Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with information

Livin' it up

threeants — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:41:44 -0800

What are some good ways, online, to get a feel for what it's like to live in various cities/towns in the US? I often find myself-- either out of idle curiosity or genuine potential relocation-- trying to find out what it's like, in a qualitative sense, to live in various places. Some resources I already use: Wikipedia, looking at pictures on Google Streetview, Citydata forums. Is there some kind of website like Yelp or Tripadvisor, but that "reviews" entire municipalities, that I'm totally unaware of? Any creative ideas? I'm up for anything you have to suggest. I like reading about the characters of different neighborhoods in an area, people discussing their locale, regional rants/raves, etc.

I love the AskMe questions like "tell me all about East Nowhere, Kentucky"-- basically, where can someone go to compile similar information on their own?

By "what it's like" to live somewhere, I mean some sense of being able to imagine oneself in that environ. I apologize that it's a kind of vague concept, but that openendedness is inherent to what I'm trying to figure out.

(I'm also perfectly willing to consider good ideas for non-US locations, but I just figured I'd narrow my scope here.)

What rights do I have to protect my personal information?

notmydesk — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:54:57 -0800

I ran a red light and got caught by a traffic camera. I received a citation in the mail a few days later. Not my citation, though, someone else's. The citation showed a different car, different intersection, different driver. While examining it, I noticed the citation had a lot of personal information on it. This person's full name, his address, his date of birth, his driver's license number, and all of his vehicle information.

The coversheet of the citation had my name and address and citation number, which was one digit off from his. It appears they made an error matching up the two sheets -- I got mailed someone else's, someone else got mailed mine, and so on down the line. This was confirmed after a couple visits to the red light enforcement office and several phone calls: they messed up their mailings that day and a number of people were mailed the wrong citation.

The officers admit they made an error but say it's no big deal. I say, they violated my right to privacy by sending my personal information to a person unknown to me, and exposed me to potential identify theft or other mischief.

Just wondering what recourse you think I have, realistically. I live in Sacramento, California. Note: I'm not contesting my actual citation.

Best practices for photo metadata?

DevilsAdvocate — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:14:09 -0800

Best practices for recording photo metadata? What I'd like to be able to do inside, plus many questions about what's possible today or likely to be possible in the future. Let's start with my ideal vision: I'd like to be able to record various metadata within image files, and have them automatically and correctly transferred to photo-sharing websites, apps, etc., that I might upload/import said images to. The basic idea is that I'd like to associate the metadata with each photo once, so if I upload them to Flickr today, and to Smugmug in six months, and a website or app which doesn't exist today two years from now, I only have to enter all the metadata once and don't have to re-enter it for each new website/app I'm using.

The particular information I'd like to be able to record includes:
*Time/Date, ideally including time zone, although the EXIF specification doesn't record time zone
*Location, from GPS data (lat./long./alt.)
*Title
*Caption (or call these two "short caption" and "long caption" or whatever you want; the point is that in some places a description of a few words is appropriate, for some several sentences may be; I'd like to be able to record both)
*Keywords, a.k.a. tags (but subject tags, a la Flickr, not to be confused with the metadata fields in general which are also sometimes called tags)
*Copyright statement
*License statement (e.g., a Creative Commons license)

I've seen this website and these guidelines. From the latter I gather there's three standards in at least moderate use, EXIF, IPTC-IIM, and XMP. I know websites such as Flickr and Smugmug currently read EXIF data and make use of some of the fields; are there any that read IPTC-IIM or XMP? Is this likely in the future? Is it worth even bothering to try to record metadata in IPTC-IIM or XMP? If so, any suggestions for tools to use (under Windows XP and/or Vista)? I have an EXIF editor, so I don't need recommendations for one of those, but if there are tools which allow one to edit EXIF plus one or both of the others, I'd be interested

Date/time and GPS data are already pretty well in place. Date/time is recorded in EXIF by the camera when I take the picture (except for not encoding a time zone), and I've managed to figure out how to geotag them in bulk in the EXIF data if I have a GPS log. And date/time and lat./long. are already used by Flickr and Smugmug. What about other fields (where the fields even exist)? Are titles, captions, license, etc., appropriately made use of, or do they just sit there, visible in the EXIF data but not applied further? What's the status in other websites or apps? Any ideas about what it's likely to be in the near future?

If there currently isn't a good/useful way to record some of this metadata in the image file itself, any recommendations for recording it elsewhere (in a separate file or files) so it would be relatively easy to add it to the image files if it became possible/useful in the future?

If it makes a difference, I only need to do this for JPG files. That's how they come off my point-and-shoot, so I don't have RAW files.

Any comments on the "big-picture" (heh) issues I've implicitly brought up here, or recommended reading on the topic, are welcome too even if I didn't specifically ask about them.

How to get an RSS feed from a website that doesn't have an RSS Feed.

gm2007 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:40:39 -0800

Setting up an RSS feed for a job board that does not have an RSS feed subscription. Is there a way to do this? I would like to add an RSS feed to my iGoogle pages for USAJOBS.GOV searches that I have set up. USAJOBS.GOV allows you to subscribe to searches and receive them by email, but does not have a way to subscribe via RSS.

I went to feedage.com, which has a tool that they call HTML2RSS, which is supposed to convert any HTML page to an RSS feed, but it doesn't work very well on USAJOBS.GOV.

ANy ideas

How to simultaneously exchange information?

deadweightloss — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:27:13 -0800

How to simultaneously exchange information? Say a friend and I want to exchange pieces of information, but it is very important that we reveal the information at the same time (equivalently: neither of us know the other's info at the time we commit to our own announcement). if we are in the same room, this is easy, we both write our information on slips of paper and then exchange slips. If we are not in the same room, there is no obvious analogue. For example, simultaneously sending emails does not work, as he could get my email, view my information, alter his announcement, and then send his email all in a few seconds.

If an example would help, say that we are both to name positive whole numbers, and if the sum of our numbers is odd, I have to do an unpleasant task, while if it is even, he has to do the task. Obviously if he can see my information before committing to his announcement, the interaction is trivialized. So we want to find a way to randomize who gets the task using this method.

So how can we do this if not in the same room (presumably over the Internet)?

One thing reducing the difficulty of the problem: we are friends, so we will not get caught lying to each other (and if we are, a suitable punishment can be arranged). However a solution that would allow him to lie without my knowing won't work.

What can you see in satellite photos?

k. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:33:01 -0800

Satellite photos: what interesting features can be seen or measured in them (or other aerial photos), and where can I get a supply of images? Examples I have already seen, from some crude Google-searching:
Roads
Buildings
Degree of development (urban/suburban/rural)
Oil spills (apparently these are usually hard to see)
Blooms of algae (cyanobacteria) in the Baltic Sea
Damage to buildings from earthquakes

More would be appreciated--the more specific, the better. These will be used in a computer vision system, so I'd especially like to know where I can find a supply of images containing whatever feature I'm looking for (including the above)--easy for buildings or roads, but hard for rare events like oil spills. Natural disasters seem interesting, if there are pictures available.

I would also consider some other kind of non-photographic data as well, if it could be combined with maps or photos. Don't worry whether you think it's suitable; any idea you have will help!

Your favorite interesting, specific question in philosophy

k. — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:54:11 -0800

Philosophy Filter: What are some fresh and interesting questions or topics in philosophy? I don't know if there are many philosophy nerds on MetaFilter (at least relative to other kinds of nerds), but I thought I'd give this a shot. I'm looking for topics that you wouldn't necessarily learn about in the usual undergraduate philosophy courses. I'd prefer these to be pretty specific, like these examples:

1. The "philosophy of information", which covers both the application of methods and ideas from computer science to philosophy and philosophical issues about what information is (especially in the work of Luciano Floridi)

2. Attacks on virtue ethics based on psychologists' claims that human character traits are much less stable than we think (summarized in e.g. the recent popular book Experiments in Ethics by K. Anthony Appiah)

More like these please! Really, any issue in philosophy that you find interesting would help. Bonus points for relevance to any timely issues outside of philosophy (in politics/society, science, etc).

Organise daily reports

trashcan — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:22:26 -0800

Help organising complex, daily changing list Basically the task is to prepare a list of information related to a series of people. Each day new people will come along and be assigned to a leader, each person may stay for one, two, three days or longer but there is quite a high turnover.

Each person has a series of information that needs to be recorded and detailed notes under about six different categories.

At the end of every day, a document is prepared to pass out to all team members with this updated information on, and the leaders also receive a document with just there people on it.

At the moment this is being done in Word, but seems quite a long winded process. Does anyone have any suggestions of a better method of updating and providing this information

Help me think of a new career.

speedoavenger — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:57:44 -0800

I feel like a career change. I need help brainstorming the possibilities. Which careers do you think may meet my skills and requirements? I'm currently working in a cubicle doing IT work in the Insurance industry, but I'd like to find a new position that better meets my interests.

I greatly enjoy working with computers. I would like a position that allows for more human interaction on a daily basis with a large variety of people. The position would need to have a direct, positive, noticeable impact on people. Lastly, is it possible to find a career that also allows for working outdoors part of the time? :-)

Here is my background

-Graduated with a 4 year degree in Management Information Systems
-Currently 25 years old
-Over 10 years experience working with computers, mostly doing Systems Administration and Help Desk Support type work

...and here is what I am looking for.

-I would like to be more social and interact with more people on a daily basis
-I would like to feel like I'm helping to bring about positive substantial changes to peoples lives.
-I would like to spend more time outside in the mountains and/or forests.
-I would like to make a significant difference in childrens/disadvantaged peoples lives
-I would like to live in the Phoenix area
-I would prefer a salary of at least $40,000, but I'm open to the idea of making less if I really enjoy the work.

Some possible career ideas that have crossed my mind include:

-teaching grade school kids about computers
-becoming an IT Volunteer in the Peace Corps
-becoming a Technical Trainer for a corporation
-Working for the federal, state, or local government as a trainer or advocate.
-Working at a job re-training center, assisting people who are training for a new career.
-working for a non-profit

I'll take any career ideas you've got, no matter how crazy they sound! ;-)

What method or type of software is best for collecting complex information for future analysis?

newlyminted — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:37:36 -0800

Lots of interrelated data, little idea of how to analyze it. What method or type of software is best for collecting complex information for future analysis? Specifically I'm looking to take quantitative information from medical histories and family histories to predict disease risk and look for other trends. The information being collected is from individual patients but will include information on their relatives who have diseases including the degree of relation and their ages.

Beyond a stats class years ago, my experience in this kind of research is limited, but I pick up things very quickly and want to learn the best way to approach this kind of problem, so I am willing to put in the time and effort. My predecessors approached similar projects using MS Excel, but they weren't trying to collect the ages of relatives as well as degree of relation, and I am quickly reaching the limits of excel's usefulness. Money should not be a big issue if I request software for this project as long as it is justified and will do the job. I'd like to approach this thoughtfully the first time around so that the information is in a useful format for my project and also available for other types of analysis in the future.

So, what is the best system to capture all of the data? If it's way too complicated for a beginner, who or what resources should I consult for advice?

Thank you for your suggestions!

References to books in pill form?

Devoidoid — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:34:42 -0800

Desperately seeking references to books in pill form. Or liquid form. Or as a tasty spread. My memory and Google-fu have both grown weak with age. O mighty MeFi, can you give me the titles of any works in any form, books, articles, tv shows, comedy sketches, cartoons, whatever, that contain mentions of or references to books in pill form, or even any sort of acquisition of knowledge through physical ingestion?

When has instant access to information saved you?

devnull — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:50:54 -0800

When has instant access to information saved you? I'm interested in stories from people who have been saved from terrible situations because of instant access to information, particularly online information from a mobile device.

Whether it be looking up someone's name on a social networking site, or something better, how has instant access to information ever saved you?

What books would teach me about information and data?

Deathalicious — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:58:24 -0800

Let's say I wanted to educate myself to sort-of the equivalent of a Bachelor's Degree in Information and Data (not sure what the real degree would be called, but you get the idea). What should be in my syllabus? Areas of study would include things like informational networks and social networking, tacit and explicit knowledge, parsing and data extraction, data mining, visualization, metadata, information retrieval and storage, plus other things that I'm probably not even aware of. Websites are great, but so are books (maybe excluding $$$ textbooks if possible), podcasts, videos, source code, applications, etc. Assume a relatively high level of technical know-how (including coding skills) but little formal computer science training.

I.T. Lingo

jasondigitized — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:57:08 -0800

Give me your best I.T. related words, phrases, and aphorisms. I have worked in a variety of companies, all of which seem to have some interesting lingo and vernacular. I am not looking for stuff like 'cookie', and 'firewall'. More along the lines of: 'Going Dark' - when developers grab a requirements document and disappear for months, 'Snowflake' - a server that has been modified to the point of being unique, fragile, and unrepeatable. Phrases would include things like 'The problem is between the chair and the keyboard', 'XYZ consulting is just a body shop', or 'Those legacy systems are sunsetting'. Help me collect colorful I.T. lingo and proverbs.

We have always had weird in-laws

tmcw — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:17:19 -0800

I've been tasked (by myself and others) with compiling an extensive history of my extended family on one side. More than a family tree, we're compiling stories, photos, everything we can gather about my weirdo relatives. What tools should I use to compile it? I'm a computer geek / developer / cs major, so I'm very familiar with LaTeX, etc, and willing to deal with arcane systems, write code to make things work, etc. But I'd like to do the best practice route for whatever this is. At this stage (just combining data from multiple people), Google Docs might be the way to go, since all formatting will be lost / redone in whatever system I want to use. Is there something like LaTeX which gives you a bit of ability to make things meaningful (labels, footnotes, etc) and separate presentation from data, but possibly better-tuned for long english documents than Knuth-style math?

The final output will probably be a webpage & PDF, which leads me strongly towards LaTeX because of its great filters, but I'm just wary of moving to such a tricky tool when I might want to pass editorship onto another relative, or something like that, in the future?

So, any ideas from anyone who has done this before (and yeah, I'm kind of an open-source dork, so extra points for things that are free and cross-platform)

Thanks!

How is sodium in foods calculated?

captain cosine — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:19:55 -0800

Question about nutrition information - For products like pickles and olives, which are usually packaged in jars with brine, does the total sodium content listed on the facts (amount per serving x number of servings) include the amount in the liquid? Also, for items such as tortilla chips, where a lot of salt and seasoning tends to fall off the chips and collect at the bottom of the bag during shipping, does the total sodium content include the stuff at the bottom? or do they instead take a serving size from the bag, as someone eating the chips would do, and analyze it that way?

Also, a distantly related question (linked only by nutrition labels as the subject): I know that beer companies are not required to put the nutrition info on the bottle itself, but are they required to do an analysis of their products and have the information available somewhere? I'd really like to know how many calories are in that bottle of Chimay Blue or Stone Smoked Porter.

Where to start on a demography paper?

dunderwood — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:07:47 -0800

paper filter: I'm doing a paper on information technology's effect on population growth/migration. Where do I start?! I have a 12 page paper due friday (i'm a procrastinator). I was wondering if you folks could give me an idea on where/how to start. It's for my Economics of Population course so it has to be more towards demography.

I'm having a hard time finding articles through my schools online database search. Any help/resources would be highly appreciated!

What is the name and who is the author of this science fiction short story about a Utopian Transparent Society

y2karl — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:20:03 -0800

After looking everywhere and which a way, I am at a loss. I am looking for a short story with a near future high tech anarchy as background-- something that resembles David Brin's concept of The Transparent Society, Utopian Version, where every body knows everybody else's business--as opposed to, say, Police Surveillance State On Steroids Big Time where Big Brother knows your business and location as in 1984 meets The Minority Report. The story itself in part recounts the life of a young man coming of age in a world where the revolution is over and everyone's life is an open book in document and real time--in this world, teenage men have to find spaces under culverts or abandoned warehouses to stage their fights and duels as all else is on camera, being recorded and provided then to everyone else's examination.

At more than one point, the youth confides in an old man on a park bench. An old man who is a veteran of the recent Revolution, who can remember the penultimate moment of said Revolution as being there when the mountain fortresses of Zurich are breached and battle is joined hand to hand with the Gnomes in the caves beneath their vaults. Or something like that.

As part of the story's later action, said old man/war veteran on the bench draws out his younger companion in conversation and then later posts, to the local or universal public access channel, a not unsympathetic documentary about this youth, his life and his loves, along with supporting documentation and points of view from the all encompassing public record. Which is, as I recall, profoundly embarrassing to this sensitive young man.

The story ends with the report of death of this young man in a duel--which occurs offstage in every sense, at an undisclosed location without camera or microphone, and which is to that young man the only place in the world where a person could be free. Or so I recall now.

No doubt, some of you have had the answer since the opening paragraph but I have yet to find the story of which I speak. And it was a nominee, if not winner, for best short story or novella or something in some year or another. I forget which. I only read it once-- damn, where was I ? The dentist ? --and now I can't find hint not mention of it. Woe is me. Hope me please. What is the title and who wrote it ? I want to re-read it and see how my memory of it compares to the real thing.

I'll be pissed if it's Brin, btw...

Software for making clever information visualizations?

anthill — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:17:13 -0800

How to make clever visualizations from Excel or CSV data? Any free, flexible information-graphic scripting software out there? I'd like to make a stream graph or an emergent dot graph (like this one) using some time-stamped, categorical spreadsheet data.

Any recommendations for a graphing toolkit that can generate info graphics from CSVs?

ISO data

greta simone — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:03:17 -0800

Google-fu masters: I need some stats, STAT. I have been looking for two days for this set of specific data. I've been to all the usual government and research foundation sites, but I can't seem to find what I need. Self-admittedly, I have terrible google-fu. If anyone feels like going on a treasure hunt for me, I'd give you a virtual high five.

I'm looking for a North Carolina county-by-county breakdown of the following information (data from 2005 or later only please):
--Domestic violence (insubstantiated and substantiated)
--Substance abuse
--Single parent households
--Court ordered child support
--High school graduation rate of males
--Incarceration rate of males
--Fertility rates of unmarried women
--Martial, separation, and divorce rates

I have been able to find loads of other data that I need, but it seems that data on issues related to these subjects just slightly misses the mark. I also understand that data might not be available for a lot of this stuff as well.

Thanks for any help you can give.

How did you end up in a IT Leadership role?

Silvertree — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:05:28 -0800

What steps did you take to prepare for and ultimately land your IT leadership position? Background first. Currently I am working as a Netbackup and Windows sys admin. I enjoy working in the tech and my long term goal is to work into a Director or CTO level position in a medium size corporation of some sort. I have a MA in Cognitive and Social psych right now.

Here is my question. What can I do to prepare for upcoming opportunities? I mean I don't see a lot of degrees that specifically target this type of work, at least not yet. Other then continue to learn everything I can and build a good reputation, I am not sure what else I can do to plan. So what do you suggest? Certifications of some sort? An MBA? A PhD in something? If so, in what? I am location bound at the moment due to my current work but I am opening to moving when able.

So what did you do to prepare and position yourself for this type of role? Any kind of advice or thoughts would be appreciated.

How to elevate my career to the next level?

AMP583 — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:53:15 -0800

I think i've peaked as a designer, help me find my next step. I'm a graphic designer working mostly in interactive web design. I have bachelors in fine arts. I've done a lot of print, identity, branding work in the past but mostly focus on web design and some development. I've always been interested in the strategic side of the web like information architecture or web strategy itself.

Though im currently an art director, i feel like i've hit a plateau in my designing abilities and salary. I would like to "elevate" my career in some fashion but im not positive how to do so. I'm aware i can go back to school specializing in HCI or get a Masters in Fine Arts in Visual Communications but what other fields/areas of studies are related to the Web that could build on my foundation? Are there other emerging cutting edge fields linking directly to web design/development that have a promising future where schooling pays off?

I'm interested in pushing my career to create more income and to posses a highly sought-after skill-set. But am not sure the investment of more schooling will necessarily pay off in the long run.

Though my questions aren't completely clear, any advice and suggestions are welcomed.

Help finding "earth" business address for website.

SociologistTina — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:14:34 -0800

I have the web address, but can find no "earth" address for a website which I would like to contact by snail mail. Is there a way online (hopefully free) to find the actual business address for a website?

How do PI's dig up dirt on people?

reenum — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:57:11 -0800

Where can I find out more about the investigation techniques used by private investigators? In watching movies like This Film Is Not Yet Rated and reading mystery novels about PI's, I've become really interested in the field. I don't think I'll become a professional PI, but I still want to read more about the techniques they use to dig up information about people.

I'm looking for books, web sites, and other resources that talk about how private investigators conduct investigations and the web sites or other databases they consult.

Thanks!

How to get CNN to take down a page?

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:28:25 -0800

How can I get CNN to take down a piece on their website? When I was still in college I was interviewed for an opinion piece on CNN. My full name was used. I foolishly did not think about the consequences of having my full name associated with the information in the article, but I'm paying for it now.

I have an unusual name. If my name is googled, this article which casts a terrible light on my ability to manage money keeps popping up on the first page, despite my attempts to depress its page ranking. Employers in my field absolutely google job applicants, and this article from nearly ten years ago is killing my ability to move up in my field!

Is there any way to demand that CNN remove the page? There is no reason for it to be up and it is actively damaging my career opportunities. I would not be opposed to engaging legal counsel for this issue, but I'd really rather just have some other way to get them to take down the page.

Has anyone any suggestions?