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US Federal Government Launches Data.gov
Posted by
timothy
on Thu May 21, 2009 12:53 PM
from the selective-reporting dept.
from the selective-reporting dept.
Elastic Vapor writes "I'm happy to announce that the US Federal Government earlier today launched the new Data.Gov website. The primary goal of Data.Gov is to improve access to Federal data and expand creative use of those data beyond the walls of government by encouraging innovative ideas (e.g., web applications). Data.gov strives to make government more transparent and is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. The openness derived from Data.gov will strengthen the Nation's democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government." I hope the data reported will be impartially selected, honestly gathered, clearly explained, and perfectly accurate. Perhaps they could start with inspiration from the Concord Coalition's National Debt Counter.
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Submission: U.S Federal Government Launches Data.gov by Anonymous Coward
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Uh-oh, here we go.... (Score:2, Funny)
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www.data.gov gets slashdotted in 3...2...1...
But it isn't! Haven't looked at much of it but that's the first thing they got right. :)
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Says who?
Re:Uh-oh, here we go.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Openness or Control? I see it as a fail... You can probably get everything you need on google anyways... Unless it can tell me how to make millions and not pay taxes like the crooks in washington then its of no value
There's a couple problems with your 'thoughts.' First, you assume everything's already on the Web. That's totally false. Second, you neglect to realize what you can do with machine readable data. Instead of trying to build hackish page scrapers, you can now use various APIs and get bulk data dumps(depending on what the agency offers). Data.gov is freaking huge. Anyone that plays around with governmental data knows the power that this site will bring.
The only problem I see with it so far is that it's just a portal for the most part. It's a nice way to get at all the agencies' data in one spot but so far, as of this writing, it's nothing to rave about.
Parent
Department of Homeland Security (Score:2, Funny)
Search for "millimeter"
0 results found
Also not found: CIA, NSA, NASA, Project Bluebook
Re:Department of Homeland Security (Score:4, Funny)
Try "0.039 inch".
Parent
I'll finally be able to know (Score:2, Interesting)
what you did last summer, free of charge.
Hope springs eternal (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck with that, this is the government we're talking about...
Re:Hope springs eternal (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I think sarcasm was his point. Personally I don't get it. Nobody's perfect, but I trust .gov data more than from private companies almost any day.
Parent
Re:Hope springs eternal (Score:5, Insightful)
He misses the point with his naivety, but you miss it with your cynicism. The data will still be incredibly useful, even if they're trying to game it, or sloppily collecting it, or if they're putting it up in an obscure, unorganized format.
A broad enough dataset can be used to determine things well beyond it's intended scope.
Parent
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A broad enough dataset can be used to determine things well beyond it's intended scope.
Indeed, any regular reader of slashdot (or even better, any reader of RISKS Digest [wikipedia.org]) should be well aware of that.
Here's one example we all should remember:
http://consumerist.com/345219/researches-claim-to-reverse-netflixs-anonymization [consumerist.com]
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Heh, that was exactly what I was thinking of.
The thing is, there is no way that they could really sanitize it without making it obviously worthless. You could try and seed it against certain types of analysis, but you can only do that for big obvious targets. Any target where you're coming at it obliquely...I don't see how they could do it.
That would be like trying to alter a dictionary to prevent someone from writing a certain novel.
Stick it in Wolfram Alpha (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's get some of this data into Wolfram Alpha. Then we query things and get simple charts and graphs that will scare the living hell out of the average tax payer. "Annual cost of tank treads"... "total corporate welfare"...
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Hear hear!
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Wolfram|Alpha mining sets like these would just take the whole process one step further by allowing non-exper
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So take free information and stick it into something that will try to claim copyright on it and any presentation thereof. That is convoluted. At least you can look at the pie charts yourself, just don't show them to anyone else.
I was just inferring that Wolfram should crawl the data, not hold it.
So I would I have to attribute Wolfram if I published any charts garnered from Alpha? Holy crap that's so unbelievably unjust. You freetards are insane.
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Would you please go back to 4chan, and troll there? Or brush up your character and behavior for a world a bit more real and non-anonymous?
Protip: Using a word that ends in "-tards", makes you look like an idiot. But it still pales in comparison to combining it with the word "free".
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Would you please go back to 4chan, and troll there? Or brush up your character and behavior for a world a bit more real and non-anonymous?
Protip: Using a word that ends in "-tards", makes you look like an idiot. But it still pales in comparison to combining it with the word "free".
I think it's very good description for frothy-mouthed free software types. Would it be better if I called you guys louts or imbeciles or something? I am a very sensitive soul, so I just want to make sure that I am being as clear and accurate as possible and not stepping on anyones' toes.
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Who is a "frothy-mouthed free software type"? Someone who uses it? Someone who releases software under a free license? Someone who advocates the use of free software? Someone who advocates that all software should be free?
I would say it's the sort of person who attacks anyone who points out its countless shortcomings- not as a philosophy but as more implementation specific things. It's the sort of person who says that Ubuntu 9.04 is JUST AS GOOD as Mac OS X or Windows 7, completely ignoring any problems or usability pitfalls that might be present and attempting to silence anyone who says otherwise. They're the type of person who believe that anything that is "free" is always better than something proprietary, no matter how s
Mostly empty (Score:2)
There doesn't appear to be much data indexed yet, just data that has been publicly available for years.
Patent data? Check
Storm data? Check
Yawn. Call me when the FBI starts uploading data.
Limited but good potential (Score:3, Interesting)
IIS, once again (Score:4, Informative)
Bah!
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What's so proprietary about dbf? It's so ancient, the specs themselves are old... f.i. here's some [clicketyclick.dk]. I'm sure there are many free/oss converters too.
Have you ever tried to work with DBFs with any open source tools out there? It makes me want to break my fingers so I can't type and have an excuse not to mess with it.
GoogleBot... (Score:2)
"More input, more input!"
They should hire the wallstats ``death and taxes'' (Score:2)
poster guy:
http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/ [wallstats.com]
Or at least learn from it and similar presentations.
William
Unbiased opinion? (Score:4, Insightful)
...committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. The openness derived from Data.gov will strengthen the Nation's democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
That sounds like it was written by the Ministry of Truth. No one should ever read something like that without huge warning bells going off.
Re:Unbiased opinion? BLAME CANADA (Score:2)
Hmm... that Elastic Vapor guy is from Toronto, Canada. It seems FOREIGNERS are very happy indeed about this new database.
So, how many days until the 10:00 news is crowing that Obama is spending our tax dollars to give American secrets to other countries?
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p.s. Even worse, he's doing it ON THE INTERNET! Just like a CRAIGSLIST call girl!
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Fox was reporting recently that higher fuel efficiency standards put your family's lives on the line. When really it's driving that does that.
So it shouldn't be too long.
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While that statement is a bit extreme...it does have some possibilities that way.
To get a car with super low mileage, it will have to be quite small, and light...possibly affecting how it would end up on the wrong side of a crash with another car.
Remember...those old cars, trucks and SUV's aren't going to disappear immediately, they'll be around for decades. And in an accident with a little econo ligh
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The data itself could be heavily biased, but since the current data sets seem to be census data and similar sets(taxes, marriage/divorce rates), it doesn't seem to have the aim of a propaganda tool currently.
It could be turned to one to be sure, but if it does provide moderately raw data sets then I'd say it would promote democra
Will it change with each new administration? (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's not the real issue. Data.gov and other measures of transparency are really a double edged sword.
On the one hand, they *try* to get government to seem more accountable and transparent. Supposedly, when the government wants to say... bailout a bank, you will have the ability to see that money is going.
On the other hand, it might actually lead to more centralized government in the false belief that we can keep checks on things via this 'transparency'.
Unfortunately, a lot of people... who have never ra
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Not everyone shares your philosophy. Personally, I trust the federal government much more than I would trust state or more local levels of government. There are risks of misgovernance at *any* level, and tearing down the centre just makes civilisation run more bumpily.
"creative use" (Score:2)
if they really want "creative use" of government data, they'll release those interrogation photos so we can finally get to work photochoppin'.
Couldn't do it. (Score:2)
At which point I was glad that the article was essentially over, because I couldn't suspend my disbelieve any longer...that, and I was laughing hysterically.
Timothy (Score:2)
Sorry, but HA.
America is not a Democracy (Score:2)
As much as the Left would like for us to be, we are NOT a democracy. We're a constitutional Republic.
Your point is? (Score:2)
So, apparently, it's not important for the electorate in a republic to have information available, which might help them be better informed voters? Yes, the USA is not a *direct* democracy, but I've always been taught that a republic is a type of democracy.
Mirror it quick (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope someone will mirror the data there the instant it appears, so when someone in power decides that an inconveniently revealed truth needs to be shoved down the memory hole, a web app will instantly highlight any redacted information.
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http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/ [virgil.gr]
So many uses (Score:2)
It would great if it includes data on legislation and if that data can then be tagged by industries (health care, telecom, etc) impacted by the legislation. The data can then be cross-referenced against campaign contributions, and we can extrapolate who voted on what based on how much money they received in contributions from the effected industries.
It would be great if the contents of political speeches were uploaded, and that data tagged by interest group. The speeches can then be cross-referenced again
Vague website name, or vaguest website name? (Score:2)
I just feel like it could be a little more vague. I suggest "thing.it" or possibly "yadayadaya.da".
Change we can believe in? (Score:2)
Where's the new era of openness we were promised?
Tomorrow's headlines today! (Score:2)
Slashdot, 5/22/2009: "1 TB disk stolen from data.gov"
laboratoryofthestates.com (Score:3, Interesting)
I did it on no money and it has more data than data.gov.
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is this just a list of data from other government sites? why no central proxy, web services, atom feeds, or other useful features besides just linking?
So far, yes. But it sounds like they will eventually become a clearing house of the data. It's a start.