And just a follow-up. Malamud sees our conversation differently.
1. He does not like my characterization of our conversation. (It is hard to tell how much he doesn't like it, but I get the feeling he thinks it is extremely offensive.) But that is how I felt the conversation went. I try and convince him to put up text or even RTF versions, and I get back a response about legal analysis and legal representation. And that's how our conversation ended. This last conversation ended only slightly worse.
2. It appears he doesn't like my choice of language, or my form. Understandable, but all the words I have chosen are in the dictionary, and they are not in the dictionary because the Queen of England wanted them to be. They have function and purpose, and I believe their usage is valid to show extreme displeasure (towards a government institution and its directors) on an extremely important issue. This is how I feel, and I want others that feel the same way to know they are not alone. Hacker News can censor me, but I will not censor myself.
3. I'm not "grandstanding". I really don't care about recognition for my work. I doubt saying "fuck you" in a post is going to earn me much praise or impress anyone positively. My code sure won't. What I want is for anyone to be able to run (Geo)SPARQL queries against the law--damn the consequences. I would actually prefer to assign my copyright on my code to someone that can really put it to use. But I just don't see that happening anytime soon. (They were on the web for years under a CC0 license--no one cared.) I guess I could get a .org and make a snazy looking website and post it here and have no one care, but I would rather just put up a SPARQL endpoint and have no one care, or have someone else do it--like the government.
4. He published the CCR in 2008. But I must point out the same thing I have been trying to point out to him for years, and the subject of my post: HTML (or even RTF) is not the same thing as PDF scans. There is no Python library for that. I cannot derive RDF from them. I cannot search them in any robust way. For example, they will not show up in Google results. I think all these other issues are detracting from this: people should be able to grok the law. Easily. We can call China from anywhere in the world on the cheap, we can do all sorts of crazy things, but not grok the law.
I am glad Malamud finally published the CCR.[1] I tried to get him to do it years ago, but instead he accused me of trying to give him legal advice... I am glad he reconsidered his position! GOOD JOB MALAMUD!
1. The OAL/WestLaw online CCR is a damn-near-worthless piece of crap. Want to grab a soda in between reading regulations? Nope. Your javascript-required session just timed out and none of your links work anymore. Go back to square one.
2. The OAL Director(s) that allowed it to happen should not have quit. They should not have been fired. They should have been impeached and banned from public office for life. Yes, it is their fault, and yes, it is that bad. (Almost as bad as the lawsuit to get the California LC law database!)
3. I think this is a good move. It removes the question mark over distribution of what is THE LAW (tm).
4. It should be a CC PD license silly Assemblyman! Tricks are for kids!
5. See my efforts to convert the current $2,000 CCR files to RDF.[2]
Yes, the code is crap. Yes, it only outputs XML ATM and not RDF. But let me tell you, getting and scraping $2,000 CD-ROM from undocumented RTF using their proprietary Windows program (which you have to find separately somehow) and py3k into a standardized vocabulary/ontology is a bitch. I have also been doing California law, federal law, and federal regulations, and a common cat-like tool for grep-ing all of the above. (With RDF it will be easier to use SPARQL to search the law.)
6. FUCK YOU OAL. You should have done this in the first place. This was YOUR job! How many MILLIONS would you have demanded to do what I did for free?[3] This isn't a fucking monkey in space, its THE LAW(tm). Pull your head out of your corporate sponsor's ass and do your fucking job. No excuses.
The California State Personnel Board (the civil service of California) vacancy listings as linked data in Turtle (N3) RDF. A weekend hack from years ago given new meaning by the recent death of Aaron Swartz.
I hope to use the UK Civil Service ontology when I get a handle on the data. Publishing job vacancies as RDF is a breakthrough. I hope our own government officials notice this and follow suit.
1. He does not like my characterization of our conversation. (It is hard to tell how much he doesn't like it, but I get the feeling he thinks it is extremely offensive.) But that is how I felt the conversation went. I try and convince him to put up text or even RTF versions, and I get back a response about legal analysis and legal representation. And that's how our conversation ended. This last conversation ended only slightly worse.
2. It appears he doesn't like my choice of language, or my form. Understandable, but all the words I have chosen are in the dictionary, and they are not in the dictionary because the Queen of England wanted them to be. They have function and purpose, and I believe their usage is valid to show extreme displeasure (towards a government institution and its directors) on an extremely important issue. This is how I feel, and I want others that feel the same way to know they are not alone. Hacker News can censor me, but I will not censor myself.
3. I'm not "grandstanding". I really don't care about recognition for my work. I doubt saying "fuck you" in a post is going to earn me much praise or impress anyone positively. My code sure won't. What I want is for anyone to be able to run (Geo)SPARQL queries against the law--damn the consequences. I would actually prefer to assign my copyright on my code to someone that can really put it to use. But I just don't see that happening anytime soon. (They were on the web for years under a CC0 license--no one cared.) I guess I could get a .org and make a snazy looking website and post it here and have no one care, but I would rather just put up a SPARQL endpoint and have no one care, or have someone else do it--like the government.
4. He published the CCR in 2008. But I must point out the same thing I have been trying to point out to him for years, and the subject of my post: HTML (or even RTF) is not the same thing as PDF scans. There is no Python library for that. I cannot derive RDF from them. I cannot search them in any robust way. For example, they will not show up in Google results. I think all these other issues are detracting from this: people should be able to grok the law. Easily. We can call China from anywhere in the world on the cheap, we can do all sorts of crazy things, but not grok the law.
That deserves a little vulgar language.