Open Data
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On Parsing Restaurant Inspection Violations (Subtitled: Goddess and the Grocer on Elston Had a Bad Day Last Week)
This morning I was reviewing a saved view on the City of Chicago data portal for restaurant inspections conducted by the Chicago Department of Public Health based on a suspected food poisoning. I used a feature of Socrata, the software used in the portal, that The Local Inspector Value-Entry Specification (LIVES) is an effort by Yelp, Code for…
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Results of Belleville Police Department Alcohol Compliance Check
The following information was provided by the Belleville Police Department: On Thursday January 31st 2013 the Belleville Police Department conducted an “Alcohol Compliance Check” at eleven (11) locations licensed to sell liquor in the city of Belleville. Of the locations checked three had employees who sold alcohol to a minor working with officers. The following…
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An Appreciation of Aaron Swartz
Aaron Swartz, an Internet freedom leader, committed suicide yesterday, January 11, 2013, in New York. On this page of his personal Web site, he gives instructions about what to do if he gets hit by a truck. One of the instructions: “Feel free to publish things people say about me on the site”. I have some…
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On the Use of Private Data to Improve Lives (Five Data Sources You Can Use Now to Make a New Business)
I have long been been a proponent of open government data, and I’ve made a lot of products that use it. I’ve helped a number of cities, including my own, in publishing data and coming up with good policies. Over the last couple years, however, I’ve turned my attention to the vast troves of private data that…
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Hidden Personal Data and the Passionate Stories Within
Lately I’ve been collecting and publishing data about myself from disparate places. For instance, the CTA allows you to download the last 90 days of your travel history– here’s a block of mine. I’m working on collecting the last 5 years of every item each of my children has purchased for lunch at school. By…