Data has been used for business for centuries. For example, I came across this detailed book of tables made over 500 years ago in India. It’s the revenue in copper coins from the spring and autumn harvests. The book covers many commodities, including sugarcane, indigo, hemp, poppies, cotton, pulses, rice and melons. How they analysed […]
How to test shell scripts
Extreme hipster superheroes like me need tests for their shell. Here’s what’s available. YOLO: No automated testing Few shell scripts have any automated testing because shell programmers live life on the edge. Inevitably, this results in tedious manual ‘testing’. Loads of projects use this approach. git flow homeshick ievms rbenv z Here are some more. […]
Nurture community! A job at ScraperWiki
ScraperWiki has always been about community. The openness of making data do things, together. Things that matter, that lots of people care about. We’re pleased to announce that we’re hiring a full time Community Manager. If you’re interested in data scientists, in the people who really make this “big data” thing work, coding away in […]
What has Europe ever done for us?
Hmm… 2.8 million euros, a ‘history recorder’, and the opportunity to have a full on working relationship with VU Amsterdam Uni, Lexis Nexis, plus with some brilliant bods in Trento and San Sebastien (Happy Christmas!) It’s official! We have become a European FP7 partner with the VU Amsterdam University, Faculty of Arts’ (Prof Piek Vossen), Lexis […]
Adult Social Care Hack Day @Liverpool Science Park
…a guest post by Max Zadow On the Friday the 26th of October a room full of technologists, social workers and social care providers sat in a room and worked together to identify ways to create positive change in the Social Care system in Liverpool. For me it was a nervous time, because it had […]
We’re hiring: the world’s best data scientists!
If you’re a ScraperWiki coder with great communication skills and a passion for data, then you should probably bookmark our new Jobs page. We’ll be hiring for a few different roles over the coming months, and we’d love to hear from you! Right now, we’re looking for two Data Scientists to help Dragon Dave get, […]
The Big Clean
I’m just about to return from Prague, Czech Republic, where I gave a workshop at the Big Clean. What a nice little conference this was! It had two tracks: Talks and the workshop. So I didn’t get to see many of the talks :(. But this meant I had the whole day to teach people […]
Open Interests Europe Hackathon – London, 24-25 November
guest post by Liliana Bounegru, European Journalism Centre The European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation invite you to the Open Interests Europe Hackathon to track the interests and money flows which shape European policy. When: 24-25 November 2012 Where: Google Campus Cafe, 4-5 Bonhill Street, EC2A 4BX London How EU money is spent is an issue that concerns everyone who […]
The Humble CSV!
It must be rocket science! The CSV (comma separated values) file has been in use for 45 years, from before men walked on the moon, and it still remains the cheapest and most reliable way to move data from one computer system to another. While hardware and software standards have moved forwards with the technology […]
Hacking the National Health Service
In the age of easy to use consumer software – from Facebook to the iPhone – health workers find the software they get at work increasingly frustrating. Talk to some! You’ll find stories of doctors crossing hospitals to reboot computers to get a vital piece of data. Stories of individuals keeping patient records on Excel […]