Four short links: 14 June 2010

Learning from Libraries: the Literacy Challenge of Open Data (David Eaves) — a powerful continuation of the theme from my Rethinking Open Data post. David observes that dumping data over the fence isn’t enough, we must help citizens engage. We have a model for that help, in the form of libraries: We didn’t build libraries for an already literate citizenry. We built libraries to help citizens become literate. Today we build open data portals not because we have a data or public policy literate citizenry, we build them so that citizens may become literate in data, visualization, coding and public policy.
OpenPCR on Kickstarter — In 1983, Kary Mullis first developed PCR, for which he later received a Nobel Prize. But the tool is still expensive, even though the technology is almost 30 years old. If computing grew at the same pace, we would all still be paying $2,000+ for a 1 MHz Apple II computer. Innovation in biotech needs a kick start!
Wingeing It — profile of O’Reilly’s wonderful Sara Winge by the ever fabulous Quinn Norton.
PEGASUS — petascale graph mining toolkit from CMU. See their most recent publication. (via univerself on Delicious)

Open Data, Open PCR, Open Sara Winge, and Open Source Big Graph Mining