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I'm a writer, editor and project manager at a large international publishing company. I'm also a bit of a geek and a triathlete, although the fried chicken and sweet tea is battling me on that one.
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I'm a writer, editor and project manager at a large international publishing company. I'm also a bit of a geek and a triathlete, although the fried chicken and sweet tea is battling me on that one.
My Google Profile
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This guest post was written by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who was elected to the position in 2003 and reelected in 2007. In this guest post, Mayor Newsom announces plans to build an Open platform for the City’s 311 Customer Service Center for developers to build applications on top of it.
Earlier this year, we announced a first of its kind application that allows San Franciscans to access the City’s 311 Customer Service Center via Twitter.
With a tweet or text — potholes, broken street lights and other issues are being reported and fixed. The 311-Twitter service has made it easier for constituents to connect with government and has helped city agencies respond to problems faster.
The 311 Center is at the heart of our efforts to improve government accountability and transparency. Since its launch in March 2007, 311 has answered over 7 million calls and thousands of more requests online.
Each week, I receive reports of what services citizens are requesting and if they are being fixed. Now thanks to a web site called EveryBlock anybody can get a detailed break down of what people are asking for by block, neighborhood, zip code and day. This section of EveryBlock was created from a 311 data feed available on DataSF.org and is featured in the DataSF App Showcase.
The expansion of 311 to Twitter and the Internet was just the beginning of opening access to city services.
Today, I am pleased to announce that we are going to transform 311 into a tool of even greater value by building an Open 311 platform. Open 311 will allow software developers to write web applications that do two things: 1) get service request data from the 311 system, and 2) submit new service requests to city departments.
Making an Open 311 API (Application Programming Interface) available to our tech savvy citizens will open the current 311 service to those who wish to build applications on top of it.
We hope that many applications will be built from Open 311. For example, a smart phone application that allows citizens to easily report new issues to city departments with their device’s camera and GPS system. This would create mapped and photographed issues that make it easier for the city to locate, investigate and resolve problems.
The success of DataSF and the DataSF App Showcase has proven that the public will create innovative applications when given access to the information they need. We anticipate the same response and innovation from Open 311.
If you are interested in using the Open 311 API, we would like to hear from you.
Join Mayor Newsom on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, SamValtenbergs
Tags: developers, open 311, San Francisco-San Jose
Meet the senators who voted against Al Franken’s amendment which punishes contractors that “restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.”
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)
Lovely to see so many “family values” conservatives on the list.
A new Brookings Institution study on U.S. air travel concluded–unsurprisingly–that delays will worsen when travel rebounds, and that delays are generally concentrated in the busiest metropolitan areas. But the study also includes interesting data on the country’s most heavily-traveled air corridors.
For many years, the airline industry has seen New York LaGuardia-Boston Logan as the busiest short-haul route in the U.S. and LAX-New York JFK as the most heavily traveled long-haul route. Brookings analyzed the data with a slightly broader lens, lumping all airports together in metropolitan areas.
The ten busiest air corridors will familiar to frequent travelers. The No. 1 route may be the most surprising, the result of JetBlue’s push to make South Florida New York’s sixth borough with frequent flights and low fares, and the competitive response from other airlines. There are eight commercial airports in the New York and Miami regions, and they supported 8.7 million travelers on that route over the 12-month period ending March 2009. The New York-Miami route is so busy that it saw 2.4 million more passengers than the No. 2 route, between Northern and Southern California.
Top 10 Corridors Based on Number of Passengers
1. Miami-Fort Lauderdale area and New York City area
2. Los Angeles Basin area and San Francisco Bay area
3. Atlanta area and Miami area
4. Chicago area and New York area
5. Atlanta area and New York area
6. Los Angeles area and New York area
7. New York area and Orlando, Fl., area
8. New York area and London, U.K.
9. Las Vegas area and Los Angeles area
10. Los Angeles area and Phoenix area
The Brookings report recommends that these air-travel statistics be used to prioritize investment in high-speed rail. At 400 miles or less, high-speed rail can been air travel in time, typically with less pollution. That makes Los Angeles-San Francisco, Las Vegas-Los Angeles, Los Angeles-Phoenix and Dallas-Houston the most likely candidates for high-speed rail, in that order.
More than 6 million people fly between the Los Angeles basin and San Francisco Bay per year, the study said. In the northeast corridor, Amtrak carried 11.7 million people on Acela and Northeast Regional lines in fiscal 2008, hitting 14 metropolitan areas. The Amtrak ridership suggests high-speed rail would be viable in out busiest air corridors, the study concluded.
Would you be interested in high-speed rail as an alternative to air travel?
Reposted from Tucson Bike Lawyer:
Folks, that is a photograph of seven year old Kylie Bruehler. She is at a funeral service to bury her parents, both of whom were killed last week when a driver veered onto the shoulder and drove his pickup truck into them.
They were riding together on a tandem.
The local news reports that “investigators say there are no charges on the driver. They believe this was an accident and that somehow the driver lost control of his truck.”
Texas’s governor recently vetoed a law that would mandate a safe passing distance for cyclists, saying it was unnecessary.
Have you signed up for the ProBlogger Community yet? Bloggers all over the Internet have been writing about how much they really enjoy these forums, and how useful they are. I couldn’t agree more.
Here are the top 11 reasons why I’m totally diggin’ the ProBlogger Community thus far. Your reasons may be different, but here’s what I’m getting out of it.
1. You have easy access to top bloggers.
Want to get noticed by some top bloggers? Well hello, start here. Some of them are quieter than others on the forums, but they’re around. And they’re listening.
2. It’s an easy way to drive traffic to your own blog.
We all know (or maybe only some of us know) that forums can be a good way to drive traffic to your blog. Well combine that with the fact that those active on these forums are, by nature, looking for new ideas and information, and are plugged into the Internet pretty heavily, and you have yourself a traffic-generation winner. I’ve seen my traffic increase since being involved on these forums.
3. There are essentially zero spammers.
Darren knew what he was doing by charging for access to the forums. This keeps the spammers and obnoxious people (most of them, anyways) out of the forums. I’ve definitely noticed how hassle-free it is compared to other forums.
4. Newbie bloggers are receiving lots of love and support.
I love it! Newbie bloggers have a safe environment to ask questions. It’s cool to see bloggers pitching in to educate those that are new to blogging.
5. I’m learning about resources and tools I’ve never even heard of.
That’s a pretty nice perk. I’m always up for broadening my horizons.
6. I’ve found and been in contact with new bloggers in my market(s).
I’ve sent and received some emails from people I didn’t even know were in my market(s). Now they’re on my radar and we can exchange ideas and keep tabs on eachother.
7. You can find guest posters in an instant.
Seriously, this has got to be one of the easiest ways to get guest posters now. It cuts down on a lot of time spent searching for people, and searching for blogs to write on.
8. You can learn more about what’s “normal” and what isn’t.
People are distributing polls over on the forums to find out what’s “normal”. I think this is a great way to learn how you stack up to your peers.
9. You can get in touch with and meet people before events.
That way you don’t have to go to events knowing no one.
10. You can find people to collaborate and create alliances with.
There’s an entire collaboration area over at the ProBlogger Community. How cool is that?
11. Shooting the breeze with other bloggers.
Often times (at least for me anyways) your conversations with other bloggers will be centered around blogging topics and your market. Over at the forums, you can get to know other bloggers on a more personal level. For example, some people over there now know that I am an HGTV addict, and that my football teams are the Steelers and the Penn State Nittany Lions. If someone didn’t ask directly, those topics would never come up in conversation.
If you haven’t signed up yet, don’t let the measly price tag scare you off. It really is worth it. No matter what your blog’s market is, I think you’ll find some value in being a part of the ProBlogger Community.
What about you? Are you a part of the ProBlogger Community? What’re you getting out of it thus far?
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Two ships full of Somali pirates spotted a cargo ship in the Indian Ocean, 250 nautical miles off the Somali coast. Ready to pilfer, plunder and otherwise pirate a bountiful booty, they set toward the cargo ship under the dark of night, AK-47s ablaze. That is, until they got close enough to see that their cargo ship full of riches was in fact a French Naval vessel, full of armed soldiers.
What then proceeded is something of a Monty Python skit. The sailors, some of whom had directed commando operations to free French hostages taken by the pirates, chased one of the boats for over an hour. When boarded the ship they found that the boat of would-be thieves jettisoned their water, food and weapons, pretending to just be a bunch of guys hanging out on a dinghy at night on the Indian Ocean.
The other boat escaped and has yet to be found.
Olivier Amalvict/AFP/Getty Images
