The Quiet Revolution Is Here. Help Us Map It

https://www.freelancersunion.org/blog/2014/03/05/quiet-revolutionary-map/

by SyncTheory13 • 12 years ago

19 17 12 years ago

freelancersunion.org

pepperax5• 12 years ago

Big, grandiose talk... Google Maps API. Amusing.

Raphmedia• 12 years ago

I don't see what is wrong with using the tools at hand.

qKyuu• 12 years ago

There isn't. It's just a troll (an anti-Google troll which is a common variety).

Made an account for this purpose, pay it no mind: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pepperax

pepperax5• 12 years ago

There are frequently better tools at hand, or at least different tools, or tools that offer a choice of values represented.

Since this "Quiet Revolution" (whatever it is) claims to oppose "corporate titans" (their words), and wants to talk about an economy more "in line with (their) values", I found their choice of tools interesting. That's all.

davidgerard• 12 years ago

"Huh, they protest capitalism but they, like, use money! Hurr hurr."

Dirlewanger• 12 years ago

...I'll give it a couple months.

l33tbro• 12 years ago

It's obviously a step in the rivht direction, but the branding and creative is too uninspiring for a mass onboarding. While I share their frustrations, I would never become "Quiet" because the people behind it appear naive and fail to address complexity in their manifesto (ie: cororates = bad, yoga = good). I think it is also highly derivative of the "slow" movement that sprung up a few years back.

I don't like to hate on creativity , but faux-revolutionaries that don't address complexity really annoy me.

sybhn• 12 years ago

I hope you haven't chose the name based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_Revolution. A wonderful revolution that left Quebec in its current advanced state ;-)

PS: not all of it was bad.

danso• 12 years ago

OK, since someone already trolled about Google Maps (in a poorly reasoned way), I'll lodge my own curmudgeonly criticism: mapping is rarely the way to solve anything.

Especially in New York, and with standard Google Maps service, it's not hard to find where things are. It's hard to find that they exist -- and, if they do, whether they fit your need...and clicking around on a map is not the efficient way to do it. Nor to enumerate it.

Even the most famous map -- John Snow's cholera map -- was not revolutionary in itself. Snow didn't find out anything from mapping, it was just part of the documentary process and the one made famous by Tufte. But Snow himself would've concluded that the map was of little evidence, because such maps were used to prove the miasma theory that he was trying to disprove. And his map, without the data that he collected, fell into this visual trap.

So what is the way to do things? Use a spreadsheet. Think about the important facets about each entry. And hell, one of those could be "address", and in literally one step, you can also make a map out of it if you want.

And when I mean "especially in New York", I mean that geographical distance is not the most useful metric. Even when it comes to geography. I prefer proximity to what subway station, and that is a kind of metric that is obscured/obfuscated by a map

pepperax5• 12 years ago

I agree with you, in a way.

The map itself may not be a way to solve anything, but the data it's collecting could be. Like you say, you prefer knowing proximity to subway stations - not just seeing a map. But the need to figure out that proximity is what makes collecting locational data (in a fun and user-friendly way, like OP's map) so important.

Regarding my apparent trolling, I think HN may have missed my point. Using the Google Maps API implies agreement to their ToS, which restricts one from using non-Google basemaps, and limits usage of the map in certain ways. While many people ignore, or are never affected, by usage limits, this still obligates developers to Google's quotas and pricing tiers (updated significantly in late 2013). There are other, similarly-implemented mapping APIs with more options, where you aren't locked-in to a particular vendor's load quotas. Tying OP's project to this particular API is a bit like saying "Support Local Businesses! ...click here for our Cafe Press site."

SyncTheory132• 12 years ago

Thank you for more information on your critique. I'm not familiar with how Google leases out their mapping software, but it sounds like it's definitely worth having a conversation about. Unfortunately, I'm in no ways tied to Freelancer's Union - Just admiring from afar.

austinstorm• 12 years ago

Great idea, but the rhetoric is a bit overblown.

SyncTheory132• 12 years ago

Now that it's had some time to develop analysis without my input, I wanted to explain why I posted this...

I've had some thoughts rattling in my head for a couple years now on building networks/tools to unify/empower small organizations, and to reduce hierarchical structures. There are multiple ways I hope to go about this, and would love to discuss it with anybody who wants to email me.

More or less, though, this is a very basic form of one of my ideas - or a decent starting point. I definitely agree with some of the criticism of a map-only set-up as danso mentioned, etc... I prefer the way Yelp is set up, for instance.

Also, I don't believe Freelancer's Union has been covered here much (if at all), and I believe that they could be a great resource to many of the people here.

The Quiet Revolution Is Here. Help Us Map It

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