Civic hacking involves using open government data and open source software to build useful applications for citizens. By developing applications using publicly available data and code, civic hackers can help make government more transparent and help citizens engage with their communities. The document promotes civic hacking as a way for individuals to contribute to their country by building digital tools that utilize open data.
Five years after his original talk about open access to transit data, Urban Mapping CEO Ian White laments the state of affairs around public access to government data and private parties manipulating what it means to have a public resource.
Social media refers to online tools that allow users to create and share content. It enables a "democracy of information" where users can generate and distribute content, unlike traditional media which was focused on distributing information to passive audiences. Social media has revolutionized how information spreads, allowing some platforms to gain 50 million users within only a few years which was much faster than traditional radio and television. If Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest country in the world based on population size, showing the massive scale of user engagement on social media platforms.
The Evolution of Voice Search - Google HomeWillyum
These are the slides from an internal presentation I did for work on the evolution of Voice Search and my experiences of testing Google Home, updated with new statistics where applicable.
Ron Nixon presents "Investigating Government Contractors" during the Fall 2013 Society of American Business Editors and Writers Conference in New York, Oct. 4, 2013.
Nixon is a domestic correspondent in the Washington Bureau of The New York Times.
For more information on training for business journalists, please visit http://businessjournalism.org.
Five years after his original talk about open access to transit data, Urban Mapping CEO Ian White laments the state of affairs around public access to government data and private parties manipulating what it means to have a public resource.
Social media refers to online tools that allow users to create and share content. It enables a "democracy of information" where users can generate and distribute content, unlike traditional media which was focused on distributing information to passive audiences. Social media has revolutionized how information spreads, allowing some platforms to gain 50 million users within only a few years which was much faster than traditional radio and television. If Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest country in the world based on population size, showing the massive scale of user engagement on social media platforms.
The Evolution of Voice Search - Google HomeWillyum
These are the slides from an internal presentation I did for work on the evolution of Voice Search and my experiences of testing Google Home, updated with new statistics where applicable.
Ron Nixon presents "Investigating Government Contractors" during the Fall 2013 Society of American Business Editors and Writers Conference in New York, Oct. 4, 2013.
Nixon is a domestic correspondent in the Washington Bureau of The New York Times.
For more information on training for business journalists, please visit http://businessjournalism.org.
The document discusses using MongoDB to enable open government data. It describes how MongoDB can gather data from various sources and serve it through RESTful JSON APIs. MongoDB's flexible schema allows data to be stored in a format that closely matches the native structure without needing to transform it. This flexibility also enables the storage of custom fields without changing the database schema. Three open data projects are highlighted that use MongoDB: Poligraft, the Real Time Congress API, and the Open State Project.
Search-Friendly Web Development at RubyNationLuigi Montanez
This document discusses search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. It covers the search engine pipeline of crawling, indexing, and ranking pages. It provides tips for improving discoverability through sitemaps and internal linking, as well as guidelines for optimizing content, titles, and metadata to influence search engine rankings. The key takeaways are to think like a searcher, create a sitemap, optimize titles, use Google Webmaster Tools, and follow advice from search engine blogs.
This document discusses MongoDB and its use by Sunlight Foundation for three open data projects: the National Data Catalog, Real-Time Congress API, and Open State Project. MongoDB allows storing disparate data sources and formats in a schemaless manner. This enables aggregating large amounts of raw data and serving it through lightweight RESTful APIs. The document provides examples of congressional data stored and filtered in MongoDB.
Civic hacking involves using open government data and open source tools to build useful applications for citizens and governments. It encourages entrepreneurs to create solutions that can help cities and countries by tapping into freely available public data. The document promotes an upcoming civic hacking event called an Open Government Hackathon and encourages people to get involved in civic hacking by using open data to build applications that can benefit their community.
Civic hacking involves using open government data and open source tools to build useful applications for citizens and governments. It encourages entrepreneurs to create solutions that can help cities and countries by tapping into freely available public data. The document promotes an upcoming civic hacking event called an Open Government Hackathon and urges readers to get involved in open government initiatives and become civic hackers themselves.
Civic coding uses open data and open source tools to build useful applications for government and citizens. It encourages entrepreneurs to create solutions for cities by accessing and using publicly available government data through hackathons and coding events. This supports open government initiatives and allows people to contribute to their communities through technology.
Search-Friendly Web Development @ Ruby|Web Conference 2010Luigi Montanez
This document discusses search engine optimization (SEO) and provides tips for improving a site's ranking in search engines. It recommends focusing on user experience over manipulation, following best practices like using semantic HTML and readable URLs, and using tools from Google, Bing and Yahoo to monitor how search engines interact with your site. The key takeaways are to think like a searcher, optimize page titles, use Google Webmaster Tools, and read the Google Webmaster Blog.
Search-Friendly Web Development @ Lone Star Ruby Conference 2010Luigi Montanez
This document discusses search engine optimization (SEO). It provides the following key points:
1. Google accounts for over 65% of search engine market share, followed by Bing and Yahoo. Good SEO practices like optimizing page titles, using headings appropriately, and submitting sitemaps can help sites rank higher organically in search results.
2. SEO is about usability, not tricks. The document recommends following Google's guidelines and conventions, using user-centric design principles, and prioritizing page speed.
3. Key elements of the search engine pipeline that SEO affects include crawling pages through links and sitemaps, indexing page content and metadata, and ranking pages based on best matching
Search-Friendly Web Development @ DC RUG - August 2010Luigi Montanez
This document discusses search engine optimization (SEO). It provides the following key points:
1. The main factors search engines consider when crawling, indexing, and ranking pages are things like sitemap.xml files, page titles, meta descriptions, headings, and unique content that is relevant to the page.
2. Common SEO mistakes to avoid include redirects that confuse crawlers, non-accessible content, and dynamically changing content based on location.
3. Tools like Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Yahoo Site Explorer can help optimize pages for search engines. The document emphasizes thinking like a searcher and using best practices like descriptive page titles.
This document promotes civic hacking and open data/government initiatives by highlighting existing projects like FlyOnTime.us and QuakeSpotter, and quoting President Kennedy's call to public service. It suggests becoming a civic hacker by visiting sunlightlabs.com and following @LuigiMontanez on social media. A list of programming terms is included but not otherwise explained.
The document discusses civic hacking and how open source and open data can lead to better government. It explains that high quality raw data should be available in JSON, XML or CSV formats and through RESTful APIs. It also notes that MongoDB is used to store results from data scraping and provides RESTful JSON APIs. An example is given of querying a Drumbone API to return specific fields from a legislator record including earmark amounts and numbers. The assistant is thanked for its work and directed to Sunlight Labs for more information.
Luigi Montanez gave a presentation on civic hacking at the LA RubyConf 2010 conference. He recruited software developers to use their skills to make government more transparent by creating applications and websites that analyze open data from different levels of government. Some examples he provided included APIs that provide information about members of Congress, campaign contributions, bills, and voting records in order to enhance civic participation and democracy.
Luigi Montanez discusses civic hacking, which involves using technology and open data to build tools that increase government transparency and civic participation. He outlines some guiding principles like using open source and open data to build better government tools as side projects. He then provides examples of available government APIs and data related to the federal government, courts, states, and cities that could be used for civic hacking projects. Finally, he discusses the project lifecycle and deployment options for civic hacking projects, particularly using Google App Engine.
The document promotes civic engagement through coding and building apps using open government data. It encourages recruiting coders to build apps for issues like improving local government services. It describes Sunlight Foundation's work with open data and APIs and their Apps for America competition for civic apps, with a $30,000 total prize pool. Coders are urged to get involved by joining the open source community or submitting an app to the competition.
The document discusses recruiting civic coders to build applications that use open government data to promote civic engagement and participatory democracy. It provides examples of government data sources and APIs that could be used, and encourages connecting with open government communities and submitting applications to civic hacking competitions for funding opportunities. The overall message is a call to action for developers to use their skills to build tools that make politics and governance more transparent, accessible and improve people's lives locally.
Thin is a Ruby web server that is a replacement for Mongrel. It glues together the Mongrel parser, EventMachine, and Rack libraries to provide a more actively developed and nicer to use web server for Ruby applications like Rails. Thin can be started by installing the required gems and running the thin start command. It supports both development and production deployment through command line flags and configuration files.
The document discusses using MongoDB to enable open government data. It describes how MongoDB can gather data from various sources and serve it through RESTful JSON APIs. MongoDB's flexible schema allows data to be stored in a format that closely matches the native structure without needing to transform it. This flexibility also enables the storage of custom fields without changing the database schema. Three open data projects are highlighted that use MongoDB: Poligraft, the Real Time Congress API, and the Open State Project.
Search-Friendly Web Development at RubyNationLuigi Montanez
This document discusses search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. It covers the search engine pipeline of crawling, indexing, and ranking pages. It provides tips for improving discoverability through sitemaps and internal linking, as well as guidelines for optimizing content, titles, and metadata to influence search engine rankings. The key takeaways are to think like a searcher, create a sitemap, optimize titles, use Google Webmaster Tools, and follow advice from search engine blogs.
This document discusses MongoDB and its use by Sunlight Foundation for three open data projects: the National Data Catalog, Real-Time Congress API, and Open State Project. MongoDB allows storing disparate data sources and formats in a schemaless manner. This enables aggregating large amounts of raw data and serving it through lightweight RESTful APIs. The document provides examples of congressional data stored and filtered in MongoDB.
Civic hacking involves using open government data and open source tools to build useful applications for citizens and governments. It encourages entrepreneurs to create solutions that can help cities and countries by tapping into freely available public data. The document promotes an upcoming civic hacking event called an Open Government Hackathon and encourages people to get involved in civic hacking by using open data to build applications that can benefit their community.
Civic hacking involves using open government data and open source tools to build useful applications for citizens and governments. It encourages entrepreneurs to create solutions that can help cities and countries by tapping into freely available public data. The document promotes an upcoming civic hacking event called an Open Government Hackathon and urges readers to get involved in open government initiatives and become civic hackers themselves.
Civic coding uses open data and open source tools to build useful applications for government and citizens. It encourages entrepreneurs to create solutions for cities by accessing and using publicly available government data through hackathons and coding events. This supports open government initiatives and allows people to contribute to their communities through technology.
Search-Friendly Web Development @ Ruby|Web Conference 2010Luigi Montanez
This document discusses search engine optimization (SEO) and provides tips for improving a site's ranking in search engines. It recommends focusing on user experience over manipulation, following best practices like using semantic HTML and readable URLs, and using tools from Google, Bing and Yahoo to monitor how search engines interact with your site. The key takeaways are to think like a searcher, optimize page titles, use Google Webmaster Tools, and read the Google Webmaster Blog.
Search-Friendly Web Development @ Lone Star Ruby Conference 2010Luigi Montanez
This document discusses search engine optimization (SEO). It provides the following key points:
1. Google accounts for over 65% of search engine market share, followed by Bing and Yahoo. Good SEO practices like optimizing page titles, using headings appropriately, and submitting sitemaps can help sites rank higher organically in search results.
2. SEO is about usability, not tricks. The document recommends following Google's guidelines and conventions, using user-centric design principles, and prioritizing page speed.
3. Key elements of the search engine pipeline that SEO affects include crawling pages through links and sitemaps, indexing page content and metadata, and ranking pages based on best matching
Search-Friendly Web Development @ DC RUG - August 2010Luigi Montanez
This document discusses search engine optimization (SEO). It provides the following key points:
1. The main factors search engines consider when crawling, indexing, and ranking pages are things like sitemap.xml files, page titles, meta descriptions, headings, and unique content that is relevant to the page.
2. Common SEO mistakes to avoid include redirects that confuse crawlers, non-accessible content, and dynamically changing content based on location.
3. Tools like Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Yahoo Site Explorer can help optimize pages for search engines. The document emphasizes thinking like a searcher and using best practices like descriptive page titles.
This document promotes civic hacking and open data/government initiatives by highlighting existing projects like FlyOnTime.us and QuakeSpotter, and quoting President Kennedy's call to public service. It suggests becoming a civic hacker by visiting sunlightlabs.com and following @LuigiMontanez on social media. A list of programming terms is included but not otherwise explained.
The document discusses civic hacking and how open source and open data can lead to better government. It explains that high quality raw data should be available in JSON, XML or CSV formats and through RESTful APIs. It also notes that MongoDB is used to store results from data scraping and provides RESTful JSON APIs. An example is given of querying a Drumbone API to return specific fields from a legislator record including earmark amounts and numbers. The assistant is thanked for its work and directed to Sunlight Labs for more information.
Luigi Montanez gave a presentation on civic hacking at the LA RubyConf 2010 conference. He recruited software developers to use their skills to make government more transparent by creating applications and websites that analyze open data from different levels of government. Some examples he provided included APIs that provide information about members of Congress, campaign contributions, bills, and voting records in order to enhance civic participation and democracy.
Luigi Montanez discusses civic hacking, which involves using technology and open data to build tools that increase government transparency and civic participation. He outlines some guiding principles like using open source and open data to build better government tools as side projects. He then provides examples of available government APIs and data related to the federal government, courts, states, and cities that could be used for civic hacking projects. Finally, he discusses the project lifecycle and deployment options for civic hacking projects, particularly using Google App Engine.
The document promotes civic engagement through coding and building apps using open government data. It encourages recruiting coders to build apps for issues like improving local government services. It describes Sunlight Foundation's work with open data and APIs and their Apps for America competition for civic apps, with a $30,000 total prize pool. Coders are urged to get involved by joining the open source community or submitting an app to the competition.
The document discusses recruiting civic coders to build applications that use open government data to promote civic engagement and participatory democracy. It provides examples of government data sources and APIs that could be used, and encourages connecting with open government communities and submitting applications to civic hacking competitions for funding opportunities. The overall message is a call to action for developers to use their skills to build tools that make politics and governance more transparent, accessible and improve people's lives locally.
Thin is a Ruby web server that is a replacement for Mongrel. It glues together the Mongrel parser, EventMachine, and Rack libraries to provide a more actively developed and nicer to use web server for Ruby applications like Rails. Thin can be started by installing the required gems and running the thin start command. It supports both development and production deployment through command line flags and configuration files.
33. In an 8 week stretch...
RS on Rails, Lone Star, Kaigi,
Hoedown, Golden Gate,
RailsCamp NE, Ruby|Web,
Windy City, DCamp, SunnyConf,
JRubyConf, Mountain.rb
34. “Ask not what your
country can do for
you. Ask what you
can do for your
country.”
President John F. Kennedy
Inaugural Address
January 20, 1961
35. Be a civic hacker.
sunlightlabs.com
@LuigiMontanez
Editor's Notes
Improving our government: at the local, state, and federal level, by doing what we do best: writing code, and building apps.
I work for a non-profit called the Sunlight Labs. We're developers and designers committed to improving government through transparency: the idea is that government can be made better and more accountable when data about its processes and influences are made freely available to the public.
1. Push for open data
2. Build open source software using that open data
3. Work towards open government
We believe that all government data that isn't sensitive or personally identifiable should be made available online, in real-time, and in machine readable formats. Government is responsible for all sorts of useful data. The thing about government data is, only govt can provide it.
Usually when you think of the judicial branch of the federal government, you think of the Supreme Court. But in reality, there are lower district courts in every state, and 11 courts of appeal.
All these courts means that there's a lot of testimony being recorded, a lot of decisions being rendered. That's a lot of data, all of which, by law, is public domain. But all that data is locked up in an online database called PACER, which stores everything in PDF files.
But that's not all. These PDFs cost 8 cents per page, and because PACER doesn't have full-text search, people end up paying for much more than they usually need. So this is a situation ripe for civic hacking.
Two years ago, PACER went on a free trial at a couple libraries across the country, meaning there was no charge to download the PDFs. So Aaron went to one of these libraries, ran a scraper script on a lab computer, and transferred 20 million files to his EC2 server.
The script ran for two weeks before the people running PACER figured out what was happening. They freaked out, shut down access, and asked the FBI to investigate him, which they did, but Aaron was cleared of any wrong-doing.
Just not for the sake of hacking -- we want to build useful things
This is OpenCongress.org, which is what Congress's website should be. It takes raw data, the text of legislation and vote history for members of Congress, and presents everything in a way that makes sense to average people.
URL string, cgi-bin, data in a web page
oil disaster, semantic web
So where do we find all this data? A project I work on is the National Data Catalog, which lists government data published at all levels: federal, state, and local. We catalog both data sets and APIs.
FlyOnTime.us uses FAA data to make predictions about how late you can expect your flight to be depending on weather conditions.
Quakespotter uses real-time data from the US Geological Survey to map earthquakes around the globe.
StumbleSafely uses DC crime data to tell you which streets to avoid at night when walking home from the bar. Wayfinder is an augmented reality app for Android which uses New York City subway data to point you to nearby subway stations.
After Korean Air Lines Flight 007, carrying 269 people, was shot down in 1983 after straying into the USSR's prohibited airspace, President Ronald Reagan issued a directive making GPS freely available for civilian use, once it was sufficiently developed, as a common good.
Let's look at one API. You know about dialing 911 for emergencies, and 411 for information. Well 311 is what you dial for city services, broken traffic lights and potholes. Open311 is a RESTful API for requesting those services.
Code for America is a project modeled after Teach for America. Teams of developers are being recruited to work on open source software for five cities across the country. Applications are open right now.
Held at city hall
Met Marc Chung at RubyConf in SFO. Meet twice a month.
Meetups, conferences
When JFK spoke those words nearly 50 years ago, service to your country meant going into the military, or joining the Peace Corps. But today, service can mean using the skills and talents we already have as software developers.
Next time something angers you. “Can I solve this problem by writing code?” Scratch an itch too. So consider civic hacking -- writing code to make your community, your country, your world, a better place. Thanks.