newsnorthwest

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You can edit the wiki page that the list is on! You can do it!

Help by adding links to organizations based in Olympia and Thurston county with programs for people facing homelessness.

#olympia wa #homelessness

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Olympia's Camp Quixote is referenced in this national report on homelessness criminalization. The camp was included as an innovative solution.

Read the report here.

In short, the report by Washington DC based National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, basically says that it is a waste of money and resources to make laws against panhandling, loitering, and sleeping in public places.

#olympia #olympia wa #homelessness #poverty

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Having lived on the east coast for about a year a half and settling back into Olympia, I’m out of the loop on a lot of things. One of those things being that The Olympian has a pay wall. After clicking through 7 different posts, you’ll be directed to the above image and asked to subscribe...

#olympia #olywa

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A man who waited in line overnight to be the first customer at Spokane's first legal marijuana shop says he was fired for his efforts.

#spokane

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Data journalism project #2: Map of Washington’s retail marijuana stores

It’s the second project in my Overly Ambitious Data Journalism Challenge: a map of all licensed retail marijuana stores in Washington, many of which began operating today.

I used TileMill to make the map and relied heavily on lifeandcode's TileMill tutorial on Data for Radicals. The map is embedded on the page via an iframe, and I mostly just copied the html and css from my initial project page for the rest of it.

Thoughts on TileMill and Mapbox

TileMill is an amazing and really powerful mapping tool that lets you import multiple shapefiles and .csv files as layers, then style them using Carto, which is similar to CSS. In the past, I’ve used Google Maps for simple tasks like this, but TileMill has a lot more flexibility for styling, and also seemed much more intuitive to me in its handling of multiple shapefiles and layers. One disadvantage seems to be that you can’t import data from a Google Spreadsheet which auto-updates - you have to download a static csv.

Even from this really quick intro, I got a lot more ideas for things that would be fun to map. I had to download a few shapefiles from the Washington Geospatial Portal and there are so many geographic datasets there that would make for fun or interesting maps.

I had some trouble figuring out how version control worked when you export a revised project to Mapbox (the company that makes TileMill and has virtual map and project hosting). That’s something I’d like to play with more and really get nailed down.

Overall, TileMill seems like a really powerful mapping tool that I’d definitely like to use more in more complicated/multilayered geospatial data projects. I’d also like a better understanding of how to use Mapbox, as well as other interactive export options from TileMill for people who are a bit more familiar with code.

Reflections/self-eval

If I’d been making this map with the newsroom in mind (instead of with the goal of learning TileMill), Google Maps probably would have been a better choice for its speed, as well as its context: state lines, major cities, etc. are clearly marked. (The Seattle Times used Google Maps for the same task yesterday.)

Figuring out the details for how a map will embed works can be tricky. It took a lot of time to get the map centering and displaying how I wanted it to, and even after that it still looked a bit wonky.

iframes in general are frustrating beasts to wrangle. While they can be quick and easy, and are certainly a necessity for people who don’t know how to code, this project underscored how much I’d like to learn to use the Mapbox API and some of the other TileMill options that give you more control on how your project is displayed.

Aside from some bumps at understanding TileMill exports, I was happy with how quickly I threw this project together. The whole thing took about 2 hours from start to finish, and without all my hiccups, I think I could have had it done in under an hour.

I also need to start doing the projects on my list that involve writing (or at least tweaking) some JavaScript, or else I’m going to run out of the quick-and-dirty ones like this.

Edit: The code for this is on Github and the map is here if anyone wants to fork it, add more stores, etc. I’d like to maintain it as more pot stores open up, but I’m guessing I’ll get buried under other stuff, so I’m extending the invitation to anyone else who’s interested.

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420 Carpenter, out in Lacey, is the only one (so far) in Thurston County to win one. 420 Carpenter won the license, with 23 other retail stores in the state through a lottery by the Washington State Liquor Control Board. From WSLCB’s release:

"Businesses receiving their licenses today...

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Embroidery

Seattle artist Shaun Kardinal  creates antique postcards with embroidery. 

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Theatre in Arlington, WA raising money to buy a digital projector in effort to keep theatre open.

From the indiegogo campaign:

Going to Digital

"Save the Olympic Theatre" is a group of community members interested in the future of the Olympic Theatre located in downtown Arlington, WA.

The Olympic Theatre, a 73-year-old movie theater which first opened in 1939, is facing an uncertain future with the Movie Film Industry to cease production of 35mm film in 2013. The owner, Norma Pappas, is unsure the future of the theater and how much longer she can run "in the red" or afford a whole new digital projector system

Goal

Our goal is to raise at least $30,000 to help get the smaller end digital projector to allow her to continue showing movies before film is no longer available.

#arlington #washington #theatre #local business #indiegogo #arlington wa

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Venti Size Me: This Seattle woman, real name Beautiful Existence, plans to eat nothing but Starbucks for a full year. She’s really going to be sick of the breakfast sandwiches by around March. (ht Gawker)

#seattle #starbucks

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#moss is cool

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This is a Dick's cheeseburger turned into a waffle.

#dick's #cheeseburger #local #gross food #waffle #burger #waffle burger

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So I know that it may not hold a lot of meaning to you, but Backspace is a Portland All-Ages Coffee Shop/Venue/Internet cafe, and they have recently been told by their landlord that if they don’t have $10,000 by the first of January that they need to basically GTFO. Backspace is not just a venue, though, it’s a pivotal part of the local community, I have numerous personal friends who have had the opportunity to play shows thee, and to lose it would be crushing for so many people. They don’t just have concerts, though, they have monthly art shows, and the biggest weekly poetry slam on the west coast. It’s a place of art, a place for people of all ages to expose themselves to culture which, in Portland, can be hard for people under 21 to find access to.

Honestly, if you want to know exactly what this place means to the local community, just read the comments on the campaign, hell read the campaign at all.

I know it’s the holidays and money is tight for a lot of people, but if people could give ANYTHING at all it would help to save a place which means so much to so many people, and even if you can’t give monetarily, reblogging and getting the word out can help just as much.

Thank you all <3

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The old men of the forest, pt. 7, by Zeb Andrews. Hoh Rainforest, Washington. 

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Someone attempted a Minecraft build of the Washington State capitol building.

#washington #washington state capitol #minecraft #minecraft is so cool.

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LGBTQ* Photos You May Have Missed

Washington State’s Newest Married Couples

As of Thursday, December 6, 2012, Washington state now issues equal gender identity and gender pairing marriage licenses. 

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#wash your hands #washington