Thinking through decentralisation as a process, not an architecture

I tweeted this the other day: https://twitter.com/ldodds/status/1458562522919936001 I don't claim this is a new or even particularly profound insight. But I do sometimes feel that discussion around the need for more decentralised products and services focuses more the technical design of a system, rather than how it is governed. An expectation that a decentralised protocol … Continue reading Thinking through decentralisation as a process, not an architecture →

What is Swash and is it really changing data ownership?

This is another in a very occasional series of blog posts where I look at different data initiatives, institutions or infrastructure in order to understand a bit more about how they work. And then have opinions about them. Previously I wrote about Common Voice. This time I'm looking at Swash which describes itself as "reimagining … Continue reading What is Swash and is it really changing data ownership? →

The Doom Pyramid

There's a lot going at the minute. Both in general and personally. I've been trying to think through the way I feel about it all. To reflect on what helps me deal with the anxiety of These Times. As well as what doesn't. Today it clicked and I tweeted it. This is post just expands … Continue reading The Doom Pyramid →

Obsessed by bees

I've become a bit obsessed by bees. In a good way. Earlier in the year whilst I was quietly reading a very large, very black bee fell out of chimney. We were both stunned. After a moment to see if I was about to be engulfed in a swarm of bees (BEES!!!) I escorted the … Continue reading Obsessed by bees →

Why are we still building portals?

The Geospatial Commission have recently published some guidance on Designing Geospatial Data Portals. There's a useful overview in the accompanying blog post. It's good clear guidance that should help anyone building a data portal. It has tips for designing search interfaces, presenting results and dataset metadata. There's very little advice that is specifically relevant to … Continue reading Why are we still building portals? →

TTRPGs and Me

In January I tweeted this: https://twitter.com/ldodds/status/1351293034093285382 Six months later and I'm now in two weekly TTRPG sessions. And I'm thoroughly enjoying it. For a long period TTRPGs were a big part of my life. Like many people of my age, my introduction to TTRPGs was through the D&D "red box" set. When I got my … Continue reading TTRPGs and Me →

24 different tabular formats for half-hourly energy data

A couple of months ago I wrote a post that provided some background on the data we use in Energy Sparks. The largest data source comes from gas and electricity meters (consumption) and solar panels (generation). While we're integrating with APIs that allow us to access data from smart meters, for the foreseeable future most … Continue reading 24 different tabular formats for half-hourly energy data →

Schema explorers and how they can help guide adoption of common standards

Despite being very different projects Wikidata and OpenStreetmap have a number of similarities. Recurring patterns in how they organise and support the work of their communities. We documented a number of these patterns in the ODI Collaborative Maintenance Guidebook. There were also a number we didn't get time to write-up. A further pattern which I … Continue reading Schema explorers and how they can help guide adoption of common standards →

Building data validators

This is a post about building tools to validate data. I wanted to share a few reflections based on helping to design and build a few different public and private tools, as well as my experience as a user. I like using data validators to check my homework. I've been using a few different recently … Continue reading Building data validators →

New job: (Part time) CTO at EnergySparks

As I wrote in my recent reflections about the range of projects I helped to deliver during my time at the Open Data Institute and beyond, I've been thinking about the type of work I want to be doing in the future. Most of the last few years has been very focused on research and … Continue reading New job: (Part time) CTO at EnergySparks →