Off topic: I wrote an article that was published today

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Morgenthaler
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Off topic: I wrote an article that was published today

Postby Morgenthaler » Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:05 pm

Hello guys

I hope this isn't too spammy.
I wrote an articel on Open Data and the current state of development
on the world wide web. It was published today.

My work at the Danish Centre for Design Research has been mostly
editorial and practical with regards to what we put out, but recently
I got the chance to produce an article and went straight ahead:

http://www.dcdr.dk/uk/Menu/Update/Webzi ... ta+for+All

If you are at all interested, I strongly recommend downloading the pdf-version
which has a better layout.

Enjoy, those who will.
Henry II
Posts: 282
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2010 9:23 am

Re: Off topic: I wrote an article that was published today

Postby Henry II » Thu Oct 21, 2010 8:04 am

Fascinating! Congratulations on getting an article published.

Although, the underlying premise - data available to all, seems irreconcilable with two current trends in the U.S.: (1) virtually every concievable idea and/or information being subject to the claim of protected "intellectual property" of some corporation, as well as (2) the current war going on under the radar at the FCC in Washington about internet neutrality. Without laws mandating internet neutrality which would require ISP's to treat all internet traffic equally, ISP's can censor and redirect internet consumers' access to internet content any way they want to - If they don't like particular content for any reason whatsoever, they can block it, if they decide they can collect a fee from Bing by redirecting your attempts to access Google to Bing, they can do that, if they decide to get in to the book selling business they can redirect you from Amazon or any other competitor to their book selling site.
Ok, ok! My real name is Go F. Yourself Facebook, III
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Morgenthaler
Posts: 1220
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2010 9:59 pm
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
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Re: Off topic: I wrote an article that was published today

Postby Morgenthaler » Fri Oct 22, 2010 11:28 pm

Thanks Henry!

I do not quite share your pessimism, since the current number of free, linked datasets are in the many millions already.
And this project is still fairly new with regards to implementing and linking data. It is growing rapidly. Also in the US, with
tons of academic research data being set free by the people who produced it in the first place (the copyright holders).

Last night I watched the interview with Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower, who commented
with great insight to the latest 390,000 documents of war logs released by Wikileaks.
This is one way governments will have almost no way of locking up information in the future.

Maybe the US FCC and the US ISPs can do it, but the information will surface in Europe, in Asia or some other place instead.
Information wants to be free.

One danish newspaper (called Information) along with The NY Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel already had access to the war logs for some time and this morning (as I type this) they reveal massive accounts of torture of Iraqis, far beyond what the coalition forces have reported up to this point.
And with simple data visualization, the extent comes to life in clear, easy to understand graphics.

I am proud to say the topic of open data and datavisualization is extremely hot, but I am also sad to see the extent of lies which governments including my own will tell to go to war and keep us at war.

Daniel Ellsberg:


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