Re: Challenges and Opportunities in Big Data Webcast (March 29, 3PM EDT)

Wow Ed, thanks to whomsoever named it "Helping Big Data" and for the colon seizure I had before I read what you were actually talking about.

You (and Jeanne) can make it up to me by pummeling anyone who says "survival of the fittest" while screaming "no grass, no lions! ecosystems!".


Points two and three are of particular importance, I think.  Silicon Valley is not going to play by either existing rule set (Title 5 or Title 13).  They want to "play" by both.   Big Data by and large does not see the long term corrosive effect as their problem to solve.    Once you do know statistical methods, it is hard to imagine injecting a self-serving bias, and harder yet not to attribute the bias to stubbornness or ignorance.  This effect is also pervasive in Labor Law, or as I refer to it, "the exaltation of the lesser sociopath".

I have a fourth suggestion, and that is to publish the CIA World Factbook in more accessible Open Data formats. It has been Public Domain since inception, but often "old statistics" and "old news" are conflated.  I'd be more comfy with this, I suppose, if I thought either term had any real meaning.  There is nothing in the Scientific Method which prohibits the use of a hard-wired initial state.  I know what Wisconsin-ness is: same as it was last time.  One of the most powerful tools eGovernment has is Shannon's Maxim ("the enemy knows the system").  Huh? Yes, by this formulation: The less obscure the organization of the outside world the easier it is for citizens of one jurisdiction to relate to each other as equals, from which sharing data becomes second nature, along with an investment in data fidelity.  This also can be used to demonstrate circumstantially bad eGovernment ideas:  Crowdsourcing does not mean that a lazy Sunday Afternoon in
 Canberra needs the contemporaneous input of liquored-up cowboys in Dallas on Saturday Night, for example.

Big Data is a tough crowd since they know the difference between deceleration and resonance.  Just remember "no grass, no lions".  Good luck.


--Gannon



________________________________
 From: Ed Summers <ehs@pobox.com>
To: public-egov-ig <public-egov-ig@w3.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 8:38 AM
Subject: Challenges and Opportunities in Big Data Webcast (March 29, 3PM EDT)
 
Of possible interest to folks in the US (and elsewhere, maybe). The
first and second bullet points seem particularly relevant for the w3c
egov efforts.

//Ed

--

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will host a
live webcast Thursday at 3 p.m. eastern time to outline how the
government can “help big data” with its Big Data Research and
Development Initiative.

Here are three things the feds could do right off the bat to promote
better use of big data:

* put the government’s own data sets into open formats
* push states to include a data or statistical literacy component in
their education plans
* establish ways to continuously collect data on prescribed topics as
opposed to relying on temporary snapshots

Speakers at the event will include John Holdren, assistant to the
president and director of the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy; Subra Suresh director of the National Science
Foundation, and Marcia McNutt, director of the US Geological Survey.

http://gigaom.com/cloud/obama-administration-to-push-big-data-agenda/