BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Managed to get out of there earlier than planned, and rather than do something worthwhile, I figured I would do this.

Overall, a pretty good presentation--this was the GIS mapping seminar I talked about yesterday. The system is pretty okay, but it does have some drawbacks--it can do boxes around areas, but the background color can't be changed inside the box; it can do point marks, but they are stars and can't be changed to anything else; there's no good way to do mailing labels without a lot of rigamarole; and the printer output is to a .pdf file and the highest resolution is a stunningly low 150 dpi. Our stand-alone terminals have a much better resolution (and a color printer to go with it) and can do a few more things. They are slow, though, and only one person at a time can look something up. This system is pretty fast since it's online, and it was nice that the instructors did it live so we could get a better idea of how well it worked. They also promise to have a version for public consumption soon, too, which will be nice for folks to be able to look up their own information about zoning and land use and such like.

Dr. Smith mentioned in the comments that he hoped if we had snacks that I would be nice and share. Sorry, no snacks, although they did say that they had doughnuts earlier. Which I thought was kinda cruel.

The seminar was held down in the Emergency Op Center, aka The Bunker, which is always a fun trip. It never ceases to amuse me when I see the main control center room--big Strangeloveian War Room with a big screen and consoles and tables with telephones. Since there's nothing going on today, the room was empty, but they leave one of the local television stations playing on the screen in case any sort of breaking news comes on. Usually though, it's just a soap opera. I keep imagining the room full of guys with cigars and crew cuts--"DID YOU SEE WHAT MARLENA JUST DID TO HER!?"

Anyway, overall it wasn't nearly as unfun as I thought it would be. Now I really am going home.

See you all tomorrow!
posted by Terry at 4:36:00 PM