WorldChanging Seattle: Smaller Homes, Bigger Communities - my interests seem to converge a lot. Reading an article about how small houses are better (which I have been trying to convince people of for some time) on a Seattle (where I now live) website, the article goes on to talk about trying to do the same thing in Toronto.
Sidewalks Can Be Cool Too…So Why Aren’t They? | hugeasscity - just what I was thinking during a lot of my time in Europe a few months ago.
Freebase Parallax - when Freebase first came out as a sort of open version of Google Base, I doubted if it would come to fill that role.
Today Freebase has tons of data, and is really well designed and managed. This video of what you can do with one Freebase-based tool is truly amazing. Watch it.
I’ll Take My Infographic in Bright Orange, Men’s Medium | FlowingData - t-shirts with information graphics. One of my dozens of failed infographic ideas was to put them on t-shirts, but I didn’t get past one design (in my head).
WordPress › MyBlogLog: Just for you « WordPress Plugins - I doubt this will get much uptake, but it is actually really neat. Anyone with a mybloglog cookie, when viewing a blog with this plugin, will see a list of posts on that blog that specifically match their interests.
15 reasons Mr. Rogers was best neighbor ever - CNN.com - a lot of this I didn’t even know. How many Mr. Rogers are left in this world?
URLinfo beta || Fagan Finder - URLinfo is a tool I built years ago. It was first called “Site Specific” when I put it up on on October 1, 2001 (see a November cache), finally rebranding it as URLinfo during August 2004. I last updated it on October 2004, which unfortunately means that although an excellent tool in theory, it needs some updates to be as useful once again.
URLinfo isn’t totally unique, I have seen a variety of other tools do something similar (such as Firefox extensions), but nothing as comprehensive, or done in exactly the same way.
Anyhow, today, via del.icio.us popular I find http://url-info.appspot.com/ . I’m not linking to it, because I don’t think they deserve that. Now, URLinfo is a name someone else could come up with themselves. Even with the same spelling. Even for a similar tool. Of course, the fact that the actual text of their home page is partly copied off of my URLinfo’s homepage pretty much eliminates the coincidence aspect. Not to mention their equally prominent mention of bookmarlets, although of course they aren’t as cool as mine 
If this was a site by another name, and without blatanly copying mine, I would say “nice effort” and bookmark it. So, loyal readers (all two of you)… what should I do?
So I finished the last book I had with me a few days prior, leaving me with not much to do for my flight back from Europe. I managed to find a copy of the Evening Standard, a London paper, which I think was free at the airport. Reading through some of the articles led me to want to blog a couple of things.
Page 4 (this is the July 8 issue) has two big articles on car transportation. One on London’s congestion charges, and another on how tons of people are signing up for car clubs. I wasn’t familiar with that term, but it is what I have known as carsharing, what companies like Zipcar do, and I’m a big fan of them. I was happily surprised to see just how fast people were joining up for City Car Club and Streetcar. I don’t know the stats, but these UK companies see far ahead in usage compared to those in North America.
Getting to page 12, I felt like the UK is sooo far ahead. Here we talk might talking about moving from driving to biking (well, I wish). In this article, Will Self talks about giving up biking in favour of walking. Now that’s where it’s at. Biking is great, but nothing really beats walking, overall. That page also includes another article on the congestion charge.
On page 26, there is an article about the Paris free cycle scheme, which has apparently lead to a 70% increase in cycle traffic (wow!) . The article title is actually about the increase in injuries and at least one death, yet they point out that the accident rate has declined by a fifth and that most accidents involve new riders. The way I see it, the program increases the number of bikers, so after it has been around for a while, the percentage of new bikers will go way down. I also think that this huge change in traffic patterns is the best way to do it. Some things evolve, but sometimes it is actually easier to have big changes happen all at once. If suddenly the number of bikers spikes way up, then drivers will be conscious of the change and consciously change their driving habits. The article also mentions that a certain number of bikes have been stolen or damaged; I hardly have time to do a comprehensive assessment (although someone must be doing one), but it seems to me that these must be minor costs compared to other savings and benefits from the scheme.
Speaking of biking, although I knew that the Europeans are way ahead of North Americans, it was very refreshing to see it in person. Of the countries I visited (mostly, but not all, eastern Europe), Germany was the most on top of things, with excellent dedicated bike lanes everywhere and tons of bike racks. It was great to see as many bikes as cars parked in front of restaurants.
Page 39 has an article (argh, can’t find a link to it) on why bicycle helmets should not be required by law. I always wear a helmet and chastise those who don’t, yet by the end of this article I was convinced. Apparently when helmets became required in Australia, the number of cyclists went down by a third, and the rate of accidents actually went up. Other statistics seem to support this as well. In general, I think that the fewer laws, the better. Beyond that, the points about bicycle usage, how riders with helmets tend to have more accidents, the low rate of accidents in general, convinced me. I will, of course, continue to wear a helmet myself, but am now firmly in favour of this not being required.
Regarding my comments on laws, more laws just make things more complicated, and often less flexible. Don’t make laws about internet privacy, make laws about privacy, and have them apply everywhere. In general, laws should be the last resort, ideally systems should be designed to make the preferred behaviour preferable to all parties.
I didn’t even mention the articles discussing safety on the rail network, comments on traffic, etc. This was presumably a random day’s newspaper. Transportation is a big issue.
Yet another in millions of articles over the years about supposed schemes to reduce global poverty and otherwise deal with the problems of developing nations. The problem with all of this of course, is that world leaders always go for big, top-down plans that end up costing huge amounts and accomplishing nothing. The World Bank, for instance, runs massive projects that burn through money, and often end up leaving countries worse off than they began.
The only thing that has ever really worked anywhere, is local, small-scale, bottom-up ideas. Microcredit comes to mind as an example, now served by companies such as , as pioneered by Kiva and
It seems that practically every city has a slightly different way of indicating pedestrian and/or vehicle signals. I especially noticed this, what with my recent trip to Europe. Essentially, they differ in the ways that the signal changes to inform you of whether you should proceed. The way I see it, a good design maximizes the information provided, the ease of comprehension, and minimizes cost. The least information given are signals that have two values, “go” and “don’t go.” If you don’t actually see the change from “don’t go” to “go,” it means that you have no idea how long “go” will remain the state, and whether it is really appropriate to go.
A ternary system is better than a binary one, because at least you have an idea that it will soon change to “don’t go.” I love when they replace a ternary pedestrian signal with one that counts down. Everyone has their own speed, they know how long it will take them to walk across the street, and knowing the number of seconds remaining, can properly evaluate whether or not to proceed.
One option that I found recently (via information aesthetics) is the Marshalite, a traffic signal that is essentially an analog clock, with the traditional traffic indicators of red, amber, and green around the circle. Apparently it was used in Australia for decades. I think it is fantastic, providing people with perfect information about the current status and how long until it will change. I think we could do a lot worse than switch to these everywhere. Some might argue that this is not simple to understand, but I don’t believe that. The Wikipedia article suggests that this method can’t cope with changing durations, but I have no doubt that it could be modified to handle that.
Page 17 features an article about Cook, Eat, and Run. Basically, during your lunch break, you visit their kitchen, learn how to cook a meal, and eat it, all in around an hour. I believe we can design solutions that are parsimonous, win-win-win, etc., and I think this is a great one. It accomplishes:
In other words, brilliant. I believe there is room for a whole host of other similar ideas, such as perhaps workplaces hiring a chef once a week to organize everyone into making lunch in the company’s kitchen, for instance.
And people call me crazy when they see me slicing meat and vegetables at my desk. But nobody questions how great my sandwiches are
Topix Nabs 6 Content Partners To Become Local Info Hub - Topix is already one of the best websites for local news, but when they integrate all of this new content (events, classifieds, business listings, etc.) they will have made a serious move ahead in the (hyper)local space.
And of course, local is where everything is at.
The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete - while this article itself is fairly thing, it makes an important point. The quantity of data (about anything and everything) is increasing insanely, and will be (and already is) perhaps the most important thing in science and in business in the coming decade or so.
Most individuals today generate more data in a day than most countries did 200 years ago. I’m just making that number up, but think about the data you generate daily, from the photos you take, logs you generate globally by browsing the web, making phone calls, purchasing items, etc.
All of this data can only be analysed with computers, and it will (and is) tell us all sorts of things we did not know before, with greater accuracy.
I came back from vacation a few days ago and am still catching up on missed news, and I need to publish some posts that are currently in my head. Anyhow, Jon Udell never ceases to impress me. He’s taken his community-building work in his town beyond the web and pushing it to local television as well; Turning Internet feeds into TV feeds « Jon Udell. Every town needs a Jon.
so I intended to write this post last week, after reading some articles to make sure I had my facts right. having procrastinated, I see that Councillors back down on anti-gun proposal, and also I didn’t have my facts completely correct. Regardless, I think there is still a point in what I was going to say.
In general, I’m against guns; the average Torontonian has no need for them. I am not against well-run organized places where people shoot at targets. One of Toronto’s complaints was that guns used by gangs are often acquired by stealing them from private homes, rendering pointless the fact that those guns may have been registered in the gun registry. But gun ownership and gun stealability don’t have to go together.
My idea is that gun clubs could rent out lockers at the club for people to store their guns, rather than having them kept in the individuals’ homes. The gun clubs would have to apply and pay for a bulk gun storage license, and would be periodically inspected by the police to ensure proper security. They would more than make up for the license fee by the locker fees they could charge themselves. Seems like a sound plan to me.
Gas purchases plummet | | TerraPass: Fight global warming, promote alternative energy - sometimes I forget that people can change
cityofsound: Transport informatics - insanely comprehensive overview of today’s status on data and transportation systems
A lot of people have asked how it is I keep up with everything going on at UW. My response is that actually I only keep up with less than one percent of what goes on, and doing so actually takes a fair effort.
I get my information several ways. People telling me, looking at posters on campus (sadly, lots of things are only available in this form), and many online sources. Most of these I won’t be reading much longer. My list is of coursed biased towards my interests and my program.
From the web, I get a lot in my newsreader, a few things through my calendar program, a number of things through email newsletters, and an increasing number of things through Facebook groups. In that order,
Sites in my newsreader at the moment (I have added and removed many over the last five years), grouped but not specifically ordered.
general UW news
tech stuff and tech people
waterloo-area stuff
other people, misc
Calendars (note links are directly to icalendar files)
mailing lists
Facebook Groups; some of these are essentially inactive, others send frequent mail
general
tech
science
environment, volunteer, etc
entertainment, misc
Gin, Television, and Social Surplus - Here Comes Everybody - couple of things here I agree with, couple that I disagree with.
To start with, I thought “journalists” calling non-fad web things fads was going to die years ago. The internet is not a fad. Blogging is not a fad. Sharing stuff on the web, clearly not a fad. Lolcats are a fad. Sharing pictures of your cat is not a fad. This is hardly an opinion. Were people still calling radio a fad when it had as much penetration as blogs do today?
Once upon a time in the ancient 1940s, people wondered what humans would do with all the free time afforded by machines doing most of their work, like cleaning, cooking, etc. Try to find someone today who says they have enough free time.
So what happened? Why didn’t we get our free time? Well we did. But the available options with which to occupy our time has increased much faster than our free time has. People no longer need to invent things to do with their free time, they have to spend extra time deciding which things to try to do in their free time, as they can only do a small subset of what they want to do. The difficulty today is to look at the millions of options out there, and eliminate virtually all of them from your life. Realizing that removing things from your life will make it more full; that is tricky.
Saying that you do not have time for something is always a lie. You have time for whatever it is you decide to have time for.
Oh, and to tie that back in, it is nice that an increasing amout of what people are spending their time on is contributing to the public good, such as Wikipedia, as discussed in the article.
Virtual Earth / Live Maps: The New Release of Live Maps and Virtual Earth 3D is now Live! - when I was studying for exams this past week, Live Maps, the team I worked with and will be returning to in August, released a major upgrade. Here is what is cool to me, although there is a lot more.
I started writing this post a few weeks ago and have mostly forgotten what I was going to write about. whups…
Headway Wiki is a great wiki for public transit data, which accompanies the Headway blog. I added some links for Waterloo, Toronto, and Seattle.
It is great seeing that some cities are opening up their data in a somewhat standard format, although I wish everyone would. Governments trying to keep their data private is almost universally pointless and counter-productive. Google Transit seems to be the best generalized transit trip planner (on the other hand, there seem to be several new ones I haven’t explored), although sites targeted to specific cities often offer a lot more.
Unfortunately I missed out on the first Metronauts unconference, Metronauts being an expansion of TorontoTransitCamp. The wiki is sorta all over the place, but I guess moving from unconferences to major projects takes time.
Unveiling [the Toronto TTC] Museum station - everyone may not like Joe Clark, but the world needs more people like him. People who care enough about the public good to do quality work on their own time for it, when fighting a very uphill battle.
so the problem of contact management is the opposite of new, and a lot has improved in recent years, but things still aren’t working for me
my contacts are split like so
primary list of contacts: Gmail. Auto-adding of addresses to the the list is usually good, but I wish it was easier to purge people with who I exchanged one email a long time ago (subject to manual confirmation).
secondary list of contacts: Pidgin. the great instant messaging software includes all my contacts on MSN/WL messenger (including my old account), Gtalk, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ (admittedly virtually unused now). while most of these protocols store the contacts server-side, I have manually combined multiple accounts of the same people, and this is stored in a local XML file. I wrote an XSLT a year or two ago which converts the XML to CSV which can be imported into Gmail. Of course, it is imported manually, doesn’t really deal with Gmail-Pidgin duplicates, and of course lacks the avatars which aren’t stored in the Pidgin local file to begin with.
secondary list of contacts #2: Facebook. Facebook makes for pretty nice contact management, but it is largely a walled garden. For one thing, email is preferable for non-trivial conversation (email works well, isn’t closed, can be better archived and searched, etc.). Facebook makes the process for emailing someone as (1) find their profile (2) find their email in an image and retype (not copy-paste) it into my email application. Ugh. Facebook does have excellent metadata, and importantly, everyone manages and keeps up-to-date their own data. Today I tried FriendsCSV, a Facebook application that converts your friends list to a CSV file which is nice, although they don’t violate Facebook’s terms, meaning of course that email address aren’t included. And thus importing into Gmail creates a million duplicates. The metadata can include the URL to their Facebook profile, but Gmail contacts don’t even support URLs, so the URL is plain text.
tertiary list of contacts: Skype. As I have never yet had a cell phone, I use SkypeOut as my “phone” and so it contains actual phone numbers (in addition to some Skype contacts), a piece of metadata which is largely absent from my other contact lists, but also quite important. Apparently Skype’s own export function doesn’t include SkypeOut contacts, which makes things fairly useless.
There are also various contacts spread out in LinkedIn and many other websites, but few that aren’t also in the previously mentioned lists.
Of course, now that I have a mobile device (currently an iPod Touch, although I will probably be switching this for a cell phone by August), I want to get the data on there, especially phone numbers, since that is the data I will need when I don’t have Internet access. So my current workflow looks like this
Of course, the iPod Touch has a great visual interface, rendered useless by the fact that contacts imported from Gmail through CSV won’t include Gmail’s avatars (and certainly not ones that failed to get imported from Pidgin and Facebook).
One big problem with this is all the manual pruning that is necessary, and largely incomplete, thanks to all the duplicates created. And let’s not even get into the problem that I have many contacts that I don’t know about because they are people who I exchanged email with before Gmail, and will be useless until I import the old emails into Gmail that were on Outlook Express and are now in that format on an external hard drive…
Google now has a Contacts API and Microsoft has their Windows Live Contacts API, although the latter is decreasingly useful as people migrate off Hotmail/MSN to Gmail/Google. And I don’t want to write the apps using the APIs, I’m lazy and want other people to do it.
Plaxo is supposed to be my saviour, synching things across everywhere, keeping data up to date, deleting duplicates, etc. If I pay of course (what?? pay for software?). I wonder if it is worth it…
I want the future now, dammit.
random rant. biofuel is a bad idea, almost always, if not always. this has been clear since the ideas were first proposed, and confirmed with more and more studies. why does so much of the world not get this? to be fair, I realize that part of the reason is the US corn surplus, thanks to the insanity of the US farm bill
I attended Abandoned by Canada: Torture Surviver Speaks Out tonight, run by WPIRG and AWOL. The depressing part of of it all is that not only did Canada, a supposedly decent country, violate its own basic laws, not just in turning a blind eye, but in initiating torture (by proxy in Syria, etc.), but that it continued to do it when it realized those involved were innocent, that they continue to to defend this action, suppress information about it, and that is likely continuing today.