greeting DIYcity users!

my name is Nick Normal and I'm an artist, maker and educator based in Long Island City, Queens, NY.

I wanted to let everyone on this list know that Maker Faire is coming to New York City - and by extension the East Coast! - for the first time later this year, on September 25th and 26th. There's currently an open call for Makers to submit proposals - the deadline is August 15th.

Maker Faire is the world's largest DIY festival - a blend of Art, Technology and Science, combined with family-fun, participation, robots, craft and do-it-yourself ethics.

I'm helping recruit Makers and we're looking for projects involving open-source code, robots, DIY makers, engine-hacks, solder fiends, hobbyists and enthusiasts, fixer-uppers, food makers, etc.

if you DIY we want you involved!

Here's the link to the open call:
World Maker Faire NYC Open Call

or if you have any questions, comments or conerns you can contact me. My email and phone are below. I look forward to hearing from all you Do It Yourselfers!

Nick Normal
artist, maker, librarian, diplomat
917.225.7032 (mobile)
nicknormal@gmail.com (email, gchat, etc.)

Hi DIY NYC - this email came in this morning from a list I'm on, thought I'd pass it along since it so directly relates to DIYcity topics.

It's great to see NYC's city departments really throwing themselves into this sort of thing, nearly two years after we started talking about it here.

If anyone is interested, pls get in touch with nfreeman - at- dot.nyc.gov.

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Hello Developers!

The New York City Department of Transportation needs your help! We want to provide more and more useful information to the traveling public about traffic and transportation. We know we’ve got a lot of the raw data, we need you to help us separate the wheat from the chaff.

Here at the DOT we’re plugged into all of the comings and goings of the city - we’re constantly monitoring highways, ferries, traffic cameras, bridges and road work. This means that we create a ton of data, some of which we share publically on our data feeds page. However, most of our data isn’t currently public.

There are many reasons why you (outside of the walls of government bureaucracy) will be able to build better apps, at ten times the speed and efficiency than we will ever be able to. We see our role as opening up and cleaning up our data to make it easier for you. Together we can provide the public with the information they hunger for, to make better decisions about how to move around the City.

To get started on this, we need your help to identify where the hot spots of demand are, so we can prioritize where direct our efforts to format and open up data. We also need you to help us start assessing where the gaps are between the data we have and the data we’d need to create truly useful “real-time traffic” apps. We’re at the beginning of this process, and the first step is to have an informal brainstorming meetup with developers. We’ll talk about some of the data feeds that we have, and hopefully you’ll come with some questions we haven’t asked yet.
We’ll be hosting the Brainstorming Meetup at DOT on July 21, 2010 from 9:30 – 11 am.

Invitation is open to anyone who wants to help improve the way DOT shares information, so pass it on. Space is limited, so please RSVP by July 15 to nfreeman - at- dot.nyc.gov.

Are you located in the Sacramento, Yolo, or Solano County areas and interested in Open Government?

If so, please get in touch.

I'd like to connect with people interested in improving government, through transparency and civic engagement.

I'm currently working a project called "Democracy Map", which is designed to be an open database (with API) for all government agencies and eventually public officials that developers can contribute to and build upon to provide hyperlocal public content.

There is an open conference call on May 3rd at 11am via Skype, and all feedback is more than welcome.

Ryan Wold
rwold@morequality.org

Hi DIYcity,

Long time no talk!

This email came to me this morning via the ITP Alumni List and I found it interesting so I thought I'd pass it along. I don't want to paste the author's email live to the site, so if you're interested get in touch with me and I'll put you in touch.

John

Hello current (and past) ITP students:

I'm looking for some beta testers for my iPhone data logger application. I'm specifically soliciting bicycle riders to record their rides around New York City in support of my thesis research involving visualizing the cyclist experience. This is a proof-of-concept exploration in what a ubiquitous mobile sensor network could possibly look like, using existing technology that we already carry to learn about ourselves and our world.

I've chosen to focus on cycling in the city, but the concept is far-reaching (and I'm certainly not the first to approach this). Recently, The New York Times published an article[1] revealing findings from a year of GPS logged taxi cab data, summarizing average traffic speeds in Manhattan by day. Similarly, Cabspotting[2] visualized the taxi routes in San Francisco. Flight Patterns[3] reveals the air traffic over the United States throughout a typical day.

Similarly, projects involving using the bicycle as a sensing platform have emerged as well. The Copenhagen Wheel[4] is a dense array of motion and environmental sensors packed into an electric-assist rear hub. While not cycling-specific, the Personal Environmental Impact Report[5] uses GPS-enabled mobile phones to infer mode of travel from speed and calculate your carbon footprint and exposure to air pollution.

I'm specifically looking to see correlations in rider travel patterns. Are there commonalities in routes, sound levels, bumps? How are riders navigating to similar locations? What are typical trip durations and speeds? Do different types of riders (commuter, enthusiast, courier, racer, delivery rider) behave differently? When are riders on the roads? For all of this, what could it look like as visualization?

This application is the data collection mechanism I've chosen to employ for this exploration. It records location, heading, speed, altitude, accelerometer, sound level, trip duration and distance to storage on the device. Each log can be viewed on a map and individual samples inspected. Export logs via e-mail in CSV, JSON or Golden Cheetah format. Data can be automatically uploaded while recording as well.

This application will be released as open source software under the GPLv3. Source code will be available at: http://github.com/rcarlsen/Mobile-Logger

If you'd like to participate in this beta test, please e-mail me the UUID for your iPhone (3G or 3GS, OS 3.1+) device. This can be retrieved in iTunes by connecting the iPhone via USB cable, and clicking on the Serial Number field in the device summary. After displaying the UUID, go to Edit > Copy to copy it to the clipboard.

Thank you,
Robert

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/nyregion/24traffic.html?ref=nyregion
[2] http://cabspotting.org/
[3] http://www.aaronkoblin.com/work/flightpatterns/
[4] http://senseable.mit.edu/copenhagenwheel/
[5] http://peir.cens.ucla.edu/

From Open Government to Open Communities

Join us for an open conversation on local online civic engagement as we share our ideas for building on open government toward more participatory and open communities.

* Who: You. Join Steven Clift, with E-Democracy.org who is leading the Ford Foundation-funded Participation 3.0 effort.

* What: Participation 3.0 - http://e-democracy.org/p3

* When: 10-11:30 a.m., Monday, March 29, 2010

* Where: Idealist.org, 302 Fifth Ave, 11th Floor

RSVP Not Required, but appreciated:
clift@e-democracy.org

I look forward to connecting with old friends and meeting new people interested in open government, transparency, participation, community building, and more.

Since my work in the "e-democracy" space goes back 15+ years, those new to these issues might find these articles to be of interest - http://stevenclift.com - and this network - http://dowire.org - to be of value.

Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy New Tel: +1.612.234.7072

Hey Everybody!

In the vein of Do-It-Yourself projects and community improvement, I think that the workshop series we are starting at the Green Institute will be great in educating homeowners and businesses about simple and practical ways to save energy.

Coming up we have:

REUSE-ENERGY WORKSHOP ON WINDOW REHABBING ON MARCH 4!

This workshop will help homeowners choose the right option for improving the performance of their windows. Window restoration specialist Paul Schmidt of Twin Cities-based Restoration Window Systems will cover temporary or permanent fixes to reduce heat loss and air infiltration on existing windows, reversing the effects of deterioration on historic wood windows and making an appropriate window replacement. Mark your calendars for Thursday, March 4 from 6:30 - 8 PM at 2801 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis. RSVP to Agatha Vaaler (avaaler@greeninstitute.org 612.278.7142 ). Cost is $15, which can be paid at the door or in advance. Refreshments will be provided.

Hope you check it out!

www.greeninstitute.org

DIYcity folks,

Work with us to take our Placemaking processes and tools online. After the imminent re-launch of our website, we are looking at developing web 2.0 and 3.0 applications to support community-driven, place-based planning efforts.

The Job Description:
http://www.pps.org/info/aboutpps/jobopenings

Ethan

Ethan Kent
Vice President

Project for Public Spaces
700 Broadway New York, NY 10003
T (212) 620-5660 x 318 F (212) 620-3821
http://www.pps.org

Hello everyone out there in DIYcity! Apologies for the silence here for the past two months - I've been hard at work at what I've long been calling "DIYcity part 2". And that is finally live, in alpha, today. But the surprise is it's not DIYcity. It's a brand-new site, Appify.com.

How did that happen?

Well, Danny Shapiro, Aditya Chada and I were working on revamping DIYcity, and the idea kept evolving, getting better, getting bigger, and at a certain point it became clear that this was no longer DIYcity but something entirely new.

At that point, we shelved the DIYcity framework and started running with the new one. The result is Appify. Here is an excerpt from a note I've sent around to a few mail lists this morning:

I'm excited to share with you a new site, launching today, that is all about local apps - *your* local apps.

It's about getting those apps discovered, and used, by everyone in your community. It's about learning exactly what the people around you want in the way of apps to make their communities work better. And it's about seeing what other areas have in the way of local and civic apps that your own local area could use as well.

The site is called Appify, and it's launching today in a "developer's alpha". We're looking for EVERYONE who has built a local app, on any platform, to come to the site, input their app (takes 30 seconds) check out the site, and give us feedback.

So - Appify is live, sort of, (alpha version for now, full version coming in January).

If you have a local app that you've built, please add it to Appify today.

If you have friends who have built local apps, please forward this post to them.

Please also follow us on twitter.com/appify.

And please read our blog at http://blog.appify.com.

So, if Appify is not DIYcity 2.0, what happens to DIYcity? I'll save that for another post - and since DIYcity has always been community-driven, it will be something I'll expect everyone to weigh in on.

For now - please check out Appify and let us know what you think!

Dear DIY NYC:

The Open Planning Project and the Regional Plan Association would like to invite you to an upcoming workshop to brainstorm new technology for participatory city planning.

When: Friday, November 13th, 12:30 - 5:30pm (followed by a happy hour on our roof).

Where: The Open Planning Project, 148 Lafayette St, NY, NY

What: An afternoon of discussion, brainstorming, and collaborative product designing.

RSVP: http://planningtechworkshop.eventbrite.com/ (please RSVP soon, attendance is limited)

Why:

Everyday social computing, mobile technology, and the adoption of "web 2.0" approaches by governments have laid the groundwork for far wider citizen involvement in civic life. Citizens can now be involved earlier on, more frequently, and in more meaningful ways than was ever possible before. How can these opportunities be leveraged for use in the city planning space? What are the technologies that will make this possible? What are the bureaucratic, logistical, or social issues that need to be addressed in considering these ideas? What tools could we build -- today -- that would be the most impactful?

The Open Planning Project is interested in developing free, open source tools to support citizen engagement in planning. To that end, we are reaching out to the planning, government, nonprofit, citizen and tech communities to help us explore opportunities and share ideas. This event should be the first of many, and will be a hands-on workshop aiming to bring together many diverse perspectives.

How:

The workshop will follow the "unconference," or "BarCamp," format, where sessions and talks are proposed and led by the participants of the workshop. Please visit the workshop wiki at http://etherpad.com/GfjsHfnoGi to see the agenda, an overview of the format, and a list of proposed talks & sessions. Please feel free to add your ideas directly to the wiki -- we'll also be reaching out to attendees in advance to prepare some talks & sessions.

Pass it along:

Lastly, if you know of someone who should be invited to this event, please pass on this invitation. Attendance will be capped at 70 people, on a first-come, first-served basis, and we're hoping for a mix of sectors and perspectives. Please RSVP at http://planningtechworkshop.eventbrite.com/ We realize this is short notice, so we hope you are able to make it.

Thanks, and we're looking forward to seeing you on the 13th.

Sincerely,

Nick Grossman

--
Nick Grossman
Director, TOPP Labs
The Open Planning Project - http://openplans.org
@nickgrossman

ISPs may not act for years on local complaints about slow Internet—but when a town rolls out its own solution, it's amazing how fast the incumbents can deploy fiber, cut prices, and run to the legislature.
By Nate Anderson | Last updated October 27, 2009

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/want-50mbps-internet-in-...