4 ms·

This is awesome - though I'm amused that the site that clearly represents US data, is hosted on an overseas domain... (.io = British Indian Ocean Territory). E

by atonse 12y ago

This is awesome - though I'm amused that the site that clearly represents US data, is hosted on an overseas domain... (.io = British Indian Ocean Territory). Edit: All snark aside though, this really is awesome. I can imagine all kinds of useful things that come out of this sort of structured data, including just interesting information (like demographic patterns of various politicians, etc).

stormbrew 12y ago
Most of the people on the BIOT islands are American, though. The natives were expelled to build a US military base.
- JumpCrisscross 12y ago
  This is a fascinating and shockingly current story. Thank you for the pointer. "The depopulation of Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago, that is, the compelled expulsion of the indigenous inhabitants of the island of Diego Garcia and the other islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) by the United Kingdom, at the request of the United States of America, began in 1968 and concluded on 27 April 1973 with the evacuation of Peros Banhos atoll. ... On April 1, 2010, the British Cabinet announced the creation of the world’s largest Marine Protected Area (MPA) which consists of most of the Chagos Archipelago, homeland of the Chagossians. The MPA will prohibit extractive industry of all kinds, including commercial fishing and oil and gas exploration. Some Chagossians have claimed that this MPA was created to prevent the islanders from returning to the islands. On December 1, 2010, a leaked US Embassy London diplomatic cable exposed British and US communications in creating the marine nature reserve. The cable relays exchanges between US Political Counselor Richard Mills and British Director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Colin Roberts, in which Roberts 'asserted that establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago’s former residents'. The cable (reference ID '09LONDON1156')[citation needed] was classified as confidential and 'no foreigners', and leaked as part of the Cablegate cache." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depopulation_of_Chagossians_from_the_Chagos_Archipelago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depopulation_of_Chagossians_fro...
dba7dba 12y ago
It's surprising in this day of age no easily obtainable digital data of US demographics is available. Yeah, it would be really awesome to just click a few times to see make up of a politician's district. Hope the project does well.
- dfc 12y ago
  You mean something that would allow "access [to] selected statistics about your Congressional district"? With a informative name like "My Congressional District"? Easily found by navigating to the tools and data section of the government entity that collects statistics about the population? My Congressional District: https://www.census.gov/mycd/ https://www.census.gov/mycd/ Other tools from census.gov: https://www.census.gov/data/data-tools.html https://www.census.gov/data/data-tools.html
  - obituary_latte 12y ago
    People are lazy. Anything that works to circumvent that fact should be applauded.
    - dfc 12y ago
      I do not understand your comment. OP lamented the lack of easy access to demographic data, commenting that "it would be really awesome to just click a few times to see make up of a politician's district" and I gave a link to exactly what OP was longing for. The only remaining laziness circumvention is an application that reads your mind. You think bothering to look before complaining is too much to ask of individuals who comment on HN posts?
      - obituary_latte 12y ago
        My point is this: how many people are there as motivated as op? Motivated enough to comment on an obscure website in hopes of being pointed in the right direction? Perhaps maybe the disconnect is in that I -- and maybe op as well -- are thinking in the context of people as a whole, and you are thinking in the context of people as members HN.
rwallace 12y ago
Didn't the .io domain get repurposed for general use, which is why so many projects and companies have started using it lately?
- buu700 12y ago
  Not exactly; Google just recategorised it in their indexing system as a generic ccTLD (a technically-country-specific TLD treated as though it weren't).

by atonse 12y ago

stormbrew 12y ago

Most of the people on the BIOT islands are American, though. The natives were expelled to build a US military base.

JumpCrisscross 12y ago
This is a fascinating and shockingly current story. Thank you for the pointer. "The depopulation of Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago, that is, the compelled expulsion of the indigenous inhabitants of the island of Diego Garcia and the other islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) by the United Kingdom, at the request of the United States of America, began in 1968 and concluded on 27 April 1973 with the evacuation of Peros Banhos atoll. ... On April 1, 2010, the British Cabinet announced the creation of the world’s largest Marine Protected Area (MPA) which consists of most of the Chagos Archipelago, homeland of the Chagossians. The MPA will prohibit extractive industry of all kinds, including commercial fishing and oil and gas exploration. Some Chagossians have claimed that this MPA was created to prevent the islanders from returning to the islands. On December 1, 2010, a leaked US Embassy London diplomatic cable exposed British and US communications in creating the marine nature reserve. The cable relays exchanges between US Political Counselor Richard Mills and British Director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Colin Roberts, in which Roberts 'asserted that establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago’s former residents'. The cable (reference ID '09LONDON1156')[citation needed] was classified as confidential and 'no foreigners', and leaked as part of the Cablegate cache." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depopulation_of_Chagossians_from_the_Chagos_Archipelago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depopulation_of_Chagossians_fro...

dba7dba 12y ago

It's surprising in this day of age no easily obtainable digital data of US demographics is available. Yeah, it would be really awesome to just click a few times to see make up of a politician's district. Hope the project does well.

dfc 12y ago
You mean something that would allow "access [to] selected statistics about your Congressional district"? With a informative name like "My Congressional District"? Easily found by navigating to the tools and data section of the government entity that collects statistics about the population? My Congressional District: https://www.census.gov/mycd/ https://www.census.gov/mycd/ Other tools from census.gov: https://www.census.gov/data/data-tools.html https://www.census.gov/data/data-tools.html
- obituary_latte 12y ago
  People are lazy. Anything that works to circumvent that fact should be applauded.
  - dfc 12y ago
    I do not understand your comment. OP lamented the lack of easy access to demographic data, commenting that "it would be really awesome to just click a few times to see make up of a politician's district" and I gave a link to exactly what OP was longing for. The only remaining laziness circumvention is an application that reads your mind. You think bothering to look before complaining is too much to ask of individuals who comment on HN posts?
    - obituary_latte 12y ago
      My point is this: how many people are there as motivated as op? Motivated enough to comment on an obscure website in hopes of being pointed in the right direction? Perhaps maybe the disconnect is in that I -- and maybe op as well -- are thinking in the context of people as a whole, and you are thinking in the context of people as members HN.

rwallace 12y ago

Didn't the .io domain get repurposed for general use, which is why so many projects and companies have started using it lately?

buu700 12y ago
Not exactly; Google just recategorised it in their indexing system as a generic ccTLD (a technically-country-specific TLD treated as though it weren't).