Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation
The guys in the biology lab across the hall are playing 2112 by Rush. And it is effin’ AWESOME!
Popularity: 21% [?]
My knitting blog is now located at the Needle Exchange!
House Hunting Google Maps Mashup Ideas
My brain doesn’t feel psychological right now and I think I’m burned out from all the work I did yesterday, so I’m doing some house hunting. I’m looking on craigslist, and all the apartments I’ve come across are pretty much the same with the exception of price. I’m most interested in location, so I’m making a google map of all the places that interest me.
I think a really fleshed out house hunting google mashup would be so useful in this situation. I’m not just talking about taking a feed from craigslist and a few other apartment rental websites and overlaying them on a google map. I’m talking about having information on every possible thing that could interest a house hunter. Here are some ideas:
- Noise. This would be a combination of noise complaint information gathered by the Toronto Police, and external sources that track noise from traffic, industry, hustle bustle, etc. It would be neat if cell phone providers could collect information on the amount of background noise in phone calls along with which cell tower they’re connected to, but obviously that would be a violation of privacy unless people opted in, which definitely wouldn’t happen. It would also be neat if companies responsible for measuring work safety all sent noise level data to a central area to construct a map of average noise across the GTA. The Beau sent me this data from Transport Canada projecting noise from airplanes. (BTW, if you need any info about airplanes, he’s your guy in the sky.) There are many ways you could get this sort of data, and I know I would find it invaluable for choosing a place to live.
- Crime. The Toronto Star is supposed to have a mashup of homicide stats and grow-ops, but the homicide one doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. This Spot Crime site is useful, too. I would have though Scarborough would be more dangerous than it appears on this map. Knowing about homicides may be useful, but they can be pretty rare and pretty random. They also have a very high vividness, so even hearing about one murder (like the execution-style murder that happened at a grow-op down the street from us) could make you avoid an otherwise completely safe area. I’d be interested in muggings, rapes and bicycle thefts (although not necessarily in that order). The best way to display this data would be some sort of per capita probability, so denser areas don’t automatically look like more dangerous areas.
- Schools and employment. I’m not in this boat yet, but knowing the level of education and possibilities for employment in a particular area would be useful for new families. You could easily include EQAO stats for schools in your areas of interest (that shows how well schools are doing on standardized tests), average income for a particular area or what industry sectors are most active.
- TTC Routes and Timing. This one is obvious. Knowing about access to public transportation (especially for someone without a car, like me) would make a big difference to a lot of people. Knowing how long a particular trip would take would be even more useful. And since the TTC have been slacking off on their Trip Planner for years, I say it’s up to us to figure this out. All we need is for everyone in the city to log in and tell a site how long their morning and afternoon trips take. You can bet there will also be a couple TTC obsessives who would put in their data every single day. A few algorithms later, and kapow! We have realistic estimates for bus routes across the city, and also across time.
More ideas as I think of them.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Aliens, Classified
You can tell I have a hot deadline to meet because I am posting more frequently than normal.
Via Omni Brain
Popularity: 5% [?]
More on The Evolution of a loose definition of Comedy
Scary Movie (2000)
Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans
Writers: Shawn Wayans (written by) & Marlon Wayans (written by) & Buddy Johnson (written by) & Phil Beauman (written by) and Jason Friedberg (written by) & Aaron Seltzer (written by)
Scary Movie 2 (2001)
Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans
Writers: Shawn Wayans (written by) & Marlon Wayans (written by) & Alyson Fouse (written by) & Greg Grabianski (written by) & Dave Polsky (written by) & Michael Anthony Snowden (written by) & Craig Wayans (written by)
Shawn Wayans (characters) & Marlon Wayans (characters) & Buddy Johnson (characters) & Phil Beauman (characters) and Jason Friedberg (characters) & Aaron Seltzer (characters)
Scary Movie 3 (2003)
Director: David Zucker
Writers: Craig Mazin (written by) and Pat Proft (written by)
Shawn Wayans (characters) & Marlon Wayans (characters) & Buddy Johnson (characters) & Phil Beauman (characters) and Jason Friedberg (characters) & Aaron Seltzer (characters)
Scary Movie 4 (2006)
Director: David Zucker
Writers: Craig Mazin (screenplay) & Jim Abrahams (screenplay) & Pat Proft (screenplay)
Craig Mazin (story)
Shawn Wayans (characters) & Marlon Wayans (characters) & Buddy Johnson (characters) & Phil Beauman (characters) and Jason Friedberg (characters) & Aaron Seltzer (characters)
Date Movie (2006)
Director: Aaron Seltzer, Jason Friedberg (co-director) (uncredited)
Writers: Jason Friedberg (written by) & Aaron Seltzer (written by)
Epic Movie (2007)
Meet the Spartans (2008)
Disaster Movie (2008)
Director: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
Writers: Jason Friedberg (written by) & Aaron Seltzer (written by)
I was hoping to prove myself wrong by compiling this list, but I believe I have in fact convinced myself that “the people who brought you” Scary Movie are in fact enormous douche-crinkles. Lowest credited writers in the first movie (in a large committee), they made a powerfully impressive descent away from the screenplay to character design in the even larger committees devoted to writing Scary Movies 2 to 4. And then they break out to make their own movies! What a marvelous history. Four mindlessly terrible movies parroting vaguely-related pop culture claptrap in only three years! If I hear that fucking fake panda say skidoosh one more time, I will do things that conflict with the values my parents raised me by.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Another high brow conversation about the nature of humour in modern society
[Will Ferrell tells a story about needing pins in his thumb after breaking it while playing bowling. Letterman comments on the irony.]
Eve: lol
The Beau: that isn’t irony
The Beau: it is fitting
Eve: pins
The Beau: i guess it is in that sense
Eve: good joke
Eve: has legs
The Beau: cause they are different types of pins
Eve: ya
Eve: that is why it is funny
Popularity: 12% [?]
3 ways the Americans Screwed Up the Women’s Relay
There wasn’t just one failure today on behalf of the US women’s relay team. They made mistakes that I think were even more heinous.
- Adequate Practice: They dropped the baton. Obviously that was their first mistake.
- Sportsmanship: They went into hysterics, running into other lanes and generally freaking out selfishly and denying the Poles a spot in the finals.
- Accepting Responsibility: When asked what happened, their first comment was that there must have been a voodoo curse on the team. No. That’s not what happened. What happened is that you flubbed the handoff. Plain and simple. Suck it up and take responsibility. You screwed up.
Jesus Murphy.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Samsung SCH-r610 Camera Phone Sample Photos (I got a new phone!)
I just got a new phone! It took a while and I spent a lot of time figuring out which one I wanted, but I finally settled on the Samsung SCH-r610. It’s so pretty! (And functional, of course. Yes, very functional. I was not attracted at all to the phone based entirely on how dainty and charming it was.)
I have to say that the cellphone purchasing system in Canada is absolutely abysmal. After calling around to every place I could think of and discovering that none of them actually offer sample phones to try out, I bit the bullet and bought this phone. All I wanted were two things: a phone to talk, and a camera to take pictures. A camera and a phone. Thus, a camera phone. I searched the net for examples of pictures from each of my potential phones, and the Samsung ones all looked very good. Unfortunately, the only phone that did not have sample pictures at CNET was this very one. I bought it anyway, but it was a gamble. Luckily, this camera phone is actually quite good. Here are the first two pictures I took on the phone:
Looking at the others makes embarrassed for the messiness of my office, so I’ll take some more tomorrow when there’s light again. Hopefully this will be helpful to someone!
Popularity: 5% [?]