MeFi Projects

As part of Open Data Day DC, I began the Books for DC (aka 'booksfordc') project with the goal of increasing user engagement with the DC Public Library's many wonderful resources. Last month, I wrote a web scraper that publishes a Twitter feed of new additions to the DCPL book catalog. And I just released a Chrome browser extension that lets you know what books and ebooks are available at the DCPL when browsing Amazon, Goodreads, or Barnes & Noble. [more inside]
posted by waninggibbon on Mar 15, 2015 - 6 comments

I'm about to move away from DC after living here for 10 years; I know that "I'm leaving town" pieces are trendy now, but I wanted to reflect back on the positive ways that living in DC has affected me and enriched my life [though a few do stray from this main topic] via a series of short essays & photoessays on a daily Tumblr. The goal has been to churn through a lot of ideas rather than make something perfect--more NaNoWriMo than Goodbye to All That.
posted by psoas on Sep 2, 2014 - 0 comments

It's a website with one purpose: it tells you what shows are happening tonight in Washington, DC. In a big, simple list that works really well on phones. It's also an open source project I just wrote about.
posted by tmcw on Aug 11, 2014 - 6 comments

An open-ended research tool for everything that the DC Police Department writes on their twitter feed. The department made the controversial decision to encrypt all radio communications last year, with no allowance for journalists, and thus have devoted more time to twitter. The site allows you to view the last three thousand tweets and quickly analyze factors like age, city quadrant, gender, etc., though a clever regular-expression-based interface.
posted by tmcw on Aug 30, 2012 - 7 comments