GIS Accomplishments!
Apr. 17th, 2014 12:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI decide what to work on next by judging what I'm freaking out about the most. Even though the theory paper still looks big and intimidating, I hadn't even started on my term project for my GIS class, so that was on the list for tonight.
It's hard learning a new interface. In fact, Danae and I talked about that a bit while she was up this weekend. I think it's easy to start feeling frustrated by the process. It's easy to feel like it's a big frustrating waste of time. I'd like to learn to use Linux, for instance, but without some serious external motivation, it's just more of an annoyance to me than its worth. It's not that I couldn't figure it out (I tell myself), but that it's just not a high enough priority.
I'm used to computer things having been low priority for the last few years, so learning a new and complex one is frustrating. But (again, as Danae and I talked about), sometimes you just have to accept that this is something you have to do. So rather than getting frustrated and and angry about the time that ArcGIS is taking away from me, I sat down and wrestled with it. I flailed around looking for appropriate shape files. I used techniques that I know are kludgy and inefficient because I don't know the right ones. To be fair, there was some frustration and profanity. Why can't I delete the feature I just placed? Why won't this shapefile open? How the hell do I display just *some* of the features in a layer!?
I'm not a skilled ArcGIS user by any means. But after six hours of alternating between looking for more data, trying to accomplish tasks in an interface I don't know, and consulting various online guides over, and over, and over, I actually have a couple of halfway decent looking maps.
And next fall, when I'm in GEOG 460: Introduction to GIS Analysis (I registered for classes this week! More on that later.), I'll learn even more and be able to make three-quarterway decent looking maps. That's pretty cool.
For tonight, though, I'm doing more work on my project, which is a web page for an architecture and oddities tour of New York City. I know it's late, but I'm on a roll. And all my other final projects aren't waiting very patiently....
It's hard learning a new interface. In fact, Danae and I talked about that a bit while she was up this weekend. I think it's easy to start feeling frustrated by the process. It's easy to feel like it's a big frustrating waste of time. I'd like to learn to use Linux, for instance, but without some serious external motivation, it's just more of an annoyance to me than its worth. It's not that I couldn't figure it out (I tell myself), but that it's just not a high enough priority.
I'm used to computer things having been low priority for the last few years, so learning a new and complex one is frustrating. But (again, as Danae and I talked about), sometimes you just have to accept that this is something you have to do. So rather than getting frustrated and and angry about the time that ArcGIS is taking away from me, I sat down and wrestled with it. I flailed around looking for appropriate shape files. I used techniques that I know are kludgy and inefficient because I don't know the right ones. To be fair, there was some frustration and profanity. Why can't I delete the feature I just placed? Why won't this shapefile open? How the hell do I display just *some* of the features in a layer!?
I'm not a skilled ArcGIS user by any means. But after six hours of alternating between looking for more data, trying to accomplish tasks in an interface I don't know, and consulting various online guides over, and over, and over, I actually have a couple of halfway decent looking maps.
And next fall, when I'm in GEOG 460: Introduction to GIS Analysis (I registered for classes this week! More on that later.), I'll learn even more and be able to make three-quarterway decent looking maps. That's pretty cool.
For tonight, though, I'm doing more work on my project, which is a web page for an architecture and oddities tour of New York City. I know it's late, but I'm on a roll. And all my other final projects aren't waiting very patiently....
