A Sankey diagram showing Boston’s municipal finances for 2024. The visualization tracks how money flows from revenue sources (left) to different expenditure categories (right).
View the interactive version: https://locovote.com/data/municipalities?name=Boston&year=2024
Built with Observable Framework and D3:
Source code: https://github.com/amarder/locovote
Data sources:
Live Demo: https://andrewmarder.net/posts/bluesky-robots/
A viral chain letter on Bluesky asked users to “quote with a robot that isn’t from ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Dr. Who,’ or ‘Transformers.’” This interactive D3.js visualization shows how it spread across 2,000+ posts.
Features: Click nodes to see robot images/GIFs, zoom/pan to explore the network structure.
Data: Collected via Bluesky API using breadth-first search traversal, visualized as a radial tree.
Source Code:
Major Update to Locovote: Better School Comparisons Based on Recent Research
I’ve updated Locovote with improved school district comparisons based on MIT research. The research shows traditional school ratings can be misleading, reflecting student demographics rather than school quality.
What this means: Locovote now includes adjusted metrics that aim to measure actual school value-added while removing selection bias. This gives Massachusetts families a clearer picture of school quality when comparing districts.
Check out the updated comparisons at https://locovote.com/school-districts and let me know what you think!
#Education #DataScience #Massachusetts #SchoolChoice #OpenSource
My 3 favorite Obsidian plugins:
Read about my setup and why I chose these: https://andrewmarder.net/posts/obsidian/
#Obsidian #PKM #SecondBrain
🎙️ Just released whispy! A simple command-line tool for speech-to-text on Mac.
Record → Transcribe → Auto-copy to clipboard
Built on whisper.cpp with Apple Silicon optimization for fast, accurate results.
Learn more: https://andrewmarder.net/posts/whispy/
#speechtotext #python #cli #macos #FOSS
This July 4th, declare your independence from data-hungry tech giants. ✊ Take the first step towards digital freedom by hardening your browser. Here’s my approach: https://andrewmarder.net/posts/firefox/
#Privacy #FOSS #Firefox #IndependenceDay
When my family was considering where to put down roots in Massachusetts, I spent time digging through MCAS data to better understand the schools in towns we were exploring. I thought others might find this data useful too, so I created Locovote.
The tool makes it easy to compare school districts and town finances (see examples below). Check it out at https://locovote.com/ and let me know what you think!
“Experience has shown that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this is to illuminate the minds of the people at large, possessed with the knowledge of other ages and countries so that they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes and promptly exert their natural powers to defeat it.” - Thomas Jefferson