Here is a preview of some illustrations for the Data Journalism Handbook, a free, open source reference book which shows how journalists can use data to improve the news. They were created by the talented Kate Hudson, based on the original designs she did for the book at MozFest 2011.
I’ve just printed a new batch of postcards for the Public Domain Review, a free web-based review for works which have entered the public domain. I’m going to be leaving some at different spots in the Bay Area, while I’m visiting.
If you have cunning ideas for where we should distribute them, or if you’d like to help distribute some in your area do get in touch!
Freelance infographic designer Lulu Pinney has kindly designed a wonderful poster which illustrates some of the topics covered in the Data Journalism Handbook, a free, open source reference book which shows how journalists can use data to improve the news.
A few years ago I used to work at several college and departmental libraries at the University of Cambridge. One of the tasks which library staff regularly had to undertake was to cross reference the latest copies of all relevant reading lists with their collections, to ensure that they had copies of all the books that their students and staff needed.
Europe’s Energy, a project I helped to create to put EU energy targets into context, has just won a Silver Award at Malofiej 20. The Malofiej Awards recognise innovative infographics from around the world:
Earlier this week the Guardian, Forbes and others covered the discovery of 500 fairy tales collected by 19th century folklorist Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. I sent a note about this to Professor Jack Zipes, who promptly replied urging caution about the discovery and pointing to many other (in his view more interesting) 19th century collections from France and Germany. An expanded version of his note is now up on the website for the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy.
I woke up this morning to discover that the French news website Numerama just ran a piece on how the French government claimed that they owned the copyright in a photograph that I took (see Google’s English translation here):
Quand on cherche à illustrer l’Open Data, l’une des photographies qui revient le plus souvent est une photo de stickers “Open Data” prise par Jonathan Gray, un étudiant britannique qui travaille pour l’Open Knowledge Foundation, et milite à ce titre pour l’utilisation de licences ouvertes en Europe.
For a few months I’ve been thinking of starting a workshop series on the influence and legacy of different forms of romanticism around the world. Each workshop would have a day or half day of short papers on a variety of topics, authors and works. The workshops would be accessible to a non-specialist audience.
I’ve started planning this, with the working title “Romanticism Without Borders”. Below is a tentative sketch about the idea. If you’re interested in finding out more or in being kept in the loop, please add your details here.
Swedenborg’s system of the world wants central spontaneity; it is dynamic, not vital, and lacks power to generate life. There is no individual in it. The universe is a gigantic crystal, all whose atoms and laminae lie in uninterrupted order and with unbroken unity, but cold and still. What seems an individual and a will, is none. There is an immense chain of intermediation, extending from centre to extremes, which bereaves every agency of all freedom and character. The universe, in his poem, suffers under a magnetic sleep, and only reflects the mind of the magnetizer. Every thought comes into each mind by influence from a society of spirits that surround it, and into these from a higher society, and so on. All his types mean the same few things. All his figures speak one speech. All his interlocutors Swedenborgize.
Last week I went to the opening of Remnants: a selection of objects from the Swedenborg archive, organised by the Swedenborg Society, a charity founded in 1810 to promote the works of Emanuel Swedenborg. A new history of the Society was launched to correspond with the opening of the exhibition.
Lewis White Beck‘s 1969 Early German Philosophy is a long, rich and rambling chronicle of philosophical thinkers and philosophical ideas originating from what we now call Germany, roughly from the birth of St. Ambrose in 340 to the death of Kant in 1804.
