Tag: mashups

NYC by Robert Moses

I present my Google Maps version of the proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway and Mid Manhattan Expressways. (I didn’t know how to draw maps to look like Google Maps but it’s pretty easy.) Now there have been maps showing these proposed highways before (they are included in my Unbuilt Highways Map of NYC) but the point of doing it up to look like a Google Map was to put these highways in a modern context (also I’m sure there are plenty of people who didn’t even know about these). We have become so accustomed to viewing the world through Google Maps that I feel like these maps are starting to shape our view point of the city.

Wait, whaaaaaa?

EveryBlock

We aim to collect all of the news and civic goings-on that have happened recently in your city, and make it simple for you to keep track of news in particular areas. We’re a geographic filter — a “news feed” for your neighborhood, or, yes, even your block.

holovatys next mashup
2008-01-25: nice job. hopefully nice visualization like this will increase government transparency. like, why is the crime data several months old?

Semantic web mashups

To define a facet, you drag/drop the column name to another area of the canvas. For my merged exhibit, I used the facets origin (i.e., CSAIL vs CCNMT), plus group, position, and building.

Then I exported the merged data into the same JSON format as the original sources, cloned one of the pages, and referenced the merged data set. From there it was just a bit of tweaking to make the div elements in the HTML page reference the facets that I’d defined.

Stunning. Behind the scenes it’s all RDF, but the point is that nobody needs to know or care about that. And the larger point is that the Simile folks — having spent years fighting ontology wars — have now gone AWOL. The new stance is: Everybody gets to name their fields as they prefer, and mashup tools like Potluck can define equivalences among them. All the original source data, and all the merged data, is available in a common format that translates into grist for the engines in the RDF mill. All the data, and all the interactive behavior associated with the data, is cleanly separated from the presentation.

he really likes what he sees. and so do i. this needs to ride on the coattails of someone to get wide exposure

RiffTrax

Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy, the former stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000, create commentaries for B-movie oddities and Hollywood blockbusters. It’s like watching a movie with your funniest friends!

MST3K successor. has the commentary separately so they don’t have to pay royalties. clever!