It can be hard to make meaningful information from huge amounts of data, a graph and a table doesn’t always communicate all it should do. We have been working hard on technology to visualise big datasets into compelling stories that humans can understand. We were really pleased with what we came up with in just one and a half days, see for yourself
from Ito World: Visualising Transport Data for Data.gov.uk.
Nice work on visualizing traffic data.
On the surface, Twitter DJ seems like a gracious gesture from a DJ to solve the age-old problem of fans not knowing what the amazing track they’re hearing is called and who made it, as well as a boon for often small-time music producers to get some well-deserved props.
from Interview with the Twitter DJ Traktor App’s Co-Creator at djtechtools.com.
Nice integration of Traktor DJ software and Twitter – part of a growing trend that makes apps more native to the web.
yaz4j is a toolkit for Java which includes a wrapper for the ZOOM API of YAZ. This allows developers to write Z39.50/SRU clients in Java. yaz4j supports both search and scan. See the javadoc for details.
from yaz4j | Index Data.
I wrote Yaz4J a couple of years ago when I needed a robust Z39.50 client. The underlying work is done by Index Data’s Yaz library, wrapped for use in Java using JNI (and yes, JNI does work fine and yes it does work cross-platform, we have it running on Linux, Windows and OS X). I hadn’t ever found the time to properly structure and mavenise the code or release it properly so it’s very pleasing that Adam Dickmeiss and Mike Taylor from Index Data along with Juan Cayetano have tidied it all up and published it under a home on Index Data’s site.
A future Conservative government would drastically reduce the size of the “Big Brother” state.
Were they to win the election, the Tories would slash database projects and roll back the “snooping” powers given to officials.
In future, Whitehall departments would face tougher privacy rules to protect the individual against loss of their personal data, shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve will say today.
via Conservatives unveil plans to cut state surveillance » Local Government » 24dash.com.
There was an early time on the web when everything important needed to be ‘above the fold’; the area seen in a typical browser before any scrolling took place. This is now much less relevant.
Read the Top 10 UX Design Myths over on Carsonified » Top 10 UX Myths.
One of my collegaues called the other day and asked if we still relied on the distinction between intensional and extensional sets (really intensionally and extensionally defined sets). Yes, even more so now.
from Intensional and Extensional Sets.
If you don’t know the difference (I didn’t) then it’s worth reading.
Projection on buildings – Live performance from NuFormer Digital Media on Vimeo.
There’s been a lot of hot fuss lately about what’s possible with new projection media, especially in urban environments, onto building facades, etc. Last time I was in Paris there was similar stuff emerging on building walls in the Marais, but this seems to be evolving quickly and really taking off. Impressive live performance here in this video from NuFormer.
from Chase Jarvis Blog: Uber-Cool Video Projections On Buildings.
Interaction of 3D modelled world, projected onto the same building as in the model, allows awesome effects as the building is brought to life. Reminded me of the opening of the Atlantis Hotel, Dubai, which made similar attempts to use projection and lighting to change the building but failed to really make use of the building itself IMHO.
So, it turns out me and everyone I know have opened a Banana the wrong way our entire lives. I have always thought that banana’s could only be opened that one way and always been rejecting any other way of doing it. But the living learn and me included. When I watched this the first time I thought to myself that this guy has to be joking. What’s the joke in the whole clip…but how wrong I was. It actually turned out to be a much more efficient way of pealing the banana to get to the actual fruit.
Still not sure what’s for the best, but the idea that opaque URIs are better because they’re language independent doesn’t ring true for me. A word is just as opaque as a GUID if you don’t speak the language, but for those who can read it may be far clearer and easier to work with.
The problem from my standpoint is that MODS has some really odd, library-specific, design choices that I don’t think map very well to the wider world. A central concept like mods:name, with mods:role as a child of that, really makes no sense, and conflicts with more common modeling you see in DC, FRBR ,etc.
It’s semantics are also really loose.
So you have to ask yourself, just how linked could a MODS view in RDF really be?
from Conversation with Bruce D’Arcus on Motivation for MODS Ontology.