This Saturday sees events to mark the third National Hack The Government Day.
It will also be marked across the UK by events such as the one being run at Aberdeen University by Dr Bruce Scharlau.
I’ve committed to going to it too. As a keen supporter of the principles of Open Data and the benefits that it can deliver I could hardly not go.
Then I started thinking – what will I do there? It is five years or more since I wrote any real code. My team won’t let me near any live systems any more. Sure, I can play with Yahoo Pipes and Excel Spreadsheets but we need developers there – and more than are presently signed up to make it a really worthwhile day.
That said, I’m not alone in my doubt about what I contribute: http://www.donna-horn.com/2011/03/one-way-to-participate-in-our.html
So I’ll go along with an open mind. I make good tea and coffee if nothing else?
Meantime, in addition to the useful links that we’ve collected on the page here I’ve found a few more.
The Open Data search engine looks useful. You can also read the article about it. That said the filtering down to Scotland level includes much English data and the search for Aberdeen returns no results.
Where no Open Data exists Scraper Wiki looks interesting for grabbing new sources. Their blog has some useful examples of what’s been done with it.
If you have any suggested data sources for Aberdeen and the North East please post them below.
