00:00.00 alifeinruins Welcome 1 56 David Connor we're doing things think we ended up on like a similar tirade on a preview episode but I don't think it has it. It came from at came from a different angle I know either way I do want to say I do want to clarify that we. You know we do. We might be criticizing methods. We might be talking about how there's some issues with archeology and crm. But we do believe in it I do believe in it I do think that's something that we need to do ah but that doesn't mean we can't criticize it and can't want to make it better. Think so gonna put that disclaimer in but I'm also gonna tell you how much it sucks mapping these these these features that you find so. 00:43.76 David Howe Um, that's like you like I want to preface this before you you go into it but like I don't think we talk about your job enough like mapping and maps are the most like critical part of archeology. And I don't think we really ever talk about it. It's like just go off king it is what would you? What do you think? Vosco Jagama saying right now in this grave and saying maps aren't important. 01:01.27 alifeinruins I Mean it's just it. It's It's not that interesting because it's a computer program I don't know it's it's it is very important. 01:16.16 alifeinruins Like I mean you could argue that it's like the the single most important piece of data that we get out of archaeology right? If you don't know where the site is you could describe millions of different things. Um and you wouldn't You wouldnt know where it is. It's it The the location in space is huge. 01:16.95 David Howe And. 01:21.73 David Howe Yeah. 01:32.30 alifeinruins And that's something that we are constantly dealing with at my job and I did ah I did a little baby rant about this on our rans and raves but collecting accurate spatial location is probably the most important thing you can do in archeology site I will argue that I will die on that that hill I know. Sam Levin who's also was my predecessor here will also die on that hill like that is the single most important thing you can do when you're recording stuff is to take accurate spatial information and do it well consistently and using. 01:57.58 David Howe Well and consistently I'd imagine. 02:06.63 alifeinruins Data collection standards and methods that are consistent and replicable and you can use them every single time. So a lot of my job at Alpine Archeology shout out those I miss you all? Um, a lot of my job was creating those data standards and creating. Um, programs within the Gps and other and gpses and tablets to certify that we are getting consistent data collection consistent options for things features recording all features the same recording all sites the same. Getting as much information about each site from the Gps units themselves so that was that was a big part of my job and it's it's not the sexiest part of archeology. It's it fascinates my brain because I think it's important and I will absolutely die on the hill but it just. 02:58.66 David Howe But it also do you like when you're giving a site report to the Blm or to the forest service or somebody that like needs the report like. That person reading. It might have no idea about lithics but like when they see the site and the extent of the site and can see the the legend on the map and like this is all the concentrations and here's the burials and stuff like that's important and yeah. 03:22.97 alifeinruins Yeah, definitely and if you and if you do there's so many part so many ways you can mess up Gps Data and get incorrect stuff that it's it's a little harrowing so you really have to do a good job of managing and creating. Standards and methodologies to record stuff because I mean you could take a point in in the field and then you know convert it into something into coordinate system that doesn't match what you took it in and then ends up like a section away and then you're giving the wrong information at the blm so there is a lot of stuff that you can potentially mess up. I do I see it on a a regular basis like you have to record things in the same coordinate system all the way through does that make sense to you do you do I elaborate on that. 04:08.60 David Howe Yeah. 04:13.92 David Howe I mean please elaborate. But what I mean just with the gist of what I'm getting is like consistency like it's got to look good. 04:23.43 alifeinruins Yeah, yeah, so if you record coordinate systems our way of just like marking our place in the world you you can do it lat long which is ah a worldwide coordinate system what well use in the us is the utm or least in archeology. We use the utm which is universe transverse mercator. Which is a series of systems that allows you basically whenever you're in a certain area to be roughly facing north when you're doing when you're going north um in numbers. So it's like adjusting for every little location on the earth so Wyoming. Occurs in 2 different zones 2 different types of coordinates are two different zones which are different locations to kind of adjust you north so they they're in zone 12 and zone 13 so but if you put something if you record something in zone 12 and then record it as 13 you're you're like a. 05:19.91 David Howe Wow. Okay. 05:20.10 alifeinruins Thousand meters away or something ridiculous. Yeah yeah, it's bad so it's important so keep your coordinate systems consistent especially in esri another hill I will die on. Ah yes, yes, all I don't know the acronym they are the. 05:30.42 David Howe What is esri I know but for the people listening. 05:39.28 David Howe Your Earth science recording and industry or something that environmental science something. 05:39.35 alifeinruins Basically the one and only um g Ah yeah, environmental says science recording industry or something like that they are the the dominant program for basically all gis I mean. 05:56.76 alifeinruins I don't want to say it's monopoly but it's a fucking monopoly like a hundred percent they they've kind of cornered this market and look go. Yeah, they've cornered the market on this if you do giant Gis you usually use as re products are gs pro. Ah. 06:02.42 David Howe Environmental Systems Research Institute that's it yeah 06:14.93 David Howe It's like Adobe for gis. Yeah yeah. 06:15.10 alifeinruins If you're enough 100% and if you're in the field you use collector or field maps I mean by basically every company that runs it or runs some sort of ezri product when doing recording monitoring I mean you used it for the monitoring project that. You mentioned so they they dominate the the industries. Yeah I don't know it's it's fun and you know as part of this project that you were working on I had like you I had to turn around these maps in like an instant so you had to dig that feature up in like 10 seconds 06:36.94 David Howe Swika to yeah. 06:50.78 David Howe Oh. 06:52.98 alifeinruins You know, record everything etc I had to take that data later that day and get it back to create a map from it and send it off to um, the archeologists at the think it was the blm within 24 hours which is insane so I was like on call I know we were. 07:06.62 David Howe Wow. 07:12.84 alifeinruins Were suffering together from afar which was it was nuts. But yeah turning around that data into some making a usable product. It's been like 24 hours is insane especially when our report yeah and when we usually report stuff. You know we're given two weeks months to kind of get all this information together and and. 07:13.38 David Howe Um, yeah, okay. 07:23.13 David Howe It's demanding. 07:32.45 alifeinruins Put it out So it's hard on the gis people as well I know the fuel folks take the brunt of it but I didn't slightly lose my sanity last summer because of this. 07:46.33 David Howe Yeah I Um I could see it happening too and like when I'm out there too and like the little clunky ipads and stuff that I had not to say ah alpine stuff was clunky. It's just like yeah you're limited by the technology you have to like. 07:55.37 alifeinruins Just technology as is right now. 08:01.77 David Howe It's not star wars you can't pull up a hollow map of the site and point where the things are you have to like fill out little forms in a tablet make it standardized so it's the same for every site. It's hell like that's a lot and for people that want to go into crm like that's like it's hot like the tech is like it. Only it's not star wars like we can't like do everything with it and it's not Tony Stark so you're kind of limited by that and like I imagine the most efficient way to get everything written out would just be to take like a loose leaf piece of paper and and write essays on the site but like you can't do that you got to make. Quick and get through all that. Yeah. 08:42.15 alifeinruins No, and I know companies companies use forms. Um where they type everything like on the you would on the loose leaf. Ah, but you have to use technology like you can't use loose leaf today in the cr um industry like it's. 08:55.48 David Howe Especially outwards so Windy like you would lose losing. Yeah wo yeah, that's our thing too working out. There was like is blm la into the middle of the Colorado Utah border. 08:59.29 alifeinruins Yeah, yeah, right? Oh this one record of the site. Okay Bye Bye So cute Bye bye. 09:15.24 David Howe It's so peaceful like it's just so empty. Um and like out East growing up. You can't see past the treeline like there's just trees everywhere but like out there I can see like okay well here's where the like the glacier melt is and here's the flood and like here's the. 09:33.47 David Howe And you know like where the continental shelf is I can see the rockies. There is a fault line like you can literally see all that maybe not all of that in the same view but see all that and then like assess how the site works and like the deposition and things like that. It's pretty cool. Um, and like I. 09:47.79 alifeinruins Yeah, you could probably pick out where sites are gonna be too if you have enough experience. You're gonna be like on that on that bench up there overlooking the river there's Goingnna be probably some paleo indian site or there's gonna be some sort of prehistoric stuff. Um I did find. 09:55.39 David Howe Definitely. 10:01.49 David Howe Yeah, and and to Chris oh you go let go say to to Chris Rose thesis is point like a lot of times I'll be like oh there's probably a site right? there at that river and then I'll look it up on the thing. It's the 1 spot of private land on like the whole thing and it's like suck. Somebody already bought it because it's good land to have a site on the yeah yeah. 10:20.99 alifeinruins Yeah, well I I did miss and being in Washington you you obviously are constricted by forests etc but it like you said it really is like peaceful to be out here and kind of see very far and. See landscapes like I had to I had to drive to Warland Wyoming which is in northwest b f e bum fucking nowhere Wyoming but I drove across like a crazy landscape where I didn't see anyone? Yeah, ah yeah. 10:50.70 David Howe Pf It's calming to me because like out East you're taught like you know there's always going to be some creeper in the trees or coming out of the Subway or coming out like like don't go down that Alley. There's like somebody. But I would eat out West It's like when you're not in a city and you're out there like you're the you're the biggest meanest thing that maybe there's a mountain line. Maybe there's a bear but like you can see if a person's coming like maybe I'll eat my words and be like oh someone's in the tree ready to shoot me like that's always gonna be a thing but like now you're you're like the you're the. 11:19.84 alifeinruins Yeah. 11:24.93 David Howe That apex out there and like I'm really not scared of things out there like I'll think about skinwalkers or like Bigfoot sometimes and get all like oh no like oh is it going to get me and then like you get like that psychosomatic like your hair stands on m when you hear something but that's just in your head. Um. 11:39.33 alifeinruins Yeah, yeah. 11:42.15 David Howe But the rest of the time like out in Wyoming I could literally be out there the middle of night wide open and like like lay on on a sleeping bag without a tent sometimes if it was nice enough out and I'd feel safe like if I have my dog I'm fine like it's cool. 11:52.70 alifeinruins Yeah, or just stay in a random cave I mean the biggest thing you have to worry about is landowners private landowners is like if you stay on public land people. Yeah people leave you alone I mean that's that's what we pay for and that's we own it as yeah Alia brother. 11:58.40 David Howe And shot. 12:05.90 David Howe Not my blm like um, sorry that was a that's bad joke. Um, ah wrong. Blm Nope. Ah. 12:14.66 alifeinruins That's okay night. Ah now I'm excited to be back here. It's it's it's beautiful. The archeology's great and. 12:21.77 David Howe Ah, like. 12:26.26 David Howe I do notice when you came to um, wait I don't think Carlton knows you came to visit that 1 time anyway, it was year ago back back back I did notice like when you and I go to like historic tours and stuff like that like you you like you gravitate towards the maps. And you like at our friend's house. Our friend's family cabinvin you like immediately went and looked at the tobook tobo maps that are upstairs like you were all about it. 12:51.24 alifeinruins I just I it's way my brain works I've been like this since I was a kid I you know we would drive across Colorado and I'd have like the the tople map out. 12:59.79 David Howe Why don't you get a topo map on your other arm like of places you like like laremy and like your hometown is to. 13:06.53 alifeinruins Yeah I think like that'd be fucking cool like hipsography or even on my back that would be cool. That's a good idea after I get my Lama tattoo. Yeah. 13:14.49 David Howe It's all like lines. Yeah. You know Lama. 13:25.36 alifeinruins Be like right under my eye face face Llama tattoo make me look hardcore. You ever take an alarmma under the mountains boy. 13:26.54 David Howe Because for Everylama up here. You ever put down a llama boy. They kick and scream when you kill them not the other one. You told me about that they shit in a circle. 13:43.44 alifeinruins You ever you ever seen a llama shit boy are they just they just like they're just like so awkward they get up like on all four legs and they just look embarrassed as they just like stand just thing. Yeah, don't look at me. 14:01.20 David Howe It's because they know what we're judging them. 14:02.61 alifeinruins Yeah, but they get they get the last laugh. Luckily they don't kick. They just spit. 14:09.52 David Howe It's true. Camels are weird yeahs so I mean sorry weird cult aed animals. 14:12.68 alifeinruins Camelus in general are just crazy. Yeah, well thank you all for listening to this podcast. Yeah, don't even know where I am. 14:23.94 David Howe Whatever happened in this last segment I don't know but I think I know what happened Jacob Arns and our previous guest texted us about um blatency of thieves. You guys haven't played sea of thieves you're missing out. 14:32.10 alifeinruins Sailing. 14:38.90 alifeinruins This podcast is currently sponsored by sea a thieves a pirate's life for you. 14:39.83 David Howe The by rare interest. 14:49.98 David Howe It's fun. It's it's a game. It's pirate game. You can you can sail the ocean. There's like treasure Maps. There's ghosts and skeletons that attack you and like but the main threat is other pirates on the ocean that also want to hunt you and steal your treasure so you have to. You have to Work. You got a sail you have to move the sales with to raise sales you go turn the sales you gonna have food. You gotta have provisions you gotta to have strategies and like there's sharks and stuff you can play insurances. You can get drunk. It's a very fun game and it requires a lot of Teamwork. So It's It's fun to play right. 15:13.20 alifeinruins You got to play instruments. Yeah. 15:23.97 alifeinruins Yeah, that's her. 15:26.30 David Howe Shout out remote. Um like distance video gaming in this generation. It's kind of nice. 15:33.53 alifeinruins It's It's like the new way of socializing at least for some some groups of people. 15:36.61 David Howe It is I was trying to explain to my parents and ah um, my a friend a few weeks ago that um like back back all that up I didn't thought that's cringe back it up. Trying to explain to some people a few weeks ago like they were asking me like about like do you go out and hang with friends I'm like when I'm in person. Yeah, like we're hanging. We always go to the bar. We hang out. We're like together all the time or we're not in person like why would I go hang out with new make make new friends when I could just play video games with my other friends on the on the phone. 16:14.38 alifeinruins Oh yeah. 16:15.48 David Howe Like they're perfectly good friends. We're gonna sell them like like what? no just I can't see them but you're seeing them in the game and you're interacting. It's so fun. 16:23.83 alifeinruins Yeah, and it's the perfect way to keep distance like I still play with my my homies from Washington shut up Brendan and Steve Steve the Pirate Yard 16:38.14 David Howe Yardg as fun. It's it's ah ah, definitely in covid it picked up for us I think we started playing a lot more um because you were in but you were both in Colorado then yeah. 16:44.91 alifeinruins Yeah, yeah I was in the middle nowhere. So but it's great. Ah. 16:49.96 David Howe On that note um maybe we should make a um Mmo Rpg Archeology game that we could all play sometime all the listeners but you know that don't ever happen because it's just going to be grave robbing to rating actually just make a blm archeology monitoring simulator. 17:07.81 alifeinruins I Mean they do farming simulator and. 17:09.80 David Howe You just stand and watch a bulldozer and every time the bulldozer comes back. He goes and you get a point and occasionally it keeps going and like it will compound like every day like let's just say every hour of the game that you play you get? let's say twenty five us dollars and every 8 hours that's a whole day's work and then you can take some of that money and like the government takes some of it and the state takes some of it and then your retirement takes some of it the who the the booze takes some of the elections to per Dm and then like. 17:37.70 alifeinruins The booze take some of it. The booze. 17:47.50 David Howe As the game goes like well you stand there like and like it like a little thing like a little ghost bounces around your head. It's like kill you yourself and you're like no, don't do it. Don't do it and you're like hit a um quit quit and like don't do it and you just had to hit x like it's the boss battle every hour you know and like. As you play the game the money that's just taken away kind of compounds in something called a four zero one k but it's digital and like that's your life and it's a video. 18:15.95 alifeinruins Yeah, well then if you find a feature you have like a 2 minute time frame to like get it dug out and it starts getting like playing like tense music. It's like Don no um. 18:20.58 David Howe Yes, that's true and at the end of every 8 hour game session. You have to then write a perfectly worded reason why what you did that day was worthwhile and worth keeping and if 1 word or thing is wrong in that that. 6 page paragraph you have to write the blm will say no sorry and like it's it's very hard. 18:46.15 alifeinruins Yeah, that sounds like something everyone's going to listen to. 18:53.99 David Howe Ah, ah, all we'll see you guys next week 19:02.88 David Howe Probably should have said they kill yourself fart but it's ah it's a true little demon that floats out in your head when you're out there like you could jump in front of this dozer and it will all be over or and then that people get a scene for the day we're still recording. Oh. 19:05.78 alifeinruins Yeah, you can't you can't deny that that's. 19:15.44 alifeinruins Yeah Chris Cut that. Joke. 19:21.24 David Howe Ah, Connor um, do you do you have a joke for us. 19:26.20 alifeinruins This one's gonna be painful the urge to sing a lion sleeps tonight is always just a whim away a womb a way more.. What. Ah, wem Mo wet a wim Mo We a wim Mo we a away movement. 19:45.18 David Howe I'm fighting that damon right now. But. 19:48.66 alifeinruins Ah, my.