Jim Hurley wrote:
> Thanks Richard.
>
> You are so right about releasing data in complex formats.
> I spoke to the election's off about posting election results in PDF
> format.
> I knew there was not use fighting them when they told me that it was
> now County "policy" to post everything in PDF--not unlike those 10
> policies of renown that were carved in stone--and a metaphor was born.
Unfortunate, as it renders the data nearly useless. I agree you need to
pick your battles, but it's dismaying in an ostensible democracy when
the process of open data for civic-minded citizens is implemented in
ways that ultimately deliver the opposite of the intended goal.
Across the US we're beginning to see a revolution in government data
sharing. At the municipal level one of the shining examples has been
Raleigh, NC, in no small part due to the work of Jason Hibbets. He
works as the Community Manager for Red Hat, and has devoted significant
volunteer time working with city officials to make data available so
local devs can deliver apps for the community.
Notes on his work and a link to his excellent book, "The Foundation for
an Open Source City" (I got a signed copy when I met him at the SoCal
Linux Expo a couple years ago) is here:
http://theopensourcecity.com/
The slides from the SCaLE talk where I met him are linked to from this
page outlining his presentation:
http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale12x/presentations/open-source-all-cities.html
> In the County's old system, each of the 50 election precincts were
> stored in 50 web pages as HTML documents.
> That was perfect for LiveCode's "get url". It was a matter of second
> to visit all 50 pages, parse the text, and store the data.
So much for progress. ;)
Too often we see Cargo Cult thinking in data management, where folks
start using a tool or a format only because they hear about it others,
but since they don't actually use the system they're delivering they
never come to understand what's useful and what's an impedance.
> (The other two text options in Adobe are "Rich Text Format" and "Text
> (Plain)", neither of which works--only "Text (Accessible)"
What is "Text (Accessible)"?
> I was unaware of Apple's Automator. I'll look into it--but it is
> unnecessary for this project.
Warning: Automator is a lot of fun, and may be addictive. Be careful
playing with it, since you may find yourself experimenting with all
sorts of things and before you know it your Saturday is completely gone. :)
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Systems
Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
____________________________________________________________________
ambassa...@fourthworld.com http://www.FourthWorld.com
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