"My God... It's Full of Metadata!"

The following is stolen shamelessly from an e-mail from USGS Metadata Guru Sharon Shin, who gives credit to National Metadata Champion Lynda Wayne (and family): Metadata in the Movies!

It seems Lynda and her family watched the movie Beyond a Reasonable Doubt the other day and, as Sharon puts it, "there is a scene that made her sit up straight – two very nerdy guys discuss metadata and image pattern recognition."

It's more than that. The scene has a small sample of dialogue that all (conscientious) GIS pros have found themselves reciting at some point, though not in a major motion picture and not (at least for me, so far) in the service of solving crimes.

By the way, if you plan to watch this film sometime, don't watch this clip. It contains a spoiler.

For those who heeded the spoiler alert:

Nerdy Computer Guy 1: (Cheery) They're uncompressed. 24 Megs. That's good.

Attractive Movie Star Type Lady: (Vaguely interested) Why is that good?

Nerdy Computer Guy 2: (Like... duh!) More resolution -- more metadata.

AMSTL: (Puzzled) Metadata?

NCG2: (Deeply disappointed) She doesn't know what metadata is...

NCG1: (Catty, to NCG2) She knows lots of stuff that you don't know.

NCG1: (Helpfully, to AMSTL) Metadata is literally data about data...

And then it gets into details about this particular crime and the plot of the movie.

But that little bit there? Goodness how familiar that sounded.