Micah Bunny’s Blog

More May Reading

Just finished Grand Scuttle – The Sinking of The German Fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919 by Dan Van Der Vat which was a good read.

I am also in process of reading ‘Copy, Rip, Burn – The Politics of Copyleft and Open Source‘ by David M. Berry (Pluto Press), but it academic style means it does not read for me with easy flow. I find the subject matter interesting but maybe because I have read so much else from this area I am only dipping into this in bits, and not finding much new, but it the author seems to have look around widely for doing this.

Read ‘Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed’ by Paul Mason

I just finished reading ‘Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed’ by Paul Mason. It was a good read and I recommend it. I had heard recently Paul Mason had just been interviewed by Doug Henwood on his radio programme, but I only decided to buy book on seeing it as part of 3 for price of 2 offer at Waterstones. It is only just out. It has a good pace of writing which draws you in as well as generally very good take on situation. I did gain some understanding of some specific aspects of how financial system had evolved in recent years, that I had not got my head round before. I am in process of feeding Paul’s outlook on future into my own, as I do with books as I read them to various degrees, as well as news, observations and experience , which I guess goes without saying.

Reading and listening to Doug Henwood

A few years ago I read “After the New Economy” by Doug Henwood

I have been just reading his previous book “Wall Street” which I downloaded as a PDF

I also listen to his radio show which is quite interesting with present financial crisis.

http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html

I download from rss feed in Amarok audio programme and then rsync to my portable audio player and listen to on way to and from work.

I am now also reading: “Technology and capital in the age of lean production” by Tony Smith.

Ferry Gait streets added to Open Street Map

Last Sunday I wondered around some new streets called Ferry Gait in may area collecting the names and adding them to Open Street Map. They just were rendered since I last looked yesterday at it. I am quite pleased.

A path from the Muirhouse Linear Park to them has just been opened up which saves me a bit of time going to work on my bike. I added that too.

Google Maps and multimap have only part of roads.

Before I added page to my webserver which pulls over tiles from open street map for my area:
http://map.movingpages.org/
I want to play more with openlayer and OSM, and changing how displayed. Next step maybe being to creat custom tiles on my server.

Maps: Missing Post Offices

Found this map of post offices

http://www.maptube.org/map.aspx?mapid=92

but the 2 closest to me in Muirhouse and Pennywell are missing.

I will have to check out where data is from and why this is.

These post offices get a fair bit of custom and despite new round of post office closures they both should be secure. The government set out to undermine the postoffice network by taking the benefits payments from them pushing claimants to use bank which fleece claimants with penalties to cover costs.

Open Street Map has an icon for post offices:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Proposed_features/Post_Office
But long way to go before they all get tagged.

I am hoping to explore OSM tools parsing address tags for building into BS7666 format.
http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/gdsc/html/frames/BS7666Address.htm
In that way OSM could in future inferface with datasets that held address element in BS7666 format. or even become if not linked to a free version of the National Land and Property Gazetteer.
http://www.nlpg.org.uk
More on format of NLPG: http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/aio/6055969
Hopefully in time the the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) from the NLPG these will become more widely know and used. At moment it is only if particular professions that it is used outside local government. http://www.searchflow.co.uk
More open access to NPLG as it is updated when developer applies for planning permission would still be a great plus however developed free alternatives get. Also by being more open feedback would improve it accuracy authorities us i.e changes of names and usage, splitting of properties.
Also each local authority should hold a register of street works against the Unique Street Reference Number (UPRN) from related National Street Gazetteer http://www.thensg.org.uk and now under the recently implemented Traffic Management Act 2004 those digging or near the road will be providing as part of permit application the exact start and end location by OS National Grid co-ordinates, which could shown on such a resource.

I have been interested in this area for awhile now but it seems there has been various discussion in various parts about more freeing of data. I posted a comment at http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk
at:
http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/2008/07/a-map-of-road-c.html?commenter=Bunny
which prompted me to pull some of together info in this post.

http://www.gisconsultancy.com/blog/politics/the-royal-mail-paf-that-old-chestnut
http://puffbox.com/2008/06/23/the-power-of-postcodes/
http://powerofinformation.wordpress.com/
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/psi-regulations/uk-report-reuse-psi-2008.pdf

http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/blog/
http://www.freeourdata.org.uk

applications

Just watched a presentation that I found very enlightening:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx

At work we have Office 2003 and at home I only use Koffice or OpenOffice.org but I find how they got to the new ribbon in Office 207 quite interesting, the stats of how commands used in office that they fed into design are interesting.

The idea of letting people have a sense of mastery over the software is good and how this put into practice with design.

It has got me thinking more about other applications which I allready had views on how needed to change.

making our records last

I think it would be good if human knowledge and accounts of events were added to glass bottles by engraving or have stored in form by raised lettering, code or pictures. These will last longer than paper or film. Bottles go all over the world and although many get recycled the fate of many is to end up in land fill, where they could be retrieved by archaeologists of the future.

I noticed bbc’s iPM is looking at using Coca Cola distribution network to carry aid. This would add cost to their process and so would any engraving process or changing in molds of the large batches of bottles. But their is benefit of good image to Coca Cola.

Cycling again / addresses

After winter break I have started this week cycling to and from work. On my way back on Monday I saw the Heron under bridge from Fords Road over Water of Leith I had not seen him as far up as that and was closest I had seen him. He looked back at me, and turned around showing of his big quif like feather on his head that I had not noticed before, a pity I did not have a camera. My camera card not working well it unmounts after transferring one photo to computer.

I have recent been looking at issue of addresses.
And came across the Association of British Counties who have convinced me to now use the historic county more in addresses, especially ones where not really in located in the ‘post town’. I also use the Gazetteer they provide.

NPLG do a gazetteer of addresses but it is not freely accessible. They just seem to sell it like the Royal Mail’s PAF but at least one can search a few online.

plenty of Books

I have been reading a fair few books.

The Machine that Changed the World – How Lean Production Revolutionized the Global Car Wars

which I wanted to read after being fascinated by what I learned when I read Lean Thinking.

I also got Lean Performance ERP Project Management which is not as readable but contains valuable insights.

I got Rip Off! which is book done before Plundering the Public Sector.
They are both a good read and useful.

I also am reading stuff by Julie Burchill.

making the same mistakes with IT changes

I have been reading a book called:
‘Plundering the public sector – How New Labour are letting consultants run off with 70 billion of our money’ by David Criag and Richard Brooks which I find very worth reading especially for me details of the expensive failures of various government IT projects and how the same mistakes were made again and again. But the book also goes much further than just mistakes made to detail how Consultants often act against the interest of government departments they give advice to; all backed up with quotes from those involved and from wide range of reports and sources.

One could make a good set of check lists for those in organisation that are undergoing process/organisation and information system changes, from examples featured in this book.