In one of the labs in our Advanced GIS Applications course, we used ArcGIS Pro and Random Forest machine learning to predict the percentage of households without internet access across U.S. counties. That sounds more complicated than it really is. The idea was simple: take county-level data, prepare it properly, train a model, test it against data it had not
Author: teodulfo.espero
There are countries that lose wars. There are countries that lose money. There are countries that lose leaders, elections, industries, borders, and dignity. Then there are countries that lose faith in themselves. That, to me, is the quieter death. Not sudden. Not dramatic. Not the kind that arrives with smoke, sirens, or a final scene worthy of history books. It
Some people talk about technology like it is a magic wand. Buy new software, problem solved. Move to the cloud, everything is modern. Add AI, and suddenly the office runs like NASA. Install a new system, and years of bad habits, messy data, missing documentation, and “we’ve always done it this way” will just disappear. No. That is not how
So I ordered this book from Amazon, Networks by Mark Newman, for $80. Yes, $80. For a book about networks. Not a switch. Not a cable tester. Not a tiny firewall appliance with “enterprise” printed on the box, the same way a microwave burrito calls itself cuisine. A book. Paper, ink, equations, diagrams, and the quiet threat that somewhere inside
Using ENVI Classic, Landsat bands, K-Means, and ISODATA to turn a satellite image into a land-cover map In this lab, we used unsupervised image classification to separate land-cover types around Cañon City. The process started with a false-color composite, moved through spectral signatures, and then compared K-Means and ISODATA classification results. The short version: the computer can group pixels, but
Graduate school occasionally surprises you. You sign up for a GIS class expecting maps, coordinates, and perhaps the occasional argument with software that behaves like it personally dislikes you. Then suddenly, you are staring at satellite imagery from Peru, comparing a river before and after a flood, quietly realizing that modern geography has evolved into something resembling detective work from
Most people getting into cybersecurity eventually hear the same advice: “Install Kali Linux.” Apparently, the path to becoming a security professional now begins with downloading an operating system that looks vaguely intimidating, opening a terminal, and pretending to understand what metasploit does. Of course, every YouTube cybersecurity expert, self-appointed or otherwise, will tell you to install Kali Linux. Because nothing
I did not go straight to university after high school. Life, as it often does for many people, took a less cinematic route. Instead, life took me to a technical school, where I studied Computer Systems Design. One of the courses in the program was Structure of Programming Languages, and somewhere in that class, while wrestling with FORTRAN, of all
When classes ended, I figured I should give my academic brain something lighter to do. Naturally, I picked up a book about cosmology, parallel universes, dark matter, spacetime distortions, and the possible collapse of ordinary reality. Questionable, though admittedly entertaining, decision-making. How I got there is even more ridiculous. I had been watching Fringe on Hulu. Yes, Fringe. The show
There was once a time when people loved computers. Not loved in the strange contemporary way where one develops emotional dependence on a phone while simultaneously claiming to hate technology. Nor in the tragic modern ritual of lining up overnight for yet another expensive rectangle whose chief innovation is taking slightly sharper photographs of coffee. No. Something older. Something mechanical.