Slashdot Mirror
Google Map Hack & Chicago Crime Data
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.
Not a single comment, and the site is already crawling. I guess some people actually read the articles!
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
If you select 'prostitution' you can check out the best areas to go to pick up a hooker. Not that this is of any use to me as I'm a) not single and b) not in the US.
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?
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.
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.
The NYPD uses a system very much like this, called COMPSTAT.
More about the history of the program here (clicky)
Here's an excerpt from the NYPD website:
"Among the Command and Control Center's high-tech capabilities is its computerized 'pin mapping' which displays crime, arrest and quality of life data in a host of visual formats including comparative charts, graphs and tables. Through the use of MAPINFO software and other computer technology, for example, the CompStat database can be accessed and a precinct map depicting virtually any combination of crime and/or arrest locations, crime 'hot spots' and other relevant information can be instantly projected on the Center's large video projection screens."
"For every right, an equal responsibility..."
Or is this all a clever trick on Google's part to build up more and more third parties dependent upon Google?
I doubt that Google intended on getting third parties dependent on GMaps. If they really wanted that to happen they would have released an open API rather than having to have people poke around in the code to figure out how it all worked.
Yeah, you can do some REALLY neat stuff with GMaps now (and even some of the things I suggested should be available when it first came out) but I just don't think that it was Google's main intention.
If anything, they just want to be a player in the same markets as Yahoo and MSN and not have to link to their competitor's mapping products.
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?
<obligatory>
It's already been done
</obligatory>
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
I was able to tell the moment the Slashdot story went online... the chicagocrime.org site suddenly stopped responding. And it's not like we could have linked to a mirror.
So you'll just have to take my word for it -- it was pretty cool. I found out that there were three reported crimes at Chicago cemeteries, for example -- a theft, a trespassing, and a vandalism. Crimes at airports included a "theft by lessee" -- looks like there's somebody at Midway who you shouldn't get your rental car from.
The gas station link is holding up better, though. Hope it's not hosted at a gas station... kablooie!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The Chicago Police Department already has a web interface, called Citizen ICAM, which displays the same info. I do believe that the new site is compiling its data from ICAM. You can check out ICAM at http://12.17.79.6/
It would be really useful if it could tell where the crime was about to occur .. in advance
I haven't been able to connect to the site yet, but I'm wondering how closely it resembles the crime map view in SimCity. :)
Ah, what a great game...
http://nerdfortress.com/
It's amazing how fast a company can go from being Slashdot's little darling to suddenly being suspected at every turn of being the new EvilEmpire(tm).
Guys, these people are making wonderful tools and making them available for free, and letting people mess with them. They're probably reading comments like that slack-jawed, thinking "man, you just can't win with that crowd!" Give em a break! :)
-M
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.
It let me see that one prospective condo was right in a corner of fairly low crime, bordered by much higher crime. I could have guessed that visiting the neighborhood, but it was nice to see somewhat empirically.
Most exciting phrase in science: not "Eureka!" but "Hmm... That's funny..." -Asimov (abridged for \. limits)
a howto which describes, how to combine Criagslist with Google Maps similar to the site mentioned inn the summary (http://www.paulrademacher.com/housing/)
How hard is it for the editor who posts these stories to the front page of Slashdot to replace them with Coral Cache links?
Seriously, just make it an automated process or something. ALWAYS make it a Coral link.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
A geographical map of sites unreachable due to the Slashdot Effect.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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
We already have PortlandMaps. You can see crime maps, tax maps, appraised value, bus routes, upcoming road improvments, much better satallite imagery... Google Maps has nothing on these guys. Every city should have something like this.
since, judging by my abilities to connect to the server, some criminals seem to have made off with the server
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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
Because sex offenses of a particular kind are actually related to sexual addiction, and there is an extremely high recidivism rate due to the fact that prisons don't treat addiction very effectively, and treating addiction at all is difficult in the first place, and these are people that are extremely deep into their addictions to have committed their crimes.
Having said that:
* Why don't we fix the prison system so it does treat addictive behaviors related to sex?
* Why don't we distinguish between sex crimes that are connected to an addition and those that are not, and not track sexual offenders who are unlikely to commit a new crime?
* Why are there so many people on the list who don't deserve to be there? (Misguided applications of the statutory-rape laws come to mind, as others have pointed out.)
Without fixing these problems I am opposed to the sex offender registry, but I do understand why it exists.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.