Everyone knows that when you start commuting to work in a new city you make a web app to assist in planning travel your travel to and from said city, so when I began commuting to Chicago last Thursday I put my nose to the grindstone and produced this little beauty.

I know what you’re thinking: so what? A little website that helps a very small handful of people who take the BNSF Metra between Naperville and Chicago, all of whom will probably never know it exists? And you’re right: it really is just only for me but what makes it interesting in my eyes is how it works. Using some fancy techniques from this excerpt by Jonathan Stark I was able to assemble a little page that caches itself to your iPhone and will load from the cache without the need for cellular, 3G or WiFi connectivity and persists after reboots or resets. This is perfect because my building, despite having a large AT&T office within its walls, gets very poor AT&T network connectivity.

Oh and in the future if I ever need to change things or add features a little javascript is in place to check for any changes on the network and download anything that needs to be updated. So if you take the train between Naperville and Chicago, go ahead and add this little site to your home screen. I even made an icon from the train symbol in Google Maps!

BNSF Naperville Train Schedule (Optimized for an iPhone, but should work in any browser.)

Update: It looks like I neglected a couple of details. Under the “Day” tab you’ll find the Naperville to Chicago train schedule and under the “Night” tab is the reverse trip. The times are also ranked according to travel time with green representing 30-40 minutes, yellow representing 40-50 minutes and red representing over 50 minutes. In other words, greens are express trains and the others aren’t. I’d like to ultimately turn this into a less specific tool and accommodate additional data and maybe even turn it into a free little app but I need to do a little more research first.

Becca was even there for a couple of rounds (unfortunately before I had thought to bring out the camera.) She managed to get pretty soaked before heading back to work for the rest of the day.

Fun fact: thats my boss with the shield.

Every day I start put with The Chris Moyles Show on BBC Radio1. Some time Ricky Gervais mentioned him in a radio show or podcast and so I decided to give him a try. I started with the Best of the Chris Moyles Show podcast, but soon the weekly 30-45 minutes wasn’t enough. Now I listen to 3.5 hours of the show every day. It’s the #2 breakfast radio show in the UK, right after Terry Wogan with 8 million listeners.

Depending on how busy my day is, it can take me a whole workday to get through the 3.5 hour show. However, days when I’m left alone to listen and work I then tap into my podcast reserve.

First for the week is always This American Life. Along the same vein, but shorter is The Moth. This is a recent discovery, but I have already fallen in love. They feature one short story performed live without a script.  One of my favorites is Radiolab, but it isn’t updated nearly enough. However, it’s worth listening through the archives. It has the feel of This American Life, but it is science themed. This podcast is just so perfect – the hosts, the stories, the sound editing. I cannot recommend it enough.
And then there are all of the NPR podcasts. NPR has done an amazing thing for technology by making all of their shows available as free podcasts. My favorites are Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Fresh Air and Hmmm… Krulwich on Science. There are a ton of other great ones that I don’t subscribe to because I know I would never get around to listening to them all – specifically Science Friday and Planet Money.

Now, these are all podcasts I listen to that are updated at least semi-regularly, but let’s not forget about the Ricky Gervais podcast. It’s a world record holding podcast after all.

Any suggestions on other great podcasts?

A Descent into the Maelström, Philip Glass
Koyaanisqatsi, Philip Glass
One Cello x 16: Natoma, Zoe Keating
Un Día, Juana Molina
Brian Eno: Music for Airports (Live), Bang On A Can All-Stars
Moon (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)

I probably listen to A Descent into the Maelström more than is healthy. Do you have a specific song or album you tend to fall back on while you’re feverishly working?