I've been playing with Downpour recently. It's a lot of fun. You could explain what Downpour is by comparing it to something like Hypercard. By combining text, images with some basic interactivity you can create little packages of hypertext that you can publish for anyone to use. You could also explain Downpour as a tool … Continue reading I made a Downpour…game?
Doom WAD Bot
I like to follow bots on social media. Not the ones posting spam, misinformation or trolling replies. The ones that post algorithmic art, content and other fun things that brighten up your timeline. Twitter used to have a great community of bot builders but they destroyed that when they changed the API access. I used … Continue reading Doom WAD Bot
A basis for better definitions of “open”
There's been a lot of discussion around what is means to be "open" recently. I think this has largely been driven by issues and concerns around the development and deployment of Large Language Models and claims for at least some of those models to be "open". What does it mean for an LL or other … Continue reading A basis for better definitions of “open”
About / Ideas / Now
I think I discovered this project via Steve Messer, so hat tip to him if so. Or even if not, as he's a nice guy. aboutideasnow.com is a neat idea to index personal websites and specifically three pages: /about - which is about how people see themselves and a look at the past /now - … Continue reading About / Ideas / Now
What datasets have been classified as Digital Public Goods?
Update: 2024-04-14, I've updated this post with some corrections. See below A couple of years ago I wrote a short series of posts looking at some different approaches for assessing data infrastructure. It includes this post on the Digital Public Goods standard and registry. Digital Public Goods are defined as: open-source software, open data, open … Continue reading What datasets have been classified as Digital Public Goods?
Confused by SOLID
I keep checking in on the Solid project. But I'm baffled by its lack of functionality. I've written up some of my questions.
Downloading items from a custom list on the Internet Archive
This is a quick blog post to remind me how to do something in future. I've written before about how to download magazines from the Internet Archive and make gifs from their covers. In that post I used the Internet Archive command-line tool to download items from a Collection. I recently discovered that you can … Continue reading Downloading items from a custom list on the Internet Archive
Data format design is a UX issue
I've been getting frustrated by CSV files again. The context for this is my day job at Energy Sparks. I've written about the wide range ofdifferent CSV formats that we have to contend with in order to accept data from a range of energy suppliers and meter operators. While there are a number of loose … Continue reading Data format design is a UX issue
Reflecting on 2023
Despite the fact its already February, I am going to do another of these annual end of the year reflections. They're likely to be of little interest to anyone else, but I find the practice useful. I've previously done these for 2020, 2021 and 2022. What follows is a mix of personal reflections on the … Continue reading Reflecting on 2023
It takes about 4588 quasars to help you get around and get paid
I love learning about the data infrastructure that shapes the world we live in. Like all good infrastructure it's usually invisible, because it just works. But there's always something interesting to learn if you dig into the detail. For example, a few years ago when I was researching how geospatial data is accessed, used and … Continue reading It takes about 4588 quasars to help you get around and get paid
Lost Boy 