What do you say Ithaca? I'll be at the Chapter House Wed. at 7 eating all the popcorn. Maybe we can bring back hitchhiking. I've always regretted missing out on that obvious, romantic, and civilized form of travel. These days we can all speed dial 911 from our mobile phones, and really, fear of the worst is a crappy way to live. Imagine not thinking of every driver in town as a potential assailant.

Sign up. Meetup.

We have started a Google map and geo-marking our current issues on our city so people can see the issues involved. Click here to have a look

If you want to throw together a last-minute meetup in your city to coincide with the ones happening tomorrow in NYC and SF, contact us and we'll help you get started, giving you a set of questions and some exercises to work from to give the evening some form.

You don't need lots and lots of people to make a DIYcity meetup happen. Just getting a few people together to talk about what the potential is for DIYcity-type stuff in your area would be great. Can happen in a living room or school or wherever.

Then you can post your results to the site the next day, under your area, for all to see and comment on and use. And then you've made your contribution to the idea and the movement.

Write us at diy@diycity.org for more info.

... and was psyched to see that someone has already create a group for Chicago!

I *love* the idea of this site. The whole think global / act local mantra actually put into action in a formalized and repeatable manner ...

So let's get this party started! Unfortunately, there are no shortages of problems in our city. Corruption, rising cost of public transportation, insanely high taxes, homelessness, FREEZING COLD (though I suspect we can't do anything about this :)

So I'll throw something on the table: I would suspect that given the recent hike in the cost of the El to a non-even number of dollars ($2.25), a lot of CTA cards with money still on them (though not enough for a full trip) get tossed. Is there any opportunity here?

I'm also really interested in topics pertaining to sustainability, especially in the context of how and what we eat, and given Chicago's quest for 'green,' this could be another good place to start.

Any feedback / suggestions?

Hello DIY Paris,

What do you think are the most pressing issues facing Paris right now, and where would you like DIYcity to begin its work?

What do you think are the areas in which the group could make the most impact there?

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Feel free to say anything.

John

Hello DIY London!

I wanted to start a discussion about what would be the best topics for DIYcity to address in London initially.

What do you see as the most pressing issues facing the city right now?

Which of these issues could best be addressed with DIYcity approaches?

What would be the simplest and/or highest-impact action to take right off the bat?

Other thoughts/ideas? Please share.

There are no wrong answers here, just an open discussion to get things started.

Joshua Tauberer sent a message to the members of oGosh: Open Government Open Source Hacking.

from oGosh: Open Government Open Source Hacking--
--------------------
Subject: Sunlight launches Apps for America with $15,000 prize

Hello civic hackers! The OGOSH! group has been quiet lately (sorry, my bad), but here's an excuse to write you all and remind you that this Facebook group still exists.

The Sunlight Foundation --- the financial bedrock of many government transparency projects lately --- is holding a contest: "Apps for America is Sunlight's annual development contest! Prizes go to developers who can use data from Sunlight and our partners that makes Congress more accountable, interactive and transparent. "

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://sunlightlabs.com%2Fappsforamerica...

Josh
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://razor.occams.info / govtrack.us

Local city groups are something that have, up until now, been somewhat overlooked on DIYcity. But they feature very largely in our plans for the future. And so this week, with the upcoming meetups for locals in NYC and SF, we thought it would be good to start discussions on the site at the local level.

A question that will probably come up at each of the meetups is: what is the most pressing issue in this city currently that can/should be addressed by DIYcity?

We'd love to see that discussion happen this week in each one of the cities represented on the site as well. It seems like a good place to start for local discussions, and even if you've got one or two people in your local group, it's still a good conversation starter.

I'll post this question to the individual local groups later on today when I get a moment. Looking forward to seeing what comes out of it.

Hey all,

There's been a last-minute venue change for this Wednesday's meetup. No longer at the TOPP offices, it is now at the offices of Project for Public Spaces, which is at 700 Broadway, 4th floor. That's just north of 4th St.

Time is 7 PM.

Thanks Nick at TOPP and Ethan at PPS for helping make this happen.

A combined total of 116 people so far are signed up as either attending or interested in attending the DIYcity meetups in NY and SF next Wednesday.

SF: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1403191/?ps=6

NY: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1444518/

Anyone want to help out organizing the meetings in either place?

And anyone from other cities want to join in?