voluntaryXchange

Crime Is Different in D.C.

Chernoff Faces are a statistical technique for finding similarities/differences between many variables measured across many observed units. In database lingo, it’s for data that has lots of fields and records.

The method exploits human facial recognition abilities. Similar observed units have similar faces. Dissimilar faces indicate differences.

Here’s some crime rates for the U.S.:

What makes D.C. stand out like that? Relatively more murders, robberies, assaults, and car thefts; relatively less rapes, burglaries, and larcenies.

I’ve lived in Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, and New York. Personally, I’d group Utah and New York as criminally similar, and Louisiana and Alabama as closer to each other than to the first pair. The Chernoff faces tend to confirm this.

Via I Love Charts via Fruitsoftheweb via FlowingData.

 

Technorati Tags: chernoff,faces,crime,rates,by,state

Oh Wow: Fascinating but Hard Analysis of Daylight Saving Time

I think the other people in my family are unusually interested in daylight saving time. This site will help me with some inevitable questions.

But the graphics are tough. Here’s one. It shows the hours of daylight in light blue. The year goes horizontally, so summer is in the middle of each panel. The hour of the day goes vertically — with evening at the top. So thickness in the middle is long summer days.

The panel on the left shows no daylight saving time. The panel on the rights shows what daylight saving time does: shifts a little bit of evening into the morning.

Then there’s this one. It shows day of the year across the horizontal axis — so northern summer is in the middle. Vertically, it shows latitude from south pole to north pole — so the horizontal blue line approximates the continental U.S. The shading shows daylight: white is the most, yellow quite a bit, blue is less than half, and gray is none at all.

Days getting longer and shorter is then the transition of colors going left to right. In the U.S., our short days of winter transit into long days of summer and back again.

This emphasizes something I became acutely aware of when I moved to the almost always sunny high desert of Utah: the transition from short days of winter to long days of summer happens really rapidly. This is the steep slope at the border between the blues and greens and yellows.

All this leads to this chart. The left panel is sunrise, and the right panel is sunset. Browner means less sun, and yellower means more sun.

So in Utah, where I live now, daylight saving time makes for darker mornings (our mountains just to the east make that worse — the sun comes over them about 8:35 in midwinter), and sunnier evenings.

For my part, daylight saving time always reminds me of moving from Buffalo, New York — along the far western border of the eastern time zone, to Tuscaloosa, Alabama — along the eastern border of central time. I was shocked at how early the sun set in the winter in Alabama  — you’d start to notice it dimming about 3:45 in the afternoon.

And you can clearly see that in the last panel on the right: Alabama is one of the brownest places at sunset, indicating early darkness. I guess at that age (I was around 25) that I never got up early enough to notice the bright, early, mornings in Alabama.

Technorati Tags: daylight,saving,time,utah,alabama,new york

A Little Vicarious Family History

I never knew my maternal grandfather. As the youngest child of a youngest child, he would’ve been 82 if he’d lived until my birth.

Back between the wars he was a successful factory owner in Buffalo (they made steel drums).

Anyway, he golfed, and was part of the new money at the Park Country Club, one of the most prestigious in the Buffalo area (and apparently, the new links they built in 1928 are still a mighty nice course).

So I was amused last month when I saw in “Today In Sports” – that filler column in local newspaper sports pages — that the PCC had hosted the PGA Tournament in 1934.

I’m sure my grandparents were there, and a big part of the organization. Eighty years later, I can do an advanced search in Google and pull up quite a lot of hits showing their involvement with the club during the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Technorati Tags: park,country,club,buffalo,fetter,pga,1934

No Really, Does It Get Any Better Than This???

The other day I posted about how any blame for bad policies ruining Upstate New York needs to focus on the fact that 1) for a very long time the state has been run almost completely by the 3 people at the top, and 3) for decades those 3 people at the top have been drawn exclusively from the Downstate area (New York City and its suburbs).

And after posting that, lo and behold one of them was forced out of office this week due to corruption charges.

Hmmm. They’ve now lost a majority of the top 3 on corruption charges in the last 6 months.

Oh … and they had to have an election within the State Senate for a new majority leader. As of Monday, The New York Times noted that there is a broad field of possible successors:

Even if Mr. Skelos were to step aside, the field of potential successors is small, and the next in line is clouded by other controversy: The Republicans’ No. 2 is Senator Thomas W. Libous, of Binghamton, who is facing a federal indictment, accused of lying to federal agents during a corruption investigation.

Other potential candidates include Senator Catharine Young, from Western New York, who would be the chamber’s first female majority leader; Senator John A. DeFrancisco, a veteran legislator from the Syracuse area and chairman of the finance committee; and Senator John J. Flanagan, from Suffolk County, who served 16 years in the Assembly.

Let’s count those folks off: an Upstater, a second Upstater, a third Upstater, and bringing up the end of the list a single Downstater.

Don’t hold your breath about who won the vote: Flanagan, the Downstater.

*****************************

Perhaps Mr. Flanagan doesn’t deserve this next bit.

There was this movie that Eddie Murphy made about 25 years ago called The Distinguished Gentleman. In it, a member of Congress dies in office, and the special election for his successor is a con man with the same name who’s campaign slogan is “vote for the name you know”.

What does this have to do with the new New York State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan Jr.? Well, he’s the son of John Flanagan Sr. I’ll let The Times continue:

John J. Flanagan was 25 and a second-year law student when his father — Assemblyman John Flanagan Sr., a well-respected Republican from Long Island — died of a heart attack while jogging near the family’s home in Suffolk County.

It was 1986, and just weeks before an election. But a few days after his father’s death, the younger Mr. Flanagan entered the race, at the urging of party leaders, and easily won his father’s seat.

Gosh. I wish most states were run by people who’d completed their first year of law school.

In Flanagan’s defense, he did eventually complete law school, albeit from a school I’ve never heard of that happens to be singularly successful at producing graduates who end up as member of the New York State Legislature.

Technorati Tags: flanagan,skelos,new,york,state,senate,majority,leader

The Zombification of Upstate New York

Once you get out of the New York City that most Americans are vaguely familiar with, say, north of 123rd St., “The City” starts to fade into “Upstate”. There’s not a sharp borderline, but even 50 years ago when That Girl was a hit sitcom, going to Brewster to visit her parents was definitely going upstate.

That leaves about 50,000 square miles or so of New York (the state) as Upstate.

And it’s been economically dead for a long time: a macroeconomic zombie.

There was an interesting piece about Upstate New York the other day, in, of all places, Utah’s The Deseret News. It opens with a one liner:

Upstate New York is becoming Detroit with grass.

I hate to break it to the writer, but it’s the other way around: Detroit is becoming Upstate New York with less grass.*

I was a kid when it first dawned on my that my hometown was going down the toilet, and quickly at that. Somewhere between 1975 and 1978 I know I had to start making excuses to people from other places about why Buffalo was just as good. And we’re not talking resort locations. Instead, this was why Pittsburgh couldn’t be that good, or why would anyone want to move to Sacramento.

I’m motivated to write this post because one of the author’s sources got it wrong:

“It all began in 1959 when the interstate highway system was completed,” says Carl Schramm, professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at Syracuse University. “That was also the year commercial jets went into service and half the homes in Florida were air-conditioned.”

Schramm’s a much bigger fish than me. And he’s right about 1959. But the reason is the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is the system of canals that allows ships to get around Niagara Falls (and other smaller falls, and rapids) to go from Duluth all the way to the open Atlantic.

The reason this is a big deal is that most of Upstate New York thrived on the basis of transshipment. Buffalo was the interior port of New York City: ships came east and transferred their loads to trains bound for New York City, while goods came west on the trains, and loaded on ships bound for Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee (but also Erie, Sandusky, Windsor, Sarnia, Bay City, Traverse City, Muskegon, Gary, Racine, Sheboygan, Green Bay, Sault St. Marie, Marquette, Superior, Duluth … and probably in a small way, my eponymous town of Tofte, Minnesota). And Buffalo got that way by being the terminus of Erie Canal, which linked to the inland ports of Rochester, Syracuse, Rome, Utica, and many others.

So, in 1959, they bypassed the reason for the existence of a the populous ribbon running through the middle of Upstate New York. It’s been dying ever since.

For perspective, consider this great chart of relative size of large metropolitan areas. Find Buffalo: it has a hump in the 1950’s. Now go across to the present day, where the comparably sized cities are Seattle, Phoenix and San Diego (larger original here).

Let that roll of your tongue: Buffalo — the Phoenix of the 1950’s.

 

The author is right about the rest: bad weather, tax and regulatory policies that satisfy those from the City but hurt those from Upstate, New York’s unusual method of financing Medicaid, and the fleeing of the big industries that anchored all those cities. So let me be perfectly clear: the St. Lawrence Seaway bypassed something that everyone wanted to bypass anyway.

I think the author is a little wrong also about the politics involved. Yes, New York is a blue state. But the bigger problem in New York is the domination of the state’s political system by three officeholders: the governor, the Speaker of the Assembly (legislature, and the majority leader in the State Senate. It was huge news in New York when one of them was arrested for fraud a few months back. I won’t go into the details, but if you’re number 4, you may as well not bother; I actually know a former # 4, and he hitched himself to Hillary because he wasn’t moving up any further within the state.

Don’t believe me? They let an upstater serve as Speaker last year … for 12 hours. That was between the fraudster and 20 year veteran from Manhattan, and the new guy from The Bronx. They let another upstater serve for 3 days in 1991. The last upstater to serve a long term as Speaker left office in 1959. Senate Majority Leaders are much the same, although Wikipedia doesn’t make it easy to figure out what they represent. Governors? Don’t even bother looking for one from Upstate.

I actually don’t have much of a problem with this set up. Politics is politics, and if New York was a success story I’d be lauding these troikas.

But it isn’t.

Upstate New York is a victim of a political system based around New York City. And really, Upstate isn’t a zombie at all: it’s more like the victim of a vampire … already cold and quickly fading away.

* Funny story. Many western Mormons do a pilgrimage of sorts: they go to the northeast and midwest to follow the trail that the early Mormons followed for the 20 years or so before they emmigrated to Utah. My friend and colleague GP did this with his family about ten years ago. While passing Buffalo, instead of going through on the interstate, they decided to bypass it on U.S. highways. This took them through the suburbs I know well. When he returned, he told me that he never understood why riding lawn mowers were invented until he saw how big the lawns were in that area. That’s one thing Upstate has going for it … nice lawns.

Technorati Tags: upstate,new,york,buffalo,st. lawrence,seaway

Something You Don’t Want to Wake Up To

It’s 5:20 am, and time to get the vXboy up for Drivers’ Ed. And here’s what I see when log on:

This is the sign where I entered my alma mater’s campus every day for most of the 1980’s.

Technorati Tags: university,buffalo,coventry,entrance

Dead Malls

There’s a site called Dead Malls devoted to malls, some still alive, but most of them are dead.

You can search by location or mall name. It’s fascinating to go back and read up on the places we spent so much time.

In Buffalo as a kid, I frequented:

• Eastern Hills Mall, a site for regular Saturday night outings for my family in the early to mid 70’s … has apparently undergone a renaissance. It was billed as the biggest mall of all when it opened in 1971, although I’m not sure how much of that was local chauvinism. I moved away from Buffalo in 1989, and I haven’t been in this mall since 2002 or 2003, but it seemed OK then.
• Boulevard Mall had a little more upscale, old money (if there’s such a thing in the suburbs), reputation. I think I went there some time in the 90’s, and wasn’t impressed. It also is apparently thriving.
• Seneca Mall was a place I went a few times when very young (my grandmother lived in that area until 1972). It’s apparently a rubble pile now.
• Main Place Mall was downtown, and I went there very occasionally — mostly once I had my driver’s license and happened to be downtown. It’s still going. People from the suburbs go downtown in Buffalo arguably less than any other metropolitan area. I stayed in a hotel not far from this mall for over a week last year, and it never occurred to me to check it out.
• I was also talking with my mother last month about Chautauqua Mall. It’s not on the site either. It was the mall in what passed for the suburbs of Jamestown, the faltering city of 30K or so that anchored rural Chautauqua County. I haven’t been there in probably 35 years, but Chautauqua Mall is still open.

I lived in Tuscaloosa for a couple of years. University Mall is not listed in this webpage, but I heard it was damaged by the big tornado a few years ago. I have fond memories of McFarland Mall. It was down in the dumps 25 years ago, but even then there was a bar and a movie theatre there that I liked.

I also lived in Salt Lake City in 1991-2. I spent a lot of time at an urban mall named Trolley Square (built in the old streetcar barns). I loved that place: cool, upscale stores, a couple of good restaurants (especially an Italian place called … hmmm … Ferrantelli maybe), movies and bars. But I was there about 10 years ago, and it had gone downhill. And after that there was a mass shooting there.

We lived in New Orleans in the 90’s. There are some malls from there on the site, but none I ever went to much. I suppose just about all the malls there were killed by Katrina.

One point my wife and I emphasize to the vXkids is how unusual it is to grow up without a mall. We live in a small-ish city on I-15, and the nearest mall is about an hour away. And, it’s not much of a mall. We’ve been there about 5 times. It’s anchored by a Barnes and Noble now. We all enjoy that … but let’s face it … no one goes there to buy books anymore. We just test fly them before hitting the keyboard.

Via bookofjoe.

Technorati Tags: mall,eastern,hills,boulevard,trolley,square

Nailing My Dialect

I took the dialect quiz too:

I’d call that a direct hit on Buffalo. I lived in the outer ring of its suburbs from birth to 1989.

As an adult, I also lived in Louisiana for 9 years, and Alabama for 2. I’m sure they could tell “I wasn’t from around there.”

This also explains why, to a large extent, people in Utah don’t think I talk funny.

paid advertisement follows

(by edward manganaro)

Technorati Tags: dialect,buffalo,quiz,test

Swearing and Politeness

I swear a lot, and I’m polite, so I found these cholorpleths interesting:

I grew up in Buffalo in the 80’s, and I think it was a lot swearier than they show it to be. And, my first (professor) job was in Alabama; I actually got negative comments on my evaluations that I had sworn in class. Both these things make me think the map is somehow inaccurate.

Personally, I think a lot of swearing came from exposure in the armed forces during World War II. Those guys are mostly gone now ... but they were foul-mouthed when they were younger. My dad was one; he was very sweet and mild-mannered most of the time, but when he got going "... my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan."

FWIW: When I was a young slacker I had a summer job as laborer in a high school. The head custodian made up new swear words. One time he was calling me out in front of the whole crew for some problem with a painting job. And he screams "You paint like a dogfuck!" That wasn’t even one of his better ones, but it got to me, and I started laughing uncontrollably. He tried yelling more, but eventually he started laughing too and just walked away shaking his head.

Drawn from “Congratulations, Ohio! You Are the Sweariest State in the Union”. Hat tip to KL.

Technorati Tags: swearing

Local vs. Tourist Photo Density Maps

Very cool infographics by Eric Fischer. Obviously, this is San Francisco. The tourists are downtown, along the wharves, out to Alcatraz, and along the Golden Gate Bridge. The locals are further up Market Street, and out through Golden Gate Park, but also in downtown Oakland and Berkeley.

Less familiar is my old stomping grounds of New Orleans – where the tourists don’t leave the French Quarter, CBD and Warehouse District, except to go a little uptown to the Garden District.

Then there’s my hometown, Buffalo, where tourists dare not tread (and apparently the locals don’t post many photos either):

Everyone seems to be missing the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Delaware Park.

The information was derived from people who posted and geotagged their photos.

Via Information Is Beautiful.

Technorati Tags: local,tourist,photo,density,map