Sid Burgess

Beautiful DC

// February 18th, 2010 // 5 Comments » // Amusing

I really love DC.  There are many reasons why but as you might expect, most of my affection for this great city is for the design and layout.  I love riding in a cab and seeing the wonderful bridges.  The neighborhoods are lined with buildings built with human in mind. Their scale is considerate of both people and place.  These ‘outdoor rooms’ are inviting addicting.

DC has a peculiar story.

I thought it would be nice to share several good links about DC and it’s planning history.  There is a lot of reading here but a few well worth your time if the subject is interesting to you.

The 1901 Plan for Washington DC

Planning Our Capital City

Plan of the City of Washington

The L’Enfant & McMillan Plans

The General and The Plan

The Records of the Columbia Historical Society (13MB pdf)(GoogleBooks)

The national Capitol: its architecture, art and history, 1914 (17MB pdf)(GoogleBooks)

Centennial history of the city of Washington, D. C, 1892 (26MB pdf) (GoogleBooks)

I really want to write some of my thoughts about these sources and hope to do that soon.  At the moment I will leave you with this great information.  Enjoy!

Local Code – Video

// February 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Amusing, Video

This video is about one idea to address the “Spaces between places. Not out of sight, but certainly out of mind.”
Enjoy

WPA2 : Local Code / Real Estates from Nicholas de Monchaux on Vimeo.

Twitter Code Visualization

// February 13th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Amusing, Video

This is a really neat visualization of the code architecture and development process that has gone into Twitter.    It is really neat to see the developers come on board as well as watch the different sets of code be introduced into their system.  Amazing stuff.

I found this at Twitter’s new blog Twitter Engineering.  They recently published a really interesting article about the Twitter Whale.  Great reading.

Enjoy this video and check out Twitter’s new blog.

Twitter Code Swarm from Ben Sandofsky on Vimeo.

I am on Twitter here.

My Wordle…

// February 12th, 2010 // No Comments » // Amusing

Make your own…http://www.wordle.net

Morning Council Buzz

// February 11th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Amusing

Wanted to take a moment to update you on some of the local government stories around the nation…

Birmingham,Alabama:  City council to cut up to 2,000 jobs and close care homes

Obviously we never like to see someone lose their job, but it is good to see Birmingham get serious about confronting budget shortfalls.

This is a massive number of job cuts, and the council cannot be serious. It is absolutely wrong to push local government workers on to the dole queues. – Dave Prentis, the general secretary of Unison

Chicago, Illinois: Chicago City Council limits hiring of aldermen’s relatives ; City Council restricts relative hiring on stealth payroll

The catch?  Anyone currently on the payroll that is related can stay.   Why? It isn’t nice to fire them.

I don’t know that it’s nice to dump someone on the street. – Alderman Tom Allen

All us (aldermen) have family members on the payroll. That’s nothing new. – Former 29th Ald. Isaac Carothers

Los Angeles, California:  Mayor Tells City Council Stop Saying “No”

We can’t keep saying no to layoffs, no to furloughs, no to department eliminations, no to parking meters, no to (leasing) parking structures, no to privatizing golf courses, the zoo and the convention center, no to lending council (discretionary) funds for the reserve. - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

Bronx, New York: Bronx City Councilman indicted on 13 federal corruption charges

The indictment said Seabrook negotiated the nonprofit organizations’ leases, created their budgets, made their personnel decisions and knew the groups were not doing enough legitimate work to justify the funds.  It said he paid about $530,000 in salary and “consulting” fees over the seven-year span to his girlfriend, his brother, two sisters and his nephews, among others.

Seabrook allegedly submitted a number of forged or altered receipts, including a doctored receipt for a $7 bagel sandwich and diet beverage delivered to City Hall that made it look like it had cost about $177.

Debt Free City

// February 8th, 2010 // 93 Comments » // Amusing, Video

You are going to love this story!  A debt free city and 700Mil in cash reserves.  That is as much as the State of Oklahoma has in their rainy day fund.
Their secret?  Low taxes, jobs jobs jobs, and a mayor that is 88 years old and has the energy of a spring chicken!

Mississauga, Ontario isn’t just your normal metro.  They have done what most people would call the impossible.  A city of no debt and plenty of cash for the grandkids to live on.  Mississauga has set an example for cities around the world.   They are the Canada headquarters for companies like Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Pepsico, General Electric,  Fujitsu and Wal-Mart Canada.

Responsible financial management coupled with forward planning policies has resulted in the City’s debt-free status, with hundreds of millions in reserve funds for future infrastructure development.  -Taxes & Assessment

Note that they assess property taxes based on need and not on value of the property.  I really like this concept from a property rights perspective plus there isn’t a built-in disincentive to keep your property, well, worth’less’.

The total amount of taxes collected depends on the municipality’s revenue needs, and not on the value of property assessments within a municipality. -Taxes & Assessment

I also really like the fact that municipalities can’t offer businesses direct incentives like tax breaks and loans.  This probably causes the city to stand on its broad based incentives like low taxes, crime rates, transit, and aesthetics.

The City operates on the philosophy that new development should pay for itself. Funds collected are placed in reserve to pay for capital improvements needed in the future. -Taxes & Assessment

Good stuff.

Enjoy this report and let me hear your thoughts.

Getting “Down” with Pink Gloves

// January 30th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Amusing, Video

**Caution, this post contains music.  Said music is likely to make you want to jump up and dance.

For about the best reason possible, hospitals are coming together to make these wonderful, and sometimes times viral, videos to raise awareness for breast cancer research.

The “original” award goes to Providence St. Vincent Medical Center after their dance moves to Jay Sean’s hit “Down” has won them over six million views.

Martin Memorial has recently added their version of the dance.  They opted to get jiggy to the sound of Black Eyed Peas, “I Got A Feeling”.

And a few weeks ago, Jay Sean gave a concert where 17,000 of his fands donned 34,000 pink gloves.

The good folks at The Singapore Expat Cancer Support Group joined in the fray…

The Teens For A Cure of Paulding County put their pink gloves on for a local Relay for Life event.  By the end of the video, the whole room is up and joining in on the dancing!

This guy jumps all in with his response to the raze…

Hope you enjoyed them as much as I did.  Are there others I am missing?  If you are a hospital or clinic and you haven’t done a video yet, why not?!  When you do, come back here and let us know so we can add it to the collection.  Now break a leg!

OKIce Map Coverage

// January 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // Amusing

‘Crowd-sourcing’ gets a bad name from time to time but there are certainly examples where the strength of the ‘crowd’ paid off.

Back on Christmas Eve Oklahoma was hit by a pretty nasty blizzard.  Seeing a need to sorta bring information together, I started a collaborative Google Map.  After only a few minutes of having it up, volunteers poured in to help update and submit information.  The media picked up on it and the rest is history.

This week Oklahoma got another round of the white stuff, though not nearly the emergency that the blizzard was, this storm provided us another opportunity to collaborate as Okies.   So we did.

Phil Cross of Fox 25 just submitted this report outlining the efforts.  Reporter Mindy Mizell filed this report and was only one of several she did.

Hats off to all the volunteers who put in hours of work keeping the map up to date and relevant.

I am compiling a list of all these events and lots more to highlight how technology emerged this winter here in Oklahoma and what role it played.

Classic Blunders of Sidewalkdom

// January 18th, 2010 // 6 Comments » // Amusing

Yes we did, because we can. Enjoy!

Who Goes There?

Nonexistentsidewalks help with population control.

The Disappearing Act

If you ever find yourself in this situation, turn around.

Neighborhood Skatepark

Moms, buy strollers with very big wheels.

The Gesture

It’s the thought that counts.

Missing In Action

Roundup anyone?

The “What The?”

Caution, stare at this picture long enough and you canactuallylose intelligence.

The Obstructed and Narrow

There is nothing righteous about this. I think the fence is there to hold on to.

There are more great examples of sidewalk blunders but then I wouldn’t have any for a Part II. If you have any pictures or have seen some around the web, send them to me.

Also if you haven’t already, you need to check outSeeClickFix.com If you see a sidewalk problem anywhere in the US, you can report it there and make it public. More and more public agencies are following up on these issues. Check it out!

Peace my friends.