Hey, there! Log in / Register
Back Bay, East Boston are worlds apart, at least according to Google auto-complete
By adamg on Sun, 04/27/2014 - 12:03pm
Matt Karolian got curious what results he'd get from Google auto-complete by typing in the same basic search for various Boston-area neighborhoods and communities.
Neighborhoods:
Ad:
Comments
Roslindale Man needs to heed warnings about the yellow line
JP Man was shot after a day at the spa
Try "woman" on those
Or just "wo" for more variety.
I tried Medford Man, too - but they all jumped off of the Tobin Bridge. That explains a lot.
Whitehouse Streetbump
Perhaps I'm digressing but apparently the Obama administration is interested in subjects like this. For example, they pointed to the City of Boston's "streetbump" app as inadvertantly differentiating service for various neighborhoods.
Just google "Podesta street bump boston".
Street Bump
The argument is that if you use a tool (smartphone) that is more common among the wealthy to determine where to spend public money (pothole repair), it stands to reason that the places where the wealthy live with get more public money.
I don't think the Obama administration is wrong in bringing this up, though I would suspect that potholes in West Roxbury where being fixed sooner then potholes in East Boston since long before smartphones.
This gets back to the old "you can use statics to prove anything" argument. The ability to data mine is changing but people always have and always will cherry pick metrics which support their interests.
What are the alternatives?
And how are they promoted? Do people in the less smartphoney neighborhoods have access to a reporting mode - such as calling a hotline? And, if so, how are those hotlines promoted and do they receive similar responses from city services?
Those are still important questions to ask, even if "well, its always been that way" is true. Just because it has always been this way, doesn't mean that it has to keep on being this way.
And...
So what you are saying is that we should data mine to determine if improvements in data mining are leading to changes in inequality metrics. :)
Chelsea
if I do chelsea I get
Chelsea ma man killed
Chelsea ma city manager
Chelsea ma property management
Chelsea ma emergency management
(I have to add a MA otherwise I get Chelsea NY (manhattan) or Chelsea Manning)
Revere man...
Revere man..
Revere man is quite dead
Revere man is quite dead
Not this one. Not yet.
Not this one. Not yet.
Hey, even Newton's not immune
Newton manufacturing
Newton Manhattan bus
Newton man arrested
Newton manicure
Newton man arrested in NH
East Boston man to be named
East Boston man to be named Time magazines man of the year.
East Boston mansion to be knocked down for Airport expansion
I think I can see what the op
I think I can see what the op is getting at, but Im not sure there's anything to it. Not many stories start with " (insert city here) man minds his own business, returns home safely after an uneventful day".
If it bleeds, it leads...
Police brutality in Arlington?
Arlington man
Arlington man arrested
Arlington man dies
Arlington man dies in custody
On the distaff side,
Arlington woman
Arlington woman's club
Arlington woman hit by dump truck
Arlington woman kills husband
Arlington, TX probably
They always win on Google. Wish we would just go back to Menotomy so my Google searches could omit "Town"
Weston manor
Weston manor
Weston man buys $1.4 million East Boston condo for his son Josh..
Yay Perpetuated Stereotypes!
Whatever, it keeps my rent low. At least for another year or two until the current Jeffries Point/Maverick rush pushes further east.