Medieval Fantasy City Generator

This is so cool!

I also wonder if it uses any generative-model ideas from urban analytics and/or complex systems?

(Tip of the cap to Dungeons and Dragons Memes.)

The Surprising Population Counts of Cities: Reality Versus Psychology

The headline and tagline of this 538.com article are misleading, but the rankings are interesting. (Surprisingly, the article doesn't bring up metro and urban areas, as opposed to a city proper, which makes a big difference for an example like Miami, though this does not satisfactorily explain many of the examples.)

Would you have guessed that the city of Fresno has a higher population than New Orleans? (In this case, the order does get reversed if you measure metro area, but they are still very similar, so it's not like the whopping case of Miami.)

I remember being surprised a few years ago to find out that Boston is not in the US top 20 if you consider the city proper (based on the 2010 census). I remember querying this in a particular data set (here is the associated readme file, by the way) with street-map networks of the center of the top 20 most populous US cities (and similarly for other continents).

Note (partly so I remember this later): metro population and urban population are two different things.

Britain's First Fast-Walking Lane Opens in Liverpool

Great Britain's first fast-walking lane has opened in Liverpool. I approve! (And I would totally take advantage of this.)

(Tip of the cap to Guillermo Valle Pérez.)

Quantifying the Smell of Urban Areas

My latest post in the Improbable Research blog is about using data analysis to quantify the smell of urban areas.

Visualization of Stores in Cities

Take a look at these visualizations of cities with every store mapped. Very cool!

Somebody should do some network analysis of this stuff. :)

(Tip of the cap to Stacy Kerkela.)

Visualizations of Street Networks

These visualizations of street networks are gorgeous. The coloring is based on orientation.

(Tip of the cap to Dave Relyea.)

A City Named "Boson"

Note to self: the airport to which I want to fly is in the city of "Boston", not "Boson".

My search will probably be more effective now. And the best news of all is that more than one person can occupy that airport at once.

Monopoly Streets in Real Life

Here are what the streets in Monopoly (in the Atlantic City version, which is the original distributed version) look like in real life.

(Tip of the cap to Shahram Shokrian.)

It's Official: Hell Has Frozen Over

Yup, that's right: Hell has frozen over because of the polar vortex that is sweeping (part of) the nation. Perhaps that's because it's in Michigan?

(Tip of the cap to Andy Sayer.)

"Batkid"

The Batkid story is really cool! It's nice to see something like this. (Seriously. Take a look at the link.)

(Tip of the cap to Zach Rosenfield for suggesting a googling of "Batkid" on Facebook.)

Update: OK, this story has gotten even cooler! In fact, it is now particularly awesome, as the US Justice Department is now playing along in a very cool way. As you can see, "The Riddler" and "The Penguin" have surely done some hideous crimes, though I think that their attempt to convert Lou Seal into a Los Angeles Dodgers fan is not only forgivable but even laudable, and I would therefore encourage the Justice Department to give them leniency because of that redeeming bit of behavior amidst what were otherwise heinous crimes. (Another hat tip to Zach for the link to the Justice Department website above.)

"Get Outta Da Way!"

Take a look at this puppet's tips for New York City tourists. Hilarious!

(Tip of the cap to Maria King.)

What Happens in (NY)^2 Stays in (NY)^2

Today I am flying to New York City --- aka, (NY)^2 --- and will be there for the first time since July 2011. I am traveling there because one of my cousins is getting married.

Update: When I was in line to drop my bags, the security person was pretty thorough. I needed to show him my card that lets me live in the UK, he checked my passport for several minutes, etc.

He asked me if I had any weapons, and of course I said know. He then asked me if I had anything that could be used as a weapon, so I explained that my laptop could be used to bash someone over the head but that I didn't want to do that because it's my computer. Maybe this wasn't the best answer to give?

He also said I shouldn't take accept any items from anybody, so hopefully getting a certain karate trophy from Aaron won't be an issue.

Darkened Cities

Thierry Cohen has produced some awesome pictures of what a few cities would look like if they didn't have human-made lights. I especially appreciate the pictures of Shanghai to compare to my memories and pictures of the place.

(Tip of the cap to I Fucking Love Science.)

Maps and Wallpaper

The online store Nornob has a very cool product: one can use a map from any zip code for wallpaper design. Sweet!

(Tip of the cap to Jimmy Lin.)