Electronic Frontier Foundation released a tool that analyzes how unique your browser fingerprint is.  I found it quite interesting that all three browsers on my work computer had unique fingerprints among the 104,584 tests that the site had conducted thus far.

In particular it’s interesting to see how little information needs to be looked at to be unique.   For instance, in Internet Explorer my User Agent string by itself is unique among all of the tests.  The same applies to my combination of browser plugin versions.   In Firefox my User Agent string appears in 1 out of 23.62 browsers, but my browser plugin combination is unique across all of the tests conducted thus far.

How do your browsers compare?  Panopticlick

A Peek Into Netflix Queues

The complexity only begins there. Each of the 17 walkability preferences are made up of 157,715,256 values arranged in a grid to cover the city. The values in your selected preferences need to be combined on the fly to generate your distinct map.    Thank goodness we have DecisionTree to power this immense calculation.

But measuring a city’s walkability is just the beginning.  Planning water resources, land use, better sidewalk networks and bike lanes, and distane from diverse habitats are just a few of the ways that geographic technology can help make our towns and citoes operate in a more sustainable manner.  Also have an obsession with walkability or sustainability?  We need your support and votes.  Voting runs from December 15th – January 7th.

On December 15th , vote to put walkability on the map.

Let’s dream for a second.

Let’s imagine being able to collect a realtime feed of what is going on in a particular location through a network of distributed listening nodes.   Let’s imagine being able to process this feed and analyze what is happening in real time.

Maybe we know about a tsunami 10 minutes earlier from villagers that experienced its power.   Maybe we know there was a spike in chatter about a shooting at a military base 3 minutes sooner.   Maybe we can market to consumers better based on how they react to a billboard in Times Square.

I see this dream becoming reality quite soon.   Twitter with geolocation is essentially a network of  distributed listening nodes for geographic data.    I don’t think we can really predict all the novel ways this is going to be used.

Have an idea for Twitter and geographic analysis?  We’d love to hear it:  info@azavea.com

Nonprofit technology is about eyeballs — attracting eyeballs, engaging eyeballs, and reporting on eyeballs. Whether the goal is to raise funds, advocate for a cause, or engage constituents, it is all about eyeballs. And here is the thing, we don’t spend enough time figuring out how to analyze those eyeballs.

Read the full post on NTEN’s blog:  Technology is all about the Eyeballs

Living Light (Seoul, 2009) from David Benjamin on Vimeo.

Redistricting the Nation allows the public to:

• Enter their address (nation-wide) and view the “shape” of their federal, state, and local election districts.
• Learn who is in charge of drawing the boundaries of their election districts (e.g., independent commissions or elected representatives).
• Compare the “compactness” scores of their election district to other, similar districts (less compact and unusually shaped districts are more likely to be gerrymandered).
• Draw new district boundaries on a map and generate compactness scores for the new district.

RedistrictingTheNation.com Screenshot

Walkshed provides the public with the ability to define what walkability means to them.   By generating a custom heatmap, they can explore Philadelphia and see what neighborhoods best match their factors.   For example, one person might define walkability based on living close to a library, coffee shops, and a shopping center while another person might define it as being close to public transit, carshare locations and a grocery store.   Thanks to DecisionTree, Walkshed enables each person to calculate the locations that best meet their weighted criteria and returns a map that reflects these scenarios “on the fly”.

We’re thrilled that you are finding the application of interest and sharing your feedback with us.  Check it out at walkshed.org.

This is the first time a portion of the map, spruced up and freshly painted, with small lights to pinpoint individual Olympic venues, has been seen in public since its home at the PNE was demolished in 1997.

The map was made by hand over 7 years by George Challenger.  Each of 986,000 plywood pieces was cut by hand and glued together to form the map.  Quite an amazing project.

Many people think the lines on the map no longer matter, but Parag Khanna says they do. Using maps of the past and present, he explains the root causes of border conflicts worldwide and proposes simple yet cunning solutions for each.