March 2011
2 posts
Smartlerts, web alerts that work like the web.
Take that stack of unread Google Alerts, all that time spent scrolling through results that aren’t relevant. Forget it all. Instead, look forward to smart alerts with Smartlerts. Smartlerts starts out like Google Alerts. But while Google Alerts stay dumb, Smartlerts keep track of the links you follow in the daily emails, and tunes the results accordingly. In just a few days, you start...
Is __________ down?
The fastest and most insightful notification service for turbulence in the cloud. We’ve all been there: just as you hit post, the dreaded Tumblr error message. Or the basecamp Oops. And don’t even think of a Gmail error or a Facebook fail. Shaking, you head to the status blog. Which invariably says “all systems go”. Rather than hitting refresh and getting irate, just head...
February 2011
1 post
2 tags
Countdown to Lakh-falafel
The excellent Hoomos Alsi on Kenmare will serve their 100,000th order any day now.
Here are some charts —
Got receipts? Let me know the # at the bottom.
Curious about Lakh?
November 2010
1 post
4 tags
BikeOut, a cycleshed mapping tool
(From an old discussion with TA, posting now after seeing the wonderful mapnificent.net).
BikeOut is a tool to show you what’s accessible by lane/other facility cycling, vs regular direct routes. It shows how the current cycle infrastructure brings some places closer, or how there are islands of difficult-to-access places now made accessible by new links.
Here’s a demo:
Red...
August 2010
2 posts
7 tags
The Happening City map, showing the pulse of urban...
Thump thump. There’s a lot of data out there. Right now, someone sent a geolocated tweet from over the road. Thump thump. And you’re sitting in a tax block that has three DOB violations, one outstanding road surface issue and an unresolved request for a bike rack. Thump thump. Someone upstairs in your building is photographing local stores and putting them on twitter, and just last...
5 tags
Really Sleepy Syndication, the solution to RSS...
Really Sleepy Syndication helps you stay on top of your RSS and blog feeds — while you sleep.
Overwhelmed by your Google Reader inbox? Unable to keep up with the volume of your network’s twitter updates? Are you staying awake just to stay connected? Really Sleepy Syndication will help. Import your Google Reader feeds, plug in your earphones, and go to sleep. Wake up eight hours...
June 2010
1 post
2 tags
Noteworthy, bridging the gap for your physical...
Noteworthy turns your precious Moleskines, Muji notebooks and Staples pads into tagged, indexed graphics on your desktop, iPhone and iPad. Combine the beauty and flexibility of a paper notebook with a intuitive and powerful digital book editor.
Ever wished you could look something up in an old notebook? Are you carrying two full notebooks, just in case you need to refer back? How easily can you...
March 2010
4 posts
3 tags
Come to a chatroulette party
Take one large party-able space with four projection screens, one per wall. Hook up each screen to Chatroulette with a webcam pointing inwards for each one.
Throw a party, and the random webcam people can join us. Like a flash mob but with no control and no guarantee of finding it. Ignore the screens, or chat, or click Next…
Who doesn’t like naked strangers at their party?
5 tags
“If you want to start a company and are working on new ideas, here’s how I’ve...”
– Developing new startup ideas, Chris Dixon.
March 14, 2010
6 tags
WhereItGoes.org, a neighborhood stormwater mapper
WhereItGoes.org shows your personal sewage and stormwater overflow infrastructure. In a heavy rainstorm, sewage and stormwater mix and discharge into local waterways at CSOs (Combined Sewage Overflows).
WhereItGoes.org estimates the flow of stormwater and sewage for any address you provide. Factoring in rainfall, elevation and information about city-wide infrastructure, interactive maps show...
9 tags
CSAmazing.org, a web management system for...
Community Supported Agriculture is sprouting up in many cities - over 100 groups are offering vegetable shares in NYC this year, up from 70 last year. Most are run on a volunteer basis.
CSAmazing is a hosted web management system for CSAs, taking care of the most common tasks, including payment, registration and volunteer coordination.With CSAmazing, volunteers spend less time working on admin,...
February 2010
2 posts
4 tags
Air Freshener, a climate-denial filter
Air Freshener is a Firefox extension. Tired of reading comments from crazy climate denialists? Do you wish skeptics were actually skeptical rather than brainless? Interested in facts, debate and science?
If the tide of crazy comments on news sites and blogs gets you down, let Air Freshener invisibly take care of them, leaving all sane contributions untouched. You won’t even know what was...
6 tags
Better tools for siting transmission corridors
Introducing View Finder, a web tool for evaluating the visual impact of new transmission corridors.
Placing power transmission lines across the landscape is a necessary to transmit energy from source to destination. Until we get a breakthrough in efficiency, distributed and localized generation, new transmission corridors will be needed.
Choosing where to put corridors is contentious and...
January 2010
1 post
6 tags
Querelous, a 3D barcode buster.
Querelous is a disruptive app for a disruptive technology. Why should creative graffiti be limited to human-readable materials?
See a QR code in the wild.
Use Querelous on your iphone to snap the QR code.
Querelous will decode the code, and search for a valid alternative that can be created by changing only a few pixels.
Uncap your black sharpie.
Follow the on-screen instructions,...
December 2009
4 posts
5 tags
Open redistricting.
Once the Open Neighborhoods Project is set up, the collaborative neighborhoods will form the basis for a fair re-districting of electoral boundaries. Rather than a few people determining how votes are accumulated, the same tools that support complex online collaboration for neighborhoods will be used to openly and fairly correct distortions in how we elect our reps.
Districts can be determined...
7 tags
The Open Neighborhoods Project.
The Open Neighborhoods Project is an independent, crowd-sourced repository of neighborhood boundaries for the US. Three parts:
a web map for anyone to contribute their neighborhood boundary
tools to review and agglomerate different neighborhood outlines into commonly-accepted boundaries
a data repository of current and previous neighborhood boundaries for download and re-use, forming a...
4 tags
Dot Dot Dot, a collaborative diagramming tool.
Dot Dot Dot is a collaborative diagramming tool that embraces the messy nature of drawing out a process.
It’s more analogous to paper and pen tools than a fully-featured tool like OmniGraffle or Visio - think how Etherpad compares to Word.
But simplicity doesn’t mean Dot Dot Dot isn’t powerful:
Smart auto-layout tools allow you to focus on entering the diagram, not dragging...
4 tags
Csssearch, a CSS search engine.
Csssearch (pronounced “scchearch”) is the first CSS search engine.
While other search sites index the web’s content, Csssearch goes after the layout. Using some clever cascade-aware logic as it munches CSS files, the search tools give you the web in its non-semantic glory. Who cares about the content, let’s look at the layout!
Search in your web history, delicious...
November 2009
3 posts
6 tags
Get ready for the Mapture.
Come to the Mapture! Bring your latest work in progress to share with the crowd - city planners, neo-geographer, urban designers, architects, open source mappers, data crunchers and all. Come and hear what’s happening in the map making and urban data scene. Bring ideas. Bring slides on a memory stick. Bring paper maps. Bring incomplete failed projects. Show off your latest web app. Lurk...
5 tags
Key-Ip Compact: the real iPhone keyboard.
Key-iP Compact (pronounced keep, the iP stands for iPhone) is the fix for your finger-aching, composition skill destroying virtual iPhone keyboard.
Slotting either side of the iPhone, Key-iP creates an ergonomic split keyboard, with the phone in portrait mode in the middle. Learning from the wonderful portable palm keyboards, a simple grasp on the sides of the board unhinged it into two folding...
5 tags
Open data scorecards
Open data scorecards are SeeClickFix for government data websites.
Let’s say you are interested in finding out how much money Christie spent getting elected Governor of NJ? After some Googling, you probably find the NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission website and the section with public filings and campaign reports.
But wait! No RSS feed? No feed opportunities of any kind? Great work...
October 2009
5 posts
6 tags
Adjustable midnight
Task lists always assume that “today” is before midnight, and “tomorrow” is after. In the small hours, scheduling new items becomes tricky - do I really mean today, or tomorrow? Is that task really overdue or am I getting to it later in this session? Wasn’t I going to do that tomorrow? Wait, is it tomorrow already? But I’m not done!
Introducing Adjustable...
2 tags
6 tags
Censuous, the simple census data browser
Censuous - a beautifully designed, non-technical web interface to pull census info into kml or shapefiles.
Getting data out of the census is non-trivial, even when you know your SF1, block groups, GEOIDs, H04001, etc. The barrier to easy data access is still slightly too high - the place-based summaries are great, but mapped data requires just a bit too much knowledge to be really accessible.
...
5 tags
Exhibit my Delicious Graffle
EmDeG (Exhibit my Delicious Graffle) combines three fantastic tools into one killer web app for making sense of data - here’s how it stacks up:
Del.icio.us brings social bookmark tagging
Exhibit enables fast data exploration and structuring
OmniGraffle creates beautiful charts
So why is EmDeG useful?
Let’s say you are collecting data on various map sources or perhaps open...
3 tags
Bethel, a versioning metadata-rich operating...
Meet Bethel: the first operating system with versioning and complete metadata, including intelligent linking between files.
For example, when you make a jpg from an illustrator file, Bethel knows that these files were once linked and maintains this link into the future, even if a file is moved.
When saving, Bethel invites you to enter useful information alongside the file name - a project...