Category: Uncategorized

You just finished a novel from your favorite author, while reading you have build a visual image of the scenery described by the author. A bit later the filming by a well known Hollywood director makes it to a cinema nearby. A big fan as you are, you’ll be surely going out to see this movie! But after the opening scene you will find yourself confused and disappointed, the depiction created by the director doesn’t match yours at all. You wake up in the middle of the night during a holiday in a hotel, you have no idea where you…

After visiting two Open Data related events in Amsterdam, Apps4nl and Open Innovation Festival, I found myself being afraid of what I had to conclude after these events. This might raise some eyebrows, coming from someone who claims to be a Linked Data enthusiast, and then blogging about being afraid for Open Data. The primary reason that got me started with Linked Data were the problems I saw with the lack of operational access to information. When I needed to explain this problem to the board of directors of the Fire Department Amsterdam I had to explain this in a…

About 3 years ago a group of fire fighters at a fire station in Amsterdam was confronted with a new navigation assistant in the fire truck. From a conceptual point of view the idea of having navigation assistance in a fire truck might be nice, but there are practical implications when using a system designed for normal traffic in an emergency vehicle , remember fire trucks are allowed to defy all the rules in traffic! Without elaborating on why it is not working as it should, the more abstract point is that it gives answers to questions we never asked. The…

Our company, netage.nl, has been active in the fire fighting business for over 10 years now. With a team of people, all close to or active in the job, we have learned a lot about how fire departments treat Information Technology. Over the years we have seen huge changes in the landscape of fire fighting and Information Technology. netage.nl however is not very pleased with what we see right now. In the current hype of open data and open government initiatives, fire departments are confronted with huge amounts of data. The enormous amount of attention that goes out to open…