3 ms·

Using Gowalla checkins to predict alcohol-related travel

22 points by chronomex 16y ago

chronomex 16y ago
This was my final project for the quarter. I was surprised at how many Gowalla profiles were matched exactly by voter registrations.
expertio 16y ago
I have to say this is so cool! Police department could use this data to do roadside random breath test. And there will be less killer on the road.
- chronomex 16y ago
  Thanks! Our original intention was to do exactly that, though we couldn't figure out how to do route planning with ArcGIS for more than one origin-destination pair at a time.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Probably not. The number of people driving drunk is much lower than the number of people driving distracted or driving stupid.
  - evolvingstuff 16y ago
    There may indeed be more distracted/stupid people, but the inebriated ones cause about twice the number of deaths overall in the US: http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/distracted_driving/index.html http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/distracted_driving/ind... http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impai...
jrockway 16y ago
Some very interesting results, especially that only 20 out of 1000+ people sampled made their names on Facebook private. Something that I thought was strange is that I usually go out drinking near work rather than near home, and then ride my bike or take the bus home afterwards. I also routinely walk more than a mile. The article seems to consider this uncommon, but it's common amongst my group of city-dwelling friends. It would also be interesting to use this data to see how public transportation affects drinking. When I go drinking at a bar that's near the Green Line, which closes around 1:20am, I make sure to finish up and leave around 1 (unless the extra hour is really going to make a difference to me). When I go drinking near a bar that's near the Red Line, which is 24 hours, I rarely leave before closing time. Am I normal? Mining the data could tell me :)
- chronomex 16y ago
  I thought I had my Facebook set to maximal privacy, but it turned out that I didn't. I'm not too surprised at this, to be honest. You think you can do something else cool with the data? Have at it! :) Let me know if other data such as more detailed user profile info will help. http://xrtc.net/f/projects/gowallahol/gowalla_checkins.csv.gz http://xrtc.net/f/projects/gowallahol/gowalla_checkins.csv.g...

22 points by chronomex 16y ago

This was my final project for the quarter. I was surprised at how many Gowalla profiles were matched exactly by voter registrations.

expertio 16y ago

I have to say this is so cool! Police department could use this data to do roadside random breath test. And there will be less killer on the road.

chronomex 16y ago
Thanks! Our original intention was to do exactly that, though we couldn't figure out how to do route planning with ArcGIS for more than one origin-destination pair at a time.
jrockway 16y ago
Probably not. The number of people driving drunk is much lower than the number of people driving distracted or driving stupid.
- evolvingstuff 16y ago
  There may indeed be more distracted/stupid people, but the inebriated ones cause about twice the number of deaths overall in the US: http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/distracted_driving/index.html http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/distracted_driving/ind... http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impai...

jrockway 16y ago

Some very interesting results, especially that only 20 out of 1000+ people sampled made their names on Facebook private. Something that I thought was strange is that I usually go out drinking near work rather than near home, and then ride my bike or take the bus home afterwards. I also routinely walk more than a mile. The article seems to consider this uncommon, but it's common amongst my group of city-dwelling friends. It would also be interesting to use this data to see how public transportation affects drinking. When I go drinking at a bar that's near the Green Line, which closes around 1:20am, I make sure to finish up and leave around 1 (unless the extra hour is really going to make a difference to me). When I go drinking near a bar that's near the Red Line, which is 24 hours, I rarely leave before closing time. Am I normal? Mining the data could tell me :)

chronomex 16y ago
I thought I had my Facebook set to maximal privacy, but it turned out that I didn't. I'm not too surprised at this, to be honest. You think you can do something else cool with the data? Have at it! :) Let me know if other data such as more detailed user profile info will help. http://xrtc.net/f/projects/gowallahol/gowalla_checkins.csv.gz http://xrtc.net/f/projects/gowallahol/gowalla_checkins.csv.g...