angledge: (polar bear paw)
OK, maybe not. But still - I had a vision yesterday of the future of GIS & pricing data intersecting in a way that would undermine a lot of today's retail environment. Imagine if you had a program. You enter your shopping list - groceries, toiletries, etc. You'd fill in some other parameters - Yes, I'm fine with generics; I only want to buy meat/fish/poultry from Safeway; I have time to visit 3 (or 4, or 1) locations; maybe something like Yes, I'm fine with buying a bigger size box or getting 2 boxes of Cheerios instead of 1 if there's a sale. Then the program checks prices on all the items on your list at: Kroger, CVS, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, etc. It maps the nearest locations to where you are. It considers your parameters (I'm in a hurry today - let's get this done in 2 stops). And then it gives you your shopping lists, broken down by destination. Cool! I'm going to Target to get toilet paper, blueberries, peanut butter, eggs, & orange juice (buy 2 bottles & get free butter). Then I'm going to CVS to get shampoo, canned soup, hamburger buns, & antiperspirant (which wasn't on today's list, but is on a general "Keep in Stock" list, & is on a really good sale).

I know there are people out there who sit down every week with the shopping circulars & coupon sheets, & compare prices until they've found the cheapest deals for each item. But I think that vast majority of us massively fail to optimize this process. There are websites out there to help, but I've never found them all that useful because they mostly address processed/frozen/canned foods, & they only show bargains - not everything that's for sale. So if I want to buy a specific thing (ORGANIC FRESH PEACHES), I can't find that specific thing. This may be because they don't have access to the stores' entire price database - I don't know.

Maybe programs aren't smart enough yet to incorporate the flexible rules I'm envisioning, & that I think would make such a program more appealing to shoppers. But I don't think we're far from this. Someday, there will be an app for that. And it will be a game-changer for retail.
angledge: (Gas Prices)
I just found out 2 hours ago I am leaving for Louisiana for the BP oil cleanup!

I'm leaving tomorrow morning!

Wheeeeeeee I love consulting!

Update: I will not - NOT - be working in the field. So I will not be on the "front lines", scooping up oil or cleaning birds or anything. I will be working in an office using GIS (heavens!!) to make maps of ongoing operations. I am SO PSYCHED that I get to use my GIS degree, finally!

Update2: There may be a field component to this work after all - going out & collecting coordinates where various activities are going on. If that's going on, I'm probably going to be doing that because I have my HAZWOPER training. Maybe I should pack my steel-toes after all...
angledge: (polar bear paw)
Anyone got a good reference for increases in RAM over time? I'd love a handy little URL showing a chart of some sort ...
angledge: (polar bear paw)
OK, I need a word. This word means "cause-explaining", as in looking at past events & explaining why things are now the way they are. Here's the sentence:

'This inability prevents geographers from using GIS in either a [cause-explaining] or predictive role, for as Hägerstrand noted as early as 1970, “geographical information is time as well as space-specific” (Gittings, 2003[a]).'

Yes, I realise the sentence as a whole kind of sucks. But I don't feel like refining it until I've got the word I want.
angledge: (Default)
Oops, haven't posted in a few days. All right, here's the quick summary:

Thursday: something like 11 hours of classes & labtime. Not at all exciting.

Friday: all-day seminar with Chris Date, one of the researchers who helped create relational databases. He talked alot about the theoretical underpinnings of the relational model, & about why current DBMS software doesn't do a good job. He reserved special venom for any & all aspects of object-oriented programming. Yes, it was just as interesting as it sounds. Three interesting side effects of the seminar:
1) By trashing both SQL and object-oriented programming, Date essentially undercut the theoretical foundations of two of the three classes I'm being assessed on this semester. Considering the third one seems to be about teaching people how to be consultants (& I was a consultant for five years before coming to grad school), I'm pretty much ready to pack up & go home. OK, not really.
2) Since our database instructor was observed sleeping during the seminar, we've all concluded that we can safely sleep in his lectures. This theory will be tested this Thursday.
3) Since we were all extremely agitated & angst-ridden after a whole day of set theory & language structure, we had a most excellent pub crawl on Friday night.

Saturday: woke up, ate breakfast, donated blood. Came home, took nap, studied all afternoon. Watched movies with Heather & Tania Saturday night.

Sunday: went to church. I'm starting to realize I don't really like service at the High Kirk of St. Giles. They're just too formal. I may have to shop around to find a better session.

And now I'm here, in the geography computing lab, realizing that the software package I need (Microsoft Project) doesn't seem to be installed on the machines in the downstairs lab. Boo. I don't know how to make a Gantt chart without Project!
angledge: (polar bear paw)
A LJ member from [livejournal.com profile] philadelphia just gave me a pretty cool dissertation idea: studying reverse sprawl, which is what he called the growing trend of building suburban-style developments within the city. Any input on this idea?
angledge: (polar bear paw)
Finally! Yesterday I got a letter asking me to report to the Institute of Geography at 9.15 am on Monday, 29th September, 2003 (the British way of writing times & dates looks so funny to me; better get used to it). So now I know when school starts. I'm relieved.

I also received information about course selection. Since I only get to pick two classes, there's exactly ONE page of extremely terse course descriptions, & then a 1/2 page form to fill out with first & second choices. I'm comparing this to my first experience with Course Exchange at Cornell - the 17-year-old me frantically flipping through the Big Red Course Catalog (thick as a telephone book), trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life ....
angledge: (polar bear paw)
Inspirational Map )

Skyline Changes )

October 2025

S M T W T F S
    1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031 

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Oct. 16th, 2025 07:41 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios