The Rhiza Feed

Whenever I picture the American West as it was at the turn of the 20th century I always picture wee homesteads, rocky country, trucks with curved fenders, and big herds of wild horses. After watching the Misfits, starring Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, I assumed that every last feral horse in the west had been rounded up long ago and shipped off to dark ends.

However, to my surprise, I learned this week that feral horses are a protected animal population in the United States. They have safe haven in many western states and are allowed to live unfettered. In Nevada (the setting of the above mentioned film) there are over 16,000.

There are also populations of wild donkeys roaming the empty spaces of the American West, which, unlike the horses, I knew about first hand. I met a small heard of them in the cascade mountains once when I was a little girl. They could smell a sucker from a mile away and would wait outside of our cabin until I would come out with a bag of carrots. They’re shaggy, friendly beasts and always happy to trade a pat on the nose for fresh produce.

They aren’t as numerous as wild horses and don’t have the same protections, but they still manage to get by on their charm. Yes, there is such a thing as burro charm.

Rhiza Labs’ work with mobile data collection was mentioned in an article today in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. In an article titled, Smartphones rise from gadget to tool of necessity. The article talks about how smartphones are not just becoming more prevalent with consumers, but are becoming an essential part of delivering services to organizations, business and government.

Click here to read the article in the Tribune Review

I think it’s time to break out the maple syrup ice candy, because last week there was snow in all 50 states, at the same time!

Data pulled from the National Climactic Data Center shows total snowfall as registered by various weather stations around the country. Our map below shows all of the weather stations in the country that recorded a non-zero amount of snowfall for the month of February. Only Florida and Hawaii registered dustings so light or sparse that they didn’t make it into the total.

Compared to the rest of the country, it looks like the Mid-Atlantic region has been singled out for an extra-hard kick in the pants. Even without data for yesterday and today, we’re over 33 inches here in Pittsburgh.

Despite being an inland northeastern city, Pittsburgh is pretty lucky when it comes to the snow. We’re in a climactic sweet spot where we almost always get a few warm days after every snowfall. However, this time around it’s snowed almost every day for the last two weeks without going above freezing and we are running out of places to put the snow. I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun.

Still, unlike last week, it’s possible to drive from place to place without complete terror.

How is your town handling the snow?

View up the hill from the author's house, two days after the blizzard.

My family and I live at the bottom of a very steep, curvy street that dead-ends in front of our house. For over three days our street, home to 40 houses, went untouched by the City of Pittsburgh’s snow plows. With over 24 inches of snow on the ground, there was no way to get out. The City of Pittsburgh was almost totally silent on the progress of snow removal during the first 48 hours after the storm. Even after that, local officials provided almost no actionable information. After I spoke with some of them, I learned that nobody had given them any actionable information to provide. There was a complete information blackout throughout all levels of government.

While waiting for city snowplows to dig out our street and with no information about when they might arrive, I began to think about how a more open and transparent government might respond in this situation.

The test of a truly open and transparent government is how it responds to a crisis. For all its efforts to become more transparent, the City of Pittsburgh did not fare well on this test for a number of reasons: Read more »

Our CEO, Josh Knauer, was interviewed this past Thursday on BlogTalk Radio’s Virtually Speaking show. The show’s host, Jay Ackroyd, and Josh discussed issues ranging from how communities are using maps and data to tell better stories to the tech world’s response to Haiti. A big focus of the interview was on Rhiza’s emerging tools for helping communities crowd source data, but with filters or controls on it to improve data quality.

Rhiza Labs is proud to announce the newest member of its team, Alison Alvarez!

Alison has a talent for developing computer systems that understand people. Her background as a computational linguist helps her understand how all kinds of people interact with software and helps her visualize ways to connect regular users with the information they need.

Prior to joining Rhiza, Alison worked as the Lead Product Design Engineer for Medrespond and developed a virtual coaching system called Project Go! that educated and motivated kids and parents to make healthy nutrition and exercise choices. As part of her graduate research work Alison also developed tools for building and analyzing universal human language corpora for use in field linguistics.

When not at Rhiza, Alison spends time with her husband and three Rhode Island Red hens, Mary, Eleanor and Catherine. She also spends most of her free time sewing and gardening like she means it.

MapItApps, a leading provider of location-aware applications for mobile phones has recently released a new program to help people locate areas of high H1N1 infection nearby, using the FluTracker data feed.

Watch the Demo on YouTube

Media or User Reported Outbreaks appear in Red Pins
- Fatalities appear in Purple Pins
- Your Contacts appear in Green Pins
- Your “Comfort Zone” is a red elipse

If a user defines a personal “Comfort Zone” they are notified of newly reported outbreaks each time they launch the H1N1 Map.

The application is currently available for the iPhone and iPod Touch in the iTunes App Store.

Versions for Android and Windows Mobile are coming soon!

Contact us for more information on how your company can create new products and services with subscriptions to the FluTracker Data Feed.

Rhiza CEO Josh Knauer gave a talk at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo in NYC yesterday, and many people have been asking for the slides. The title of Josh’s talk was Stories From the Trenches: Deploying a Global Pandemic Tracking System in 48 Hours

Read more »

The Associated Press reports:

“Estimates of deaths caused by the swine flu have grown to nearly 4,000 since April, roughly quadrupling previous estimates. But that doesn’t mean swine flu suddenly has worsened. Instead, the federal numbers made public Thursday reflect a long-awaited better attempt to quantify the new flu’s true toll.”

We’re glad to see public agencies making a better effort to give people the information they need to protect themselves, given the fact that:

“I am expecting all of these numbers, unfortunately, to continue to rise,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We have a long flu season ahead of us.”

and,

Tight supplies of vaccine to combat the illness continue: Not quite 42 million doses are currently available, a few million less than CDC had predicted last week.

From the beginning, FluTracker has been a reliable and current source of up-to-the-minute information on the spread of swine flu. Turn to FluTracker for the most accurate and timely data about the spread of swine flu.

Rhiza Folio has such broad appeal to program managers, communications staff, and project coordinators that I sometimes have difficulty encapsulating all its value when I talk to people about it. So, I’ve made a video showing a few of the many ways that Folio can turn your project data into an engaging and useful showcase of your work. Let me know what you think, and feel free to contact us if you’d like to learn more.