jenrusso’s posthaven

Simon Rogers, editor of The Guardian’s Datablog, last week posted a top 10 list data.gov.uk datasets by how they could be relevant to people, highlighting a number of very interesting data sets.  He featured national transport statistics, a massive data set cataloging not only every bus, rail, coach stop or pier in the UK but every bus, train, tram, or ferry that docked for a week  in October; as well as statistics on government spending (COINS),  the UK labour market / employment statistics by year, youth perspectives and attitudes by region, and statistics on dog messes by UK region.  For each he describes a little synopsis of the contents of the data set, highlights its potential uses, and describes problems/limitations of the data.

This post is of tremendous use not because it merely serves to highlight a tiny, delicious morsel from a rather immense soup of more than 4,223 datasets on data.gov.uk, but because helps make it relevant to people: he describes (in easily human-understandable terms) what is in each data set, why the data is relevant or interesting, and most importantly, ways that it can be put to use.

The chasm between publishing and use is currently large and daunting.  Many of the data sets are in “raw” form, Excel spreadsheets created by public servants (using highly specialized government vocabulary) or immense, multi-gigabyte CSV files with little supporting documentation.  What we see now is a gold rush (on both sides of the Atlantic – data.gov and data.gov.uk) of citizen-hackers who are downloading this data, writing scripts to parse through it, and generating visualisations and apps that make it possible for end-users to actually use it in various ways.

But the Guardian Datablog highlights that this might be an ideal role for journalism to come in as well – while citizen-hackers have been effective at rolling mash-ups that let everyday people get at the data, it still takes a journalist/reporter to get tasty bits out of it — to transform the raw bits into information – speculation, perspective, and to contextualize it in world/current events, and to weave it into a story that leads people to question what the data say about the ways they live each day.

These data journalists, of course, do not have to come from Big Media (TV, newspapers) as such – the ones that do just happen to be best equipped with the right set of skills.  In the future, it would be interesting to see whether the many, emerging sense-making and visualisation tools, such as ManyEyes, Google Fusion Tables , Freebase Gridworks, and our own work, enAKTing’s GEORDI browser (forthcoming), could make data-journalism more accessible to citizens without a background in statistical data analysis or a journalism degree.  If so, these tools could unleash  masses of newly equipped citizen-journalists on the terabytes of open data now publicly available, so that it can be more immediately transformed into information that can start to make an difference in people’s lives.

I love statistics, they are amazing.

Former champion surfer Andy Irons found dead

Former three-time world surfing champion Andy Irons was found dead Tuesday in a hotel room in Dallas, where he was on a layover en route to his home in Hawaii. The cause of death was not immediately known, his family said.

Irons, 32, was returning from Puerto Rico, where he was to have competed in the 2010 Rip Curl Pro Search over the weekend but withdrew because of an illness he said he contracted while visiting Europe. Still, he said he was planning to participate in another tournament in Hawaii next week.

Perhaps the most dominant surfer of the early to mid-2000s, Irons had 19 world tour victories and was the only surfer to have won at every location on the tour. (News services)

AVP beach volleyball tour files for bankruptcy • The AVP pro beach volleyball tour filed for bankruptcy protection, according to papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles. The tour said it has less than $184,000 in assets and $4.97 million in liabilities. Among those owed money are Olympic gold medal winners Todd Rogers, Phil Dalhausser and Kerri Walsh.

The AVP had hoped to cash in on the popularity of the sport after the American sweep of the gold medals at the Beijing Games. But the troubled economy scared sponsors and investors away. The tour shut down in August when it ran out of funding. It canceled the last five events on the schedule. (AP)

Landis to be tried in hacking case, sources say • American cyclist Floyd Landis and his coach, Arnie Baker, will stand trial in a hacking case that targeted a French doping lab, judicial officials said Tuesday. No trial date has been set.

The case is part of a sweeping investigation into computer hacking, triggered by a complaint filed by the lab denouncing intrusions into their computer system. The lab uncovered elevated testosterone levels in Landis' 2006 Tour de France samples, and he was stripped of his victory. (AP)

Moore is unanimous choice again for All-American • UConn's Maya Moore is the second player to be a two-time unanimous choice on The Associated Press women's basketball preseason All-America team. The senior received all 40 votes from the national media panel and joined Alana Beard as the only women to accomplish the feat.

Brittney Griner of Baylor, Nnemkadi Ogwumike of Stanford, Jantel Lavender of Ohio State and Danielle Robinson of Oklahoma are the other members of the team announced Tuesday. (AP)

Murray starts Valencia Open defense with win • Top-seeded Andy Murray began his Valencia Open title defense with a 6-3, 7-6 (1) win over Feliciano Lopez. In other action, fourth-seeded David Ferrer kept alive his hopes of reaching the ATP World Tour Finals in London later this month, rallying for a 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-3 win over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. (AP)

Djokovic off to a good start • Novak Djokovic made light work of his opening match at the Swiss Indoors, where he's defending champion, with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Ernests Gulbis. (AP)

Spartans' Williams out for season • Michigan State freshman Madison Williams will miss the women's basketball season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee during a scrimmage Sunday.

Lynx win WNBA draft lottery again • The Minnesota Lynx got lucky again in the WNBA draft lottery, winning the right to pick first in the league's 2011 draft. It's the third time they've won it in the last six years and the second time in a row. (AP)

My deepest sympathies to the Irons family today.

Home | Politics | National Politics

Democrat Neil Abercrombie elected Hawaii governor, defeating Republican Aiona

0

Comments

+

Add comment

Print this story

E-mail this story

Save to del.icio.us

Share on Facebook

Share on Digg

More from National Politics

• A list of House turnovers
• A look at the newest faces in the Senate
• Dem Quinn clings to thin margin in Ill. gov. race
• Introducing the new governors around the nation
• In Ga., GOP ousts conservative US Rep. Marshall

HONOLULU - Democrat Neil Abercrombie has been elected Hawaii's next governor.

Abercrombie will be the state's first Democratic governor in eight years, succeeding GOP Gov. Linda Lingle when he is sworn in on Dec. 6.

Abercrombie, a former 10-term congressman who represented urban Honolulu, defeated Republican James "Duke" Aiona.

Abercrombie's victory also made former state Democratic Party Chairman Brian Schatz the new lieutenant governor. In Hawaii, candidates for the state's top two posts run on a ticket.

Aiona had been lieutenant governor.

Recent National Politics stories

Iowa voters remove 3 high court justices who sided with decision that made gay marriage legal - November 3, 2010

Latest election calls from AP - November 3, 2010

Comment on this story   |   Be the first to comment   |  Hide reader comments

Be the first to comment Hide reader comments

Post your comment:

StarTribune.com welcomes and encourages readers to comment and engage in substantive, mutually respectful exchanges over news topics. Commenters must follow our Terms of Use.

1. Keep it civil and stay on topic.
2. No profanity, vulgarity, racial slurs or personal attacks.
3. Comments that violate the above will be removed. Repeat violators may lose their commenting privileges on StarTribune.com.

Are they calling this already?