Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Map Hack & Chicago Crime Data

Posted by Hemos on from the good-applicatons dept.

joepez writes "In recent weeks we've seen some great Google Maps hacks (HousingMaps, Google's own Ride Finder, etc.), but this weekend Adrian has brought us something truly innovative. He's merged Google map data with Chicago crime data to present a once a day updated crime map of the entire city, including some really nice summarized data. Adrian calls the project Chicagocrime.org. How long till we have real time crime data showing up on Google's map? Pull open HousingMaps next to Chicagocrime.org and figure out if that low rent apartment is truly worth it. Or is this all a clever trick on Google's part to build up more and more third parties dependent upon Google?" There's also a cheap gas hack as well.

24 of 391 comments (clear)

  1. Why not both by millahtime · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Pull open HousingMaps next to Chicagocrime.org and figure out if that low rent apartment is truly worth it. Or is this all a clever trick on Google's part to build up more and more third parties dependent upon Google?

    Why can't it be both. And if there is a way to keep it free the better for me.

    --
    Evolution or ID?
  2. Sex Offender's Registry by killproc · · Score: 5, Interesting


    A better implementation for this would be to link to each individual State's sex offender's registry. This data is readily provided and is in the public domain.

    --
    When you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
    1. Re:Sex Offender's Registry by broller · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Better? Sex offender locations are better to know than general crime locations? Not when I'm deciding where to live it's not.

    2. Re:Sex Offender's Registry by Gr33nNight · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A friend of mine is labeled a sex offender because when he was 18, his girlfriend was 17 (3 months apart). His girlfriends mother called the policyeabout it and he got arrested. Now he is considered a sex offender.

      Not all sex offenders are child molesters and kiddie rapists.

    3. Re:Sex Offender's Registry by Monoman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Are you saying he is listed as a sex offender becuase he got arrested? I would think he would have to be convicted.

      --
      Keep the Classic Slashdot.
    4. Re:Sex Offender's Registry by Snoop+Donkey+Donk · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Our local newspaper had a blurb about a guy who was having problems coaching his kid's soccer team because they did a background check and he came up as a sex offender - he had been arrested during his college days for mooning.

    5. Re:Sex Offender's Registry by GlassUser · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Having knowledge as to the whereabouts of known sexual predators in your area is not "punishing" THEM.
      Being the father of two small children, I definitely am interested in the number of sexual predators in my area.
      Having perused my state's Offender's registry, I was surprised by the number of repeat offenders that are still loose on the streets.
      Knowing the areas that had a high concentration of rapists definitely played a part in my house hunting decisions

      The idea is all well and good. The problem is that overzealous DAs try to pile up charges and get people put on these things for inane reasons. I know a guy who (along with his friend) had to register on that because they put hand-drawn (and very low detail, unrecognizable if you didn't know what it was) copies of goatse on elementary school property (on a weekend). That's not exactly the same kind of thing as molesting an eight year old girl.

      --
      funny munging
    6. Re:Sex Offender's Registry by zerbot · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In our state, offenders are coded, and level 1 offenders like your 19 year old with a 15 year old girlfriend don't even show up. Some people think I am paranoid and overprotective about my children, I look at the map of level 2 and 3 sex offenders near my house and feel quite justified in that.

      Exact addresses are not given, just stuff like "1900 block of 25th Avenue".

    7. Re:Sex Offender's Registry by h4rm0ny · · Score: 5, Interesting


      A British newspaper did a bit of shit stirring in an attempt to boost sales. They published locations of sexual offenders names and addresses around the country. It kicked off a wave of assaults, cases of mistaken identity and included one woman whose home was wrecked and she narrowly escaped... because she was a peadiatrician.

      You want mob justice? Prepare for trial by gossip, then.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    8. Re:Sex Offender's Registry by beavis88 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here (in N.C.) we can get, online, complete addresses along with full color photos. I find that a little creepy, personally.

      If they're that big a threat, I think residence in jail and/or a psych facility is preferable. It just baffles me that people can get so worked up about sex offender registration, but wouldn't dream of raising taxes a little bit to pay for greatly increasing the duration of incarceration.

    9. Re:Sex Offender's Registry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      In college if you got caught urinating in public twice you were labeled a sex offender. In our college town students would "find a tree" b/w parties. Cops would walk by, see the person and arrest them. I don't think the people taking a leak need to be labeled sex offenders.

    10. Re:Sex Offender's Registry by coopex · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Exactly. The reason that sex offender's are being given a scarlett letter is because of the overemotional response most people have to it, which is completely retarted. Would you rather have a convicted murderer or a convicted sex offender living next door? Furthermore, the scarlett letter gives a strong implication that since the person did it once, they'll do it again. This only furthers their alienation from regular society, making it more likely that they'll do something that society has deemed unacceptable.

      Congrats, you've turned a molehill into a mountain. Feel free to flame me with posts along the lines of "what if you/someone you knew were a victim".

      --
      The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
  3. My Google Hack Idea by 0kComputer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not sure if this has been implemented yet. Or even how to do so, but I think a cool Google hack would be a graphical trace route program simillar to NeoTrace.

    Not sure how it would make money, but would be cool as hell with those satellite maps.

    --
    Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
    10.
  4. Wow... by DeionXxX · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm just simply amazed by both of the tools mentioned (the Crime Data and the Housing Maps)... we really live in interesting times. Why do these hacks work so well? Has google built an API to access these maps and to plot points on them, or have the developers of each of these hacks reverse-engineered the Google maps interface and figured out how to place stuff on them?

  5. The big picture by RealProgrammer · · Score: 5, Interesting
    (er, so to speak)

    Or is this all a clever trick on Google's part to build up more and more third parties dependent upon Google?

    I think it's just a case of people using tools in ways their creators didn't envision. As Perl's Larry Wall says, that's the mark of a good tool.

    Another way to look at it is that if you serve people, they become dependent on you. Google is trying to build its business by offering services and getting people hooked.

    I, for one, welcome our new information infrastructure servant overlords.

    --
    sigs, as if you care.
  6. Re:Prostitution by fm6 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, Johns tend to be non-local married men.

  7. Google maps with craigslist - Howto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    a howto which describes, how to combine Criagslist with Google Maps similar to the site mentioned inn the summary (http://www.paulrademacher.com/housing/)

  8. Next, movie capability? by Animats · · Score: 2, Interesting
    COMPSTAT has been doing this for years for the NYPD. They sometimes run the last month as a movie, looped, and watch it for a while. Trends pop out. Patterns appear. Crooks aren't that tactically creative.

    The trick is to come up with a visual representation so that if some crook is hitting South Side liquor stores about once a week, somebody sees it. In classical policing, that's not likely to be noticed unless the crook commits all their crimes in the same precinct on the same shift.

  9. Wapiti Watch by yipper · · Score: 2, Interesting


    I live in a resort community in the Colorado rocky mountains. Every fall we have a few weeks
    of elk (wapiti) mating season where tourist type folks drive around looking for the herds of elk.

    I think it would be really cool to have a google maps app on a website where people could click on a map to show where they saw elk.

    How would I go about doing that?

  10. heh. the other night by Harper · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I whipped up a google maps hack of geolocation of Illinois registered sex offenders: http://demon.dopeman.org/sexOffenders/ It was amazingly easy.

    I used all of the tutorials and shit that the rancidbacon peeps created. made it rather simple. actually delightful.

    now if i was only mapping locations of something cool.. rather than depressing things.

    stupid maps.

    --
    Producing satire is kind of hopeless because of the literacy rate of the American public. - Frank Zappa
  11. Re:OT: SimCity by glass_window · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Who knows, but I can't wait to be able to check out my land value, my water coverage, my electric coverage, my air polution, all through the handy interface of google maps!

  12. Re:Slashdotted by iocat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is neat, but not actually innovative. Most larger cities have realtime or near realtime updated maps that show local crimes, sortable in all sorts of neat ways. Oakland's is one that is pretty nice. Done with autocad I think.

    --

    Dude, I think I can see my house from here.

  13. How long before real estate interests ... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How long till we have real time crime data showing up on Google's map?

    How long before real estate interests make him pull the site down or make the agencies providing the crime data stop providing it - or stop providing it in a computer-useful form?

    Not a purely academic question. My wife noticed that crimes we's heard about from other sources was not being reported in some areas of Silicon Valley and asked the San Jose paper in question about it. The person she reached said that they didn't want to depress real estate values. B-(

    Then they wonder why we don't subscribe these days, and prefer to get our news from the web.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  14. education for everyone by UlfGabe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    something that is "innovative" is never described that way by anyone involved, to them it was just work.

    these maps are cool, but not innovative, innovative would be if google was able to predict the weather month by month on a farily high resolution (current weather systems do predictions for 200 km square blocks.

    --
    Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.