Posts Tagged ‘information’
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
I don’t just find Peter Brantley’s post about the Library of Congress’ rate for charging for data interesting due to my own work, but also because of the similarities to the parcel data “brouhaha” here in California. I’ve posted before about the court case to determine whether the digital descriptions of the parcel boundaries* are subject to the California public records law. Santa Clara county has charged a great sum for the data in the past, but if the data falls under the public records law, the records should be “provided to anyone requesting them for no more than the cost of duplication.” Santa Clara is appealing the decision on Homeland Security grounds. * parcels are the land units on which property taxes are assessed.
In looking for an update to the appeals story, i found this 2007-05-07 article from before the decision. It notes that Santa Clara county hired an outside consultant to examine the cost and after that study, officials noted that the fees might be dropped from $250,000 to $22,000. At least the $22,000 is the same order of magnitude as the copyright registration database. On the other hand, my spouse got the parcel data (for noncommercial use) for San Mateo county (immediately north of Santa Clara on the San Francisco peninsula) for a buck. (The cost of the CD on which it was distributed.)
Brantley reports that the copyright renewals database is congressionally mandated to be made available “at a charge of production and distribution cost plus 10%,” and reports that cost is ” $55,125 to obtain the retrospective online database, and $31,500 for a current-year subscription that must be annually renewed, for an entry cost of $86,625.” Assuming “production” doesn’t describe running the Copyright Office but production of the distribution copy, it’s somewhat difficult to understand how data distribution — not a live database serving hundreds of concurrent users but collection of records in MARC format — could run $50,000 in the digital age. However, the LOC notes a “recent cost savings,” so perhaps the new prices will be reduced by an order of magnitude or two.
The restriction Christine encountered of “for noncommercial use only” did stir up my memory of a different federal agency, the National Weather Service, and a noncompete clause proposed in 2005 by Senator Santorum. [Information Week overview, and opinions from the WeatherUnderground's Director of Meterology in April, May, and June of 2006.] I wonder if the amended law had gone into effect whether these forecasts would have been available under a FOI request.
Freedom of Information, copyright registration, public data, cost of data
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Tags: Brantley, california, cd, christine, congress, copyright, Copyright Office, cost, data, database, FOI, Freedom, Homeland Security, I've, information, Library, LOC, MARC, National Weather Service, notes, Peter Brantley's, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Senator Santorum
Posted in GPS and GIS, copyright, digital libraries | 1 Comment »
Saturday, September 29th, 2007
For a long time i had a recurring to do list entry to check on the status of Chandler. It’s out. I’m filing this under “digital libraries” as information management is related to the larger digital library space. If Chandler is as innovative as it promises (as i hope), it may change the management of workflows in many spaces. As they put it on their web site, “Information is being modeled around software tools, whereas really software should be modeled around information.”
Chandlerâ„¢ Get Started Guide
“Drag the Chandler application icon to your desktop or somewhere else on your file system.”
My fears are getting entangled in a learning curve, in software that almost but doesn’t quite supersede applications i’m already using, etc. On the other hand, i can’t not try it. If i was really smart i’d do this in my test account, but i live dangerously…. On the other hand, syncing and backing up iCal and my address book seem called for.
So, i’m going to be careful and attentive in my installation, just to see what happens. My early impressions:
* it’s a large application: 129 MB on disk, 110 MB real memory, 617 MB virtual, with nothing really started
* The set-up for email accounts with the “test” button is (embarrassingly) brilliant. Also, one can set up multiple out going email addresses using the same SMTP server.
* the IMAP tools seem quite sensible.
* I’ve set up a jott contact to go to my chandler IMAP account. Jott thinks “Chandler” is “similar.”
* the calendar import can be a little surprising. The custom alarm and custom repeat settings don’t seem to survive the ics transition that well. Allocate time for importing complicated calendars.
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Tags: Chandler, Chandler Get Started Guide, chandler gtd, Chandler Hub, Desktop Chandler, Drag, I'm, I've, iCal, If Chandler, IMAP, information, It's, Jott, Library Application Support Adium, Library Application Support Open Source Applications Fo, Library Application Support Quicksilver Shelves, Library Caches Quicksilver Indexes, Library Preferences, Library Preferences NeoOffice, Library Safari, Library Safari History, M Applications Address Book, M Applications iCal, M Applications Mail, M Chandler, MB, SMTP, Source, ulxcbqIK, Users Default
Posted in digital libraries, random | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 18th, 2007
I remember when i first saw dodder when i was growing up. The orange yellow plant, twining visibly around my finger, seemed more like an alien creature than a plant. Wikipedia has a nice article about the genus Cuscuta (Dodder) (note the talk page has some chatter about the appropriate family classification for the genus) with links to the research that the plant “smells out” its prey.
Yup, creepy.
It’s a very widespread genus, so when the news that Japanese Dodder (Cuscuta japonica) is an invasive species in the San Francisco bay area went to our streamkeepers mailing list, i wondered how i might tell it from the dodder i’ve seen growing out at Shoreline and towards the bay. The general answer seems to be “Japanese dodder is yellow, not orange,” but a streamkeeping colleague says she finds that there are six native species of dodder in California, four of which have yellow stems.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture has a Noxious Weed Identification project seems to have the best California specific information on their Japanese Dodder Page. They have a downloadable pdf with images of both a native and a Japanese dodder. More striking than a color difference — as some of the images of Japanese dodder seem orange to me — seems to be the difference in the thickness of the twining stems, with the native dodders more thread-like and the Japanese quite thick. One can search the Calflora database as a guest for the Cuscuta genus in California and see some images of the native species. While there are many links out from this resource, this isn’t a very easy way to compare characteristics of color and thickness. The index images don’t show dramatic color differences.
How should we identify specifically the Japanese dodder?
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Tags: CA Department, Cal-IPC Summer, Calflora, california, California JEB, Calyx, Choisy, Cuscuta, Cuscuta Dodder, Description, dodder, Dodders, Dr, Durand Hilg, Engelm, Flower, Food, Food Agriculture, From New Pest Advisory Group Data Sheet, Hook, Hughes, information, It's, Japanese, japanese dodder, Japanese Dodder Cuscuta, Japanese Dodder Page, JEB, June-Oct, Mature, Native, Native Cuscuta, Noxious Weed Identification, plant, Reed, Reed Hughes, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Shoreline, stems, The California Department, Tom Lanini, UC Davis, USDA APHIS PPQ, Wikipedia, Yuncker, Yup
Posted in streamkeeping | 1 Comment »
Friday, June 15th, 2007
The Mercury News reported on Thursday that the county od Santa Clara is appealing the decision from two weeks ago, citing Homeland Security.
When Bruce Joffe spoke to our class, he mentioned a review by the Rand Corporation which provides a guideline in what information is truly a homeland security risk. The PDF is available online: Mapping the Risks: Assessing the Homeland Security Implications of Publicly Available Geospatial Information. Of particular interest are pages 59 – 73. On p 63-64 the authors outline the relevant questions in making an assessment:
1. How useful is the information to a potential attacker?
2. How unique is it? Namely, how many alternative sources are there for this information, or is even better information publicly available?
3. Given the usefulness and uniqueness of the information, is it significant for a potential attacker’s information needs?
General speculation in class points to the possibility that the parcel data shows, by the absence of other property, the right of way for Hetch Hetchy water pipes. Some classmates claim that scanning through the satellite imagery easily available on line, one can see the location of the Hetch Hetchy pipelines, by the same manner. Personally, it seem the location of Crystal Springs reservoir and dam are more of an issue, and, as they sit right on top of the San Andreas fault — repeat — right on top of the San Andreas fault, it’s not terrorist attacks on my water supply that worries me. But i digress.
One hopes a judge, reviewing whatever it is of concern, will be guided by the RAND guidelines. They seem very reasonable.
gis, open data, santa clara county, open data consortium,homeland security
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Tags: Crystal Springs, data, Hetch Hetchy, Homeland Security, Homeland Security Implications, information, mapping, Namely, Personally, Publicly Available Geospatial Information, RAND, Rand Corporation, right, Risks, San Andreas, Santa Clara, security, The Mercury News, The PDF, Thursday, When Bruce Joffe
Posted in GPS and GIS | 2 Comments »
Friday, June 1st, 2007
I briefly mentioned this case earlier, when there was an article in the Mercury. Christine had heard Bruce Joffe speak at a BAMMA talk, and he spoke to our GEOG054 seminar class at Foothill. I’m happy to report that Santa Clara county’s parcel data is going to be released according to California’s Freedom of Information act. I’m also very happy the judge denied the claim that GIS data is a program, which was one of the more egregious excuses for not submitting to the act.
Press release after the cut:
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Tags: BAMMA, Basemap, Bruce Joffe, california, California Attorney General, California Public Records Act CPRA, California Superior Court, California's, California's Freedom, CFAC, CFAC Judge Kleinberg, CFAC's, Charge CFAC, christine, Citing, county, Court, Court Confirms Public Records Law, Court's, CPRA, CPRA Government Code, CPRA They, CV, data, Foothill, GEOG, GIS, GIS Santa Clara County, Holme Roberts Owen LLP, HRO, I'm, In October, information, Joffe, Judge James P Kleinberg, Judicial, Look, Mercury, Open Data Consortium, OpenDataConsortium, PDF, Peter Scheer CFAC's Executive Director, Press, Provide CFAC, Rachel Matteo-Boehm, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Santa Clara County, Santa Clara County No, Subsequently, The California First Amendment Coalition CFAC, The Court, The Court's
Posted in GPS and GIS | 2 Comments »
