Tag: open data

Stuff I've seen October 11th through to October 19th

These are my links for October 11th through October 19th:

Stuff I've seen October 9th through to October 11th

These are my links for October 9th through October 11th:

  • Machine written sports reports Projects – Stats Monkey – By analyzing changes in Win Probability and Game Scores, the system can pick out the key plays and players from any baseball game. Second, the system includes a library of narrative arcs that describe the main dynamics of baseball games (as well as many other competitions): Was it a come-from-behind win? Back-and-forth the whole way? Did one team jump out in front at the beginning and then sit on its lead? The system uses a decision tree to select the appropriate narrative arc.
  • Too much money plays against government 2.0 – government 2.0 is more interesting – and useful – where the are scarce rather than abundant resources.
  • The Great Transition: what it means for Local Authorities « Nat Wei’s Blog – make cuts intelligently rather than in a knee jerk fashion, safeguarding effective and connective local community projects and other external suppliers rather than avoiding to make savings closer to home or spinning out functions as mutuals or social enterprises – at least until many of them have been able themselves to transition to a more diversified financial position.
  • Community Media Activist: The Spectre of Community and the Big Society – The Big Society, if there is such a thing, or spirit, or programme, will most likely emerge from the evolution of community, and community development, rather than the ideological urgency of a cutback-driven Little State.
  • Thriving too: Big Society: Exploring Sustainable Collaborative Service Models – "Collaboration between equals is difficult, between disciplines more so… but between paid professionals and unpaid volunteers very hard indeed. On paper it sounds like ‘just the sort of thing we should be doing’…. But in real life situations, such as the one described, it presents challenges that we don’t know how to overcome…. Yet.

    The challenge is not organisational or even financial… but about how we create frameworks that sustain the *relationships* that are required for collaborative services to flourish."

Stuff I've seen October 1st through to October 5th

These are my links for October 1st through October 5th:

  • An open letter to David Cameron, part one of three « Francesca Elston – I have worked in a large Government department, and I believe the following: firstly, that it would have been possible to take 25% of the costs out without harming the service delivery in the long term (that caveat’s important); secondly, that it might have been possible to improve the service in doing so, and thirdly that there were people within that organisation who knew exactly where the 25% lay.
  • Government data will be machine readable, Maude pledges | Politics | guardian.co.uk – Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude told the Conservative party conference in Birmingham that the Freedom of Information Act will be amended so that all data released through FoI must be in a reusable and machine readable format.
  • BBC News – The ‘night riders’ who help the NHS – The volunteer service, which is available in the south-east of England, offers a free out-of-hours service to a number of NHS hospitals and can be asked to carry anything urgently needed from baby milk to blood products and X-ray results.
  • MaPit – MaPit is our database and web service that maps postcodes and points to current or past administrative area information and polygons for all the United Kingdom.
    Another notable benefit is that this new version has been filled with only totally open data, so you can be secure that you can reuse the data from this site under the minimal terms of the licences given below.
  • BBC – dot.Rory – A 16-year-old who turned up at a hacking event a couple of months ago may just have achieved two great things. If Isabell Long’s idea works, it could make a major contribution to getting Whitehall to cut its energy use.

Stuff I've seen September 11th through to September 27th

These are my links for September 11th through September 27th:

  • Government Should Do its Own Data Homework | Jeni’s Musings – "….we need to work towards a virtuous cycle in which the public sector is rewarded for publishing useful data well. The reward may come from financial savings, from increasing data quality, from better delivery of its remit, or simply from kudos. It doesn’t matter how, but there needs to be some reward, or it just won’t happen."
  • editorialgirl » Ah, Bridezilla… we’ve been expecting you – Government and e-mail: ! The assistant was apparently a bit flummoxed, saying, “well, you could email it, but there isn’t much point – I wouldn’t get it til tomorrow anyway”. Why was that, then? It wasn’t even mid afternoon. Had they got problems with their email? “No,” she explained, “all the emails are read at 9 o’clock in the morning, then they’re all printed out and we each get a copy on our desks. So if you email me now, I won’t get it until tomorrow.” He was baffled. Couldn’t she just access her email now? “No, it’s not my email,” she said. “It’s the office email. Only one person has access to it, and she only looks at it at 9 o’clock each morning.” Whu… why? “That’s just the way we do things.” Well, that’s silly, he told her. “Well, it works for us,” she replied. Bonkers."
  • Rewired State – For the first quarter the challenges available are likely to be (but we don’t know for sure yet):

    * Building a framework to enable localised civil action (Big Society)
    * Using digital channels to get people online; building network of digital champions and apps to help get people online (Race Online)

  • The arts make a contribution to the Big Society in Yorkshire | Arts Council – 'If public funding of the arts is cut too hard, the contribution the sector makes to the Big Society may be in real jeopardy.
  • Local council spending over £500: full list of who has published what so far | News | guardian.co.uk – UPDATE, 5:05pm: Government has just published its guidance for local authorities. See the guidance here