Category: Uncategorized

Below the fold, an excellent talk on applying lessons from studying systems failures. A good introduction for those who don’t know that there is a study of systems!

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Following my previous post, online journalism outfit Quartz recently posted a Guide on Bad Data, organized into the following parts:

• Issues that your source should solve
• Issues that you should solve
• Issues a third-party expert should help you solve
• Issues a programmer should help you solve

It is well worth a read. Also, if you have any comments or additions, it is open for your updates!

A while ago, I came across Daniel Burnham’s Plan for San Francisco, drawn up in 1905. It’s a beautiful piece of beaux-arts draftsmanship and City Beautiful idealism. If realized, San Francisco would be a remarkedly different place, emphasizing City Beautiful’s “urban design practices for American cities: straight streets, symmetrical buildings, and harmonious building facades framing public sculpture or monuments. City Beautiful was in part a reaction against the evils of the 19th century city, emphasizing beauty and a luxurious public realm as opposed to a city that merely served the needs of industry.”

Unfortunately, 1906 was an inauspicious year for the city that would redirect energy away from its implimentation.

Read more from Urbanist Gabe Metcalf (from whom I lifted the earlier quote), or the curious aesthetes at Curbed

Below the fold, a link to order my retouched version of the map.
Continue reading “Burnham’s Plan for SF, 1905”

The TED Radio Hour put out a great show a couple months ago on Open Source. I had let it sit for a while, given that a lot of discussions of tech aimed at a wide audience rely on simplistic explanations that easily fall apart with a little bit of background. This one does not.

Below the fold, two segments from Tim Berners-Lee (the progenitor of http://www…) and Clay Shirky (of Cognitive Surplus) that are worth sharing.

Continue reading “Open Source, for your Grandmother (or your Boss)”

On New Year’s day, many write their predictions for the coming year. In keeping with the X-as-a-service model, I’m going to outsource mine.

Below the fold, a video of a talk from Paul Ramsey of PostGIS fame. If you’re not into GIS, it’s well worth the analysis of Open-source economics starting at about 3:00.

Continue reading “Geowonkery and Predictions for 2016”

The last paragraph in an otherwise normal article on Montreal’s upcoming passenger information system:

The iBus system will be rolled out as quickly as drivers can be trained. Each driver must be trained for seven hours on how to operate the new equipment.

Seven hours? I take this as a combination of the following:

• The equipment is complex.
• Training can only be accomplished in a shift.
• A win/giveaway for labor relations.

Talking buses, realtime location data coming to STM next year, Montreal Gazzette

Special trains for GHQ personnel appeared one after another in 1946. The main trains were the Allied Limited and Dixie Limited connecting Tokyo and Kyushu, and the Yankee Limited between Tokyo and Hokkaido.

–Yoshiki Soga, “The Story of Foreign Language Timetables in Japan” Japan Railway & Transport Review 53, 2009

I’ve gotten similar unsoliscited emails (below the fold) from a group three times recently. Accepting such an offer is against the law of my ultimate employer, as well as backed up by additional policies by my direct employer. That said, this behavior is still legal in many states, which is why it still occurs.

Continue reading “Blow the Whistle: Pay to Play”

TLDR: Swyft shows their capacity for the three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Earlier this week, startup Swyft hit hard at NextBus, the arrival prediction service for San Francisco’s NextMuni:

NextBus predictions can be inaccurate 40 percent of the time if a bus is 20 minutes or more away, according to a Swyft study, released Thursday. “NextBus accuracy plummets as it tries to predict arrivals further out in time,” Swyft wrote in a summary of its study findings.

Below the fold, I will argue that conclusions reached in the aforementioned ‘study’ are easily debunked. I’m going to discuss why Swyft’s criteria for ‘incorrect’ are wrong from both a rider’s standpoint, as well that as the math behind predictions in laymen’s terms and why their analysis is innumerate. Finally, their post, while focusing on objectivity for their competitors, says nothing about the actual performance of their product.

Continue reading “Don’t believe the hype: Swyft”