TFL have eventually decided to release their data. (We were trying to get them to do this five years ago…) Already there are a few great examples of what this data can do: Stefan Wehrmeyer (who is looking for a job, if you have one going) has made a few great examples showing CCTV footage [...]
China pays 280,000 commentators to skew online conversations. Their activities were described by Chinese President Hu Jintao as “a new pattern of public-opinion guidance”.
What a great idea, and fantastic use of liberated data: [The Postcode Paper] gathers information about your area, such as local services, environmental information and crime statistics. It’s a prototype of a service for people moving into a new area. In our exercise we imagined you might receive it after paying your council tax for [...]
Edited highlights from an LRB article: ‘Figures are down,’ we chortle mirthlessly, as we load the third batch of door-to-door catalogues onto our frames, adding yet more weight to our bags, and more minutes of unpaid overtime to our clock. We get paid 1.67 pence per item of unaddressed mail, an amount that hasn’t changed [...]
Thanks to Martin Anazco for linking to this video about creating custom DNA which led me to this: The Registry is a collection of ~3200 genetic parts that can be mixed and matched to build synthetic biology devices and systems. Founded in 2003 at MIT, the Registry is part of the Synthetic Biology community’s efforts [...]
It’s tempting to think that DNA databases are OK, because it’s just a way of uniquely identifying someone, just like a long number which no one else has, which is intrinsically linked to you. If you believe that, I can see why you think you may have nothing to worry about. But the problem is [...]
I’m not against having a database of all children, but I am against databases of citizens, per se. It just doesn’t seem to be necessary, and is a can of worms waiting to be opened.
