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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Subject: | Re: GISList: NPR, CNN, Iraq & the elusive "GIS" |
| Date: |
04/05/2003 03:55:00 PM |
| From: |
Stephen Brown |
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Hi All. Stephen Brown here. It is certainly exciting when new interest
is spawned as a result of some kind of publicity. However, I have to
disregard any information that is "jumped on" by students only because of
media hype and pop-culture, hollywood-based hullaballoo.
Serious students are disadvantaged in this regard as I see it. Information
about key technologies shouldn't be clouded or puffed up just because it is
seen on TV.
Warm regards,
Stephen Brown
----- Original Message -----
From: "Karen Morley" <kmorley@lizardtech.com>
To: "'Anthony Quartararo '" <ajq3@spatialnetworks.com>:
<gislist@geocomm.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 4:29 PM
Subject: RE: GISList: NPR, CNN, Iraq & the elusive "GIS"
> I don't usually weigh in on these types of threads but couldn't resist
this
> one.
>
> A recent big sensation on TV has been the forensic science shows, my
mother
> even hangs up on me to go watch CSI (I think that's what it's called). At
> any rate, the shows consistently misrepresent the technology to the public
> but interest increases as a result. I read an article that applications
to
> university programs in forensic sciences have gone up 200% as a result.
>
> Perhaps even if the technology is misrepresented the industry will see a
> growth in interest as a result and an opportunity to truly educate people
in
> geospatial sciences.
>
> my $0.02...
>
> -Karen
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anthony Quartararo
> To: gislist@geocomm.com
> Sent: 4/4/2003 6:26 AM
> Subject: RE: GISList: NPR, CNN, Iraq & the elusive "GIS"
>
> Both good points and well taken. However, when I hear and see what
> clueless
> celebrity news anchors say and do while using these very powerful tools
> of
> persuasion (I'm not kidding, it's just like Monday Night Football - with
> the
> same intellectual capital), the ability to present an incredible array
> of
> spatial information to global audiences, all the time, over and over,
> the
> impact of a little white "lie" makes "How to Lie with Maps" seem almost
> quaint and homey. We don't need to worry about official
> misinformation
> sanctioned as part of a military strategy, the media has that handled
> all
> too well. I'm not expecting the "beautiful people" at CNN to launch
> into a
> GIS 101 course each time they ramp up the Teledestructor, but it does
> bother me that these fools are many people's first real exposure to the
> power and application of the fruit of our collective efforts.
>
> I sometimes explain to people I meet that what I do (and what industry I
> work in) is to make the guts of "Mapquest.com" for lots of different
> industries, and they seem to get it right away. This is a 10 second
> explanation that works just fine in social settings, because when I
> launch
> into the GIS 101 course, lots of glassy eyes abound. While I'm not
> pretending to be an ambassador for the industry, every chance I get to
> turn
> someone on to "how do they do that....", I take advantage. The point
> is, in
> the rush and effort to become ingrained into everyday business/consumer
> mainstream technology, are we (and we should be) prepared to hand over
> control of the mainstream "interface" to non-industry professionals ?
>
> ajq
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Richard Hoskins [mailto:healthmaps@attbi.com]
> > Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 8:43 AM
> > To: gislist@geocomm.com
> > Subject: RE: GISList: NPR, CNN, Iraq & the elusive "GIS"
> >
> >
> > Totally right-on comment. When I show up at community
> > meetings with cool maps and statistical models of why the
> > such and such death rate near a toxic waste site is higher
> > than elsewhere, I sort of have my feelings hurt because the
> > community passes right over the technology, GIS, computation,
> > and statistical effort that it took to produce the results.
> >
> >
> > Then I remind myself that is exactly why we are using the
> > technology in the first place, that is, so citizens and
> > policy makers can focus on the problem and not on some arcane
> > process outside their scope and interest. When technology
> > becomes transparent - we have done our job.
> >
> > Richard E. Hoskins
> > WA State Dept of Health
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Michael Gould [mailto:gould@lsi.uji.es]
> > Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 5:27 AM
> > To: gislist@geocomm.com
> > Subject: Re: GISList: NPR, C
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