4 ms·

That sounds very interesting, food-related geekery is fun in my world. I loved this quote: For example, in my fourth year—so well into the research phase—I to

by unwind 12y ago

That sounds very interesting, food-related geekery is fun in my world. I loved this quote: For example, in my fourth year—so well into the research phase—I took a digital cartography course because I had the address book of a man I was studying and I wanted to understand his spatial relationships with the people in the book. The course on ArcGIS, a digital cartography software, allowed me to make maps that shaped my close-readings of this man’s letters. I wonder how large a fraction of the worlds' historians run ArcGIS? No disrespect intended if it's a household name of course, I was just impressed by the application of tools to her field of research. Neat.

moron4hire 12y ago
I doubt it's most of them, but it's been the "trendy" thing to do for about a decade now. I've pretty constantly seen GIS--and specifically ArcGIS--coming up in all kinds of conference papers over the years and everyone always acts like it's a really novel idea. "You mean, novel since last year when the same thing was presented? Yeah, okay." In other words, there are people who are doing good work, but a lot of fields are more about gaining a protected position than they are about doing good work.
bane 12y ago
FYI, qGIS is a pretty good free replacement. Not drop in good, but not too bad either. http://www2.qgis.org/en/site/ http://www2.qgis.org/en/site/ Falconview is another option https://www.falconview.org/trac/FalconView https://www.falconview.org/trac/FalconView
- thoughtpalette 12y ago
  Thanks for these! I didn't know there were alternatives to ArcGIS.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    It isn't really the same thing at all, but for many use cases, uMap is also an interesting choice: http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/ http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/
  - bane 12y ago
    Sure, it's been a few years since I tried qGIS. I remember it being okay for layering shape files and a couple other tasks but not too much else. However, It looks like they've done a ton of work to it in the intervening years.

by unwind 12y ago

moron4hire 12y ago

I doubt it's most of them, but it's been the "trendy" thing to do for about a decade now. I've pretty constantly seen GIS--and specifically ArcGIS--coming up in all kinds of conference papers over the years and everyone always acts like it's a really novel idea. "You mean, novel since last year when the same thing was presented? Yeah, okay." In other words, there are people who are doing good work, but a lot of fields are more about gaining a protected position than they are about doing good work.

bane 12y ago

FYI, qGIS is a pretty good free replacement. Not drop in good, but not too bad either. http://www2.qgis.org/en/site/ http://www2.qgis.org/en/site/ Falconview is another option https://www.falconview.org/trac/FalconView https://www.falconview.org/trac/FalconView

thoughtpalette 12y ago
Thanks for these! I didn't know there were alternatives to ArcGIS.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  It isn't really the same thing at all, but for many use cases, uMap is also an interesting choice: http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/ http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/
- bane 12y ago
  Sure, it's been a few years since I tried qGIS. I remember it being okay for layering shape files and a couple other tasks but not too much else. However, It looks like they've done a ton of work to it in the intervening years.