How Walkable is Your Neighbourhood?

To answer that question, you could go outside and try walking around and see how well it goes, or for those who prefer the virtual to the physical, go to Walkscore.com and type in your address. Based on things like density and proximity to shops and services, the software will give a ranking. It works for the US, Canada and the UK.

Of course, the really cool thing is seeing how walkable other cities and neighbourhoods are - you know, the ones you can't access by stepping outside your door. Unsurprisingly, San Francisco and New York City and Boston are the most walkable cities in the USA.

They don't have rankings of the most walkable cities in Canada, but you can search for addresses to get a score. Toronto didn't fare too badly, but it depends on where you live, really.

What does this all mean? They explain:

Picture a walkable neighborhood. You lose weight each time you walk to the grocery store. You stumble home from last call without waiting for a cab. You spend less money on your car—or you don't own a car. When you shop, you support your local economy. You talk to your neighbors.

(Screenshot found here)

Walk Score admits there are many features currently overlooked by the software - like weather, design, safety, or topography, but it is still a pretty cool tool. Via Grist.

Hurrican Katrina and American Diaspora

Hurricane Katrina caused the biggest mass migration in U.S. history. More than than 1 million people were forced to evacuate. Although many people have been able to return home, many are still displaced.

Thousands will not be able to return for years, both because the damage is so catastrophic and because so many were already living in poverty. Many experts are telling churches and other groups to focus on helping people relocate permanently.

So where are they?


This neat map was based on more than 40,000 postings on Internet "safe lists" by Katrina survivors. ePodunk analyzed messages containing both the person's hometown and the location after fleeing the storm. It only shows American cities, though I know some ended up in Canada, and I'm sure elsewhere also. If you click to the full version of the map you can run your cursor over the points on the map to see city names and to click to information about the community.

Fun Stuff at Laboratory Andre-Michelle

Too much heaviness. I need some fun. Fortunately the interwebs have no shortage. This is all from Laboratory Andre-Michelle.

Scratching

Scratch a vinyl with actionscript. Unfortunatley you need a fast computer, since I tried to implement a very low latency time.

Chillout Planet Earth - very zen

Need a rest? Watch these cute sound particles, representing notes from different patterns, which are mixed together to keep the suspense. This experiment is completely synthesized running a polyphonic synthesizer, based on this study and a stereo-delay on 16Bit, 22.050Khz.

They are no external sources, just code. The size of the SWF is about 8kb. If your computer is too slow, try the video I’ve uploaded to youtube.

Chill out planet earth!

FL909

FL909 attempts to simulate the original sound of the Roland TR-909. This drumcomputer hits the market 1984 and was a long time the state of art in house and techno productions. Shift-Click the Step-buttons for accent triggers. Shift-Click-Move knobs for smoother resolution. Press Save to store a snapshot of the current settings to a flash cookie. Restore snapshot by pressing Load. Clear to delete all patterns and reset all knobs. Drag and drop a pattern button (invisible) to copy a pattern to a new location.

And here's a 303

Flanger Audio Processor

This is a very simple Stereo Flanger algorithm I developed last night. However it has a nice bright tone color. Keep playing with the parameters. I can listen to it for hours. Move the MIX slider to the left for the original loop sound (dry).

Color Traces - beautiful

Move you mouse to attract the particles. They will leave a color trace on their way. Click to clear the canvas.

Interactive coolness.

American Electoral Politics - Mortal Kombat Style

Considering how the media covers elections (much like a horse race), this cool flash game is probably better for exploring the real issues. Watch the intro, it's pretty funny.

Unfortunately I keep losing. Damn Hillary is too slow. Her Bill Clinton attack is cool though - like a big blue ghost. Next up - I'm going to play as McCain.

Via Neatorama

Other political video games

RACE: Are We So Different? - Interactive

A look at race through three different lenses: History, Human Variation, Lived Experience. With videos, quizzes, an interactive timeline, and more cool features. It's anti-essentialist, but does show that which side of the privilege fence you're born on provides for very different experiences. In other words, in this culture and society, race does still matter. Be sure to check out the blog while you're there, too. (especially this post, commented on by Robert Jensen)

6 Billion Others

Wow. Just wow.

6 Billion Others is probably the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. "6 billion Others' aims to create a sensitive and human portrait of the inhabitants of the planet." You choose one of thousands of photos. You'll be taken to a page where there's a seamless video of that person speaking about Love, Fear, Dreams...

It's incredibly powerful to look into the eyes of regular people from all over the world - a refugee from Darfur, or a man from the former Yugoslavia, a woman in Kenya, a teenager in Korea - while they talk about what they fear and hope for. Go. Look. Listen.

The Gender Genie Thinks I'm a Dude

Via Do you Blog Like a Girl?, comes the Gender Genie, which is supposed to predict the gender of an author.

I ran several of my posts through; here are my results:

• Microcredit and Women Empowerment - Female Score: 692, Male Score: 993. The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!
  
• Humanitarian War in Afghanistan? Female Score: 581, Male Score: 857 - The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!
  
• The Fraser Institute and Drowning Public Education in a Bathtub Female Score: 888, Male Score: 854 - The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!
  
• Class and The Pursuit of Happyness - Female Score: 434, Male Score: 817 - The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!
  
• Pseudo-Scientific Hate Propaganda and "Women Drivers" - Female Score: 363, Male Score: 1039 - The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!
  
• International Women's DayFemale Score: 424, Male Score: 985 - The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!
  
• Blame the Victims Female Score: 594, Male Score: 2068 -
  The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!
  

So, despite the fact that almost all of these were wrong, apparently the algorithm is pretty accurate.

Interestingly, I took a nice long post from Daddy Dialectic: peein like a boy, or the follies of fathering in which the author talks about being a father. The results: "Female Score: 2014, Male Score: 1903 - The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!"

Which leads me to wonder if my voice would be more "female" if I wrote more about personal relationships and less about politics and social issues? If so, that means the "out of the home" topics are still largely the purvey of men, while "in the home" topics are womens' topics. Or is "serious" writing considered to be male? Or do I feel the need to take on a "male" writing style when discussing serious topics? Is there really such a thing as a female or male voice, or are we simply so programmed to communicate differently? Are these different linguistic styles simply a clear demonstration of patriarchy? Are women relational communicators due to our subordinate position in the hierarchy? In which case, does my "male" voice indicate I'm not writing submissively? Or is it because women are still the primary caregivers - then of course we'd communicate more relationally?

Or is this tool just bunk?

Try it out yourself. Choose posts that are longer than 500 words, and that quote the least from other sources, so as to ensure your own style comes through. Let me know if it is accurate.

A Virtual Demo of A New Urbanist Community

Cool interactive tool from National Geographic lets you explore a community based on New Urbanist design principles. There's medium density, mixed-use zoning, light rail transport, corner stores, walkable streets, subsidized housing, public squares and lots of trees!

Related Article on Urban Sprawl

via Grist

Dense cities are environmentally friendly and they can have immense social benefits too, compared to sprawling suburbs and gated communities connected by vast highways. For example, cities help regulate fear.

This is a good opportunity to plug a great book Carfree Cities by J.H. Crawford. You don't have to buy the book, though, as most of the info is available for free on the Carfree Cities website.

The Gapminder World Brings Vital Global Data to Life

Really Cool!

Video via TED Blog
This very entertaining and informative 20 minute talk by Hans Rosling (public health expert) brings vital global data to life. He showcases a lot of powerful data in a very easy-to-understand visual moving display. And for sports fans, it features instant replays.

The best thing is, you can play with the incredible graphing software he uses for FREE! Try the incredibly easy to use Google Tool or the full thing at Gapminder.org.

As discussed in an earlier post of mine, when you map the fertility rate with women as a percentage of the labour force (hit "play" to see it change over time) there is some correlation. The correlation with contraceptive use is even stronger, as expected. A reduction in Child mortality, improvement in income and girls' education are also strong predictors of lowered fertility rate.

My only criticism is that I think it should be possible to map Income Inequality as an indicator against all the other indicators. Also I'd like to see Median Income rather than income per capita, which flattens disparities. BTW, if anyone can help me find those indicators on this software, please let me know it in the comments. Also on my wish list, I'd love to be able to map things like "minimum wage" with "economic growth".

Puts Things in Perspective, Doesn't It?

If there were... 100 People in the USA:

(From The Rational Radical): If 100 people collectively own $100.00, here's how it would be distributed as per current U.S. wealth distribution:

1 person gets $38.10
4 people get $5.32 each
5 people get $2.30 each
10 people get $1.25 each
20 people get .60 each
20 people get .23 each
40 people get half a penny each

So, as per Democratic Space, is a wealthy country one with the most rich or the fewest poor?

If there were... 100 people on Earth

What would the Earth be like if it were a village of 100 people? Watch The Miniature Earth (It's really good) to find out... Via The Skwib.

How Rich Am I?

To get an idea of how rich we really are, check out the interactive Global Rich List. If you live in a Western country, even a modest income will place you in the top 10% of the richest people in the world.

How Many People are in the World?

As I go about my life, I feel like pretty much the centre of my world, but I am aware that there are billions of other subjects out there (or as a wise woman I know used to say: "you aren't the bellybutton of the world"). Indeed, there's a heckuva lot of people in the world. 6.5 billion is a really big number... too big to wrap one's mind around. So, check out Population:One and remember, one pixel is one person.

Does History Matter?

Anyways, to prove the past really did exist, check out this series of photographs of Iraq in 1918. A_Resident bought them at a yard sale. History is important. The past really did exist, and events of the past affect the present. The Middle East was a colonized area (many countries still are), and the results of that are still being played out.

---

UPDATE: DEC 15
Of all places, in MSN Money: "Got $2,200? In this world, you're rich. A global study reveals an overwhelming wealth gap, with the world's three richest people having more money than the poorest 48 nations combined."

Body Image Issues... Gee, I Wonder Why

Which is real?
Could the damaging affects of poor body image in women (and, increasingly, in men) have a little something to do with retouched celebrities and models like you see here, here (look at the before/after images), and here?

Fascinating, and scary. Interactive web site with more details about how the picture on the left was produced here.

Lie By Lie: How the Iraq War was Sold

Mother Jones has a really neat, interactive timeline showing just how the case for the war on Iraq was made, starting in 1990. This is nothing controversial - they use lots of well-known mainstream sources - but it is the placing of everything in context which is so effective. The floating Cheney heads were a little creepy, though. Definitely check it out.

Do You Have Hidden Biases?

Take a Quiz to see if you have hidden biases.

Read more at Tolerance.org

Political Videogames

You can play a sim McDonald's videogame: You have to slaughter cows, exploit workers, advertise to children... all in the name of profit! It's just like the real world. "You'll discover all the dirty secrets that made us one of the biggest company of the world." This is a flash game, so there's nothing to download.

More neat games include:

• Disaffected: A Kinko's Parody Game
  
• Orgasm Stimulator - Be careful or your partner will know you're faking!
  
• Food Force - Learn about world hunger
  
• Dick Cheney's Texas Takedown
  

Here's a big site devoted to the use of video games for advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.
Enjoy!

More: Fun, Health

How Class Works - Interactive - very neat

From the NY Times special section: Class Matters (duh), a very neat interactive graphic and poll. Try it yourself: What class are you?

According to this, I'm:
Occupation: 35th percentile
Education: 69th percentile
Income: 69th percentile
Wealth: 25th percentile
AVERAGE: 49th percentile

Which is pretty much right in the middle of Middle Class...