THE 2018 RASKIN SCHOLARSHIP FOR STUDENTS OR EARLY-CAREER SCIENTISTS IN EARTH SCIENCE INFORMATICS

The Raskin Scholarship is awarded annually to an individual in the Earth or computer sciences who has an interest in community evolution of Earth science data systems.  The Raskin Scholarship seeks to promote collaboration, research support, and exposure for talented students in the Earth or computer sciences.  Special attention will be given to applicants demonstrating an interest in semantics, GIS, cyber infrastructure and computing in the geosciences.  The Scholarship will provide a $5000 award and travel support to the ESIP summer meeting where they will have an invited talk covering their field of interest.

Details in brief:

• Award: $5000/year + travel to the 2018 ESIP summer meeting
• Eligibility: student, graduate student, early career (5 years post degree)
• Application deadline: Apri1 2, 2018

For more details on eligibility and how to apply, please visit the ESIP website.

Looking to buy a drone to collect imagery and other data?  Check out PC Magazine’s Best Drones of 2018 lineup.

However, do keep in mind that the USDA, DHS, and DoD have disqualified DJI drone manufacturer as they tend to send too much data home to China.  You can read about it here.

Interesting article about moving from ArcGIS to open-source GIS, though be aware in the end this consultant is trying to sell you training.  I would disagree with the author’s statement:

Many people who come from an ESRI-centric GIS education tend to think that ESRI is the standard because it is the most popular commercial GIS software, but in fact the opposite is true. Most open source GIS software will yield the same results because they implement the same SFS geometry model and the same GEOS vector functions. But ESRI software may not, because it uses its own proprietary geometry model and its own proprietary spatial functions.

He does go on the say ESRI’s software has been around a long time and stood the test of time.  I would argue that Continue reading →

Did you miss it?  Probably not.

Some of you might have known about this last year.  I never reported on it since the story kept changing throughout 2017.  However, if you missed the controversy, ESRI was going to phase out the ability to use Concurrent Use licensing starting with ArcGIS Desktop 10.5.  Continue reading →