This, I love: The Open Dinosaur Project was founded to involve scientists and the public alike in developing a comprehensive database of dinosaur limb bone measurements, to investigate questions of dinosaur function and evolution. We have three major goals:1) do good science; 2) do this science in the most open way possible; and 3) allow [...]
For the price of a beer (or a pitcher, or a round), you can support VisibleGovernment.ca … the non-profit that promotes online tools for government transparency, openness and accessibility around government and civic data (yay!). They’ve got a little fundraiser going, in celebration of Canada Day: Beers for Canada … How we’ll spend your money [...]
[x-posted at Book Oven & Huffpo] As the death watch continues for the publishing business and perhaps even the book itself, a group of writers, technologists, publishers, agents, designers, booksellers, and social architects convened in London for BookCamp, a one-day thinking session (bookish experimentation) about what the future of the written word might be. The [...]
The Smithsonian is putting a collection of public domain photos on Flickr, part of the Flickr Commons project. Here’s an example, with this curious description: After parcel post service was introduced [in the US] in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service. With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with [...]
Cool: GridRepublic members run a screensaver that allows their computers to work on public-interest research projects when the machines are not otherwise in use. This screensaver does not affect performance of the host computer any more than an ordinary screensaver does. By aggregating idle resources from users around the world, we create a massive supercomputer. [...]
In the fall of 2004, I quit my job consulting in the renewable energy industry in order to focus on writing. In addition to fiction-writing, I worked on a research/writing contract to develop an exhibit on dinosaurs (part of which is still online) for the Canadian Museum of Nature. I’d never used Wikipedia much before, [...]
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain, and the question comes up often enough: why not license the recordings as creative commons/non-commercial instead? The question came up recently and here was my answer: So, why should LibriVox recordings be in the public domain, rather than a creative commons license? LibriVox comes out of a [...]
From the New Scientist: Scientists who want to describe their work on Wikipedia should not be forced to give up the kudos of a respected journal. So says a group of physicists who are going head-to-head with a publisher because it will not allow them to post parts of their work to the online encyclopaedia, [...]
Good writing is such as pleasure, especially when it’s about something you care about: Without the kooks and the insulters and the spray-can taggers, Wikipedia would just be the most useful encyclopedia ever made. Instead it’s a fast-paced game of paintball.