Massive Biometric Project Gives Crores of Indians an ID: Aadhaar faces titanic physical and technical challenges: reaching millions of illiterate Indians who have never seen a computer, persuading them to have their irises scanned, ensuring that their information is accurate, and safeguarding the resulting ocean of data. This is India, after all—a country notorious for corruption and for failing to complete major public projects. And the whole idea horrifies civil libertarians. But if Aadhaar’s organizers pull it off, the initiative could boost the fortunes of India’s poorest citizens and turbocharge the already booming national economy. [more inside]
posted by infini
on Aug 30, 2011 -
30 comments
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library today launched its latest online research tool, the Production Art Database. The database contains records for more than 5,300 items from the library’s collection, including motion picture costume and production design drawings, animation art, storyboards and paintings. Nearly half of the records include images, making this an invaluable online resource for researchers interested in motion picture design.
posted by Trurl
on Jul 2, 2011 -
7 comments
Starship Schematics Database:
dedicated to the sole purpose of archiving every single starship design ever conceived in the Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, and Space Battleship Yamato (A.K.A. Star Blazers in the USA) Universes, both official and unofficial, interesting and mediocre.
posted by Joe Beese
on Feb 12, 2011 -
35 comments
In the beginning, there was text. The early users of the internet looked upon it and saw that it was good. They used e-mail and also communicated with each other via Usenet, a series of bulletin/discussion boards shared across various networks and the internet. But that was the old way, and open databases are the new way. The best known movie database,
IMDB,
will turn 20 on October 17, 2010, but for some enthusiasts, it's not detailed enough. Were you wondering exactly what weaponry was shown in that episode of
Mail Call? Check
the page on IMFDb, a wiki catalog of guns in movies. Having debates over
what was said in the Book of Eli?
There's a Database for that. Perhaps you're a
fan of vespas or
Hudsons? The
Internet Movie Car Database can
satisfy your
interests. And don't forget to check
the Internet Game Car Database, or the
other sites linked from IMCDb, including the database for
movie car chases (mentioned
previously,
twice).
Soundtrack Collector,
Soundtrack Info, and
Sounds Familiar have (you guessed it) information on soundtracks.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Jun 25, 2010 -
30 comments
London Lives 12 London archives – digitised, marked up and tagged – to "create a comprehensive electronic edition of primary sources on criminal justice and the provision of poor relief and medical care in eighteenth-century London".
The
Lives page is a good place to start browsing.
[related]
posted by unliteral
on Jun 8, 2010 -
8 comments
Why don't rabbits burrow rectangular burrows? Why didn't early man make rectagular caves?Archigram are amongst the most seminal, iconoclastic and influential architectural groups of the modern age. They created some of the 20th century's most iconic images and projects, rethought the relationship of technology, society and architecture, predicted and envisioned the information revolution decades before it came to pass, and reinvented a whole mode of architectural education – and therefore produced a seam of architectural thought with truly global impact.
The Archigram Archival Project is
an online, searchable database of all the available works of Archigram [and much, much more]
for study by architectural specialists and the general public. [more inside]
posted by carsonb
on Apr 26, 2010 -
24 comments
The OER Commons exists to help educators "find free-to-use teaching and learning content from around the world." Thousands of primary, secondary and post-secondary activities, labs, lecture notes, assignments and other educational materials are available by searching or
browsing the OER site.
posted by cog_nate
on Oct 16, 2009 -
7 comments
Taser use in law enforcement has been under increased scrutiny in recent years, especially following
the death of Robert Dziekanski in a Vancouver airport last year after being Tasered by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (
previously). Now the CBC and Canadian Press have sifted through over 5,000 incident reports to create a
RCMP Taser use database, tracking use of tasers by Canada's federal law enforcement by province, incident, year or stuns used.
[more inside]
posted by Shepherd
on Apr 9, 2009 -
36 comments
The
US Food and Drug Administration started regulating the labeling of food, beverages, and medicines after the passage of the 1906
Pure Food and Drug Act, and added food coloring and cosmetics with the 1938
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. They have just released a new website, the
FDA Notices of Judgment Collection, 1906-1963, containing data from thousands of cases of mislabeled or misadvertised products and drugs, available in multiple forms (text, PDF, metadata XML, .TIF image, etc.), with searchable archives. Poking around in the data will yield information on cases ranging from
misbranding methamphetamine tablets, to quack
"Film-O-Sonic" devices, to
bacteria-laden unproven abortifacients sold over the counter, to
purported "4-way" cures for baldness, to
hunks of radium sold for putting in your drinking water to "stimulate the sex organs" (judged against for stating an unproven use, not for actual danger of product). Organized by
the FDA's history office, the new database is a fascinating resource for historians, public safety advocates, researchers, and librarians.
posted by Asparagirl
on Apr 6, 2009 -
28 comments
Planning next spring's garden? Just curious about plants? Then check out
Plant Information Online, which "provides access to: Current Plant and Seed Sources for 107,631 plants... from 1,054 North American firms that will ship plants; Contact information and links... for 2,448 North American retail and wholesale seed and nursery firms; Bibliographic details for 377,083 images of 140,104 wild and cultivated plants from around the world in botanical and horticultural books and magazines from 1982 to the present; and links to expert-selected sites on growing plants in your region of Canada or the US."
(Description from website.)
posted by cog_nate
on Nov 4, 2008 -
5 comments
StrangeUSA.com -
"Consolidating the vast amount of 'Strange Stuff' out there into one easy to use place. Haunted buildings, places, urban legends, cemetaries, weird places, cool places, ghost towns, and anything else that's worth your time to visit." [more inside]
posted by Burhanistan
on Feb 7, 2008 -
15 comments
The Library Of Unified Information Sources (LOUIS) is a beta-release project of the
previously mentioned Sunlight Foundation, the goal of which is "to create a comprehensive, completely indexed and cross-referenced depository of federal documents from the executive and legislative branches of government." LOUIS currently contains searchable full text documents of Congressional Reports, the Congressional Record, Congressional Hearings, Presidential Documents, the Federal Register, GAO Reports and Bills & Resolutions, going back to 2001. Other interesting Sunlight Foundation projects include
Visualizing Earmarks,
3 (non-satirical) Modest Proposals,
The Congressional Family Business Project, and
Congresspedia.
posted by cog_nate
on Jun 20, 2007 -
2 comments
The Global Terrorism Database is now available online. It includes information on more than 27,000 bombings, 13,000 assassinations, and 2,800 kidnappings. With 2D and 3D georeferences for some incidents. The interactive map isn't working for me though.
posted by tellurian
on May 24, 2007 -
18 comments
The Grand Comics Database is aiming to become the IMDB of comic books cover art. I only tested a couple from memory, but they seem to have a pretty deep reservoir of content, and fairly large scans of the results. Searchable by series title, character appearance, writer, illustrator and a number of other criteria.
posted by jonson
on Oct 19, 2006 -
21 comments
Find out what's in it before it's in you ... using
free software provided by the US Department of Agriculture's database. The information, which can be kept on a PC (Windows) or PDA (Palm OS), provides a detailed listing of nutrients (calories, protein, fat, carbs, sugars, vitamins, minerals) on almost 7,000 foods, including processed and fast foods.
posted by crunchland
on Jan 21, 2006 -
19 comments
Games games games! Board games have under gone a renaissance, spurred by games like
Settlers of Catan. Because users are rewarded for contributing content, the site has some real
depth. In addition to exhaustive lists of games, sorted by
rank (with Bayesian averages and standard deviation), there are a gajillion reviews and player aids. You can even
search for games based on criteria such as weight, game mechanism, ranking, or even game mechanics. The site is a great example of organically-generated user data.
posted by craniac
on Nov 15, 2005 -
36 comments
The National Archives recently announced a new phase in the ongoing project called the
Electronic Records Archives (ERA) whose
vision is to catalog and make available online electronic documentation produced by the Federal government (E-mails, Word Documents, etc), which otherwise could disappear entirely or at least be very difficult to locate. Funded with over 300 million and set to debut in 2007 and be complete by 2011 it is a project of
unusual scope and complexities but promises to make government more transparent to researches and the general public.
posted by stbalbach
on Sep 10, 2005 -
5 comments
![[like this]](http://www.dlib.si/documents/plakati/plakati/URN_NBN_SI_img-Z2VIRZQS.jpg){kind=link}
![[like this]](http://www.dlib.si/documents/fotografije/fotografije/jpg/URN_NBN_SI_img-C1RA5WO8.jpg){kind=link}