2 <p>First, sorry for “datanomics”. It rhymed.</p> <p>Second, with all the recent talk about APIs to make Congressional legislation more accessible to the public in general and developers in particular, and the upcoming proposed launch of data.gov, some questions still remain about how much and what kind of data will be exposed, and in what format(s). A deeper question also exists: does/will the government at all levels view developers who do interesting things with that data as partners or as potential gadflies? </p> <p>Also, while it’s great that the federal government is planning something along these lines with data.gov, what is really needed is for the same mindset to trickle-down to the states and local governments which, even now, lack consistency in the quality of standards and protocols used to make local data available to citizens. </p> <p>XML and its derivatives are a logical choice for a standard format. It’s never been easier or more efficient to make structured public data available online, but the problem lies in motivating state and local governments to put the data in a structured format to begin with without requiring extra work or staff. </p> <p>So what is needed is simple software for the people in state and local government who actually input legislative and other data to be able to generate XML files without having to jump through difficult hoops. It is incumbent upon government leadership to make this a priority and to seek out solutions that make this possible; it is equally incumbent upon us, as citizens, to demand it. Some already do this to a degree by making new legislation (and changes to existing legislation) available via RSS, but they’ve really only scratched the surface. There is still a very long way to go.</p> <p>Imagine if every state put all of their new legislation, regulations, demographics, and statistics into XML feeds so that the average citizen could subscribe via an RSS reader, or developers could write software that could aggregate, index, and do other interesting things with all of that data without having to resort to 20th century screen-scraping and other inefficient methods for collecting data. </p> <p>Any government that does this is sure to win praise from the public as well as the technical community. </p> 0 2009-04-28T19:24:57Z false false false true http://cstearns.tumblr.com/post/101156437 2055 2009-04-28T20:50:08Z 2009-04-28T20:50:08Z 1 107 3 2 <blockquote>A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded.</blockquote> <p>from http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25349683-601,00.html</p> 6 2009-04-20T20:26:53Z false false false true 1933 2009-04-20T20:26:53Z 2009-04-20T20:26:53Z 1 226 3 2 <blockquote>In response, Hawaii's tourism leaders have launched a campaign pushing the message that workers who meet in Hawaii are happier, more productive and more focused afterward.</blockquote> <p>from http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hawaii8-2009apr08,0,3342226.story</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Well I would think so :)</p> <p>What the article, unfortunately, doesn't point out is that the anti-Capitalist legislation being pushed through, and the related cultural and legal attack on those who are successful, doesn't simply curb business travel.&nbsp;</p> <p>When my cost of living goes up, the first thing &nbsp;I trim in the family budget is "exotic" travel (which in my case is anyplace that isn't Alabama :) , and when I see tight times ahead I'm going to save even more than usual so that I can be prepared and help my family be as self-sufficient as possible.</p> <p>This isn't really about the consequences of a few bailout companies who weren't going to go to Hawaii anyway. This is about all businesses and individuals who have no confidence in the regurgitation of economic policies which never really work.</p> <p>The cost of a trip to Hawaii, or similar, represents anywhere from a few to several months of household expenses for most families in America. All but the small percentage of truly wealthy people or those suffering from a near terminal case of cranium-rectal inversion will choose to stay home in order to stay IN their homes rather than eat, drink, and be merry in Hawaii or anywhere else.</p> <p>Wealth isn't the only thing that trickles down. Our "leadership" needs to do better than try to remake America in their own image.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> 3 2009-04-08T13:44:10Z false false false true 1702 2009-04-08T13:44:10Z 2009-04-08T13:44:10Z 1 184 0 2 <blockquote>Four people are dead in northwest Alabama, and authorities are seeking a man for questioning.</blockquote> <p>from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,513010,00.html</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Things just get curiouser and curiouser.</p> 2 2009-04-07T18:23:31Z false false false true 1690 2009-04-07T18:23:31Z 2009-04-07T18:23:31Z 1 163 0 2 <p>There has been some excitement in the web development community among people who work with government data. A recent bill before Congress, <a href="../../../../bills/111HR1105" title="HR1105 at Politics4All.com">HR1105</a>,&nbsp;contains a proposal to make bills and other legislative information more accessible online, something that would enhance the public&rsquo;s ability to stay better informed about what&rsquo;s going on in Congress, and also help web developers and companies provide innovative and useful tools for accessing that information.</p> <p>While Congress does a fair job now, more work is needed if the federal government can claim it provides true transparency where public information is concerned.</p> <p>At the state level, however, there&rsquo;s even more work to be done. I don&rsquo;t want to single any states out&hellip;but I could. State bills and other legislation are often difficult, at best, to find online. While all states provide some level of access, the quality ranges from pretty darn good to dreadful in terms of the bill information offered and how it is accessed. In this day of inexpensive web resources and tried and tested software, there&rsquo;s simply no good excuse for providing anything less than simple access and a smooth, positive user experience.&nbsp;</p> <p>In light of that, I&rsquo;ve put together a few suggestions (by no means the final word!) that state legislative bodies and state government technical operations people should consider. The demand for this sort of thing is only going to get stronger as time goes on:</p> <p><strong>1. Structured Dat</strong><strong>a</strong></p> <p>Basic bill index data (bill number, date of introduction, sponsor, title, etc.) should be provided in a structured format. If all states provided this simply in plain XML, that in and of itself would be a major step forward since the bill information could be easily and readily used and shared by all parties involved (state governments, private citizens, web and software developers). Public data is only useful if it&rsquo;s available in a structured format that can be shared; one could also argue that the government has an obligation to do as much as possible to reduce obstacles in this area.</p> <p><strong>2. Better Online Access</strong></p> <p>In many cases, states just need better websites for their citizens to use in accessing this information. The quality of the interfaces &mdash; i.e., the web pages and forms used to search and browse for bill information &mdash; ranges, again, from the pretty good to the confusing and unusable. There may have been a time when the cost of providing a well-designed and usable website was cost-prohibitive. Today that&rsquo;s just not the case.</p> <p><strong>3. Subject Keywords and Tagging</strong></p> <p>The Congressional Research Service (CRS) does this for Congressional legislation. Some states attach keywords or subject terms to bills while others do not. Adapting some kind of standard for classifying and tagging legislation at the state level would greatly enhance the ability of citizens to locate bills of particular relevance to them. Bill numbers and, often, the actual titles of the bills themselves are less than helpful at best. &ldquo;HB123&rdquo; doesn&rsquo;t mean much unless you already know what it means. Titles like, &ldquo;A proposal to delay penalties on extant revenue for certain small businesses, for one fiscal year&rdquo; isn&rsquo;t much of an improvement. However, tags or subjects like &ldquo;Income Tax&rdquo;, &ldquo;Business Tax&rdquo;, &ldquo;Estate Tax&rdquo; help everyone get a little closer to what they&rsquo;re searching for.&nbsp;</p> <p>Implementing the above at the state level will help all of us locate, share, and access the information contained in the bills that have so serious an effect on our lives. Of course, having read the text of many state and Congressional bills, we&rsquo;re still pretty much on our own when deciphering exactly what those bills mean. Web software can only do so much :)</p> <p>But it would be a step in the right direction.</p> 5 2009-04-01T15:56:47Z false false false true http://cstearns.tumblr.com/post/91932667 1581 2009-04-01T15:58:33Z 2009-04-01T16:06:10Z 1 365 3