This blog started as my lifeline. Fifteen years ago, I was working on a project that wasn’t particularly compelling in an environment that wasn’t conducive to collaboration. I wasn’t doing geospatial work and I was worried that it would slip away. This blog was the mechanism that motivated side projects that kept me in touch…
Podcast Episode 3 – FOSS4G and Stuff
Episode 3 of the “Cageyjames and GeoBabbler” podcast is now available. In this one, we talk vicariously about FOSS4G-NA. We also discuss Polaroid and how I don’t do enough to keep his computer running. Check it out here or on Apple Pocasts, Play Music, or Spotify.
Catching Up with Microsoft
Recently, I’ve gotten back in touch with .Net in the form of .Net Core. I’ve been shaking off some the coding rust and building some tools to help with data handling related to the Foresight data service at Spatial Networks. It’s been fun to get my hands dirty again and also interesting to see how…
The One About PostGIS
James Fee and I released the next episode of our podcast this week. This month, we are taking a closer look at PostGIS and how you can get started with it. We’re both longtime users and huge fans of PostGIS, so it was fun to dig into it a little. You can check it out…
Desktop GIS – The Evergreen Topic
It seems that I tend to revisit the state of desktop GIS every so often. With the continued advancement of “web GIS,” as well as the increased power of mobile platforms, proliferation of spatial analysis techniques into non-traditional environments, the ubiquity of spatial databases, and a host of other factors, it’s tempting to speculate on…
Looking Ahead
I started this blog because I love to write. At the time I started it, blogging was what passed for social media, but I wasn’t necessarily looking for a social experience. I just wanted to write. I was at a point in my career where I was fairly cloistered inside the windowless rooms of the…
Thank You, Keith Masback
If you’re lucky, you’ll meet people throughout your career who provide the necessary influence, whether they realize it or not, that you need at the time. One such person for me in recent years has been Keith Masback, who recently concluded a 10-year run as the CEO of the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF)….
Data Is Hard
Where I work, we have developed a nuanced philosophy to describe the niceties of collecting data, managing it, validating it, and preparing it for use: “Data is hard.” This was brought to light in a very public manner by the vandalism that was displayed on basemaps produced by Mapbox. The responses by Mapbox and their…
The Consulting Mindset and the War on Cubicle Body
I’ve been debating for a while whether I wanted to write this post, as the subject matter deviates greatly from the technical and professional writing I normally offer here. I decided to do so because my recent dive into fitness is intertwined with my professional life and affects how I approach my day, so I…
FOSS4G-NA 2018: People
A couple of my Spatial Networks colleagues and I spent most of last week in St. Louis, Missouri at the FOSS4G North America conference. Following up on attending the international FOSS4G conference in Boston, this is the most time I’ve spent with this community in quite a while. There has been no particular intent to…