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Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets

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Re: Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets

#201

Post by ekimekim »

chrismeller wrote: post #153
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's one neat trick to stop 'them' getting your money. It's so easy you'll be amazed! It's "not speeding" /savedyouaclick

Sure that's a bad example, but he does kind of have a point. In the blog post he estimated it's saved $60,000 in fines. That's a drop in the bucket at the scale we're talking about (a quick Google says the proposed 2018 budget for Chicago was $10.1 billion), but still a decrease. Not only would it cost the government money to employ someone to go through this data and find hotspots like this, someone to go out and ev…

It's a fair point that it's very difficult to avoid conflict of interest when doing your job better might mean your department has less money to use.

My suggestion: Remove the incentive by divorcing all fine (and similar things like seized goods) revenue from the government budget. Perhaps stipulate that it gets distributed to charities, or is split equally among taxpayers as a tax offset.

Re: Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets

#202

Post by lucb1e »

jklein11 wrote: post #186

Are there any resources explaining the FOIA process? I'm not sure what types of information is available, what it can be used for, etc and am always amazed with the type of information people are able to get the government to hand over.

I had this question as well and asked someone who did a FOIA request. There is no listing. It's just that, if you notice or can logically conclude that a certain kind of data exists, you can request it. In this example, it is fairly logical that the city has a record of parking tickets that were written out, and so the author requested them.

I'm surprised he asked after license plates, though. I don't know if that is different in the USA, but in Europe that certainly wouldn't fly because of privacy. I wouldn't even have asked because I shouldn't want to have such data. Perhaps one could get an anonymized version to be able to correlate how often a certain plate got a ticket, but not which plate that was. Anyway, the general concept of a FOIA request is the same. (Edit: Oh, someone else remarked this as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17754396)

Re: Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets

#203

Post by mkobit »

bpchaps wrote: post #22
tptacek wrote: post #2

Matt's schtick is automated, large-scale FOIA requesting; he obtains huge collections of data from cities and then tries to do interesting stuff with it. Here, he apparently managed to get all the tickets in Chicago for several years running, and then used that data to fix the parking signs. This, to me, is so neat.

Hey! Thanks for posting this, and the kind words. Interesting note about getting data like this - Illinois FOIA allows a requester to submit a SQL as part of their request.. so long as they know the tables and columns within the database ;)

This is awesome and inspiring. Any thoughts on how to approach something similar for red light camera violations and accident/police data in Illinois?

Re: Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets

#204

Post by FrozenTuna »

tptacek wrote: post #2

Matt's schtick is automated, large-scale FOIA requesting; he obtains huge collections of data from cities and then tries to do interesting stuff with it. Here, he apparently managed to get all the tickets in Chicago for several years running, and then used that data to fix the parking signs. This, to me, is so neat.

I had a buddy in college whose main hobby was sending foias. The amount of information he was able to collect on me and all of our friends since it was a public university was astounding. He wrote a little google map applet that matched the student base's names to their parent's homes. He only showed about 6 of us what he did and we were all horrified and amazed at the same time. I miss CpE college.

Re: Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets

#205

Post by bpchaps »

morei wrote: post #111
bpchaps wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Have a look at their hourly rates for systems support [1]. All of the entry level positions are above 80/hr. [1] https://imgur.com/a/ieJj5Po

This is the price that the vendor is charging, NOT what the person is getting paid. The vendor is covering insurance, holiday/sick leave et al, payroll taxes et al, rent, management, carrying the risk of the work going away, etc etc. It looks high, but it's not nearly as profitable as it seems for either the vendor or the employee.

Yep. you're right.One of the many reasons why I'm not in government contracting :)

Re: Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets

#206

Post by Bartweiss »

danShumway wrote: post #147
onion2k wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realise you're being positive and helpful, but I don't think many people could actually have these hobbies. The technical side is within reach of most HN readers, but you also need to see the problem in the first place and understand that it's actually solvable. Most people would assume that any effort would be wasted as the authorities would prefer to keep their revenue generator, so they'd never go through with t…

You could practice and build the skills necessary to have these types of hobbies! Nothing this person is doing is magic, and to the extent that genetics or extensive background prep play a role you could still overcome that deficit enough to at least participate in the space, even if you weren't the most amazing, talented person in the world. It's not like making the world better by addressing weird problems is a par…

This looks sort of like a disagreement over what people mean by 'hobby'.

I think I could do this, from my starting point it wouldn't take me very long to do something useful. But it looks like the meat of this project involved corresponding with a city bureaucracy and cleaning up ugly data to get basic info from it. It sounds awful.

So... if a hobby is just something optional you choose to do and don't make a living at, then yes, I could do this as a hobby. But in the sense where hobbies are things you do for recreation - reading, gaming, woodworking, gardening, etc? This would be far less pleasant than any other hobby I have, and the bureaucracy parts would be actively negative.

I'm glad this happened, and I'm glad if people enjoy doing this sort of thing! But I think when we talk about having productive hobbies, it's worth differentiating "tasks you can achieve" from "tasks you can seek out sustainably without hurting your quality of life". I have productive things in both categories, but I'd only describe the second category as hobbies.

Re: Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets

#207

Post by pavel_lishin »

mmirate wrote: post #170
thatjsguy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good lord, just park and walk. Or use that bike lane. Cities have an overabundance of expensive parking [1], which does nothing but waste space and act as giant thermal batteries. Everyone loves complaining about traffic, but we don’t seem to have the political will to do something about it (namely: reduce our dependence on cars). Cities should work to reduce their dependence on cars, not increase it at the expense o…

And how do you travel more than a couple miles and arrive on-time, during the summer, wearing businesslike attire, without smelling like a cyclist upon arrival?

Bus. Subway. Ride-share. Taxi.

Re: Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets

#208

Post by efosmark »

mmirate wrote: post #170
thatjsguy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good lord, just park and walk. Or use that bike lane. Cities have an overabundance of expensive parking [1], which does nothing but waste space and act as giant thermal batteries. Everyone loves complaining about traffic, but we don’t seem to have the political will to do something about it (namely: reduce our dependence on cars). Cities should work to reduce their dependence on cars, not increase it at the expense o…

And how do you travel more than a couple miles and arrive on-time, during the summer, wearing businesslike attire, without smelling like a cyclist upon arrival?

I ride 6 miles to work and pack my work clothes. It only takes me 25-30 minutes. If I arrive to work sweaty, I shower. I know not everyone has the luxury of having a shower at work, but every company I've worked at so far has had one.

On the ride home I change back into my riding clothes and spray sunscreen. Just keep hydrated and you will be fine.

Re: Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets

#209

Post by s0rce »

Johnny555 wrote: post #141
sirmarksalot wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people routinely park in bike lanes, the problem is usually cultural, i.e. people know they're not supposed to do it, but they decide to do it anyway. Near where I work in Bellevue WA, they recently restriped the road to have a brightly painted bike lane, with double-white lines to make it abundantly clear that you were not supposed to drive in it. Bright red "no stopping" signs were placed on the curb. People s…

I think I know where you're talking about and I bike through there and the biggest problem is that they took away the "3 minute passenger drop-off/pick-up" spot right next to the transit center without giving any other options for passenger loading/unloading.

This is a big issue. I cycle to work everyday (Oakland) and there are at least a dozen people parked or stopped in the bike lanes. The big issue is that there is no where to stop. Parking is cheap/free and not time limited so most cars don't really move and the very few short term spots aren't ever enforced. You can drive around for 15 minutes looking for a spot or you end up in the bike lane. This isn't good but its at least somewhat understandable. This is the case around transit stations and busy restaurant/commercial streets.

Re: Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets

#210

Post by danShumway »

Ntrails wrote: post #168
danShumway wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could practice and build the skills necessary to have these types of hobbies! Nothing this person is doing is magic, and to the extent that genetics or extensive background prep play a role you could still overcome that deficit enough to at least participate in the space, even if you weren't the most amazing, talented person in the world. It's not like making the world better by addressing weird problems is a par…

Ok, here's the thing. I like playing video games. I get a sense of enjoyment and fulfillment from an evening spent crushing my enemies on the field of battle via a surprise contingent of minotaurs. That's fine. It's good! I would not get that same enjoyment from doing what this person does, although I fully agree i could probably replicate his method. My hobbies reflect what I enjoy doing, as do those of most people.…

I realize that actual tangible human emotions are much more complicated than I'm about to make them out to be. There is no "feel better" switch you can flip to make negative feelings go away. But, it is still sometimes helpful to try and recognize when an emotion is illogical and call it out, or at least it's helpful for me when I'm dealing with stuff like this.

If you know that overall the good parts of an activity wouldn't outweigh the bad parts, but you honestly believe that you have a duty to do it anyway, then you should follow your conscience and ignore trying to have a positive life. I don't think that's healthy, but some people disagree with me.

If on the other hand, you know that overall the good parts wouldn't outweigh the bad parts, and you don't think you have a duty to make yourself miserable in your free time, then what the heck do you feel bad about? If your guilt is real, you should acknowledge and take steps to address the cause. If your guilt is not real, then get a rubber band or something and snap it against your wrist every time you feel guilty about comparing yourself to other people.

You can replicate this if you think it would be worthwhile to do so. If you don't think it would be worthwhile to do so, then you shouldn't feel bad about it and it's just your stupid tribal lizard brain that's making you feel that way. And if you do think it would be worthwhile, then do it. I mean, even video games have bad parts. Having bad parts doesn't make a hobby unsatisfying or unenjoyable by default.

The third category in all of this is someone who thinks that overall the good parts of this kind of work would be incredibly satisfying, but they're so scared of the bad parts that they can't start engaging, or they're so scared of being inadequate that they never try to learn or develop their skills. My comment was addressed to that person. If you're not in that category then, I dunno. Flip your "feel better" switch.

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