As A USGS Employee Working In Spatial Data: hehehehehehehehe
--
https://xkcd.com/2920/ <-- link to XKCD cartoon
--
"The standard North American NAD83 coordinate system is misaligned from the actual Earth, off-centre by about 7 feet. Someone knows where I am, and I'm in the wrong place."
#GIS #spatial #mapping #humour #humor #datums #coordinatesystems #NAD83 #NAVD88 #mappymeme #survey #USGS #NGS #benchmark #surveymarker #NorthAmerica #geodetic #geodesy
@XKCD
Survey Marker

xkcd
@GregCocks
Do you recall what the old geospatial software that was used by USDA and I assume USGS, was it GLASS or something like that?
@GreenFire @GregCocks you might be thinking of GRASS? https://grass.osgeo.org/
GRASS - Bringing advanced geospatial technologies to the world

GRASS is a powerful open-source geospatial processing engine that supports advanced modeling, time series analysis, and spatial data management.

GRASS
@tchaddad @GregCocks
Yes, of course. It's been since the early nineties and hadn't thought about it in a long time. Thanks.
@GreenFire @GregCocks it goes back to the 80’s at least! (obligatory link to the 1987 GRASS video narrated by William Shatner): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Hf0qI4JLc
GRASS GIS MOVIE CERL 1987

YouTube
@tchaddad @GregCocks
Are they still using it though?
@GreenFire @tchaddad @GregCocks I use GRASS daily for operational remote sensing tasks like river ice monitoring and flood inundation mapping. It's definitely not the easiest to grok out of the box, but it is solid. Scripting for it is also insanely simple, flexible, and legible.