Responses to the metafilter thread
Wednesday, February 8th, 2006Because I have some time, though I should be working on the fallback geocoding, I’d like to respond to this.
Kickstart70, if there were such a thing as the webiverse, it would seem strange to have no interest in its center, it it had one.
longsleeves, the site is updated using a cellphone camera, from the street.
celerystick, I’m working on it! I just happen to live in New York City and thought it an appropriate place to start. There’s a good deal of grass-roots effort at this point going in to getting people to use the site. It’s taken off in the blogs, but few people are actually posting stuff. Also, debugging the map stuff, and address-to-geocode lookup is hard, and requires a knowledge of the area on the map. For instance, there are many North 3rd Streets in New York City. How do I get the geocoder to choose the right one?
Citizen Premier, no, the site is for interesting garbage only.
Bucket o’ Heads is correct about FreeCycle, though the goals are somewhat different.
smackfu, I don’t know. I tend to agree with PeterMcDermott.
stbalbach, now it only works in NYC, but soon elsewhere.
scottreynen points out something I didn’t know. Alerts will be a part of GarbageScout some time, too.
nickyskye is a true garbage scout.
DieHipsterDie, that is true. Since there are 8 million New Yorkers, we are not unique, by definition. However, this city is unlike the rest of the US in many ways. It is the largest city, for one thing.
chrominance, definately. The ‘burbs often have the large-item trash day that is a boon for gleaners, and people have cars. Most people in Manhattan don’t own cars.
eustatic, there are some places where even the smallest bottlecap is picked up, not because people are virtuous recyclers, but because they are so poor that almost anything can be of value. I am thankful to live in a place of plenty. It saddens and astounds me, too, that there is so much waste.
Thanks to all for your comments.