Tangent, but related shameless plug. Especially to San Franciscans: https://theconstituent.net.
It makes legislation easier to access. And eventually easier to engage with.
Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States
141–150 of 161 posts
Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States
#142I'm biased (I work on the BigQuery team) but I'm always excited to see more public datasets made available in BigQuery: https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public-data/. It would be great to have government data available through a variety of cloud services with free exports.
Some personal favorites among BigQuery public datasets include NOAA GHCN[0], the Census Bureau's Zip Code Tabulation Area [1], and FEC Campaign Finance [2].
[0] https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/details/noaa-pu... [1] https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/details/bigquer... [2] https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/details/bigquer...
Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States
#143Making public data open by default can arguable be an imporant step towards fostering societal equity. However, it needs to be not only "open", which typically means stashed away in some corner as a spreadsheet or database file, but accessible and useful to people. The UK has been pushing open data for years now and more and more institutions are now realizing this. Shameless plug for a research project that is aimin…
I would also mention Data USA by MIT Media Labs Collective Learning group, with an effort to combine multiple sources into a single geographic profiles rich with visualization and data sources https://datausa.io
Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States
#144All I want for this Christmass is an authoritative list of all US federal agencies. I kid you not, there is no such list and the number of federal agencies is uncertain. From Wikipedia: >Legislative definitions of a federal agency are varied, and even contradictory, and the official United States Government Manual offers no definition. While the Administrative Procedure Act definition of "agency" applies to most exec…
Shameless plug: does anybody know where I could get detailed spending and receipts data for US federal budget? Including all federal agencies? There is very limited data at https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/supplemental-materials/ but I am looking for more detailed data.
Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making public data open by default can arguable be an imporant step towards fostering societal equity. Define equity here?
Not the parent commenter, but open data policies could contribute to levelingn the playing field for society. The vast majority of records requests are currently made by corporations and other business interests.
Having accessible data isn't enough. The average person also needs the tools to process it in a meaningful way. This is where corporations are ahead - with relatively unlimited resources to turn that government data into insights that influence business decisions.
Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States
#146Well that’s cool, but the wording worries me:
public information should be open by default to the public in a machine-readable format, where such publication doesn’t harm privacy or security federal agencies should use evidence when they make public policy
The word “should” is used in both one and two. If my time in the government taught me anything, it’s that “should” is only slightly stronger than “may”. If an instruction says “shall”, then it is required to be done.
Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States
#147Making public data open by default can arguable be an imporant step towards fostering societal equity. However, it needs to be not only "open", which typically means stashed away in some corner as a spreadsheet or database file, but accessible and useful to people. The UK has been pushing open data for years now and more and more institutions are now realizing this. Shameless plug for a research project that is aimin…
What do you mean by "democratize data-science"?
Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States
#148"The Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary Government Data Act (AKA the OPEN Government Data Act)" Please, could we end this obsession with backronyms in congress. Perhaps some congressperson could create a suitably titled backronym act to rid us of backronym acts. This should just be the one singular "Government Data Act" and it should be amended as needed to cover any law changes around "Government Data".
BACKRONYM Act: Banning Acronym Cleverness Keeping Representatives Occupied Nutting Your Mom Act (struggled with the NYM so gave up and went with something childish...)
Naming Your Measures / Mandates.
Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
In case you haven't seen it, I think https://www.data.gov/ is an attempt to answer your point about making it "accessible and useful to people." There's room for improvement, but it's a start.
I thought there would be a flood of projects analysing the data when it came out, but it seems like the idea everyone applauded but not much came out of it. Steve Ballmer's http://usafacts.org seems like the first real attempt though.
Is there a HN thread discussing these reports? I'd love to hear folks' opinions about them... Interesting facts to me in the latest report [1]:
- Page 44: "Our economy has grown at a steady rate despite changes in economic policy". I expected to see a lot more fluctuation on this data.
- Page 30: "There have been more suicide gun deaths than homicide gun deaths every year since 1981". This is crazy to me given how much we hear about gun homicide being a problem in this country.
- Page 29: Crime rate has declined but "The number of incarcerated persons has increased by 330% since 1980".
[1] https://static.usafacts.org/public/resources/USAFactsReport2...
Re: Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Khashoggi is obviously a canard; the Saudi Arabian government is currently running torture chambers in Yemen where they roast people alive[1]. The US has had no problem with this for years; we ourselves appointed a known torturer to head the CIA, the organization which is supposedly agog about Khashoggi's assassination. The CIA itself has been running an extrajudicial assassination program for over a decade now. Talk…
About this: "buying weapons from American arms merchants, a policy greatly to the detriment of the American public" American arms merchants employ the American public. People get jobs. Taxes are paid. Suppliers and subcontractors benefit too. A detriment would be if Saudi Arabia bought from China or Russia, enriching people in those nations instead of the American public. We'd also have far less influence over Saudi…
In the narrow sense I think you are correct; in the long term deeply incorrect. There are many ways for the American public to be employed. A society built on arms manufacturing seems the least desirable to me. This is the detriment I speak of. Much of our effort and economy is wasted making guns and bombs rather than more useful and less destructive things. This industry sucks up a trillion dollars in government support annually; if it were reduced and that effort (spending) directed elsewhere we would all benefit. We might, e.g., direct it to developing fossil fuel independence and obviate the need for anyone to sell arms to Saudis.