…when the world’s on vacation.
In what was one of the slowest weeks around the OpenPlans office as staffer’s vacation plans came to fruition and Independence Day distracted those of us who stayed behind, the chatter about our Watercooler kept chattering. Here’s what we (what was left of us) were chatting about last week:
+ Check out Phil Ashlock’s submissions for the current round of the Knight News Challenge on data and help spread the word by voting them up there on the tumblr page or retweeting. via the knight foundation
+ Broadband Chicago – Rahm wants to wire the whole of downtown Chicago with wireless broadband and beef up the entire city’s broadband capacity. He believes its the next infrastrucutre to drive growth, so thinks Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel – via the guardian
+ “This is the most important time to be involved “ Portland’s regional government Metro has just launched a public feedback period on its Southwest Corridor Project. For details on upcoming engagement events, and online feedback opportunities. via humantransit.org
+ Neighborland has come to Brooklyn - via neighborland.com
+ Radical Cartography Pull up a chair, and let the maps tell the story. via radical cartography
+ Radical OpenGL (kinda): 3D models of London Underground Stations. These complex but simply rendered London Underground interchange systems are worth a look. Made by the same guy who made the twin tube Underground map. Great exposure of built existing infrastructure. via aeracode.org
+ Google Maps API now includes transit. But it doesn’t look like they’re offering much when used outside of the Google Maps frame. Still an improvement over what’s currently allowed. via google
+ Meet Cornell’s First Academic Hire for Its Roosevelt Tech Campus – former UCLA Professor of Computer Science Deborah Estrin. via wnyc.org
+ Depressing but not surprising. Tri-State Transportation Campaign demonstrates that transit cuts have disproportionate negative effects on seniors and low-income New Yorkers via tstc.org
+ We’ve got a (sorta) long-term transpo bill: The house and senate agreed on a draft of the transportation funding bill that will replace the existing SAFETEA-LU. This is important for many reasons, not the least of which is that agencies can begin planning for large-scale projects that they have not been doing under existing funding over the last 2-3 years while we’ve gone through continuing resolutions to ‘get by’. via house.gov
+ Being introduced to goodbye to something that one had no idea existed, while simultaneously making one feel that one has missed out on something really cool, while having believed that one was on the cutting edge when one started checking your bank statement online in 2005, makes one, well, just a little jealous of the French. Farewell Mintel via the guardian
+ Super*! ”Everything here is rendered with CSS: no images, no canvas, no data URIs and no extra markup. The piCSSelz (see what I did there) are drawn with CSS gradients sized precisely to pixel boundaries. There are certainly more practical uses for this technique, but none quite as nostalgic. Stay tuned for more examples, wider support and a code generator!” via tom giannattasio
*Mario Brothers