Open Data Tells NYC Residents Where the Rats Are 93
itwbennett writes "The New York City Health Department's Rat Information Portal provides raw data on where the rats are, based on inspections done by the health department, as well as by their rat indexing initiative. The portal isn't a new open data initiative, but if you're a NYC resident and not a big fan of rodents, the site is worth a look. 'The most interesting part of the portal is the interactive heat map of rat inspection data,' says ITworld's Phil Johnson. 'Using this interactive map, you can look up the inspection history, going back to 2009, for any address in the five boroughs. It will tell you the dates and results of any inspections, as well of any follow up compliance checks. As for raw data, the site provides city-wide rat reports, aggregated to the zip code level, going back to 2006.'"
Thankfully it's NYC (Score:5, Funny)
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And not Washington. Holy crap, the map would just be red, highlighted by ultra red around congress.
Yeah, yeah. But seriously, have you been in a big city and seen the swarms of rats? Chilling.
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"If you're a NYC resident and not a big fan of rodents..." __What's a guesstimate on the percentage?
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Somehow I doubt that fear of certain animals are ingrained in our DNA. Certain animals are considered pests or cute based on personal experience and cultural factors. Certainly I consider snakes to be scary, while many people consider them to be good pets.
Re:Thankfully it's NYC (Score:5, Interesting)
Urban rats are manageable if people aren't pigs. But we've got rats here in Chicago who can chew through a heavy-duty plastic municipal garbage bin. At first, I would see these big bites taken out of the garbage can lids and I had no idea what they were, then one day I'm walking the dog and she scares a rat who was sitting on top of the can chewing the lid. It was the first one I'd seen.
Considering how few rats I've actually set eyes on and the number of bites taking out of the garbage cans out in the alley, Chicago rats must wear cloaks of invisibility or something. I'm out walking the dog 365 days a year, morning, noon and night and I've probably seen two rats in 10 years.
Racoons on the other hand are another story. There were some living under the gutter of the house that was being renovated a few doors away. They were as big as Shetland ponies. I mean giant. And they make this weird mewling/growling sound that sounds like they're possessed by Satan.
Urban wildlife. Dude.
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Out in the wild areas of wild north america, we get around the problem of wildlife getting into the garbage by using lid-locking metal cans. I've yet to see something chew through galvanized steel, and do it successfully. Even the bears give up after a time if they can't smash the lid off.
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One issue in urban (and suburban) areas is that, to save pickup costs, cities are increasingly using automated pickup systems [youtube.com] so they can run 1-man-crew garbage trucks, and those don't work with locking lids, at least at present.
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Out in Alberta they make bins that have a lock, but are reinforced plastic. And can be auto-unlocked by the handler on the truck. I should have taken some pictures of it when I was out there, since it was neat as anything.
Duh it's Chicago (Score:2)
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Chicago looks like a ghost town? Are you insane? Right now it's 25 degrees below zero windchill outside and there are still a half-million people who come downtown to work. I live just to the West of downtown. If the Sears Tower were to top over to the West, the tip of the antenna would fall on my bed, hopefully on my wife's side. I'm in a better position to see Chicago than you, certainly. Don't mistake Chicago for Detroit.
Cities are like women (sexist metaphor coming!). Chicago and Detroit are both
Plastic is rodent candy. (Score:1)
All rodents can do that, including mice and voles. The thing that's different about Chicago is that the humans are so detached from nature that they don't know this.
Rodents cannot chew through glass, and it takes them a very long time to chew through metal or concrete. If you live near rodents, use a galvanized metal can; if you live near raccoons or possums use raccoon springs.
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I'll have you know we Chicagoans are not detached from nature, my friend. In fact, just last week I had a pigeon crap on my car and last spring I ran over a squirrel.
I got yer nature right over here.
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I wish I could "like" your post, but on the other hand slashdot on its worst day is probably still better than Facebook.
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Oh, you occasionally see rats in my family, but usually not for very long.
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And not Washington. Holy crap, the map would just be red, highlighted by ultra red around congress.
Yeah, yeah. But seriously, have you been in a big city and seen the swarms of rats? Chilling.
At least they got rid of that Bloomberg rat.
Re:Thankfully it's NYC (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not distance; by degree of dirt. They protect those that can take them down.
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In contrast to some humans I can think of.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c... [nytimes.com]
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Haha, jokes about congresscritters aside, D.C. and surrounding inner suburbs really do have a serious rat (the actual animal) problem.
Besides, you forgot K St NW. It's where all the lobbyists are.
Better idea (Score:2)
Bioengineer RFID chips into all the NYC rats so you can tell where every one of the little bastards are at all times.
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Bioengineer RFID chips into all the NYC rats so you can tell where every one of the little bastards are at all times.
Woudln't work -- not only are they intelligent enough to remove the chips and hide them in other mobile objects, NYC gets a constant stream of rodent migrants coming in by land, air and sea. At which point, if you could bioengineer an RFID chip that would be dominant, why not just bioengineer dominant male infertility?
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As an alternative, you could try to implement the defect in a viral vector, and have that spread through the population. They've done some work in Australia trying to get virally-transmitted immunocontraceptives to work on rabbits...
Yeah... what could *possibly* go wrong with that? Why don't you start by cross breeding AIDS with ebola?
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Maybe you need generation skipping genetic flaws that will not kick in until the entire population is infected.
Then the sterility gene suddenly turns on.
Seems unlikely this could be contained, and would probably spread out of control via some unforeseen vector.
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why not just bioengineer dominant male infertility?
In theory, that sounds like the fastest route to reducing rat populations.
One generation, and done.
In practice, it simply isn't likely to propagate, so dominant mail infertility is an oxymoron.
(I can only assume you had your tongue firmly lodged in your cheek when you suggested it).
However non-lethal chemical castration can work to make a drastic temporary reduction in
population, if rats weren't so smart. You would have to come up with constantly changing feeding
techniques so you don't end up eradicating on
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why not just bioengineer dominant male infertility?
In theory, that sounds like the fastest route to reducing rat populations.
One generation, and done.
In practice, it simply isn't likely to propagate, so dominant mail infertility is an oxymoron.
(I can only assume you had your tongue firmly lodged in your cheek when you suggested it).
However non-lethal chemical castration can work to make a drastic temporary reduction in
population, if rats weren't so smart. You would have to come up with constantly changing feeding
techniques so you don't end up eradicating only those rats that eat corn, or only those
that live in buildings.
I'm curious: why don't you think it would propagate? Something similar has already successfully been done in certain species of mosquitoes successfully.
Dominant male infertility propagates through the females, who carry the dominant gene to their male and female offspring. The male offspring cannot reproduce, but still compete with the males that can, which provides a slow generational decline (which is important) in population, until the only female mice still in the area are all carrying the dominant ge
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Mosquitoes are irradiated, not genetically modified.
New experiments [treehugger.com] that painstakingly injected male mosquito embryos [nature.com] are simply too expensive to use in the field. Surgically injecting a mosquito or a rat does not scale.
In short, they aren't "breeding" sterile males, they have to make them one by one in a laboratory.
Further nobody has ever demonstrated this in a mammal. Further your statement:
The male offspring cannot reproduce, but still compete with the males that can, which provides a slow generational decline (which is important) in population, until the only female mice still in the area are all carrying the dominant gene,
is chock full of magical thinking.
Where did all these female carrier "mice" come from? (The story is about rats, n
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why not just bioengineer dominant male infertility?
The problem there is that it just doesn't breed true.
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NYC has the best pizza in the world, and the really big rats are usually on the subway tracks (and they are smart, never saw one get nailed by the 3rd rail in the 20 years I lived there).
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"NYC has the best pizza in the world,..."
yes, people from NYC love to claim that.
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"NYC has the best pizza in the world,..."
yes, people from NYC love to claim that.
And it's led to some of the most hilarious bits on The Daily Show. Loved it when a Chicago deep dish chef actually came out to NYC and made John taste an actual deepdish (not the dreck found in pseudo-Chicago restaurants). Or when The Donald took The Pig with Lipstick to a pizza dive and ate w/ knife and fork.
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Pizza is like sex. Even when it's not very good, it's still pretty good.
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The best line I ever heard about pizza:
Pizza is like sex. Even when it's not very good, it's still pretty good.
The person you heard that from was not doing it right.
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American pizza is a completely different dish then Italian pizza. In fact, I would posit that pizza actually is an ambiguous term referring to many dishes with a few common factors (flat bread with some sort of toppings).
NY Pizza is different then Chicago pizza, and that's a different type then found in my home town.
This is true in Italy as well. Pizza in Rome is very different then pizza in Napoli.
And there are many places with Pizza. Pide, a Turkish pizza is perhaps one of my favorites and looks nothin
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Cities don't make pizzas. *Countries* don't make pizza either. Cooks do. If you take a pizza chef out of Napoli and fly him to New York, he doesn't suddenly lose his pizza making skills.
Now New York City has a large number of very good pizzerias. Keste on Bleecker Street is the best I've tried, but for all I know there may be a better pizzeria lurking somewhere in Brooklyn.
I am a Bostonian. If you visited and went to a pizzeria, it would almost certainly be Greek, not Italian, serving a Greek style pie.
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NYC has the best pizza in the world, and the really big rats are usually on the subway tracks (and they are smart, never saw one get nailed by the 3rd rail in the 20 years I lived there).
I guess I have to admit that I've never actually eaten pizza IN NYC. I've had numerous pizzas that are "NY Style" or sold as "NY Pizza". So far the "NY Style" pizza I've experienced is nothing special. Perhaps the real thing is significantly different. I guess I can hope that NY pizza is the one recipe on the planet that cannot be readily duplicated by others.
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NYC is the best place in the world. I'd love a chance to live there. What's wrong with NYC pizza? Nothing. You can find pizza of all quality levels there. Everything from bottom of the barrel Domino's to authentic Neapolitan brick oven pizza, and everything in between.
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NYC is the best place in the world for the rich. I'd love a chance to live there, and be rich.
The BIG problem with living in NYC is the amount of money you need. If you have $100 million in the bank or a job that pays $250k a year, your life style here is sweet (and completely unmatched anywhere else in the world).
If, on the other hand, you do a "normal" job, life is much harder.
Of course, some people like the trade off. If you don't mind living in a closet you may prefer the night life here to small town America, even if the rent on your Manhattan studio would cover the costs of a McMansion in sm
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The BIG problem with living in NYC is the amount of money you need. If you have $100 million in the bank or a job that pays $250k a year, your life style here is sweet (and completely unmatched anywhere else in the world).
Hmm...I think I'll opt for the $100 million in the bank.
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Hmm...I think I'll opt for the $100 million in the bank.
You and me both buddy
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Need more cats (Score:1)
Introduce some new workers on the payroll ... cats. Spayed and full treatments. Have them able to be clearly identifiable so people know they are on the job.
I moved into a new suburb that is predominately a dog neighbourhood about two years ago. I still wake up most mornings to a nice dead rat on the welcome mat. I still cannot believe the number of rats that he's caught.
And don't hit me with the argument of native wildlife. Dogs are just as bad and most species now are introduced. The hit rate of ver
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Introduce some new workers on the payroll ... cats. Spayed and full treatments. Have them able to be clearly identifiable so people know they are on the job.
I moved into a new suburb that is predominately a dog neighbourhood about two years ago. I still wake up most mornings to a nice dead rat on the welcome mat. I still cannot believe the number of rats that he's caught.
And don't hit me with the argument of native wildlife. Dogs are just as bad and most species now are introduced. The hit rate of vermin to non vermin way, way high.
In some cities there are coyotes brought in for this purpose. http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulw... [npr.org]
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Well, NYC is carrying out a Rat Indexing Initiative for Manhattan and the Bronx, per TFA.
So either they'll find the Wall St rats clustered around former Mayor Bloomberg, or they'll find the Yankees. Or me.
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Well, NYC is carrying out a Rat Indexing Initiative for Manhattan and the Bronx, per TFA.
So either they'll find the Wall St rats clustered around former Mayor Bloomberg, or they'll find the Yankees. Or me.
Are you saying you cluster around Bloomberg?
Mystery Solved (Score:5, Funny)
Now we know what all those cats are doing on all those laptops [google.com].
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They check the map, yes, but they also look up advice on how best to treat, play with, and groom their pet humans. It's not like they only chase after food, now.
Not a very good map (Score:3)
I'd like to see a Google Maps mashup with the data overlayed over it for better panning and zooming.
The NYC GIS map is awkward to use and the rat data doesn't appear to show above a very close in zoom level.
There may be some other link to a city-wide heat map but I didn't find it on the rat portal web site and slashdot's total brain damaged linking to most stories doesn't help.
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That's what we need on Google Maps, a rat overlay. It'd look like the traffic overlay, except red would indicate a significant likelihood of being eaten.
Observation (Score:1)
How about that; it's centered in Washington DC.
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Vermin then? is that more inclusive?
Acronyms (Score:3)
You mean other than... (Score:2)
City Hall?
Rats? (Score:2)
Don't you mean "Rodent Americans".
Having spent many years dealing with environmental (Score:4, Informative)
and public health data, I'm always skeptical about datasets and maps like this. The reason is that what looks like a lot of data usually turns out to be not that much when you spread it out over all the environment you have to deal with. And it usually turns out to have all kinds of selection biases too -- at least the found stuff; data you collect as a side effect of other activities, rather than collected according to some kind of sampling protocol.
To see what I mean, look at the rodent heat map of NYC. You'll see red hot parcels adjacent to ice-cold parcels. Sometimes you'll have an ice-cold parcel with no reports surrounded on three sides by red hot parcels. Does that mean that one side of the boundary is teaming with rats and the other side has none whatsoever? Of course not. It means that somebody has reported a lot of rats on the "hot" parcel. Why is this? Well, maybe there's an observant resident. Maybe there's a place where it's particularly easy to see rats going about their business. Or maybe the residents of an area have banded together to generate a lot of reports so the city will do something. I've certainly seen stuff like that happen.
Imagine you are a rat looking at NYC. What are your top priorities? (1) water; (2) food, (3) shelter (or harborage in the rat watcher's lingo). And you're going to find those things *everywhere* in NYC. In fact the best places for you will be where you can go about your business unnoticed. There are many, many blocks with no rat reports surrounded by very similar blocks with lots of rat reports, and I'm guessing it's not because there are no rats there. And I doubt there's much more than a weak correlation between the rat population in an area and the number of reports.
Don't get me wrong. I think it's terrific NYC is making this data available. But I doubt you can conclude much about the rat population of your block from rat reports; it's safe to assume there are rats everywhere. If you want to know which blocks have the most rats, what you need is a field survey performed by experts.
A: Because it breaks the flow of a message (Score:1)
You see what I did there? (Score:1)
Install some of these (Score:2)
automatic rat killing machines :)
http://www.wisecon.dk/?lang=en [wisecon.dk]
in the sewers and you have a rat massacre.
"Open Data Tells NYC Residents Where the Rats Are" (Score:2)
Jersey.
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New Jersey, thankyouverymuch [wikipedia.org].
Ay, rat-fans! (Score:2)
The portal isn't a new open data initiative, but if you're a NYC resident and not a big fan of rodents, the site is worth a look.
It's also worth a look if you are a big fan of rodents.
Found 'm! (Score:2)
Here [google.com] they are! Get them! Squash 'm! Eradicate 'm! Rid the world of this vermin!
NYC problem (Score:2)
Site needs some work (Score:2)
"You can generate maps of neighborhood rat inspectation [sic] data."
It's confusing that the high rat density areas are shown in green, since many of the areas happen to be parks and parks are normally green on maps. Plus, green usually means 'go' and is a pleasant color that makes me think "this is good".
It also struck me funny that the department is actually called "The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene"
Reminds me I need to pick up some mental floss at the drugstore.
Rats? In Quantity? Free Protein! (Score:2)