Your tax dollars at work.
Sep. 22nd, 2005 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bobcatmoranSo I'm working on putting together metadata for all the new GIS (fancy mapping software) files we've made in the last few months. Metadata is basically a document that goes along with the mapping file that gives some additional info on what exactly you're looking at. In this case, this involves filling out an insanely huge and cumbersome form--nine single-spaced pages before even entering anything in the fields. While looking online to try and figure out why the heck this is so huge and stupid and just what is an "entity attribute" anyhow, I found some "helpful" information from the U.S. Geological Survey, who are the ones that apparently put together the form.
"Since the standard is so complex, this has the practical effect that almost any metadata can be said to conform to the standard; the file containing metadata need only contain the appropriate information, and that information need not be easily interpretable or accessible by a person or even a computer. "
So basically, the form is insanely complex so that anyone can put in any sort of crap and say, "Look, my metadata conforms with this Official Government Standard perfectly!" and no one will know the difference because it's too arcane for them to understand. And it doesn't matter what you put in there anyway, because it doesn't even need to be understandable in any way, shape or form. *facepalm*
...On a completely different note, It's a giant pink bunny!
"Since the standard is so complex, this has the practical effect that almost any metadata can be said to conform to the standard; the file containing metadata need only contain the appropriate information, and that information need not be easily interpretable or accessible by a person or even a computer. "
So basically, the form is insanely complex so that anyone can put in any sort of crap and say, "Look, my metadata conforms with this Official Government Standard perfectly!" and no one will know the difference because it's too arcane for them to understand. And it doesn't matter what you put in there anyway, because it doesn't even need to be understandable in any way, shape or form. *facepalm*
...On a completely different note, It's a giant pink bunny!
