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from the Your-honor,-there-was-a-tree-branch-blocking-the-sign! dept.
Utilizing FOIA and some clever software Mr. Chapman quickly identifies a troubled spot for parking in Chicago and gets results!
http://mchap.io/using-foia-data-and-unix-to-halve-major-source-of-parking-tickets.html
The story relates how the author used Freedom of Information Act requests to gather raw data on parking tickets issued in Chicago. What he received was a semicolon-delimited text file containing a great number of data entry errors. The author outlines the steps taken to clean and extract data on a likely problematic parking location. Armed with this data, he visited the location and discovered very confusing signage. He reported this to the city, who rectified the signage. This led to a 50 percent decrease in the number of tickets issued for that location.
I immediately asked myself three things
1. How much more effective has that corner become?
2. Who's grumbling about the loss of revenue?
3. What would happen if more of us did this very thing?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:17PM (1 child)
what would happen is that you would lose your job, because instead of doing your job you're doing the city's job.
And thus dies civic-mindedness (and pretty much any sense of community that once helped glue us together as a people), as we all crawl into our little corners, cover our eyes, and ignore what affects our fellow citizens (or even ourselves) because "it isn't our job." It reminds me of filthy American hospitals (where I've spent far too much time myself, and with my spouse) that never get cleaned properly because no nurse is going to pick up a piece of trash and put it in the garbage (it's beneath him/her and "not their job"), cleaning services are underpaid, understaffed, overworked, and apathetic/demoralized, etc. etc.
We will die beneath a mountain of false dichotomy, false equivalency, whatabouttism, but most of all, a complete absence of community and civic-mindedness as we all retreat into our own shells and refuse to help identify or solve problems because "it isn't our job." And some rightwing-fuckwit will tell us if we do otherwise, we'll "rightly" lose our jobs because we should use every waking moment to enrich our employer and 0.1%er overlords, rather than spending any time voluntarily helping our community.
Nice world you've helped create. The only bright spot (if you can call it that) is it will probably implode under its own weight before too much longer. Pity it's going to take us all down with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @04:37PM
You have to be careful in some place for doing things not in your job description due to safety concerns, unions, liability. I went to the dmv 20 years ago and after waiting in line for two hours, was told that I had to have a card filled out and that I'd have to wait another two hours.
Thankfully, those situations have largely but not entirely gone away.