Hard, throbbing gadget lust.

Since returning from UVa ten days ago, my gadget lust for a smartphone (or app-phone as one reviewer dubbed it) continues unabated. We are leaning towards a Droid and Verizon because of AT&T's oft-mentioned coverage problems. Also, if I had to make a long-term bet on a platform, I'd bank on the more open model of Google and Android. But then again, the iPod and iTunes juggernaut continues unabated even with crippling DRM and the difficulty of using a Pod with anything BUT iTunes.

Beyond feature sets and platform wars, more interesting in our household is the debate about adopting a cellphone lifestyle.

GIS Humanities Institute

I'm at UVirginia attending a training seminar for GIS folks working in the humanities. Actually, that's not quite accurate, since I don't work in the humanities all that much. There are people here deeply involved with the humanities, but the attendees are all over the map. Librarians, developers, lab managers, a handful of entrepreneurs. And yes, even humanists.

We've just started, so there hasn't been much actual content yet, but there is a lot of potential here. We're divided into 2 groups: stewardship (I'm in that) and software. One thing I didn't expect can be summed up by this comment: "Stewardship isn't just about stewarding the data. It's about stewarding the projects and the scholars." Stewardship in this sense is piece of cyber-infrastructure. I've been neglecting that piece.

Lots of other good stuff. But it's been an exhausting day.