Hey, I made a thing

[Alpha]

Here's some not-so-subtle self-promotion. A friend and I have been working on this web-map in our spare time. We're getting ready to start talking about it earnestly, as we think a lot of people would find it interesting.

So, without spoiling the subject matter, check it out.

I'm really scratching for feedback. In particular, I'd like to know if it takes a while to load in your browser. (You'll have to select one of the options first, and then the data will start to load.) Let me know what kind of browser you're running if it gives you problems.

Thanks guys!

/endspam

[Rowan]

Not mobile friendly =)

I'll check it on desktop later

[Alpha]

Heh yeah, certainly not for phones. Tablets are OK.

[Cyanist]

That's really cool! Nice interface too!

It's super slow on my Opera browser. But that could just be the bandwidth - my brothers are playing 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare' against some Italians upstairs

Hmm. But now an AVG pop-up is telling me Opera is using too much memory... oh, boohoo.

[Yoko]

That's quite cool!! Definitely something I'd like to see more of around the world, aka travel destinations for clients so I know the best method of travel in that location. Although there is a risk factor to each method of factor which are outlined nicely and indiscriminately.

I am using Google Chrome. It takes a couple seconds (5 ish) to go through each filter. And I was wondering if you could put multiple filters on at once, ie: Fatal + Speed events.

The dots also maintain their position on the map nicely as you move in and out. A lot of attention of details went into that. It also loads fluidly when zooming in/out.

It is still a work in progress I'm sure, but it's a very nice start. Well done!

[Alpha]

We just reduced the amount of data, so should be quicker now. Trying to keep it all free, so we don't have a server for it.

[Rowan]

thats awesome man. Where do you get the data from ? Also, how often will you update this data ?

[Alpha]

There's a link to the data in the bottom right of the map; the NZ Transport Agency compiles it, from Police reports. The NZTA publishes data in 6 month blocks, which is why the map only goes to July this year. I'm not sure when the next block will be up. There's actually 14 years' of data in this format, but two years is about 60MB to serve up, which is actually a massive amount of data for everyone to be streaming. At the moment it's at 16MB. We've got some things lined up to hopefully put the rest up too, but this requires quite a lot of change in the back end.

If the new data comes out before then, we'll probably just shift the date range forward by 6 months.

[Yoko]

Ooh, that's why it crashes the phone browser!! Good fun. I'll check out the speed again when able.

I completely understand the need to keep something like this free, but it also seems there's a lot of work that goes on in the back end. Are you just volunteering your time or are there any hopes of possible compensation in the future?

[Alpha]

Just doing it for fun. The benefit I get is learning how to do everything behind it, although 90% of it I already knew how to do. People pay for those skills, when they want to develop something for themselves.

I've had a small offer of payment for an enhancement (specifically, the ability to combine filters as you mentioned). We turned it down because that wasn't a priority at the time and we didn't want it to be. People do seem to find it pretty useful. It's actually hard to believe no one had put together a map of this data before now.

[Alpha]

We got picked up by NZ's largest newspaper (well, the online version obviously), and got published on Christmas morning. It was the most popular article on Christmas (which probably isn't saying much), and was shared 35,600 times* on Facebook, apparently. Which is awesome.

Infographic: Where NZ's crashes happen - National - NZ Herald News


* Those numbers seem wildly inaccurate