I moved to Mammoth Lakes, CA about a year ago for two reasons, to get away from the tedious lifestyle that comes from living in the city, and to continue to explore our world by diving in head first. When I got here there were no jobs in tech available and I ended up working food service to make ends meet for a while. Disappointed I started considering moving to another city somewhere else in the US around summer 2002. Luckily, things worked out to where I could stay in Mammoth and continue to do what I love, work in the web development field. However, I never thought there could be such a huge software project going on right in my backyard.
Down in Crowley Lake, CA (about 15 minutes South of Mammoth Lakes) there is a company called OpenOSX that is developing mapping software. But not the kind to show streets and highways, this company just released a package called GRASS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) a GIS (Geographical Information System) software package for OSX. Apparently the company has been working with NASA and NOAA to develop software that accurately maps areas of California, including the infamous Long Valley Caldera, with extreme precision and allows you to view them in 3D and create simulations of erosion, rainfall, and how wildfires would spread.
I can only imagine this software development effort is run out of someone's house because I don't know of any business complexes near Crowley Lake. Either way, I'm impressed and inspired by the fact that people up here in the mountains can develop software as professional (if not more in this case) as those people in the city can.
Interestingly enough, my roommate, who writes Brain Flossing, comments on this exact topic with his latest entry Generation Wrecked. To contradict what he wrote with the example of Joshua Lacock, author of GRASS for OSX, from Crowley Lake, CA, you don't have to live in the city to be a programmer, you just have to be motivated enough to want to start a project like that. Admittidly, it's not easy when you're disconnected from a city like Los Angeles, I can only imagine how stressful it would be to work on such a large programming project in such a secluded environment.
Posted by slugworth at October 17, 2002 01:09 PM