The Kiwi invasion continues

[nzlemming]

But I'm so much older...

I'm a pseudo-retired ("retired hurt", I call it) business analyst who has had to dabble a bit in GIS on occasion and found I enjoyed it. I was the datawrangler on our 2010 local body elections site where we combined GIS data with electoral data to help voters see which elections they were eligible to vote in and who the candidates were (later called www.vote.co.nz, now decommissioned [there's a reason I don't work for these people anymore] but still on the Web archive ). I used QGIS for that - lots of fun interfacing with Google maps, electoral maps, statistical mesh blocks etc.

I've always been fascinated by maps as the metadata of reality, and love to have big ones on my wall. I used to roleplay back in the day but realised I was more interested in the backstory and maps than the roleplaying (which is odd for an actor, but not so odd for a director, both of which I have done) so I turned my attention to writing and world creation. Okay, to world creation in preparation for writing, which is going to happen any day now...

I've just been through RobA's awesome software thread and found a bunch of new toys to play with, so I'm pretty happy at the moment

Technically, I run Win7, Mint Linux and OSX on different boxes and am very big on open source, as much for the cross-platform of it as the free-ness. I use GIMP and Inkscape as my go to editors, but am really looking forward to trying some new stuff and learning, which you're never too old to do.

Cheers

Mark

[Chick]

Hi Mark, welcome to the Guild!

Somehow I doubt that age has much to do with love of maps, love of fantasy, learning new things, enjoying roleplay, backstories, acting, directing, writing, or creation of new worlds. If it did, I'd have to be in a rocking chair watching the birds fly by, and I suspect we are both a long way from that

You are never too old to play with toys. Remember, whoever dies with the most toys, wins!

[SteffenBrand]

You are never too old to play with toys. Remember, whoever dies with the most toys, wins!

You just made my day, chick

Welcome to CG, nzlemming! Have you created some maps yet which you want to show? Or are you more interested in writing about it and let others create this? =)

[nzlemming]

You are never too old to play with toys. Remember, whoever dies with the most toys, wins!

Words I live by

[nzlemming]

Have you created some maps yet which you want to show?

So far, only hand drawn. One reason I'm here is to learn about doing it on computer, as my drawing skill rolls a critical fail every time.

Or are you more interested in writing about it and let others create this? =)

We-ell... Bit of both. I want to generate lasting and transferable maps for my world(s), but as a step to writing about them.