Animated map projections
Earthquake shacks
San Franciscans still live in 1906 earthquake shacks:There were once 5,610 refugee shacks in 11 San Francisco parks, assembled with lightning speed in the months after the April 18, 1906, earthquake and fire. Today, there are fewer than 50 identified in the city. But those that remain are a symbol of civic vision, built in a bureaucracy-free utopia that included a partnership among city officials, labor unions and the U.S. Army. They're also a symbol of post-crisis rebirth, designed to house the displaced workers who built back San Francisco better than ever.
And today, 115 years after the disaster, they're the most visible reminder of the city's most defining event -- preserved by a shifting collection of regular citizens and nonprofit history organizations, advocates so dedicated to the shacks that they feel like a religious order. [...]
Half of San Francisco had burned to the ground, and refugees moved to tent cities in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio and other green spots. But the shelters were a ticking clock. Relief leaders feared they would become waterlogged and disease-ridden when heavy rains arrived later in 1906.
Using redwood and fir lumber sent from Washington state and Oregon, the cottages were built in tight clusters in the parks with cooperation among the San Francisco Parks Commission, headed by John McLaren, the San Francisco Relief Corporation and the Army. Tenants paid $2 monthly rent on cottages valued at $50, with the option to own. And in 1907, many shack owners hauled their new property using literal horse power, becoming starter homes in empty lots across San Francisco and beyond.
Map: Where 1906 earthquake shacks live on:
Most of the 5,610 relief cottages built in San Francisco parks have been demolished, but a surprising number -- at least 30 and maybe many more -- still exist in the San Francisco Bay Area. The residents who live in them swear the sturdy redwood frames built in a day could last another 115 years.
We've compiled a list of all the San Francisco shacks that are "certified" by local preservationists, plus some more strongly believed to be earthquake refugee shacks as well. Bernal Heights has the highest concentration, but the petite homes are scattered throughout the region and beyond.
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Bill Gates' Land Ownership
Bill Gates now owns almost 242,000 acres of the continguous USA. This map shows that area as a rectangle that can be dragged.Lots of articles on this are full of "4D chess" speculations about climate change blah blah, but the real reason for this seems to be very simple: "just to collect rent."
Most of us imagine farmers tilling the soil that has been in their families for generations. But many farmers lease at least some of the land they cultivate. According to Bruce Sherrick, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, about 60 percent of row-crop farmland in the Midwest is leased. The landowners can include investors like Gates.
"Farmland has had a remarkably consistent ability to hedge against inflation," Sherrick says. And it tends to be "negatively correlated" against other investments, he adds: If the stock market is going down, the return on farmland is likely to be going up.
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Kung Fu
First of all, her family owns a small, faltering dim sum restaurant in Chinatown (in a building that is 25'x100' at best, but still only has like 6 tables in it), but instead of living in Chinatown, they have a huge house in the chilly, pine-tree suburb of... Cow Hollow?
Our hero takes a walk to clear her head, so she strolls past the Ferry Building on the new jetty that is 500' offshore. Either that or Treasure Island has been relocated. Or hey, maybe they moved and re-landscaped Alcatraz instead!
Ah, the wide, bustling, spotless streets of San Francisco's Chinatown that is totally not at all Vancouver:
Then it's time to spy on some smugglers, so they go down to "the docks" which someone's phone helpfully shows us are located at the corner of Fillmore and Marina. A neighborhood famous, of course, for its abandoned yet well-lit oil refinery:
And finally, one they got right. They visit the SF DA's office, and at first I was going to goof on this for being a weird stand-in for 850 Bryant, but this seems to actually be the Earl Warren Building, which is in fact where the DA's office is! Whew.
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Country Centered Map Projections
Traintrackr
Tracks trains on the BART in San Francisco, showing live locations as each vehicle moves around the network. Receives live data over WiFi. LEDs update every second. Uses 200 RGB LEDs.
Hey, anyone want a BART car? Legacy Fleet Reuse Program.
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Panhandle
I did not know about this 1928 SFDPW proposal to extend The Panhandle. I say better late than never! Bulldoze Safeway!A proposal to extend the Panhandle Park to Market Street followed the Wiggle route exactly, but without the wiggling. The plan called for demolition of houses to allow a straight route.
Update: Apparently the Panhandle was a street at the time, so this would have been basically a ground-level freeway, which is not at all what I had in mind!
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