Open Transport Data Manifest

From a napo's blog: http://de.straba.us/2012/11/05/open-transport-data-manifesto/

On a new wave of Data Warehousing

During my trip to Helsinki at the OKFestival, I happened to talk to some new friends about how data has to be analyzed. So in the end what I came home with is a concept, that has been following me for some time now, and that sooner or later has to be analyzed deeply. In the end the two main references in the datasets are Time and Space. This means that we have a basically 2D point that matches a given time and a given location. The problem is that geographic positions are only a recent acquisition of mankind. Before that, there were only location names like my hometown, Castel Maggiore, that was previously called Castaniolo then Castagnolo Maggiore, and in each period the form of the location was completely different. This basically implies that the only granted dimension is time, while "Administrative space" is time-dependent and physical point-based location is not. Is there a way to express this in a meaningful manner?

Analysis en course...

And finally time's up...

... for the vacation. In the end the two weeks passed incredibly fast. I sincerely would need one more week to end some of the things I have begun, but time is limited, so we'll see.
The balance is overall very positive:

• VivaCity project for DjangoDash (single-developer) got top votes for the innovation/programming parts, while being a bit penalized for the lack (or almost) of UI. I'm very happy about that. Based on the data in VivaCity I made a small app for WP7 to find the BikeRacks anywhere in the world based on the open data exposed by the city governance
• SWPatterns was a sideproject which exploded to become a main project of one of the days and got a pleasant companion app for WP7
• GentleNerds will become the core for all the social apps coming to Android soon enough (HYMD and Loco)
• Nerderie already had plans and will soon get the code behind it and some action will start.
• CineCit (which is at the moment under Nerderie) is going to grow with Lorenzo
• Signage Studio is growing fast and strong and will soon be in private beta. At the moment there is some fighting going on with Canvas events causing ajax operations to be called.
• SemBase and FlowLy are going to become parts of the other instruments (SemBase is the back-end part of VivaCity) and are going to be re-launched in a more "web-oriented" manner

Things I learned from these two weeks: 

• asmack, smack, asmackservice for Android... Most of them are in part a PITA, but in the end, using a sometimes "violent" approach Android DOES talk to an ejabberd server
• ejabberd is a memory hog, which is tragic when you have only one VPS for many domains and apps.
• Linux hard limit for open files is a PITA in a server where you have lots of apps running but there's always a solution (ulimit -Sn 2048)
• OpenVZ does not like SwapFiles..... (ejabberd + apache2 ==> TOO much memory used)
• Considering I only use WSGI apps, there must be a way to avoid the many thousands of plugins of apache2 in favor of a Virtualhost-aware wsgi-only webserver... I'm considering making something with Twisted, but who knows...
• Time and space ARE a problem... the unsolvable kind...

New things that will be in next to-do lists

• With the arrival of Open Data, GreenIsland can be once again very interesting. 
• In an optic of data-driven information, even the old WildLife project can be cool...

So, that's about it.

From tomorrow it's usual job again! 

[Cross-posted on TheITGuys.biz]

Data Maps - Part 2

Always from the Sim City Blog, the interesting analysis of the data-driven city.

"For example, when the player places a power plant, they will see unpowered roads and transmission lines. Once the power plant is placed, power will start flowing along power conductors to the buildings. If there’s a break in that transmission, the player will immediately see the break. If the power plant isn’t big enough, the player will see the power getting eaten up before it reaches the farther buildings. That information is there in the world to see so the player doesn’t have to look for it – as if they had X-ray goggles that could show electricity flowing. Through the data layers, we’re teaching the player the mechanics of a complex system without them being aware of it. With data layers as a backbone we’re able to take complex simulation-driven information and provide a visual that all players will understand and find accessible."

That is why Sim City is THE tool for the Smart City
http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/Data-Maps-in-SimCity-Part-2

David Osimo on CheFuturo! [ita]

http://www.chefuturo.it/2012/05/david-osimo-8-strumenti-gratuiti-per-migliorare-la-politica/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook

Data Maps

And in the end the data is everything for a city simulation. The point where real and virtual become one. The point where the real city gives the simulation a background and enables both the administration and the citizen a way to understand and appreciate the complexity of a real city.
http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/Data-Maps-in-SimCity-Part-1

Sim City...

this is the Smart City Tool I want. It's a tool created for the people, not for politicians or managers. For people by engineers and designers. No politics involved. No mediations except for data complexity. This is the tool that can leverage the best of the civic spirit and enables the citizen to interact in the most intuitive way with the very fabric of the urban living and interacting. And many point-oriented experiences are already distributed in the world. Will we be able to achieve this tool? Or will we be always depending on IBM Tivoli to see and manage the city?