Doug McCune, a developer who builds data visualizations and 3D maps, and writes on programming and UX.
HN links it mostly for his San Francisco crime-as-elevation visualization and his shp2stl tool that turns shapefiles into 3D-printable models.
I'll plug an open source lib I wrote called shp2stl that converts shapefiles into 3D models suitable for printing.
http://dougmccune.com/blog/2014/12/30/using-shp2stl-to-convert-maps-to-3d-models/
You may find these maps helpful:
http://dougmccune.com/blog/2010/06/05/if-san-francisco-crime-was-elevation/
http://www.sfgate.com/maps/sfhomicides/
Have you seen the one that plots crimes as if they were elevation? http://dougmccune.com/blog/2010/06/05/if-san-francisco-crime-was-elevation/
Most interesting; more from the original author at http://dougmccune.com/blog/2010/06/05/if-san-francisco-crime-was-elevation/
Here's a fun visualization: http://dougmccune.com/blog/2010/06/05/if-san-francisco-crime-was-elevation/