Moving the Home Office
Moving the home office is always interesting, you find so much that you’ve done over the past years and just stuck in a drawer or a shelf. Companies you worked for, RaspberryPis that never were used. Keys to a safety deposit box you don’t recall its location. But that is what makes moving therapeutic, cleaning out the old, unused parts of your life and focusing on the ones that make you happy. Do I need a puppet of Andrew Turner1 in my desk, nope. But I do need the things that make me happy. So now that I’ve boxed up everything but the work MacBookP Pro, I feel strangely at rest2.
CnG Podcast Episode 5 - Expectations
Bill Dollins and I took the show on the road to Spatial Networks HQ after dark to record this one. Lots of thoughts on expectations users and developers should have for open source projects as well as the big news that Cesium has spun out on their own. We also talk about machine learning and Google Photos’ ability to automatically create a panorama image.
CnG Podcast Episode 5 - Expectations
Bill Dollins and I took the show on the road to Spatial Networks HQ after dark to record this one. Lots of thoughts on expectations users and developers should have for open source projects as well as the big news that Cesium has spun out on their own. We also talk about machine learning and Google Photos’ ability to automatically create a panorama image.
The GIS Database
I’ve been thinking about GIS data a bit lately, mostly because I’m cleaning off old hard drives I’ve had in my possession to try and consolidate my data (or not lose the data off of old hard drives). Typically GIS data was accessed one of two ways, either from a server through some endpoint or via a local file store. I can’t look at these old ArcGIS Desktop MXDs anymore but I recall most of the work we did was local file store. You know, sitting on the “P drive” and referenced via a file path. We all remember opening up projects and seeing those red exclamation points telling us that data was moved (or the project file was).
It is very easy in retrospect to go back and call yourself batshit crazy for storing data this way (back up hopefully every night on a DLT tape). I mean think about this for a minute, nothing was versioned. We live in this world of git where everything I do (including this blog) is stored in a database where I can track changes and revert if need be. Now I’m not using this post to talk about the need of GeoGig or whatever that project is called these days (I’m not even sure it still exists), but the realization that GIS over the years is such a workgroup discipline.
I worked for AECOM, the largest AEC in the world. We did some amazing enterprise projects but GIS was never one of them. It was a small group of GIS “pros”, “doing” GIS to support some enterprise project that changed the world. Tacked on if you will, and it’s not just AECOM that worked that way. Every organization views GIS this way, like “graphics”. Why is this? Because GIS “pros” have let it be this way.
I’m not trying to come up with a solution here because I don’t think there is one. GIS is just very small minded compared to other professions in the tech space. Even the word “enterprise” has been appropriated to mean something totally different. Just having a web map does not make GIS “enterprise”, in fact all you’re doing is taking workgroup and making it worse. It is easy to pick on Esri (as I did above) but they’re not the big problem. It’s the implementations which make Esri have such terminology. That is, it is the GIS “pros” who cause these problems on themselves. Who is to fault Esri for trying to make a buck?
I have made it my professional career to fix broken GIS systems. People always ask me, “What madness you must see trying to undo broken GIS systems” but the reality is I see some amazing work. Just small minded implementations. It is easy to make fun of ArcObjects or GML but they are just libraries that people use to create tools.
This isn’t a call to arms or a reminder that you’re doing GIS wrong, it’s just thoughts on a plane headed across the country where I’m looking at data that I created as a workgroup project. I’m sure there are people cleaning up my work that I implemented in the past, I can tell you there is some bad choices in that work. Technology has caused many of us to lose being humble. And that results in only one thing, bad choices. In the end this is my reminder to be humble. The good thing is I have no shapefiles anywhere on this laptop. That’s a start.
The GIS Database
I’ve been thinking about GIS data a bit lately, mostly because I’m cleaning off old hard drives I’ve had in my possession to try and consolidate my data (or not lose the data off of old hard drives). Typically GIS data was accessed one of two ways, either from a server through some endpoint or via a local file store. I can’t look at these old ArcGIS Desktop MXDs anymore but I recall most of the work we did was local file store. You know, sitting on the “P drive” and referenced via a file path. We all remember opening up projects and seeing those red exclamation points telling us that data was moved (or the project file was).
It is very easy in retrospect to go back and call yourself batshit crazy for storing data this way (back up hopefully every night on a DLT tape). I mean think about this for a minute, nothing was versioned. We live in this world of git where everything I do (including this blog) is stored in a database where I can track changes and revert if need be. Now I’m not using this post to talk about the need of GeoGig or whatever that project is called these days (I’m not even sure it still exists), but the realization that GIS over the years is such a workgroup discipline.
I worked for AECOM, the largest AEC in the world. We did some amazing enterprise projects but GIS was never one of them. It was a small group of GIS “pros”, “doing” GIS to support some enterprise project that changed the world. Tacked on if you will, and it’s not just AECOM that worked that way. Every organization views GIS this way, like “graphics”. Why is this? Because GIS “pros” have let it be this way.
I’m not trying to come up with a solution here because I don’t think there is one. GIS is just very small minded compared to other professions in the tech space. Even the word “enterprise” has been appropriated to mean something totally different. Just having a web map does not make GIS “enterprise”, in fact all you’re doing is taking workgroup and making it worse. It is easy to pick on Esri (as I did above) but they’re not the big problem. It’s the implementations which make Esri have such terminology. That is, it is the GIS “pros” who cause these problems on themselves. Who is to fault Esri for trying to make a buck?
I have made it my professional career to fix broken GIS systems. People always ask me, “What madness you must see trying to undo broken GIS systems” but the reality is I see some amazing work. Just small minded implementations. It is easy to make fun of ArcObjects or GML but they are just libraries that people use to create tools.
This isn’t a call to arms or a reminder that you’re doing GIS wrong, it’s just thoughts on a plane headed across the country where I’m looking at data that I created as a workgroup project. I’m sure there are people cleaning up my work that I implemented in the past, I can tell you there is some bad choices in that work. Technology has caused many of us to lose being humble. And that results in only one thing, bad choices. In the end this is my reminder to be humble. The good thing is I have no shapefiles anywhere on this laptop. That’s a start.
Mr. Magoo Does GIS
I’m 46. It is weird even typing that. I’ll be 47 later this year which is even weirder. In my mind I think I’m till thirty-something but age is starting to creep up to me. I’ve noticed that I need reading glasses to see my iPhone.
Homer putting on reading glasses
The days of small text on small screens so I don’t have to scroll is over. Out is 11pt and 12pt fonts in my text editors and terminal windows and in comes 14pt. Fixed with fonts such as SF Mono and Roboto Mono seem to handle my eyes better too. Originally I was thinking that the dark mode on many terminal apps and text editors was going to be hard on my eyes but the fonts above on retina screens really pops for me. That said, dropping down to a non-retina monitor I have a very hard time reading things. So the quality of the screen and fonts seem to mean more to me than the color of the screen. Right now this is my environment:
For text editing, mostly I’m using BBEdit. I’ve hacked the SF Mono font so it is available for BBEdit to use and it is set at 14pt. For my theme, I’m using Xcode Dark which attempts to recreate the Xcode dark mode on BBEdit.
But I use VSCode as well. There I’m using Roboto Mono and the Dark+ Material theme. It is different than the look for BBEdit but it works for me in VSCode.
I’ve replaced Terminal.app with Hyper.is which I’m in love with. I use Roboto Mono and the Hyper-Clean theme. Again a little bit different than the above, but it just works. 14pt font as of course.
I think given that I have three different themes going on here is proof that I haven’t settled down on what looks best for me. I think eventually I’ll have a common theme color and go with it for all three products. 14pt font for me works well. It’s big enough that my eyes don’t strain, but small enough that I can fit enough on my screen. I think if Apple releases SF Mono as a system font, rather than a hack, I’ll go with it over Roboto Mono but honestly Roboto Mono is a great font for me too. We’ll just have to see what happens.
Most other apps I use on a regular basis such as Evernote, Safari, Chrome, Slack, I just go with the defaults. Many have a dark mode that mimics the Mac OS X dark mode and that’s fine with me. If Apple were to allow customization of that dark mode I’d probably be happy but we all know that will never happen. The last year has been hard for me with my eyes, it was the first time I felt myself holding my iPhone out at arms length to read it. What I’ve learned is to embrace a larger font and not strain my eyes. Pride is not suffering because you can’t read like you did 20 years ago, it’s having the will to make the choices you need to continue to be successful. For me, the above works.
May 20, 2019 bbedit dark mode hyper Thoughts visual studio code