Cascadian urbanist, technologist, and data nerd

Dillon Mahmoudi's blog

Why I Can't Get Behind TED's City 2.0

Mon, 03/26/2012 - 09:50 -- Dillon Mahmoudi

TED can provide hours and hours of entertainment and education. In fact, I would argue that TED has provided a major service by wrapping ideas in exciting video clips with enthusiastic speakers. It is clear that the diffusion of these, perhaps otherwise unreachable, concepts has been TED's biggest feat.

This last month during TED 2012, another major feat was undertaken as TED announced that the "crowd" is going to get the annual monetary prize. For a refresher, Anthony Flint of Atlantic Cities has a great short article describing TED's aspirations with the project. Read more about Why I Can't Get Behind TED's City 2.0 …

Differentiating Crowdsourcing and Twitter

Thu, 02/23/2012 - 16:52 -- Dillon Mahmoudi

As part of crowdsourcing research with Professor Ethan Seltzer, I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people about crowdsourcing - both crowdsourcing practitioners and those who have never heard of the term. Not only have I spent a lot of time explaining the crowdsourcing process, it's necessary components, and it's dis/advantages, Ethan and I are about to propose a public crowdsourcing project. The term crowdsourcing is used casually by, well, just about everybody. Read more about Differentiating Crowdsourcing and Twitter …

In Defense of Portland's Fixie Bike Index Rank

Sun, 02/12/2012 - 23:35 -- Dillon Mahmoudi

I never thought I'd actually defend Portland's rather poor performance on any type of hipster ranking, but I have become interested in all things economics and hipster. I sincerely agree with Megan Greenwell of GOOD suggesting that the Portland backlash is good for the city. Recently, I came across the Fixie Bike Index on the Priceconomics blog. Some things that caught my eye: Read more about In Defense of Portland's Fixie Bike Index Rank …

Selective Survey: Ambiguous Group of People Still Want to Own Homes

Mon, 02/06/2012 - 16:51 -- Dillon Mahmoudi

A recent study by real estate consultants titled "Survey Reveals People Still Want to Own a Home" finds that "people" still want to own homes. An economist pointed out to me that the study should be titled "Startling result: Survey [of people touring new homes] reveals that people [touring new homes] still want to own a home." Woops. Read more about Selective Survey: Ambiguous Group of People Still Want to Own Homes …

bePortland.com: Interview with the Creators About the Map's Origin

Thu, 11/03/2011 - 17:53 -- Dillon Mahmoudi

An fun interview at one of our favorite drinking holes, Prost, in noneother than the most badass neighborhood, Boise. 

Eric was actually out of town when we had to do our final presentation, so we decided, “Shit, let’s make a video"

Read the interview at bePortland.com. Read more about bePortland.com: Interview with the Creators About the Map's Origin …

KATU: How 'badass' is your neighborhood?

Thu, 04/28/2011 - 00:00 -- Dillon Mahmoudi

KATU's John Tierney interviewed Eric and I about the map. Read more on the KATU blog. Favorite quote from the article:

The pair threw all this data into a formula and the badass-ness scale was born. The top scorers fall into the “hella badass” category and the lowest scorers fall into the “Vancouver-ish” category (sorry, Vancouver).

The comments on the KATU blog are also worth a read. Read more about KATU: How 'badass' is your neighborhood? …

First Edition: Wonder how your neighborhood stacks up?

Wed, 04/27/2011 - 20:00 -- Dillon Mahmoudi

Eric and I were interviewed by Tim & Terry, from KPAM 890AM's First Edition, and we were asked about what might be the repercussions of saying "Vancouver-ish."

 

And do you have a neighborhood that is most likely to "put a bird on it?"

 

Audio portion after the fold. Read more about First Edition: Wonder how your neighborhood stacks up? …

CEOs for Cities: Portland's Badass-ness Map

Tue, 01/25/2011 - 20:35 -- Dillon Mahmoudi

CEOs for Cities picked up Badassness Map and shared a link to the presentation video given in our GIS class taught at Portland State.

A goup of Portlanders have posted this video in response to the city's famed "20 Minute Neighborhood" map with a more nuanced version of why they have chosen to live and work in the "mecca of badass-ness."

See it on CEOs for Cities here. Read more about CEOs for Cities: Portland's Badass-ness Map …

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