(04:01:03 PM) micah: Hi. May only be here for a few minutes as I'm waiting for my son's bus to arrive...
(04:01:51 PM) JoshTauberer: No prob.
(04:02:28 PM) Clay Johnson [i=d03b7a42@gateway/web/ajax/mibbit.com/x-bae92179a4b85398] entered the room.
(04:02:34 PM) micah left the room (quit: Client Quit).
(04:03:26 PM) JoshTauberer: Well, ok, thanks for coming, guys.
(04:04:36 PM) JoshTauberer: Looking at who's here, we have four people associated with things that I know about, and six others (at least one familiar name).
(04:04:46 PM) MarkLatham: Hi Josh -- thanks for organizing this.
(04:04:52 PM) AaronSw [n=AaronSw@c-76-24-29-239.hsd1.ma.comcast.net] entered the room.
(04:05:03 PM) Johnwonderlich: Hi everyone, happy to be here.
(04:05:05 PM) louk [n=LouK@user-0cdf73e.cable.mindspring.com] entered the room.
(04:05:26 PM) AaronSw!n=AaronSw@c-76-24-29-239.hsd1.ma.comcast.net: AaronSw has changed the topic to: talk about civic-technology projects
(04:05:27 PM) JoshTauberer: I hate intros, but I think it might be a good idea, right?
(04:05:32 PM) louk is now known as louklepner
(04:05:53 PM) AaronSw!n=AaronSw@c-76-24-29-239.hsd1.ma.comcast.net: AaronSw has changed the topic to: talk about civic-technology projects - http://wiki.opengovdata.org/index.php/OGosh
(04:06:06 PM) JoshTauberer: Thanks Aaron.
(04:06:28 PM) AaronSw: Sure.
(04:06:34 PM) Clay Johnson left the room (quit: Client Quit).
(04:06:56 PM) louklepner: Hello all
(04:06:56 PM) JoshTauberer: Maybe I'll take care of the people I know so we get on the same page quickly. :) We have from the Sunlight Foundation John W. and Clay J.
(04:07:06 PM) EricMill: Though Clay just stepped out, it seems :)
(04:07:13 PM) AaronSw: I'm Aaron Swartz, from watchdog.net and theinfo.org.
(04:07:17 PM) Johnwonderlich: that's a great page.  so many different things going on makes finding resources really valuable.
(04:07:28 PM) AaronSw: Yeah, there ought to be some consolidation.
(04:07:32 PM) JoshTauberer: From OpenCongress David Moore ---you here David?
(04:07:35 PM) davidmoore: Hi everyone, David here with OpenCongress.org
(04:07:37 PM) davidmoore: glad to be here too
(04:07:40 PM) GabeHamilton: I'm Gabe Hamilton from stickyvote.com
(04:07:50 PM) ***JoshTauberer lets the rest introduce themselves.
(04:07:58 PM) louklepner: I'm Lou from gatewaytogov.org
(04:08:00 PM) EricMill: I'm just a guy, I don't have a project yet :)
(04:08:07 PM) MarkLatham: I?m doing a democratic media reform project using political blogs.
(04:08:07 PM) MarkLatham: See "How to Create Public Interest Media in Your Democratic Community" at www.votermedia.org/publications.
(04:08:07 PM) MarkLatham: I?m also on the board of www.proxydemocracy.org. The president, Andy Eggers, plans to join this chat, so he?ll tell you about it.
(04:08:09 PM) EricMill: David invited me, and I know Clay at Sunlight
(04:08:21 PM) Caged [n=Caged@c-24-22-74-181.hsd1.or.comcast.net] entered the room.
(04:08:27 PM) EricMill: John - we might have met a couple weeks ago briefly, like a handshake or something
(04:09:00 PM) jdunck [n=jdunck@70-14-85-77.area3.spcsdns.net] entered the room.
(04:09:02 PM) JoshTauberer: Great. As you probably know I had two goals in mind for the chat. On the one hand, just bringing people up to speed about what's happening in different projects.
(04:09:24 PM) JoshTauberer: And also if there are people (like Eric!) who we can convince to pitch in to an existing project, or to give pointers for getting something new off the ground... that.
(04:09:41 PM) JoshTauberer: So maybe we can start if any existing project has something new and existing to talk about that the rest of us don't know about yet?
(04:09:54 PM) shawnb: I'm Shawn Brown from err, IndependenceAve.org (although I only update that site once every general election).
(04:09:54 PM) shawnb: I'm interested in Semantic Web tech but I won't have time to play until after the election.
(04:10:21 PM) JoshTauberer: (Ah, good, so it was *that* Shawn B. Hi Shawn. LTNS.)
(04:10:27 PM) shawnb: yup
(04:10:47 PM) JoshTauberer: Like.... Lou. What's happening with GatewayToGov? No pressure.
(04:10:54 PM) louklepner: heh-heh
(04:10:58 PM) john_ [n=john@user-0cdfqif.cable.mindspring.com] entered the room.
(04:11:02 PM) louklepner: none at all!
(04:11:40 PM) JoshTauberer: Okay, tell us your dreams then.
(04:12:18 PM) shawnb: good prompt, you should go through the roster n' ask each person that question
(04:12:23 PM) louklepner: Lets see - two things areas i suppose
(04:12:45 PM) louklepner: can we keep this off the record?
(04:13:00 PM) louklepner: it'd be nice to make a splash with it in the not too distant future
(04:13:04 PM) JoshTauberer: (Okay, in that case, let's put David on deck for the next update, if he doesn't mind.)
(04:13:14 PM) JoshTauberer: I'm logging the chat.
(04:13:21 PM) davidmoore: (sure)
(04:13:25 PM) louklepner: alright - i'll keep it vague enough then
(04:13:26 PM) EricMill: We need to uphold #transparency transparency
(04:13:44 PM) louklepner: we're working on a national 'who is your rep' tool
(04:14:18 PM) louklepner: paired with an issue tracker
(04:14:59 PM) JoshTauberer: National meaning federal level, or?
(04:15:26 PM) louklepner: it'll cover fed, state and in select areas, local reps
(04:15:55 PM) shawnb: reminds me ... I stumbled across the house.gov's list of zip+4 to CD tables online a while back, it would be nice to spider those and get an updated list occasionally
(04:15:56 PM) louklepner: we're going to open it up as a web service
(04:16:02 PM) JoshTauberer: Neat. I have some state-level maps in the works... I should show you after.
(04:16:36 PM) louklepner: enabling other sites to query with an address and get returned a list of the districts in which the point resides
(04:16:57 PM) AaronSw: shawnb: I've published a list of that based on USPS data.
(04:17:07 PM) JoshTauberer: (Lou, when you're done, just indicate somehow.)
(04:17:09 PM) AaronSw: And Josh and I have web services too
(04:17:14 PM) louklepner: Sure -
(04:17:35 PM) EricMill: Sunlight Labs has an API for something like that, I think
(04:17:37 PM) EricMill: http://sunlightlabs.com/api/
(04:17:38 PM) shawnb: AaronSw: nice, the EchoDitto guys have one as well ... I'm just not sure how well they age
(04:17:39 PM) louklepner: Our goal is to open up issue tracking as well
(04:17:58 PM) AaronSw: shawnb: Yeah, this one is up-to-date as of last month and I've got this month's update I'll be integrating soon.
(04:18:08 PM) louklepner: decoupling issues from organizations
(04:18:17 PM) citizencontact [n=daniel@216-15-46-2.c3-0.129-ubr3.lnh-129.md.static.cable.rcn.com] entered the room.
(04:19:01 PM) JoshTauberer: shawnb/aaronsw: I've got a 50x compressed version of the massive table that I'll post when I get around to it.
(04:19:02 PM) louklepner: Anyhow - why don't I wrap it up
(04:19:02 PM) Johnwonderlich: Aaron, where does your zip + 4 info reside?  I think you're well ahead of Sunlight Labs on that one...
(04:19:04 PM) shawnb: my initial effort with IndependenceAve.org was to make a plug-in widget to offer Congressional Directory look-up ... didn't know what to call it at the time since people weren't really using the term widget at the time
(04:19:05 PM) Grayson [n=SlendaRe@nmd.sbx08964.hamilnj.wayport.net] entered the room.
(04:19:30 PM) AaronSw: The source data is at http://watchdog.net/data/parse/usps/
(04:19:40 PM) AaronSw: and the mapping is the zip4.tsv file in http://watchdog.net/data/load/
(04:20:08 PM) JoshTauberer: Thanks, Lou.
(04:20:13 PM) JoshTauberer: David?
(04:20:22 PM) davidmoore: Hey everyone, David with OpenCongress here
(04:20:28 PM) citizencontact: hi
(04:20:31 PM) davidmoore: really psyched to be part of this emerging collaboration 
(04:20:58 PM) JoshTauberer: (Hey, Daniel.)
(04:21:00 PM) louklepner: much agreed
(04:21:09 PM) davidmoore: just wanted to start off by saying we're totally dedicated to growing this open-source, and we're definitely open to lots of collaborations
(04:21:29 PM) davidmoore: here's what's new with OC
(04:21:30 PM) Grayson: Hi, sorry to be joining late. I am a lawyer and privacy advocate. I met Josh at the "Computing in the Cloud" workshop at Princeton.
(04:21:38 PM) Caged: Guess I too should introduce myself.  I'm Justin Palmer,  the guy working on an iPhone application using various APIs.
(04:22:03 PM) davidmoore: we've had user votes on bills for a while -- we're putting the finishing touches on a sitewide sort of "Digg" for bills
(04:22:03 PM) citizencontact: and i am Daniel Bennett
(04:22:13 PM) JoshTauberer: (Oh cool. Glad to see you here!)
(04:22:17 PM) davidmoore: we'll send that out for feedback before we launch -- most tracked, most commented, most approved
(04:22:42 PM) davidmoore: also -- b/c we aggregate so much info from other sources (e.g. GovTrack, etc.) we hadn't made it a priority to have our own API 
(04:22:49 PM) davidmoore: but now we're working on one
(04:23:08 PM) davidmoore: for any programmers to access and get the bills associated with a given issue area, their status, and blogs/commentary about them.  
(04:23:11 PM) citizencontact: fyi the new permanent urls for bills can be found at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfxgcdfc_52fsvj7qn3
(04:23:40 PM) davidmoore: I'll wrap up here by saying we have a couple of needs, if anyone wants to help specifically with these areas, I'm guessing they're not uncommon
(04:24:18 PM) davidmoore: we could always use DBA help w/ our postgres database, we could always use help optimizing site search, and we're interested in re-structuring our user comments
(04:24:30 PM) davidmoore: a link to our code :: http://trac.opencongress.org/
(04:24:31 PM) EricMill: Personally, I really enjoy working on and with APIs
(04:24:33 PM) publius [n=publius@220.85.8.67.cfl.res.rr.com] entered the room.
(04:24:41 PM) davidmoore: happy to chat more or answer questions, otherwise I'm happy to pass the mic
(04:24:45 PM) publius: hi
(04:25:11 PM) EricMill: Is the OpenCongress Trac been around for a while, or recent?
(04:25:12 PM) davidmoore: (right on Eric, we'll talk more about API's too!) 
(04:25:14 PM) EricMill: *Has
(04:25:30 PM) davidmoore: Been around for a while
(04:25:37 PM) linnuxxy [n=chatzill@91.186.226.41] entered the room.
(04:25:40 PM) JoshTauberer: Okay. Let's get maybe one more update next before switching gears a little. Anyone?
(04:25:59 PM) GabeHamilton: sure
(04:26:01 PM) Grayson: I'm very interested in a paper by Ed Felten and his group, entitled "Government Data and the Invisible Hand." I want to support PAI as a mechanism to protect individual privacy, but very interested about the ChoicePoint problem. 
(04:26:07 PM) JoshTauberer: (Hey, Daniel (second Daniel).)
(04:26:29 PM) publius: hi
(04:26:38 PM) Johnwonderlich: Privacy Impact Assessments?
(04:26:43 PM) JoshTauberer: Ok, Gabe, go for it.
(04:26:54 PM) Grayson: Publicly Accessible Infrastructure.
(04:26:54 PM) linnuxxy: hi people
(04:26:56 PM) GabeHamilton: Hi, I'm Gabe from StickyVote.com
(04:27:04 PM) Johnwonderlich: (ah, thanks)
(04:27:12 PM) JoshTauberer: (Yeah, I was going to ask what PAI was too. Let's push that topic to after Gabe, and then after me.)
(04:27:18 PM) GabeHamilton: we focus on delivering messages to Congress
(04:27:36 PM) JoshTauberer: What's unique?
(04:27:40 PM) GabeHamilton: and are working on opening that up so other groups can use our delivery API
(04:28:09 PM) citizencontact: fyi. congress has an api for receiving messages
(04:28:14 PM) GabeHamilton: part of our delivery is a legislative interface, to make large numbers of messages easier to digest
(04:28:31 PM) JoshTauberer: And have you been following the Communicating with Congress report out of CMF? Maybe Daniel (citizencontact) can say something about that.
(04:28:31 PM) jdthomas [n=JT@c-24-23-49-249.hsd1.ca.comcast.net] entered the room.
(04:28:35 PM) GabeHamilton: interesting, I didn't know that
(04:28:54 PM) GabeHamilton: yes, that CMF report is great
(04:28:58 PM) publius is now known as DanGabriel
(04:29:08 PM) Caged is now known as JustinPalmer
(04:29:27 PM) citizencontact: cmf is at http://www.cmfweb.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=256
(04:29:35 PM) AaronSw: citizencontact: where is this API?
(04:30:30 PM) citizencontact: i have it at: http://advocatehope.org/project-papers/communicating-with-congress-by-way-of-advocacy
(04:30:52 PM) citizencontact: soon the topic code/advocacy campaign code will be added
(04:31:09 PM) JoshTauberer: Give us a one-liner explanation of that for those that don't know.
(04:31:26 PM) gregelin [n=gregelin@pppoe-68-142-32-23.gmavt.net] entered the room.
(04:31:37 PM) EricMill: Hi Greg!
(04:31:57 PM) citizencontact: congress uses the API for messages internally (essentially sends an email with xml message from web forms)
(04:33:17 PM) JoshTauberer: How many offices share the same XML format, roughly, do you know?
(04:33:25 PM) citizencontact: I am working to get offices to use a new field (the topic code) and allow in xml structured messages from advocacy groups. CMF just backed it and the main software systems can accept it today
(04:34:03 PM) JoshTauberer: I imagine there must be a number of different things going on, but many share the same website vendor (or something).
(04:34:15 PM) citizencontact: all share the XML format (I helped design it a decade ago and all the vendors use it- IQ system already accepts the new field)
(04:34:24 PM) JoshTauberer: Ahha, nice.
(04:34:48 PM) DanGabriel: thats really cool
(04:34:51 PM) citizencontact: all the other vendor can add it per office request quickly
(04:35:08 PM) JoshTauberer: Ok. Gabe, last words before we continue on?
(04:35:50 PM) GabeHamilton: just that our next project is working on state data, so I'm interested in any projects people have in that area
(04:36:20 PM) louklepner: Can I ask a quick question of Gabe -
(04:36:27 PM) JoshTauberer: Ah, I should have specifically invited state-type folks....
(04:36:32 PM) JoshTauberer: Of course.
(04:36:43 PM) louklepner: Is stickyvote a for-profit?
(04:37:22 PM) louklepner: Sorry - that shouldn't have come across sounding like an accusation - i'm just curious
(04:37:27 PM) GabeHamilton: yes, hopefully :)  But it may end up non-profit or even open source
(04:37:39 PM) GabeHamilton: no problem, that's a good question
(04:38:02 PM) louklepner: Can I ask a quick question of the group?
(04:38:04 PM) JoshTauberer: Like if it doesn't make money? :)
(04:38:22 PM) JoshTauberer: Sure sure.
(04:38:44 PM) louklepner: I'm curious what the mix of non and for-profit participants are
(04:38:58 PM) louklepner: and the no-profit folks too, of course ;)
(04:39:08 PM) JoshTauberer: Who's potentially for-profit, if anyone, besides Gabe?
(04:39:12 PM) Grayson: I'm non-.
(04:39:32 PM) MarkLatham: www.proxydemocracy.org is non-profit
(04:39:36 PM) Johnwonderlich: sunlight is np
(04:39:40 PM) davidmoore: OC is non-
(04:39:42 PM) louklepner: gateway is np
(04:39:43 PM) JoshTauberer: I think Gabe is the only one.
(04:39:49 PM) louklepner: ok - 
(04:39:53 PM) linnuxxy: can I ask a question please?
(04:39:56 PM) louklepner: sorry, don't mean to rustle any feathers
(04:40:05 PM) shawnb: I hope to do a bit of both in the future (but not affiliated with an active gov-related project right now)
(04:40:06 PM) louklepner: just curious -
(04:40:09 PM) MarkLatham: www.votermedia.org is not yet formally organized, but plans to organize as a non-profit
(04:40:27 PM) JoshTauberer: No feathers rustled.
(04:40:41 PM) JoshTauberer: Linnuxxy?
(04:40:54 PM) linnuxxy: I'm from IRAQ, and we are very interested in having such system on our country, is those systems open source?
(04:41:13 PM) JoshTauberer: Good question.
(04:41:23 PM) JoshTauberer: Which systems in particular?
(04:41:40 PM) JoshTauberer: Or, rather, are you asking in general, or do you have something in mind?
(04:41:47 PM) linnuxxy: in general
(04:42:24 PM) linnuxxy: we are just starting up, I am interesting in the standards, API and infrastructure
(04:42:36 PM) linnuxxy: interested** 
(04:42:51 PM) JoshTauberer: So, for instance, in the area of tracking legislation as it goes through the law-making process, there is both GovTrack.us (my site) and OpenCongress.org (DavidMoore), both of which are open source.
(04:43:07 PM) JoshTauberer: There is a real question about how applicable either site might be for a different legislature.
(04:43:21 PM) JoshTauberer: And both depend on the government publishing legislative information thoroughly.
(04:43:56 PM) AaronSw: watchdog.net is open-source and we hope to support other countries, although we haven't really tried any yet.
(04:44:03 PM) JoshTauberer: Julian, er..., can't remember his last name. The guy behind undemocracy and publicwhip (iirc) is interested in making cross-national tools.
(04:44:08 PM) JoshTauberer: Whhops, sorry for forgetting you.
(04:44:24 PM) AaronSw: OSI is interested in funding tools to do collaborative research in the countries where thorough data isn't available
(04:44:30 PM) gregelin: linnuxxy: Alot of everyone's software here is now open source. watchdog.net, opencongress.org, govtrack.net
(04:44:38 PM) JoshTauberer: .us!
(04:45:16 PM) JoshTauberer: I think it might be worth putting together a group focused just on that.
(04:45:16 PM) linnuxxy: but they are only deployed for the us congress
(04:45:40 PM) louklepner: modeling different governmental structures
(04:45:46 PM) Johnwonderlich: another site to be aware of is http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ they work for you, since the uk has a parliamentary system
(04:45:56 PM) Johnwonderlich: i think it's open source, though I'm not sure
(04:46:06 PM) JoshTauberer: jw: I'm pretty sure it is.
(04:46:15 PM) citizencontact: most software used within congress is not open source
(04:46:41 PM) louklepner: this seems to be true
(04:46:42 PM) JoshTauberer: And the guy roughly behind that, Tom Steinberg, has been bringing people that do these sites in a bunch of other countries.
(04:46:57 PM) JoshTauberer: *bringing together
(04:47:02 PM) Johnwonderlich: you're right, here's the page with the source code: https://secure.mysociety.org/cvstrac/dir?d=mysociety/twfy
(04:47:37 PM) citizencontact: but I know a person from the UN legis group and they may know of open source resources for legislative bodies
(04:47:44 PM) JoshTauberer: So, linnuxxy, I think you should email Tom and Julian (email me and I'll send you contact info).
(04:48:07 PM) linnuxxy: thank you Josh
(04:48:10 PM) linnuxxy: I will
(04:48:33 PM) JoshTauberer: From a pragmatic perspective, I am not sure whether anyone in this room has the time and mental energy to think about a multi-national (better than "cross-national"?) legislative tracking website.
(04:48:58 PM) louklepner: i'd be very curious to hear from people who've tried modeling a variety of different governmental structures
(04:49:27 PM) citizencontact: probably difficult to match civil to common law countries
(04:49:28 PM) louklepner: I hear that
(04:49:36 PM) JoshTauberer: Maybe we can resolve (like groups do) to form an ad hoc committee on investigating multi-national sites?
(04:49:57 PM) louklepner: Sounds good
(04:50:00 PM) DanGabriel:  in the vein of multinational platforms, what about simple drawing out correspondences between legislation, parallel legislation, and effects of legislation in related nations
(04:50:37 PM) JoshTauberer: (Is anyone not on Facebook? We don't have a means of communication specific for this chat, and I'd hate to spam seven mail lists again.)
(04:51:17 PM) JoshTauberer: In the interests of keeping up the pace here, I'll just tell you what GovTrack has bee up to.
(04:51:19 PM) citizencontact: in our country (US) there is the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) which is cross state and probably UNCITRAL is doing international work in this area
(04:51:47 PM) JoshTauberer: Basically, with the massive help of DanGabriel, we're pushing a complete facelift of the site.
(04:52:10 PM) shawnb: thank god ;)
(04:52:11 PM) JoshTauberer: It's looking really great and am really excited about that, because people kept telling me the site was ugly compared to our cousin site OC.
(04:52:17 PM) louklepner: great least Daniel
(04:52:30 PM) louklepner: great leads - typo
(04:52:36 PM) citizencontact: http://www.uncitral.org/index.html 
(04:52:43 PM) JoshTauberer: Feel free to take a look at http://test.govtrack.us and send me feedback. It's of course still much in progress.
(04:52:57 PM) DanGabriel: :)
(04:53:18 PM) JoshTauberer: Plus I have a bunch of new little things, including Community Question and Answer, ZIP+4 lookup thanks to public.resource.org and Aaron, etc.
(04:53:29 PM) shawnb: nice
(04:53:36 PM) JoshTauberer: So that's me.
(04:53:49 PM) AaronSw: Ah, much improved, DanGabriel 
(04:54:17 PM) Johnwonderlich: that's very cool!
(04:54:20 PM) JoshTauberer: Clearly Dan was responsible for every change that had something to do with the visual appearance, because it's obvious I have no skillz there.
(04:54:53 PM) DanGabriel: We have a sketch of the re-design at http://plaza.ufl.edu/publius/govtrack if anyone has any input on the graphical development
(04:55:18 PM) EricMill: Josh - that looks terrific
(04:55:18 PM) DanGabriel: basically criticisms, ideas,etc
(04:55:37 PM) shawnb: those rss/scroll logos are nice
(04:55:45 PM) JoshTauberer: Okay, so two topics are on the table. First is the Invisible Hand paper, and second is whether there are people looking to help out an existing project.
(04:55:52 PM) EricMill: That looks soooo nice.
(04:56:24 PM) Johnwonderlich: i see "reports" now too; this is new, right?
(04:56:26 PM) EricMill: Dan, I'll probably look you up if I start a project of my own :)
(04:56:38 PM) JoshTauberer: Or if anyone else wants to plug something new.
(04:57:05 PM) JoshTauberer: Apologies for skipping ahead. So, who's not affiliated with a project and do you have any spare cycles?
(04:57:15 PM) gregelin: DanGabriel: very nice!
(04:57:59 PM) DanGabriel: thanks :)
(04:58:13 PM) Grayson: Didn't mean to put Invisible Hand on the agenda - just wanted to share topic of potential interest. I'll post a link on Facebook.
(04:58:48 PM) JoshTauberer: Oh, well, I think it's an interesting agenda topic... of course, I'm friends with them....
(04:59:05 PM) DanGabriel: what is Invisible Hand all about?
(04:59:20 PM) ***JoshTauberer defers to Grayson to answer.
(04:59:30 PM) beepbeep [n=sams@sebastian.foriru.co.uk] entered the room.
(04:59:39 PM) john_ left the room (quit: ).
(04:59:40 PM) Grayson: Gov't should publish only raw data and leave it to you guys to create the user interface
(04:59:54 PM) beepbeep is now known as sams_mysoc_vol
(05:00:28 PM) Grayson: It's a law review article in a Yale journal
(05:01:01 PM) DanGabriel: I see
(05:01:25 PM) DanGabriel: is there a URL?
(05:01:57 PM) Grayson: Yes, but I don't have it easily to hand. I think you can find it at www.freedom-to-tinker.com
(05:02:48 PM) JoshTauberer: Also http://citp.princeton.edu/
(05:02:59 PM) Johnwonderlich: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1138083
(05:03:23 PM) DanGabriel: awesome
(05:03:32 PM) DanGabriel: thanks
(05:03:44 PM) JoshTauberer: I don't want to drag this on endlessly, so it's been an hour and I won't feel hurt if anyone leaves now. But I do want to see if anyone that hasn't said anything wants to tell us a little about themselves.
(05:04:04 PM) louklepner: If I might plug a bird of a feather group - http://www.internetforeveryone.org/
(05:04:19 PM) JoshTauberer: Oh yes, everyone should plug their heart out. :)
(05:04:26 PM) EricMill: I've got to run, guys
(05:04:30 PM) Grayson: Many thanks, great discussion
(05:04:38 PM) EricMill: But this has been interesting, I've got some notes and URLs to look back on later
(05:04:42 PM) EricMill: Nice to meet all of you
(05:04:44 PM) EricMill: Take care!
(05:04:46 PM) JoshTauberer: Thanks for coming.
(05:04:52 PM) shawnb: I've had an idea for a while and I don't know when I'll have time to work on it but it would be nice to collect a few contacts of people that find it interesting
(05:04:56 PM) Johnwonderlich: this should happen again!  also, josh, might you share the log?
(05:05:15 PM) Johnwonderlich left the room (quit: "http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client").
(05:05:20 PM) shawnb: I've registered a few domain SPARQLize.org / com / net
(05:05:30 PM) JohnW [i=4c72c572@gateway/web/ajax/mibbit.com/x-ffa3b07ef6ea4e23] entered the room.
(05:05:33 PM) EricMill left the room (quit: "Leaving").
(05:05:33 PM) linnuxxy: OK guys can I have the full log of this meeting
(05:05:48 PM) linnuxxy: coz I had a time zone problem
(05:05:52 PM) JoshTauberer: I'll post the log and link from the Facebook group.
(05:05:58 PM) JoshTauberer: And wiki page.
(05:06:03 PM) sams_mysoc_vol: thanks
(05:06:03 PM) linnuxxy: great
(05:06:08 PM) shawnb: mm, maybe I'll wait till people are done dropping off before I continue (if anyone sticks around)
(05:06:10 PM) linnuxxy: thanks Josh
(05:06:18 PM) JoshTauberer: heh heh. Ok, shawn.
(05:06:30 PM) linnuxxy: and I am very interested in cross nation 
(05:06:39 PM) DanGabriel: me too
(05:07:14 PM) JoshTauberer: Well, it's pretty much up to you, linnuxxy.
(05:07:27 PM) JoshTauberer: To figure out the next step, that is. (Modulo my sending you some contact info.)
(05:08:15 PM) shawnb: ok, I'll continue to ramble...
(05:08:27 PM) linnuxxy: Well, I am a technical guy, and I am just starting up this in my country
(05:08:45 PM) shawnb: the idea was to wrap different APIs in a common SPARQL interface
(05:08:45 PM) linnuxxy: I need to read a lot of backgrounds materials 
(05:09:28 PM) shawnb: to help with mashups and to help promote some commonly used SemWeb vocab
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(05:10:11 PM) JohnW left the room (quit: Client Quit).
(05:10:23 PM) JoshTauberer: If anyone wants to use SPARQL, yeah.
(05:10:44 PM) JoshTauberer: I am going to be using it internally to get some census data from one part of my server to another. We'll see if it works out.
(05:10:45 PM) shawnb: yeah... was a while ago when I registered those domains
(05:12:06 PM) shawnb: Google has recently announced some data integration tools though which might provide a similar, uniform (though non-SPARQL) API wrapper
(05:12:10 PM) davidmoore: (Hey all, I've got to run but if anyone has any questions or feedback or feature suggestions on OpenCongress, hit me anytime: drm@ppolitics.org, and thanks everyone!)
(05:12:23 PM) JoshTauberer: (See you, David.)
(05:12:42 PM) DanGabriel: seeya
(05:13:03 PM) citizencontact: if people have questions on congress correspondence: daniel@citizencontact.com
(05:13:08 PM) JoshTauberer: I'm glad Google doesn't seem to be on the Semantic Web bandwagon since it leaves some innovative room for the rest of us.
(05:13:43 PM) DanGabriel: Yeah -- but they have google books
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(05:14:06 PM) shawnb: I've been spending my recent time working on computer assisted data integration and fuzzy matching
(05:14:17 PM) JoshTauberer: And all of the knowledge within the books? Yeah, well, they have an advantage, it's true....
(05:14:42 PM) shawnb: to deal with the Ohio Boards of Elections' terrible jungle of file formats
(05:14:55 PM) JoshTauberer: What is the data about?
(05:15:18 PM) shawnb: databases of registered voters n' the like
(05:15:57 PM) shawnb: it's for work, but I've been building a few generic tools on personal time to deal with the stick parts
(05:16:06 PM) shawnb: **sticky
(05:16:12 PM) enn: shawnb: is that work public?
(05:16:31 PM) shawnb: enn: not yet but it will be, and I plan to GPL it
(05:17:16 PM) DanGabriel: May I ask what format the data is in?
(05:17:16 PM) shawnb: plan to release it as a Python module
(05:17:42 PM) shawnb: DanGabriel: that's the problem :) a variety of formats
(05:18:08 PM) shawnb: DanGabriel: but generically, spreadsheet formats of various types
(05:18:29 PM) sams_mysoc_vol: any of the people around who doing the open judicial rulings stuff?
(05:19:12 PM) jdthomas left the room ("Leaving").
(05:19:30 PM) DanGabriel: I'm not
(05:19:42 PM) JoshTauberer: I posted an invite to the altlaw.org list, but I don't know if anyone from there came.
(05:20:09 PM) linnuxxy: shawnb: why not to use some stronger platfrom... like JBoss for example?
(05:22:12 PM) shawnb: linnuxxy: well, I've never heard of JBoss ... not sure how it could help
(05:22:56 PM) shawnb: linnuxxy: looking at jboss.org right now, I don't see anything directly applicable to the problem we have
(05:23:09 PM) linnuxxy: JBoss is an open source java application server
(05:23:35 PM) linnuxxy: I meant to replace python
(05:23:47 PM) DanGabriel: (afk for a few min)
(05:24:03 PM) Grayson left the room.
(05:24:11 PM) shawnb: linnuxxy: well you won't see me doing that anytime soon ;) ... but there are nice SemWeb tools in Python
(05:24:34 PM) MarkLatham left the room (quit: ).
(05:24:51 PM) shawnb: linnuxxy: and timbl hacks in Python so you can play with SemWeb stuff he's working on immediately without porting or waiting for someone to reimplement
(05:25:44 PM) linnuxxy: shawnb: i c
(05:26:12 PM) linnuxxy: seems very nice
(05:26:48 PM) JoshTauberer: So, feel free to chat, but I am going to call the meeting adjourned and return to some other things. Thanks all for coming and contributing to the discussion!
(05:27:24 PM) DanGabriel: cool... it was a great meeting
(05:27:27 PM) shawnb: JoshTauberer: just let us know when you stop logging so we can run our mouths n' start talking smack!
(05:27:30 PM) linnuxxy: OK guys, thank you very much
(05:27:32 PM) linnuxxy: all of you
(05:27:38 PM) JoshTauberer: Heh heh.
(05:27:45 PM) DanGabriel: yeah!
(05:27:49 PM) JoshTauberer: See you all later.
(05:27:54 PM) DanGabriel: ciao
(05:28:07 PM) shawnb: mata ne