeah.

And I think I think.

Yeah.

The great thing, too, has been that that those types of, you know, efforts have been sustained that, you know, now Open Street and other other open source projects like that, you know, a lot of them are incorporated into things because the recognition of their value, because, I mean, a lot of that gets started, too, with the we want to make sure this is available because on the one hand, you have the government sources.

But Google Maps comes along, but Google is corporate.

So you never know.

Right.

Access there could also be be changed and the joy of the API.

What's that?

The joy of the API key.

Yes, the API key.

Right.

That little that little thing that that you have to have that magic.

So, you know, so those are important considerations.

But the interesting thing has been the embracing of those data layers and turns around and a whole ecosystem of third parties that utilize the data.

And they're they're companies, but they're they're kind of leveraging that as well.

So, I mean, that's over the 20 years and and, you know, with the state of the map conferences, the community that that's built.

Yeah.

And I think that one of the visions of OpenStreetMap that have led to its longevity is what everyone's been talking about is before everyone was sort of looking at use cases or, you know, limited areas.

But OpenStreetMap was holistic.

It was interconnected.

You know, what they were doing was worldwide at the same time, which made it stand out.

Yeah.

when it's just in google let's just use google google has all that information without the

people in charge who who control budgets and control decision making and come up with you

know policies and that sort of thing didn't realize that google at the time was getting

all the free data that governments were putting out and they were incorporating it into their

platform and i pick on google because i remember that very that conversation specifically but it's

not like microsoft or tomtom or esri wasn't doing the exact same thing so there needed we had to do

some very fast education to explain to our legislature that yeah google has it but they

have it because they downloaded it from the official state agency which we're asking you to

keep funding so we can keep generating more data so that google has access to it and and it's a

little reminiscent of the ai thing going on right now where you know ai is training ai is creating

problems instead of having original information to train from to get the ais like you need that

basic information to start and it and a lot of times that governmental role is critical for

that a lot of times i argue almost always the governmental role is critical before it ends up

in these other products similarly you saw and i fought with this in the mapping community a lot

is esri at some point i'm gonna say 2015 incorporated open street maps into one of

their base maps i can't remember exactly when they did that but it was a layer you could add to that

base maps and then suddenly everyone kept saying esri's open street map and i had to yell a lot and

go no it's not esri's open street map it's open street map esri's just adding it in there you

this exists that has nothing to do with esri it's just they they said we can add this in

you know as a base map so which is great but getting even experts to understand there are

things out there that exist that if there's the culmination of a lot of what

work an important basic work that you're just kind of putting a bow on at the end

yeah it's great that that bow exists and it's there but understand this takes a lot of effort

and it needs to be recognized and supported there was a dichotomy going on because i remember that

the data was being used that was generated by open street map but at the same time there were

discussions about can the contributions by the public to open street map is that accurate is that

useful there was a pushback against this idea of collaboration especially open data collaboration

in in ways that i you know there were people in rooms yelling when i had gone to a national

conference and i was a little surprised by that because at the i don't think we realized at the

time this was actually something heated in the the map community well i think and that continues

right part of that is that ongoing question of expert collected knowledge versus you know the

general you know collection is is there a separation should there be separation for the

the reasons that you're talking about right so the question of how is it collected right we can't

know necessarily did it meet certain you know accuracy standards which we have you know standards

that go along with the data sets and and and so that is has been a question that has i think been

worked through quite intensely for a lot of these things as to how to how to address that because

it's a really complex issue and i think especially in the early days it really was you know an issue

just now that you have access to this you may not have access to the same level in different places

so how do you match what's already there maybe from you know more well-developed data sets so

so a debate then and i think still a debate now just it's kind of evolved a bit anything else

i have i watched a recent interview with the um founder of open street map and what i thought was

this he described it as a hobby like how do you get people to put in this data you know they're

not being paid for it but a lot of times they they get a sense of accomplishment from from doing it

but the the other thing is this just the the vision that he had and how he saw this and he went

out and found a way to bring it together like this confluence of the the wiki id of the and the

technology being there and the software being there and then the you know google maps haven't

come out to make this something that was creating an awareness of the the need and the ability for

spatial work that it still continues that we see all this innovation going on that it didn't stop

with within the past 20 years like what's after open street map because i'm sure someone's looking

at open street map and going this doesn't fulfill all my needs and it is open but what's next

well and that brings us back to news items like overture maps doing general availability you know

it's true and it's important for for all of us to be aware of it but it's just not going to make

sense it's being very self-explanatory or care about it for us and I think it's going to be laid back

it's it's a different thing it's not something that everybody is involved in creating but it is

a open data set so it's is it where we're going after this but again just wanted to talk about

what was going on 20 years ago because we have a perspective because we were in the world

geospatial and yeah and it played out in in events to like where 2.0 that brief moment in

time where they they held those a lot of the discussions about these these topics are going

on there yep and so go out check it out if you've not used open street map go out and go over to the

website check it out if you're not used over your maps go over and check that out you know it's

there's a lot out there that we can utilize as geospatial professionals

you

and get involved if you can yeah

on to the events corner as always you should check out events and you know go to them if you can

first up your ricardo 2024 is going to be taking place september 9th through the 11th in vienna

austria gis and the rockies 2024 is taking place september 26th in denver of course if you'd like

us to add your event to the podcast send us an email to podcast very spatial.com

if you'd like to reach us individually i can be reached at

veryspatial.com

i can be reached at barb at veryspatial.com you can reach me at frank at veryspatial.com

and i'm available at kind of spatial and of course if you'd like to find our contact

information head over to veryspatial.com slash contacts as always we're the folks

from very spatial thanks for listening and we'll see you in a couple weeks

i've given it up all of my dreams

there is nowhere in here for me to breathe

i still believe you have given me

oh how sometimes this is hard to see

i've given it up

no

i've given it up

no

i've given it up

no

i've given it up

no

i've given it up

no

i'm afraid

no

i'm afraid

of what's behind the door

oh the future is my worst enemy

i'm unsure

of my purpose here

it is hard to live this life without fear

i've given it up

oh

i've given it up

oh

i've given it up

oh

i've given it up

ah

i've given it up

oh

i've given it up

i know i need to change

change change

these days

are not the same

no more

Hours to give me shame, shame, shame

No more me, no more you

No more games left to play

I've given it up