Wonky fruit and data standards

There was an article in the Guardian this week about supermarkets selling "wonky" fruit during the current drought. It got me thinking about how our perceptions of what is good, normal or acceptable get shaped by decisions made by others. This lead me down a bit of a rabbit-hole reading about cosmetic standards for fruit … Continue reading Wonky fruit and data standards →

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 →

Some lessons learned from building standards around Schema.org

OpenActive is a community-led initiative in the sport and physical activity sector in England. It's goal is to help to get people healthier and more active by making its easier for people to find information about activities and events happening in their area. Publishing open data about opportunities to be active is a key part … Continue reading Some lessons learned from building standards around Schema.org →