Upcoming Domain ChangeDue to launching Geospatial FM, I will change the domain from www.geospatial.money to www.geospatial.fm. This will occur over the next few days. Just a heads up. You will still receive emails as normal.Nelson Roque

Nelson Roque is Assistant Professor, Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State University. He studies the brain as it develops and ages. He also lectures in cognition. It was a deliberate choice to kick of Geospatial FM with him. If we are to create foundation models to use artificial intelligence for solving in geospatial then we had better be sure what intelligence is. Nelson started by saying cognition is the preferred term. The word intelligence comes with connotations that are to be avoided by those in a healthcare context serving the vulnerable. From the outset, then, it was a productive session driven by two studies he has conducted about an early version of ChatGPT and our incapacity to detect AI generated imagery. This included a live demo where I failed every single test! The episode concludes with an epilogue prompted by this from Matt White: https://matthewdwhite.medium.com/i-think-therefore-i-am-no-llms-cannot-reason-a89e9b00754f. Here he contends that modern versions of Gemini and ChatGPT leveraging chain of thought functionality do not actually involve reasoning.

The impression from Nelson is that Matt White is right and no reasoning is going on. This is a good accompaniment to Apple's blockbuster paper doing the rounds which carries the same message: "The Illusion of Thinking" (https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/illusion-of-thinking). It was good then to secure commentary from this research psychologist on the implications of the latest versions of these tools.

Nearmap is a name near and dear to our hearts in geospatial. They were a rocketship as a stock before Thoma Bravo took them private end of 2022 (https://www.thomabravo.com/press-releases/thoma-bravo-completes-acquisition-of-nearmap-ltd). Chris Sams is Government Product Solutions Leader at Nearmap. I met him in January at Geospatial Risk Summit. He has some great commentary on how an earth observation company assists government clients to monitor climate hazards, natural disasters and their impact. He also provides insight on what the DOGE cuts mean for industry. Most importantly, however, Chris is the man who won my impromptu GIS HYPE MAN competition on LinkedIn a while back, showing what it takes to get a role at the best aerial imaging company in our industry.

Thanks Chris.

Miles Kauffman, Masters Of City and Regional planning student at Georgia Tech, came on the show to tell us about an Atlanta to Orlando high speed rail study he is conducting.

It was such a privilege to connect with him after attending a Georgia Geospatial Association (https://gageospatial.org/) networking event in Atlanta a few months ago then being referred to him by an attendee there.

At the beginning of the video, a couple of tram/trolley animations were shown. For Adelaide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tFV4WMZUNc. For Los Angeles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH9toJw6-k8. Thanks Miles for coming on and giving us hope that there is a future for high speed rail in the American South beyond Florida's Brightline.

Next #GISchat is with Michael Bartholomeusz about NOVI.

✒️ https://open.substack.com/pub/geospatialindex/p/novi-and-a-new-venture-geospatial

📽️ https://youtu.be/4z40_uU8gIs

Novi describes themselves as an edge compute and space infrastructure company. They advise one can obtain these benefits: "get real-time earth observation data at a fraction of the cost with VISTAsat - a full-stack, next-generation compute and AI open-access constellation platform in space, specifically tailored for dynamic Earth Observation (EO), autonomy and Space Domain Awareness (SDA) applications."

In a nutshell, earth observation involves producing an incredible amount of data. A lot of this is of no use. With compute available on the satellite, in space, one can vastly reduce the amount of data brought down for later use. This is by deploying algorithms at the point of capture to automatically detect what is needed in a given image, transmit that downstream, and nothing else.

CEO Michael Bartholomeusz was an incredibly engaging speaker. He made effective use of props and metaphors to make the complex topic of edge compute in space easy to understand. It was a privilege to have his attention and find out how cheap it can be to run analyses in space and finally start to solve what the earth observation industry has struggled with: signals from a noisy planet.

Thanks Michael.

THE GEOSPATIAL INDEX

The Geospatial Index is a comprehensive listing of all publicly traded geospatial businesses worldwide. Why? The industry is growing at ~5.4% annually (after inflation and after adjusting for base rates). This rate varies significantly, however, by sub index. For ~$400,000 to start, this growth rate is $5,000,000 over a working life. This channel, Bluesky account, newsletter, watchlist and podcast express the view that you are serious about geospatial if you take the view of an investor, venture capitalist or entrepreneur. You are expected to do your own research. This is not a replacement for that. This is not investment advice. Consider it entertainment.

NOT THE OPINION OF MY EMPLOYER

NOT YOUR FIDUCIARY

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Bluesky: ⁠https://bsky.app/profile/geospatial.fm

LinkedIn: ⁠https://uk.linkedin.com/in/geospatialfm

Watchlist: ⁠⁠https://www.tradingview.com/watchlists/123254792/⁠

Website: https://www.geospatial.fm

Newsletter: ⁠https://www.geospatial.money⁠

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5gpQUsaWxEBpYCnypEdHFC

Why I am reporting on the NEOM human rights situation and publicly traded engineering consultancies involved. It is an introductory episode for the final stretch of this series. NEOM is a collection of projects in a northern province of Saudi Arabia accompanied by violations of Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

⛔️ this ep again mentions suicide.

Covering all loose ends from my recollections about working at Amec Foster Wheeler in Kuwait. Finally got to a point where I can move on from #GISchat about Kuwait.

Discussed:

0:00 - 3:24 - Emotional impact

3:24 - 3:42 - Agenda

3:42 - 22:50 - Use of ChatGPT to interpret arterial blood gas (ABG) test results and fully understand the brutality of the context of the assistant electrician being fired. The system also tells us the consequences in general of H2S gas poisoning.

22:50 - 32:56 - Use of ChatGPT to support whistleblowers more generally

32:56 - 38:23 Questioning a safety item on p. 37 of the 2016 Amec Foster Wheeler Sustainability Performance Report (https://ungc-production.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/attachments/cop_2017/394131/original/AmecFW_Sustainability_Report_2016_lower_res.pdf?1497623860),

38:23 - 42:36 - Using ChatGPT to help on the North Korean workers angle, leading me to UN Resolution 2397 (http://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/s/res/2397-%282017%29)

42:36 - 50:00 - Use of ChatGPT to support whistleblowers more generally, this section also contains the system's useful summary of all that I have recounted.

50:00 - 53:58 - What would be expected to happen _to someone left untreated_ who presented with the particular ABG test results this person had.

53:58 - 58:56 - Justice regarding the NBTC Camp 4 building fire and respect for the dead.

58:56 - 1:09:21 - Wood PLC compliance officer participation in the cover up and validity of an invitation from a colleague to do a secret investigation,

1:09:21 - 1:14:54 - National Crime Agency, invitation to make a police report and plan to do so

1:14:54 - 1:18:25 - International Labour Organisation and human trafficking charity (believe it may have been Unseen UK), engaging an investigative journalist

1:18:25 - 1:27:41 - Financial Conduct Authority, the stock price since I began whistleblowing and risk for pensioners who depend on these firms being properly policed such that their collapse does not put people's retirement at risk.

1:27:41 - 1:28:50 - Short sellers.

1:28:50 - 1:32:50 - Princess Bibi Nasser Al Sabah.

1:32:50 - 1:37:32 - Emotional impact and concluding thoughts about responsibilities of the safety staff who made these reports to me.

1:37:32 - The Map Maker's Border poem recital.

A final round exposing the evidence I collected during my time at Amec Foster Wheeler in Kuwait about human rights, ethics and safety violations. This is in the service of disclosing how safety matters to do with manpower company NBTC Group were handled by Amec Foster Wheeler, superintendent's representative on Kuwait Oil Company projects. Why? In 2024 a fire in an NBTC worker accommodation facility killed 49 men. One safety breach was that a door to the roof was locked, stopping them escaping to safety. I provide this disclosure in order that the public may understand Amec Foster Wheeler did not do enough in 2017 to control the poor safety standards of this company. This was something they were required to do as superintendent's representative. If they had, the chance would have reduced of this building fire killing 49 men 7 years later.

Caution - this episode contains some details of suicides that happened when I worked at Amec Foster Wheeler in Kuwait. If you need it, these are helplines you can call for the top 5 most popular countries for this newsletter:USA: 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.UK: 111 for the NHS.Canada: 988 for the Suicide Crisis Helpline.Australia: 1300 22 4636 for Beyond Blue.India: 9820466726 for Aasra.Continuing the testimony regarding my career in the worst country to be an expat, Kuwait. Until I joined Jacobs later on, I would also have contended it was at the worst place to be a consultant - Amec Foster Wheeler.

The story of injustice whilst at Amec Foster Wheeler in Kuwait continues.