The San Francisco Citizen

You, a concerned citizen, can always check out CrimeMaps to see what your “neighborhood crime trend” is like in San Francisco. But some people don’t like this online tool, and for good reason.

Supervisor Tom Ammiano wonders why homicides don’t show up on the system. Interesting question. Well, the SFPD is working on it and they’ll have something to say about software and hardware updates tonight at a Police Commission meeting starting at 5:00 PM.

But wouldn’t it be nice to have access to an ”Incident Report & Analysis Tool” (it works, just give it a little time for the video to load) from UniversalMind or something? Click to enlarge:

You’ve seen the video, now it’s time to play with a demo yourself. What you’ll see is crime incident data, as you’d expect. The data is a little out of date, but this it’s just a demo.

In this orderly universe of mayhem you’ll see the expected constellations of crime, but also planetes asteres, wandering stars. Click on these dots to start playing.

It’s a live video feed from the Crown Vic of Officer Heinz! Hear him as he comes under automatic weapons fire and uses salty language. Oh no! Wonder what’s in his weapons cache? A .40 caliber Smith & Wesson, 9mm Luger, and .45 Colt. Natch.

(But wouldn’t he be better off trading in his PR-24 Nightstick for an enchanted Heavy Gnoll War Club or similar two-handed mace? And how much gold does he have?)

This future of live crime reporting will get here when it gets here, but fixing CrimeMaps should be something doable in 2008, dontcha think?

This is no mere ribbon cutting ceremony to open a new $429 million section of freeway approaching the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. Oh no.

The last step to opening this short but vital stretch of superslab involved Governor Schwarzenegger, cowboy boots, sunglasses and a big blow torch.

[Update: or welding torch, or cutting torch (based upon the O2 trigger) - Arnie's tool is an oxy-fuel welder of some kind, as commenter Doc helpfully points out. Arnie's sunglasses actually are sunglasses, but you could say that they were being used as goggles. The light coming from chain didn't seem all that bright compared to arc welding or whatever. FYI]

Enjoy your new freeway, San Francisco!

Higher rez version after the jump.

(more…)