Today's Document
trying on a metaphor
Xuebing Du
tumblr dot com
Cosimo Galluzzi
tannertan36
shark vs the universe
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Origami Around
Jules of Nature
#extradirty
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
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i don't do bad sauce passes
Janaina Medeiros
d e v o n
NASA
styofa doing anything
PR's Tumblrdome
seen from United Kingdom
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@mathildepiard
BuzzFeed now de-emphasizes open rate as a “silver bullet” metric: It looks instead at click rate, the number of links readers click and how long each reader spends with the email.
How newsletters became one of BuzzFeed’s top sources of traffic, Poynter.org
More should do this, and not just in media. Frankly I'm sick of the sleezy email tactics of a lot of advocacy & politcal orgs I otherwise care about.
I now own a fixie, yo.
"These are so nice!!" @moore27 gives the @BikeShareATL prototype two thumbs up, at the @atlantabike commuter breakfast at Thumbs Up. (at Thumbs Up Diner)
The real causes of the 2014 Atlanta Snowjam: Recommended Reading
So I wrote this last night before going to bed. It was inspired by what many of friends posted on Facebook. I didn’t have time to reshare anything, since work from home days for me actually do mean I have to work (even if it means scouring Facebook). But I did want to gather a few thoughts that y’all inspired, and the best links I saw – if, for nothing else, then for myself, my parents who check everything I post on Facebook, and the Code for America fellows who will be arriving in Atlanta imminently.
TL;DR: Stop blaming the lack of snow plows & salt trucks and the driving skills of Southerners for what happened in Georgia this week. The problem was poor regional and state leadership and planning. To quote my friend Jasen Johns, Why don't we talk about transportation and urban planning issues on this lovely, snowy day, y'all?
Like, the lack of rail transit options in our region, the bikability of our city, or hey, even our crappy sidewalks (and sometimes complete lack thereof of). Maybe it’s time we talk about that Plan B that never materialized after the failure of the transportation referendum in 2012. Maybe it’s time invest transit - something that works well but has the potential to work well for more of metro Atlantans, like my friend Leslie Caceda said (in case you didn’t hear, despite some delays, MARTA ran trains all night last night).
So please, stop sharing that stupid photo tiny dinky snowplow. We've actually got an amazing opportunity here to have a serious conversation about the state of our transportation. The snowplow meme misses the mark completely. Yes, a little humor doesn't hurt, but I just find humor more funny when it's accurately poking fun at something, rather than spreading misinformation – like WSB-TV’s “loltastic” traffic ticker, part 1 and 2 for example - I thought that was hilarious.
If you’re wondering how widespread the situations described in the media were, I can tell you that I personally knew people in every type of scenario: at least one coworker I know of slept at the office, several folks were stuck in their cars from around 1pm on Tuesday until Wednesday morning (some with their toddlers they managed to rescue at some point in the night), several friends were among those heroes described further below (like the couple who got a lady having a panic attack on the connector to safety, let two strangers crash on their air mattress, gave out a bunch of Gatorade, and helped people get cars up hills until the early hours).
Recommended viewing & reading:
This awesome time-lapse video of a bike commuter’s ride home. With awesome music. Love it when he weaves through gridlocked intersections (but respects every red light). See above comment about getting real options so we're not completely a car-dependent city.
This Is The Best Explanation We've Seen For Why All Of Atlanta Is Stuck In Traffic, from MetaFilter via Business Insider. As the headline indicates, a good explanation of what went down, practically speaking. This post from Thought Catalogue is also a really good, funny, and slightly shorter read.
How 2 Inches of Snow Created a Traffic Nightmare in Atlanta, by Atlantic contributor (and Govathoner) Conor Sen. Great article that explains the political context in Atlanta.
The Day We Lost Atlanta - How 2 lousy inches of snow paralyzed a metro area of 6 million, by Atlanta Magazine deputy editor Rebecca Burns, on Politico.com. Even more awesome political context, specifically about Atlanta transportation history. Along the same lines, Atlanta Is a Regional Transportation Planning Disaster, from Slate
Why the South Fell Apart in the Snow, from Gizmodo. Best article on explaining generally what happened in the South to people in the North who don’t get it. In summary:
“If you're making light of the situation, or more realistically using it to reinforce your view of the South and the people in it as full of backwards blubberers, you are an asshole. It's hard to remember sometimes, but things are different in places you do not personally live.”
UPDATE: this post, titled "Y’all Laughin at Us? Bless Your Hearts…" is petty funny, in an even less serious kind of way
And while we’re talking about the South, here’s what we’re really made of: Business Insider has a pretty awesome listicle of awesome ways Atlantans have been helping each other out, and of course BuzzFeed also had its version, titled “Southern Hospitality (aka How To Restore Your Faith In Humanity With Eight Simple Photos)”
As stressed-out commuters disengage, they leave the political arena to the most partisan voters.
In case you missed it, this morning NPR had one of their most interesting pieces in a while, about how commutes can shape civic & political engagement: generally, research has shown that the longer the commute, the less politically active people are. What was super interesting was this however: longer commutes disproportionately affect the poor. "As we go up the income ladder, the effects that commuting have on political engagement actually decrease until we get to the very wealthy, where the longer your commute, the more likely you are to be politically engaged." And this had me thinking about Atlanta, and how hellacious commutes - for everyone - could potentially be having a combined effect to make for a wealthier, more politically active (and probably more likely conservative) part of the population, versus poorer, civically disengaged other half. What does this mean for our politics in general? And does it create a vicious cycle when it comes to transportation politics in our region, as conservative politics beget policies that make commutes worse, paving the way for more politically active conservatives, etc etc. I realize I'm probably oversimplifying the research, but it still made me wonder what more I - and we - could do to encourage both bicycling (or at least better commutes) and civic engagement from less affluent fellow Atlantans.
The comprehensive ONA13 guide to Atlanta
Ok journo nerd friends who have descended upon the city that I love to attend the Online News Association annual conference, I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for a month now. I was going to give up but this morning at registration folks were still asking me to post it, so here goes (with a disclaimer first: I wrote this during sessions on my iPad, so please excuse the stream-of-consciousness style, post length, any typos, and lack of formatting & hyperlinks - will edit to fix later)
ONA13 is in Downtown Atlanta, which is where most of the touristy stuff is concentrated. The Aquarium, CNN, World of Coca Cola, and the new SkyView Ferris Wheel are all around Centennial Olympic Park, which is minutes walking from the conference hotel. Of those, I’d recommend the Aquarium (one of the best in the world) and a CNN tour (I shouldn’t have to explain the appeal to a bunch of journalists). Everyone I know who has been to the World of Coke ended up very disappointed. You’ve been warned.
All night food options near the conference: Waffle House (founded & based here) and Landmark Diner. Other nearby restaurant recommendations: Alma Cocina and the original Ted’s Montana Grill (with bison burgers originating from Ted Turner’s Montana ranches - Ted lives in the penthouse condo of that building so he’s usually there for lunch himself). Will add others later. UPDATE - Nearby bars: Sidebar, Park Bar, Meehans, Trader Vic's (tiki bar in the Hilton Atlanta with $5 mai tais + awesomely cheesy live band on Thursdays), SkyLounge (rooftop bar at the Glenn Hotel), Sun Dial (rotating restaurant & bar a the top of the Westin), Slice (pizza place with a bar & lounge-y feel). OTHER ADDITIONS - Breakfast places near the conference: In addition to Landmark Diner & the Waffle House, there's also Le French Quarter Cafe (breakfast croissants etc - French approved by me, so you know it's the real deal), Reuben's Deli (H&H bagels flown down daily from NYC, plus eggs, hash fries, etc), Corner Bakery, Dunkin Donuts...
Top recommendation to see a ton of stuff in 1 1/2 to 3 hours: http://www.biketoursatl.com
My personal top off the beaten path sightseeing recommendation is to check out Oakland Cemetery (get an audio guide and take the tour) - it’s beautiful and you’ll learn a lot about Atlanta’s fascinating history (yes, I’m a big history nerd). There are great rooftop bars overlooking the cemetery with views of the Downtown skyline, Ria’s Bluebird is one of the city’s most famous breakfast/brunch spots (one New York Times columnist said their pancakes were the best he’d ever had), and Octane Coffee is a local favorite coffee shop (with a tumblr dedicated to its hot hipster baristas). Neighborhood: Oakland Cemetery in Grant Park. MARTA stop: King Memorial.
Same MARTA stop, but different direction is the MLK center and the Sweet Auburn Historic District, which also includes King’s childhood home and Ebenezer Baptist Church (where King delivered his sermons), Sweet Auburn Curb Market (tons of great places to eat in there). This is an amazing neighborhood with such important history - it used to boast the most concentrated Black prosperity in the world. Edgewood Ave is also full of great places to go out: Church (it’s a bar) should not be missed (ping pong, the best sangria I’ve ever had, really religiously offensive art, and choir robes - need I say more?), I love Joystick (great slightly more chill place with old school arcade games and great cocktails), myself and all my friends are addicted to the lamb burger at Mother, and my favorite place to go dancing on a Saturday night in Atlanta is Noni’s (most diverse dance floor ever and awesome way to experience the Dirty South). Neighborhood: Sweet Auburn in Old Fourth Ward. MARTA stop: King Memorial
Midtown is where I live, and as journalists, you should all appreciate visiting the Margaret Mitchell house. The author of Gone with the Wind was a journalist first - she was born into a wealthy family that she was pretty much shunned from for her career and husband choices. Across the street is Empire State South, an award winning restaurant with modern southern cuisine. Further south is the famous Fox Theater, which has tours (it’s stunning inside and well worth it); further north is High Museum and the Museum of Design Atlanta (art lovers should also check out Living Wall murals all over the city - one of the aforementioned bike tours is a great way to see them - and the Castleberry Hill art district just a little behind CNN). Also in Midtown is Piedmont Park (the city’s main big park, designed by the sons of the Fredrerick Law Olmsted, architect of New York’s Central Park - who apparently was also a journalist). At the north end of the park is the beautiful but expensive Botanical Gardens, and at the south-eastern corner is the beginning of the Eastside trail of be BeltLine. If you’re into urban design and the idea of New York’s Highline, definitely check out Atlanta’s BeltLine - the Highline’s much more ambitious and potentially transformative cousin (although admittedly perhaps less visually stunning) - very leisurely bike tour available for this too. Neighborhood: Midtown. MARTA stops: North Ave (Fox), Midtown (Margaret Mitchell House & Piedmont Park), and Arts Center (Museums).
Fans of The Walking Dead should check out Atlanta Movie Tours. Beer lovers should check out the multiple breweries we have (and I think there’s a company that offers van tours that take you brewery to brewery) and delicious gastropubs (I especially like the Porter in Little Five Points, a quirky neighborhood with thrift, record & comic book stores, and the Brick Store with 100s, nay 1000s of beers on the menu, in Decatur, a cute town accessible on MARTA)
Other eclectic recommendations: the Clermont Lounge (just google it) and Sunday night karaoke at Southern Comfort (try to tell the authentic truckers and southern hipsters apart - not easy)
Stay away from: Buckhead (unless you’re into corporate soulless ritzy areas with bars frequented by bros, malls and financial districts) and the Varsity (yes it’s a famous and old school drive-in, but the food is nasty and it represents & reinforces all the worse stereotypes about Atlanta: a tacky car dependent city with an obesity problem).
Other food recommendations: so many! Just check out Yelp. But seriously, if you’re looking for classic southern fare, I recommend the Colonnade (you’ll need a car or cab). Mary Mac’s Tea Room is closer but not as good and more touristy. The “modern southern cuisine” scene is amazing (think hipster foods like pimento cheese, sweet potatoes etc) - in addition to Empire State South, I love One Eared Stag, and it’s also right off of MARTA (I think the Inman Park station). Vegans can still get their southern fix by hitting up Soul Vegetarian (one in the West End, off of MARTA, the other in Poncey Highlands). The Flying Biscuit is a beloved local chain. Try to get some good BBQ. Tons of celebrity chef owned & run restaurants - quick google search should find them for you. Buford Highway has every single kind of ethnic eatery from South America and Asia you can dream of (you’ll need a car or a long cab ride). Atlanta boasts some of the best burgers in the country (at least according to this WSJ article) - the Vortex is delicious (there’s one in Little 5 Points and the other in Midtown) and ordering a ghetto burger from Ann’s Snack Bar is an experience.
You’re still reading this?! Goodness, you must be really interested in Atlanta. That warms my heart. You should read this most excellent blog post to understand why the people who live here love this city so much. In the mood for something lighter? Here are some spot-on gifs.
Business-school literature has long stressed the importance of taking risks and encouraging rapid failure. In the real world of quarterly numbers, though, embracing failure mostly remains a throwaway line in CEO speeches.
Interesting look from Jason Seiken, Senior vice president and general manager of digital at PBS, at how he got his team to "fail more" and how they the usual fate of an incumbent traditional culture blotting out any challengers.
Two Midtown (Atlanta) events of interest this week: a hackathon & an open house about MARTA station improvements
Two really interesting events in just one week! Both organized (in part at least) by the Midtown Alliance:
MARTA, Midtown Alliance, and Atlanta Regional Commission are holding an open house to get as much input from the public as possible on an exciting new initiative to improve the MARTA stations in the Midtown area (Arts Center, Midtown and North Avenue) and to transform them into neighborhood destinations. Wednesday, September 11, 2013. RSVP here
The Midtown Buzz Mobile Hackathon is the launch event of a six-month initiative to build connected mobile applications to improve and enhance the Midtown experience. There are three prize categories (and some nice prizes too):
Wayfinder - enhance the visitor experience in Midtown as they live, work and play. What are some cool local sites, shops, tours, and other things that make Midtown unique?
Transportation - make it easeir to travel around Midtown by foot, bike, or automobile. Where are the bike racks? What is my easiest route through the MARTA stations? What are my parking options?
Wildcard - propose your own idea or grab some from the idea bank.
All the teams participating (and new teams who emerge along the way) will have the chance to continue their work after the launch hackathon to vie for an even bigger prizes to be awarded in January to those who successfully release their apps to the market. Friday, September 13 to Saturday, September 14, 2013. RSVP here
Woah. 3D printing took on a whole new level of coolness for me: 3D-printed titanium bike parts. (And there's a pretty sick video to go with it too)
Another nerdy things + bikes post
"Saudi women can now legally bike in public, under certain conditions. On Monday, Saudi Arabia's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice overturned a previous ban on cycling and motorbiking for women. The ruling stipulates that women must wear a full-body abaya, be accompanied by a male relative, and stay within certain areas. They are allowed to bike for recreational purposes only, not as a primary mode of transportation."
Via Al Jazeera English
The stores offer fresh and healthy food, and offer rides home if you spend more than $50.
I'm not sure how I missed this awesome Kickstarter until now (granted, it's only 10 days old, but apparently it's been featured all over online): it's a GPS tracker for your bicycle, with an open API, tamper detection and automatic crash reporting. "The BikeSpike is backed by the world’s smallest GPS chipset with a built-in antenna, an on-board accelerometer, and a connection to a global cellular network." What this means is that you can digitally "lock" your bike (geofencing) and get notified if your bike moves from its spot, monitor its location on a map using a computer or phone (native iOS and android app included) and share said location with law enforcement or friends - a feature you can also do use for fun, when racing etc, or to monitor your children and get notified when they ride out of their safe zone.
But here's the best part: it's going to have an open API!
This solves about half a dozen bike problems I've brainstormed with others at various hackathons and unconferences, like RHoK and TransportationCamp. The collision detection system & police report creation (I wonder how folks like Bike Safe Boston and Bike Safe Nation could leverage this), being able to share your bike's location (oh, the possibilities! Like social bike commuting apps for bike trains. Or initiatives like Cycle Atlanta or CycleTracks in San Francisco and a bunch of other cities), road quality reporting, fitness apps (although, aren't there already plenty enough of those?) etc etc.
Only thing I'm wondering, regarding the bike theft & recover aspect of the product: I know they say it's got tamper detection, but it seems like it wouldn't be that difficult to remove the device from the bike when you're stealing it... right? Especially if you're already stealing a bike anyway.
NPR story about kids' need to exercise ends up being about biking, traffic, and urban planning
Today NPR's Morning Edition had another installment in their series On the Run: How Families Struggle to Eat Well and Exercise,
What I found really interesting is that this story, which was supposed to be about how parents struggle to make sure their kids get enough exercise, ended up being about biking, traffic, and urban planning. One mother talked about how she spends her afternoons in Los Angeles traffic, ferrying her two boys from one sporting activity to another. She explained that her eldest can't really just bike around in her neighborhood because it's not bike-friendly enough. The story also profiled two other moms, both in Portland, and I especially loved how both talked about the choices we make for ourselves, for our families, for our cities (emphasis is mine)
Fahrner and her family bike, walk or take public transportation everywhere. For them, exercise is something that happens as they live their daily lives, not something they schedule. Fahrner doesn't even own a car.
"We basically mapped out where the schools are, where hospitals are, where places to shop are, and so we very conscientiously picked a neighborhood where we can walk to all these things," she says
So when Fahrner is scheduling activities for her 10-year-old son, she looks at what's available in her neighborhood, choosing sports at local parks and community centers.
She and her husband used to work 70-hour weeks in the high-tech industry in California, but when their son was born they decided to simplify their lives and moved to Portland.
"It's a choice you have to make, and, yes, it's hard obviously," she says. "You need to look where your job is. But if you cut down your commute from two hours to one hour, you are much happier because you have more time for yourself ... and your kids."
Janelle McAvoy and her family are making the same kind of choices. She bikes to the grocery store with her 4-year-old daughter, Clover, in a trailer and sons Jack, 6, and Everett, 8, on their bikes.
[...]
And while she acknowledges that Portland is particularly pedestrian- and biker-friendly, McAvoy believes it's because of the choices people here are making.
"If people drive more, there's going to be the bigger parking lot and more space on the roads. If people walk more and ride their bikes more, [there will be] more bike racks because that's what the people want," she says.
Wow. When I saw this, at first I was like, beautiful visualization & animation. Then I was like, cool, I can segment the data by gun, victim's ethnicity, gender, age, location etc. And then I accidentally hovered over a line and I was like, WOAH, each line provides details for each of the nearly 10,000 people killed by guns in 2010 in the US, including their age, gender, race, relationship to killer, and more.
Two thoughts:
Filter the data for women and hover over the lines. Almost all of them were shot by their husband, boyfriend, or exes. I've heard the stats about how violence against women is almost always perpetrated by someone the victim knows, but to see it like this, and to this extent... just, wow. Seriously, can we talk/do something more about domestic violence pls?
According to my inbox, I first heard and starred an email about visual.ly 18 months ago, when it opened for public beta. Man, I really need to get better at getting around to those emails, bookmarkets etc. How have I not checked this out more by now?? Also, thanks to this visualization, I also found out about Periscopic, a "socially-conscious data visualization firm that helps companies and organizations promote information transparency and public awareness." With all the reading I do on Upworthy, how had I not heard about these guys yet?? Or have I but I wasn't paying attention? Either way, *swoon*
tl;dr: Check out the visualization above, filter by women, hover over the lines. Check out visual.ly and Periscopic.
3 events this Thursday of interest to nerds about cities, and Atlanta in particular
That would be Thursday, February 7th, 2013:
First Atlanta Studies Meet Up. These quarterly meetings will showcase 2 Atlanta focused projects and bring together a group of folks interested in our city.
Hannah Palmer will present a mapping project created from her research on places destroyed by Atlanta’s airport. Her book, "I’m From Here," is about going home again, or what’s left of it. Many of the locations explored and documented in the book have been nearly erased from existence, so she created a map. An Atlanta native, Hannah Palmer is an artist and writer who is interested in the intersection of southern stories and urban landscapes. Michael Page and Randy Gue will present on a project at Emory's Digital Scholarship Commons (DiSC) to create an application similar to Google Maps for Atlanta from the late 1920s through the early 1950s. Users will ultimately be able to add layers and tag attributes to a series of addresses in the historic city. This combination of GIS technology and unique datasets will change the way Jim Crow Atlanta is studied by allowing researchers to visualize social changes over time.
Open House / Community Meeting to discuss Ponce De Leon Avenue makeover
Over the next few years, Atlanta’s Ponce De Leon Avenue is slated for several road improvement projects which will enhance roadway efficiency and expand mobility options for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles on the facility. Proposed improvements include roadway resurfacing, lane reconfiguration, ADA accessibility upgrades, connectivity to the Beltline and improved access to existing public transportation service. Improvements will be concentrated between Juniper Street and Briarcliff Road/Moreland Ave with street resurfacing extending beyond this scope. The City of Atlanta and Atlanta BeltLine are partnering with the Georgia Department of Transportation to coordinate these projects.
BeltLine Run Club (happen about once/month - the February run will mark the one year anniversary of the run club!)
Join us for a 4 mile run as we head down the Eastside trail toward Irwin Street and back towards Park Tavern for some light appetizers, beer and fun! The Run/Walk will leave at 6:30pm and we will be meeting in the meadow behind Park Tavern.
Poster dedwards8 shared some excellent maps of cycle routes via Reddit. According to the post, these are maps that are created from “data entered by people using the CycleAtlanta app.”
The maps are a product of the “Transit Day Hack-a-Thon at Georgia Tech last week.”
Read more about the...
Despite this summer’s failure of the regional T-SPLOST referendum, there’s still one place where big new mass transit plans are cooking: the city of Atlanta
After T-SPLOST defeat, transit plans slowed, but not stopped Street car line under construction, private funding eyed for other projects ajc.com, 01/03/2013
