Chapter 4
The first thing that really grabbed my interest when reading this chapter is how the mapping of density looks visually. That might sound kinda dumb cause that is the whole point of GIS, but I believe that the gradient looking mapping of density plays exceptionally well, at least to my, towards our sense of what the data represents. I find it quite easy to interpret the difference between the darkly shaded areas of density compared to the lighter shaded areas that surround it, representing less density. To contrast this though, I’m not the biggest fan of how the use of dots to represent density appear on maps. In the section about dots it shows a map before and after using them for density and to be honest the one that JUST represented each individual business was far easier to read. Funnily, the dot system (not for density) seems to be very helpful to be but beside and used with a density surface map, showing the finder details of whatever data you’re projecting. Within all of this and the idea of density I feel like I’m reading a lot about computer calculations and stuff which is confusing, just really wondering how much of this stuff I only kind of understand needs to be known well. I know I’ve absolutely said this before a few times in my last journal, but there is definitely a disconnect between me and the specific knowledge that I need to be gaining in order to complete this course when we go to the Application. I will note though that I’ve just heard that part week 5 is hard and I’m probably overthinking the severity of this little issue.
Chapter 5
(What I’m writing here was wrote before I finished the chapter, but isn’t this kind of just everything overexplained. Like if there was nothing inside your map it just wouldn’t be there.) I hate to go back to the old classic immediately, but this chapter feels like it’s not really conveying any new information to me without using GIS along with it to see what its talking about. Like it still feels weirdly obvious that you should be able to locate and see specific data in a specific area, I just still don’t exactly know how to do that myself. It feels like someone is trying to teach me how to shoot a basketball, but he wont show me how to do it and just tells me all the ways to do it right. Yes, that is helpful, but at least for me it would be a lot better to actually see and work on the shot.
Chapter 6
From what I understand this is just chapter 5 but about what surrounds specific things on the map instead of what specific things surround this are of the map. At this point in the reading I’m struggling very hard to figure out how to write more about any of this. I’m very much so at a point where there has been so many things that only kind of make sense to me piled up that its all kind of not making sense. However its weird because it’s also almost impossible to not understand it because a lot of what I am reading feels like its just saying the same basic idea of “you can see how far this is away from that” over and over again in slightly different ways. Like I know that I’ve read literally hundreds of pages about this, but the more I read the less it feels like I’m reading anything. I’m sorry if I may be being kinda picky about the reading or whatever, but I seriously don’t know how to write about any of this anymore. I’m at a point where it feels like there isn’t any more starter information to soak up through this book and that I am only getting more confused by the repetition of almost identical ideas. I know that especially for these last two chapters I really didn’t write much, but I cant figure out how to keep writing it. Big props to Andy Mitchel for being able to write all that!