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for all the hype around nyc's 311 service, the recent wired magazine article about how cool the data is and how other cities are adopting it, I find it doesn't work very well.

the few times i have called to report something, it always ends up being a tedious, lengthy and painful process. first, customer service is weak, the operators lack knowledge about the borrows so it takes forever to get them to understand the street or area you are referring to (as simple as that may sound). it's almost as if they don't live in the city at all or something. second, they always try to funnel you into some other service (911, homeless services, etc.) when most of the time all you want to do is have them actually log an event/problem/issue, it's like they are allergic to typing , very hard to get them to input info. all in all, it could be a lot better.

my dinosaur, from the natural history museum last weekend: albertosaurus