Category Archives: Blog

Blog, Perth

Georabble Perth #14 Rises for the Machines

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Spring in Perth brought a record local crowd of 120 Georabblers together to talk about “The Rise of the Machines”. For the first time we were joined by a few more via a (more or less) live telecast on Periscope.

The always original David Brady dusted-off his MC hat for the night to introduce the speaker line-up to talk about life in a post Lake Maid drone world, and the reality of training computer algorithms as well as humans. The Georabble Perth team give a call out to NGIS Australia and Landgate – WALIS for feeding and watering a hungry group of Rabblers.

We kicked-off with Matt Barrett with a “Game of Drones” – covering a lot of ground as you can with drones for utilities. That got the Rabblers and friends talking about everything drone –from piloting to farming.

Piers Higgs, resplendent in a (way too) clean and crisp Maps WA uniform talked about the Good, the Bad and the Ugly drone pilots. Piers had plenty of material to work with on why mixing amateur model plane pilots, drones and fires are such a bad idea. The Georabble Perth team give a second call out to get involved in the Maps WA volunteer team – ping mapswa@dfes.wa.gov.au to get in touch.

Fedja Hadzic, the guy with the best job title in the room – Inventor – walked us through about how he’s training computer algorithms to explore big data, including coming-up with the right questions to ask so we don’t wait centuries to get “42”.

Robert Lednor picked-up the Drones thread again – attempting to explore “not just the cool stuff”. Lucky for our Rabblers it’s hard to make geo un-cool – so Robert just kept exploring.

We wrapped up Georabble #14 with Mark Taylor on the Certainty of Uncertainty – kicking off with a visual geo-quiz on some pretty ancient hardware and challenging us to think about who uses what we create and what they really need.

A couple of newbies discovered us via Twitter on #georabbleper. We hope see you all again, with your friends at Georabble Perth #15 on GIS Day – Wednesday, November 18, 2015. Stay tuned via #georabbleper for more info soon.

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Registrations open for #PetGeoPeeves & #PetGeoLoves

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The #PetGeoPeeves & #PetGeoLoves  are coming through thick and fast with a great range of ideas and discussions points worthy of beer and pizza at the next GeoRabble Sydney on Oct the 1st – register for free here

From the rise of maps as fashion, thank you Open Street Map, to tracking pick-ups on Uber to spleen venting on KMZ’s as the new PDF’s and let’s not forget the frustrating inconsistencies in data.

If you have a pet geo peeve or love, big or small, send through your ideas to sydney@georabble.org and share your burden or pleasure with a great crew of like minded GeoRabblers.

Also keep the twitter conversation going by using the #PetGeoPeeves & #PetGeoLoves tags.

Pizza’s are kindly supplied courtesy of Pitney Bowes and Mercury Project Solutions, who are sponsoring this event.

The GeoRabble crew

Sponsored by Mercury Project Solutions
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Blog, Sydney

Call for Speakers – GeoRabble Sydney

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#GeoPetPeeves vs #GeoPetLoves

GeoRabble has always been about personal stories and having fun. So at the next GeoRabble on October the 1st at the Occidental Hotel starting at 6pm, we want to hear humorous outpourings on geo pet peeves and loves.

If you bemoan the mass adoptions of hexabins, the misuse of projections or love the way maps online have evolved to become the must have visualisation everywhere, this GeoRabble is for you.peeves_vs_loves

We want spleen venting, expression of adoration, letters of complaints and contented purring on any topic big or small. For balance we are aiming for 3 presenters on each side of the spectrum.

Send through your ideas to sydney@georabble.org.

Oh… and for an extra bit of fun for this GeoRabble we have added an extra rule to the standard rules, you have to start your presentation with a geo related joke!

Here is a one of our favourites

How do geographers meet their husband or wife?

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They Datum!

Keep an eye out on twitter as we start the stream of ideas using the hashtags #PetGeoPeeves & #PetGeoLoves and join in the conversation. The best ones we will share at GeoRabble on the big screen.

Looking forward to sharing your stories, beers, pizzas and geo jokes.

Register here to attend.

Remember: GeoRabble is free to attend, as is the Pizza, courtesy of Pitney Bowes, who are sponsoring this event!

The GeoRabble crewpb-logo-TM-web

Blog, Perth

GeoRabble Perth #14 – Rise of the Machines

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Speakers:

  • Matt Barrett – Machines and utilities
  • Fedja Hadzic – Inventor @ SkryData
  • Piers Higgs – Drones – the good, the bad, and the ugly – an all hazards perspective
  • Robert Lednor – Applications of drones (not just the cool stuff)
  • Mark Taylor – Certainty of uncertainty

Date: Wednesday, 9th September, 2015
Time: Doors open 5:30pm, Presentations from 6:00 pm
Location: Universal Bar, 221 William St, Northbridge 6003
Format: A handful speakers, 10 mins each, usual rules.
Registration: Attendance is free, but for catering purposes we need you to register!

Proudly sponsored by  Landgate – WALIS and NGIS Australia

Follow @georabble on twitter or use the hashtag #georabbleper to join the conversation.

We can’t hold these events without the help of the greater Geocommunity!

Please contact us if you’d like to be a part of sponsoring a future event.

 

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GeoRabble Tas #4 – PostEventWriteup

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GeoRabble Tas #4 was another success, though it was pretty cold and in the middle of winter. The crowd was down a little, but there were a nice group of around fifty there, enjoying the presentations that had been extricated from the bowels of the federal agencies (CSIRO, ACE CRC and UTAS). ACE CRC sponsored, which was awesome.

I enjoyed Guy’s talk about Robots in the air and sea. Certainly some good info there, and another light update about the very real issue of climate change, as well as the near impossibility of inferring sea ice thickness from the surface! Brett Muir then introduced us to the fancy big ship. The problem of working out a relationship between a moving boat, some GNSS antennas and a bit of sensor sticking out the bottom of the ship, or being towed 2 km under the sea is a good one. Iain spoke of wine, while waving wine around and talking about the difficulty of calibrating an infra-red sensor. And finally, Bec spoke about the Argo program, and the fancy autonomous floats journeying around the ocean.

There’s not much more to say. The reports coming back indicate it was a roiling success, so there will be another, I just don’t know when.

Cheerio,

Alex

Iain Clarke talking about wine, while drinking wine.
Iain Clarke talking about wine, while drinking wine.
What a great audience!
What a great audience!
Guy Williams talking about the usual suspects.
Guy Williams talking about the usual suspects.
Mingling
Mingling

gt4_food gt4_venue gt4_speakers gt4_event

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This one time, at GeoRabble Camp…

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Who’s interested in a weekend away with geo-friends?

We’re exploring the idea of a weekend away in Sydney for GeoRabblers.

We envisage a mixture of hands-on coding, technical workshops, presentations, and just generally hanging out by the campfire with like-minded people. It’ll be like a regular GeoRabble, only more.

We’re thinking of holding GeoRabble Camp in Autumn 2016 in Sydney somewhere. Camping will be optional – we’ll find a venue with beds and showers!

If you like the sound of GeoRabble Camp, head to this short survey and let us know.

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GeoRabble Tas #4 is Coming, July 2015

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GeoRabble Tas #4

GeoRabble Tas #4 is booked in for the 23rd of July, at the Republic Bar in North Hobart from 5 pm until around 7 pm. Another fantastic sponsor has emerged from the woodwork, the ACE CRC, which is awesome, and we’ve got four excellent presenters.

Presenters include:

  • Guy Williams, from the ACE CRC, talking about sea ice and drones
  • Brett Muir, from CMAR, talking about the new boat (the big one)
  • Ian Clarke, from UTAS, talking about working with a FLIR Photon 320 thermal infrared sensor
  • Catriona Johnson, from CSIRO, talking about the ARGO program

See you there!

 

Eventbrite - GeoRabble Tas #4

ACE CRC
Antarctic Climate Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre
Blog, Events, Perth

GeoRabble Perth 12 – The Mix Bag Wrap

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GeoRabble 12 was an eye-opening extravaganza of topics we’d all love to get involved in and many being accessible and happening right here in Perth.

Volunteering a weekend to join a similarly willing and dedicated team in problem solving and programming was a timely showcase from Zane Prickett and an invitation to join Unearthed. Now in its second year, Unearthed was held in Perth in late March and is being expanded to 4 events across Australia in 2015. The Unearthed hackathon was set up to promote start-up companies and entrepreneurial ideas in the mining sector solving technical problems with innovative new ideas.

Dr Ori Gudes showed some incredible (sometimes frightening) tales of health stories told through maps. His journey in mapping diseases, nutrition, health tracking and getting all the health facts onto maps to help inform patients, planners and health professionals alike.

Erik Champion talked about the incredible 3D theatre HIVE at Curtin University and the work he and his students are doing by creating fully-immersive digital version of places around the world from long-ago. Virtual reality, open source tools and data including LIDAR, 360° photography and a little archaeological knowledge are used to share history as it’s never been taught before.

This type of interactive game play and learning is now allowing us to take part and interact with historical ritual in original settings and gain a better understanding of our heritage.

Mathieu Savard, all the way from Canada, demonstrated the wonderful world of motion capture for gaming with a live demo with a motion sensor input device  hooked up to a PC! His presentation showed us what can be done with a 3D model created in freely available software; and just what an engrossing and new experience we can create.

In the final presentation Steve Weiser showed us some of the drivers behind the Just Start IT program and how their 18 week high school program across some 30 schools in Perth is helping to instil business, life and technology skills in high school students. Steve demonstrated why it is so vitally important that we help to make this a generation of kids the new job creators in markets we haven’t seen or realised yet.

Big thanks to our Sponsors NGIS and all the speakers for the work they put in. Follow @georabble on twitter or use the hashtag #georabbleper to join the conversation.

Georabble 13 promises even more for hungry Perth audiences with tickets for the June event becoming available soon.

Blog, Sydney

Program for GeoRabble Sydney & Prizes to be won – Don’t forget to register!

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We are proud to announce a great line-up of speakers for GeoRabble Sydney, Thursday 30 April, from 6PM at the Occidental Hotel:
  • Krissie Auld (Office of the Environment and Heritage) – “Open OEH”
  • Maurits van der Vlugt (Mercury Project Solutions)- “Mythbusters: what makes data Authoritative?”
  • Warren Gardiner (Council of Social Services of NSW) – “An Open Data Journey from PDF to web maps”
  • Francisco Urbina (Esri Australia) – “Location Intelligence in NSW”
  • Paul Farrell (NGIS Australia)
  • Damian Carroll (Airbus) – “An Open Access Imagery Licence – the NZ Experience”

 

Also, there will be a ‘StreetView guessing game’, with great prizes!

Remember: GeoRabble is free to attend, as is the Pizza, courtesy of Pitney Bowes, who are sponsoring this event!pb-logo-TM-web

Don’t forget to register here, or join our Meetup group.

Blog, Sydney

First Speaker confirmed for GeoRabble Sydney and Invitation to Rabblers for your stories

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Our first GeoRabble Sydney for 2015 is all systems go with registration coming in fast.

It is a great sign that the topic of Open GeoSpatial Data is something that resonates with many of us and impacts the work that we do.

Which why it is great that we have Krissie Auld from the Office of Environment and Heritage talking about ‘Open OEH’ and with OEH being such a huge generator and custodian of spatial data it will be great to hear about their efforts.

We are confirming more speakers but still have room for a few more, so if you have a story on the success, uses, failure, frustrations or just want to highlight your dramas with trying to get access to open geospatial data, this is the forum for you.

Submit your short description to sydney@georabble.org and remember that your presentation is  limited to 10 minutes to make sure the heart of your message is delivered

Don’t forget to register here, or join our Meetup group!

If you just want to share your story on the use of geo in your day to day experience feel free to submit as well as we are always looking for fun, interesting and surprising geo related presentations

Looking forward to sharing a great night with you all.