As part of my talk this summer, I'll also be talking GIS. What is GIS, you may ask? Well, check out this handy-dandy explanation from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIS. Go ahead. I'll wait here.
Done reading? Good! Now that that's cleared up, let's continue. Remote sensing, which I talked about last time, is only part of GIS. You notice there are a lot of pieces and parts that make up the world of Geographical Information Systems. As part of GIS, we've seen the proliferation of GPS or Global Positioning Systems, in recent years. Many of us have them in our cars, for example. I don't, to be honest, I still prefer allowing Mapquest to lose me in new and fascinating ways, and I'd rather not have a machine voice lecture me about exceeding the speed limit, but I digress.
One activity that GIS systems have made possible is a pursuit known as Geocaching. This is an interesting activity that a colleague of mine avidly pursues. Essentially, Geocachers use GPS systems to play "hide and seek." They look for small objects, pill bottles and the like, hidden in various locations, using provided clues from those Geocachers who have hidden the items. These items often contain small, cheap trinkets that are traded among those finding the site. The Geocachers are expected to not place the caches in dangerous locations, nor to trespass on private property. The caches are expected to be maintained for the next searcher, as well. To find out more about Geocaching, check out http://Geocaching.com.-JEM
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