February 20, 2008
Web Apps and Shooting Down Satellites Make Me Tingle
Tonight the U.S. Navy is shooting down a dead spy satellite using a missile. Putting aside the issues that would lead me to be afraid, this is just downright cool.
It’s too bad we’re not following the plot of Space Cowboys and sending up Clint Eastwood, James Garner, Tommy Lee Jones and Donald Sutherland to repair it. But this isn’t bad.
Maybe we’re shooting it down to prevent large pieces from falling to Earth in populated areas. Maybe it’s got all kinds of secrety stuff on board that we don’t want the Axis of Evyl to find. Or maybe Dubya is just trying to build support for the resurrected Reagan-era travesty Star Wars missile defense system. The folks who know aren’t telling.
Regardless, we’re going to blast that sumbitch outta the sky and there’s part of me that thinks that’s neat. Probably the boy part.
And on to the current Web app that gets me all excited: EveryBlock.
Currently available for New York City, Chicago and San Francisco, EveryBlock utilizes the Django framework for object-relational mapping of data sources.
In plain Engrish, EveryBlock tracks and aggregates public data information sources to provide localized reports of building permits and violations, crime reports, liquor licenses, restaurant inspection, and more. It even includes photos taken that have been geotagged in Flickr.
You can filter by neighborhood, street, police precinct, zip code, and in the case of New York, by borough. It all boils down to three types of news: civic information, news articles and blog entries, and various items from across the Web including Flickr, Yelp, Craigslist and more.
You can view all items or individual categories by date or by plots on a map. Each item on the map is clickable, with a link to all the information about that particular instance. That’s just sex-ay.
For the information-obsessed, this is a pretty sweet deal. Many public agencies and NGOs make data available to the public, but the barrier for entry used to be the difficulty in wading through it all to find information that was relevant to the individual. This project excites me because it takes care of the filtering for you and just gives you exactly what you want to know.
The best part is that anyone can contribute. Review a restaurant on Yelp, take some photos in your ‘hood, make a blog post. EveryBlock will find it.
Back to my site, Retired Time Bomb
shooting stuff down with secret spy shit inside is pretty cool, but the Everyblock app looks a little too big brother to me. maybe thats because i live out in the country (indiana)
I can see that viewpoint, but it’s all public information. We’ve made some eating decisions based on the health inspection information, for example.