We do not provide these tables in Excel or CSV format. You will have to cut and paste from the pdf.

If you're going to provide a dataset to the public, or anyone for that matter, please don't use PDF as your one and only format. At the very least, provide it in Excel. You can easily export spreadsheets to PDF. I don't hold anything against the person who sent me this message. She was just doing her job. But organizations need to get with the times and provide data in a way that is actually usable.

I'm inspired by the idea that nuggets of opened data could seed guerilla public services, plugging gaps left by government, but i don't see any of that in the data.gov.uk apps list. The reasons aren't technical but psychosocial - the people and communities who could use this data to help tackle their own disadvantage and marginalisation don't have the self-confident sense of entitlement that makes for successful civic hacktivism.

The groups that really need it also often don't have the tech or know-how to make use of - or even collect useful data - to make a case for anything. People like us, the data and tech-savvy can help.

[via migurski]

When you ride your bicycle around, I bet you always wish for two things. First: "I wish this was electric so that I didn't have to pedal so much." Second: "I wish I could use my bicycle as a data collection device." Well guess what. Your dreams have come true. The Copenhagen Wheel, conceived by the MIT SENSEable City Lab, will do just that. With everything rolled up into one hub, a quick and simple installation turns your plain old bicycle into an electric data collection device.

The wheel stores energy when you pedal and brake, and turn on auto pilot through your iPhone when you're feeling lazy. Your iPhone, which mounts on the handlebars, is also used to switch gears and lock and unlock your bike.

On top of that, or rather, inside the wheel, there are sensors for torque, noise, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and location. Look back on the environment around you, from the your data's point of view, and optionally, share your data with the community to contribute to a closer view of your town.

It's still in development, but sign me up. I want one. That, and a bicycle.

See the wheel in action in the video below.

[via datavisualization.ch]

*Photos by Max Tomasinelli

If people put data on the Web - government data, scientific data, community data - whatever it is, it will be used by other people to do wonderful things in ways they never could have imagined.

Tim Berners-Lee, credited with inventing the World Wide Web, comes back to TED a year after his call for open, structured data with a quick update. Spoiler alert: things are looking good - and they're only going to get a lot better. But you already knew that, right?

[via infosthetics]

Of course when any application shares where you are at any given time, people start to feel like Big Brother is looming in the background ready to sneak up on us from behind a giant bush. Some call it a real danger, but is it really? I put this question out to all of you:

Is Google Latitude a danger to anyone who uses it?

My take on things is that people are already doing it anyways, so why not make it easier for those who are interested? Sure, if some stalker got a hold of your location, that could be bad, but that's true for a lot of data... credit card statements, cell phone logs, Twitter... As long as the proper security are put in place, I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Those of you who have been around since the beginning know that I am just obsessed with my pedometer. Albeit, lately, I haven't felt inclined to go for a winter stroll in the below freezing weather. When I was keeping track of my steps though, one of the difficulties was staying consistent. Sometimes I would forget to wear my pedometer, while other times I would forget to record my steps.

I imagine Walker Tracker could help a bit in solving that second problem. I know it was always easier to make it to the gym when I knew one of my friends was going to meet me there. Walker Tracker is like that friend at the gym. The site lets you keep track of your steps as well as see how others are doing.

We're trying to change the world. We're trying to get you and us and everyone we know off the elevator and out of the car and onto the sidewalks and trails. We're doing it one step at a time.
Get up, stand up and walk.

OK, maybe it's a little hoorah, but if you feel like actually accomplishing a new year's resolution this year, Walker Tracker could be a good place to start.

[via Web Worker Daily]

1. Be completely transparent to build trust
2. It won't seem like you're hiding something
3. Understand impact on the environment
4. Get opinions from other people/experts
5. Increase awareness of neighborhood
6. Truth in numbers
7. Provide better examples to argue a point
8. Wisdom of crowds
9. Pretty pictures
10. Beautiful dynamic data visualization
11. Proof in the data
12. Understanding of the world
13. Understanding of yourself
14. Understanding of your neighborhood
15. Understanding of your city
16. Understanding of your county
17. Understanding of your state
18. Earn the one million dollar Netflix prize
19. Appreciate sports on a different level
20. Data is cool
21. Save money on utilities
22. Data-driven art
23. Overcoming unwarranted biases
24. Avoid jumping to conclusions
25. Understand confusing politics
26. Make educated election votes
27. Enjoy a new way of programming
28. Find and see trends over time
29. Find and see themes over geographical regions
30. Watch changes over space and time
31. Explore relationships between network nodes
32. Know what crime-ridden areas to stay away from
33. Check up on proper news reporting
34. Watchdog on scientific research results
35. Work for a cool newspaper like the New York Times
36. Improve network protocols
37. Optimize traffic flows
38. Minimize the amount you spend on flights
39. Find ideal products based on what you've already purchased
40. User-specific book recommendations
41. User-specific movie recommendations
42. Image and vision sciences
44. Statistical computing
45. Produce real research results
46. Find drugs that actually help and don't harm
47. Deciphering genetic code
48. Cryptography
49. Understand dorky math dramas
50. Spam protection
51. Improve business
52. Earn big money in Black Jack
53. Increase sales
54. Earn more money from advertising
55. Gain an appreciation of numbers
56. Online and public databases
57. Lose weight
58. Gain weight
59. Improve workout routine
60. Industrial engineering
61. Understand government policy
62. Get an 'A' in statistics
63. Data visualization is gaining momentum
64. Amount of data is growing constantly
65. Make a more tasty wine
66. Find out the public opinion
67. Save money while surveying the public
68. Win in Yahtzee
69. Game theory
70. Law of Large Numbers
71. Central Limit Theorem
72. Weather forecasting
73. Financial forecasting
74. Know what stocks to invest in
75. Figure out where to put your extra cash
76. Market research
77. Learn to release profitable movies
78. Accountability
79. Accounting
80. See from a different angle
81. Identify the best in a large group
82. Identify the worst in a large group
83. Discover who is cheating on tests
84. Research why crime is on the rise
85. Make your arguments more credible
86. Identify who is making up results
87. Sharing is caring
88. Data from many often provides more than data from one
89. Natural language processing
90. Face identification in a crowd
91. Save the whales
92. Improve computer performance
93. Find cures for diseases
94. Appreciate cool Stamen Design projects
95. Optimize crop growth
96. Compare and contrast profiles
97. Enroll in a great statistics graduate program like UCLA
98. Detect major changes in climate
99. Detect small changes in micro-climates
100. Data is fun

What did I miss?

Gun control advocates failed to gain local government and law enforcement agencies' access to gun sales data.

The House Appropriations Committee defeated two attempts by gun control advocates to strip four-year-old restrictions on the use of information from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tracing gun sales. The votes were a victory for the National Rifle Association and came despite the Democratic takeover of Congress in January.

One side argues that gun sales data will help law enforcement agencies track gun dealers who sell guns illegally. The other side argues that there's privacy at stake, and there's a chance that police officers' identities could be inferred. A big victory for gun rights advocates, or so the the article might suggest.

My opinion -- even if gun sales data were given to law enforcement, how could anyone guarantee data integrity? I think it's fair to say that dealers selling guns illegally aren't going to provide accurate reports. Sell a gun under the table with cash, don't report it, and the data doesn't reveal much. Am I missing something here?

Starting with the credit card transactions, I'm about 80% sure that drivers don't have any actual data to back up their claims that they're going to start making less money. Non-strikers say that the credit card capability will not only help business (by bringing in those with corporate credit cards), but also increase tips. This information comes from cabs that are already equipped with the proper gizmos.

What are taxi drivers trying to hide? What is this invasion of privacy talk? These drivers are working for a large company. I repeat, they're working. I don't demand a private office when I'm at work, and I don't see much reason drivers should care a whole lot. If someone is slacking, taking shady routes, or just plain doing something they're not supposed to do, then they should be held accountable. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't recall a whole lot of whining when San Francisco cabs had similar equipment installed.

So stop the fuss, and just mondernize up to the proper century, New York cab drivers. I'm sure Stamen Design and Cabspotting* would greatly appreciate it.

*I am not associated to either.

As a student, I've always received data from the prof or from some magical place called data land. It's not that easy in the real world, and as an intern, I'm beginning to see a trend -- if you're not willing to give me your data or some tiny subset of your data, then you're probably hiding something.

I recently did a whole lot of back and forth for two weeks trying to get some data from a group that will go unnamed. Without getting into too many details, I wanted data that showed the group's progress -- what they've accomplished over X number of months. You should probably also know that this group has taken a lot of heat lately for their slow pace and shotty labor.

Here's how it went.

Day 1-3

"Nathan, can you contact so and so and ask them for this and this data or see what they have?" Sure, no problem. I emailed the reporter's contact, who happened to be a contractor for the big group I was trying to get data from. We exchanged some emails, and it turned out that the contractor was working with the data that was exactly what we wanted. Um, gimme.

Day 4-8

The contractor had to get approval from the "chief of staff." Unfortunately the chief of staff was out for the week, so he had to go through some other people. Contractor gets distracted, and I get forwarded to public affairs. "Oh great, this will be fun," I thought. Of course, this is when it got especially painful. After some misunderstandings and 11 emails later, it was back to the contractor. Same old story. Need approval, yada yada. Keep in mind that during all of this, my co-worker is putting together a graphic.

Day 9-13

It was just all waiting now. They had the data and were waiting to get the sign off. I called one or two times a day and sent an email to both the contractor and public affairs guy once a day. There was lots of fluffy, meaningless talk during this phase.

Day 14

At the end of Day 14, I got the phone call. "Nathan, we have some data that we're ready to send your way. Your patience has been rewarded." I can't believe he actually said that. My patience had been rewarded with nothing. Too bad the graphic was already entering its final editing stages without their data.

The data wasn't really worth the effort.

Hence, the Difficulty

So here we stand with this great idea of sharing data. So wonderful and marvelous, we can't even fathom how we can benefit. However, data can be very revealing, and there are many groups, people, and organizations who aren't ready to show what they have. Either they're afraid of sharing data for security reasons (which is understandable), or they're afraid because they're worried about what they're handing over. In both cases, it's a huge blockade that I don't see us getting through any time soon.