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warninggraphiccontent · 4 years

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26 June 2020

We're jammin'

Back in 2018 (remember 2018? simpler times), a number of us from the IfG, some of our friends from Full Fact and Nick Halliday spent 90 minutes trying to map the government data ecosystem. That is, we had lots of pinpoint cards and scribbled the names of organisations that had some sort of responsibility for data in government on them.

You can find that original effort here. It was a bit rough and ready, we never turned it into anything beautiful, but it was useful for understanding the data landscape across government (and more than supporting our hunch that one of the challenges of data in government is the multiplicity of meanings of 'data' and the proliferation of players involved).

Just over two years on, and with a National Data Strategy expected later this year, I thought it was time to revisit the map. Since we can't physically come together around some post-its, I've turned the old 'map' into a series of slides using Google Jamboard (the first time I've used it). Please do take a look - and add, copy, edit, remix, amend as you see fit (within the parameters suggested on the first slide, of course).

We know lots of people found the original helpful for navigating government data - I hope this one can be even more useful.

And if you're in a collaborative mood, I'm always looking for additions to the following open spreadsheets:

Reports related to data in UK government

A 'data' reading list

Data-related developments in the UK's coronavirus response.

Briefly:

If you can't get enough of the words 'jam' and 'data' being juxtaposed, then you must check out DataJam North East...

...and if you can't enough of public sector-related data meet-ups, then we have a fantastic Data Bites for you this Wednesday, 1 July at 6pm. Register here. Previous events here. It's an admin data special courtesy of ADR UK.

Have a good weekend

Gavin

Today's links:

Tips, tech, etc

Will Covid kill off the office?* (The Spectator)

Don’t expect a flexible work revolution (HR Magazine)

Make video conferencing tools work across government (GDS, via Oliver)

#dontgobacktonormal

Graphic content

Viral content

COVID-19 VACCINE TRACKER (Milken Institute)

How the Virus Won* (New York Times)

An expanding epidemic (Reuters)

Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK (GOV.UK)

Coronavirus: How does the UK's death toll compare with other countries? (BBC News)

Revealed: data shows 10 countries risking coronavirus second wave as lockdown relaxed (The Guardian)

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count* (New York Times)

How Somalis in east London were hit by the pandemic (FT)

Understanding excess deaths: variation in the impact of COVID-19 between countries, regions and localities (Health Foundation)

Rainy days (Resolution Foundation)

Air pollution rebounds in Europe’s cities as lockdowns ease* (FT Data)

What are the symptoms of COVID-19? Only 59% of Britons know all three (YouGov)

The government's daily Coronavirus briefings (Oliver for IfG)

Viral content: consequences

Summer brings hope and fear to Britain’s beaches and seaside towns* (FT)

Corona Shock – June* (Tortoise)

Prospering in the pandemic: the top 100 companies* (FT)

Scandinavian and Asian countries are on the way to normal everyday work - economic recovery in real time (Neue Zurcher Zeitung)

The last three months of Citizens Advice data (Gemma)

UK government and politics

Labour councils in England hit harder by austerity than Tory areas (The Guardian)

Dominic Cummings could face inquiry over special advisers (The Guardian)

Freedom of information; civil service staff numbers (IfG, now updated)

Environment and energy

UK and global emissions and temperature trends (Commons Library)

PIPE DOWN: How gas companies influence EU policy and have pocketed €4 billion of taxpayers’ money (Global Witness)

AMAZON GOLD RUSH: The threatened tribe (Reuters)

Sport and leisure

Why Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool are on cusp of Premier League glory* (FT)

Pyramid scheme: This should have been the week of Glastonbury at 50 – will music festivals ever make a comeback?* (Tortoise)

Everything else

Seventy-five years after the UN’s founding, the world order is at risk of collapse* (The Economist)

The Human Genome Project transformed biology and medicine* (The Economist)

The N.Y.P.D. Spends $6 Billion a Year. Proposals to Defund It Want to Cut $1 Billion.* (New York Times)

Where Banks Don’t Lend (WBEZ)

Mapping London’s ethnic diversity (Niko Kommenda - though note this)

Aid Transparency Index 2020 (Publish What You Fund)

Thread (David McNair)

Trump vs Biden: who is leading the 2020 US election polls?* (FT)

What to consider when visualizing data for colorblind readers (Datawrapper)

Meta data

Viral content: contact details

Coronavirus recovery - six data protection steps for organisations (ICO)

The data rules for reopening pubs and restaurants... (me)

Concerns raised about pubs collecting data for coronavirus tracing (New Scientist)

Businesses face privacy minefield over contact-tracing rules, say campaigners (The Guardian)

The UK needs a track-and-trace system we can trust with our data (Institute for Global Change)

Viral content: I call app Britain (and elsewhere)

Google and Apple's diktat to governments on coronavirus contact-tracing apps is a troubling display of unaccountable power (Tom Loosemore for Business Insider)

The UK’s contact tracing app fiasco is a master class in mismanagement* (MIT Technology Review)

Tracking and tracing covid-19—what are the promises, limitations and risks? (Babbage, The Economist)

Apple 'not told' about UK's latest app plans (BBC News)

Does any country have 'a functioning track and trace app'? (Full Fact)

NHS Covid app didn’t pass the test but it still points way to the future (Evening Standard)

The public inquiry... (medConfidential)

No, the government hasn’t installed a coronavirus app on your phone (Which?)

Coronavirus: Ireland set to launch contact-trace app (BBC News)

French give cool reception to Covid-19 contact-tracing app* (FT)

Viral content: local data for local people

Whitehall not sharing Covid-19 data on local outbreaks, say councils (The Guardian)

Local data for local places can help save lives (ODI Leeds)

City-wide data in London: pandemic response & recovery (Part 1); Where we want to get to (Part 2) (Smart London)

Viral content: everything else

“Agreeing to do it in four weeks must’ve been a moment of madness”: Inside the team that built the UK’s furlough scheme (NS Tech)

Covid-19 has made me rethink how I publish, share and coordinate UK food data (UK Data Service)

This open source project is using Python, SQL and Docker to understand coronavirus health data (ZDNet)

Coronavirus: Artificial intelligence to 'rank' NHS patients to help clear post-COVID backlog (Sky News)

Covid-19: The Disaster Automation Was Waiting For (Tribune)

'We're using data during this crisis like never before' (via Sir Chris Ham, via Graham)

How coronavirus reshaped the NHS* (Wired)

Covid-19 and lack of linked datasets for care homes (BMJ)

Uber, WeWork, Airbnb – how coronavirus is bursting the tech bubble (The Conversation)

International Public Health Identity Systems Monitor (Ada Lovelace Institute)

Viral misinformation

Damian Collins MP: Social media firms must take responsibility for harmful Covid-19 disinformation (Press Gazette)

Coronavirus misinformation, and how scientists can help to fight it (Nature)

Countering Disinformation (Cardiff University)

Canaries in the Coal Mine: COVID-19 Misinformation and Black Communities (Shorenstein Center)

UK government

Digital Secretary's closing speech to the UK Tech Cluster Group (DCMS)

The UK’s digital strategy should be the wholesale elimination of administrative burden (Richard Pope)

Helping service teams make decisions about authentication and identity assurance (Technology in government)

Home Office faces court challenge over 'discriminatory' visa algorithm (Civil Service World)

Amazon UK executive to advise GDS on gov.uk (NS Tech)

We’re creating a DfE Service Manual (DfE Digital - discussion here)

If government is mostly service design, is most government service design databases and rights (Richard Pope)

Making it easier to access and use earth observation data (Defra digital)

Questions: Data Strategy (House of Lords)

Big tech

Andrew Yang is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data (The Verge)

CEO of Open Technology Fund Resigns After Closed-Source Lobbying Effort (Motherboard)

Why on Earth did Facebook Just Acquire Mapillary? (Joe Morrison)

Data justice

Data Justice Lab publishes guidebook on data literacy tools (Data Justice Lab)

If the idea of tech not being neutral is new to you, or if you think of tech as just a tool (that is equally likely to be used for good or bad), I want to share some resources & examples in this thread... (Rachel Thomas)

Wrongfully Accused by an Algorithm* (New York Times)

Everything else

Data sharing, US style (Wojtek Kopczuk, via Tom)

Data-informed/enabled vs data-driven (Amanda)

Combining Crowds and Machines: Experiments in collective intelligence design 1.0 (Nesta)

360Giving’s Datastore: a coming-of-age story for open data infrastructure (Open Data Services)

Why ‘digital’ is not separate from organisational resilience. (Cassie Robinson)

WHO DO THEY THINK WE ARE? Political Parties, Political Profiling, and The Law (Open Rights Group)

Tool (Open Rights Group)

How the BBC’s Shared Data Unit teaches journalists to find the news 'hiding in plain sight' (The Drum)

Dealing with rejection (FOIMan)

Opportunities

EVENT: Data Bites #12: Getting things done with data in government (IfG)

JOB: Head of (or Director of) Advocacy (Open Contracting Partnership)

JOB: Grade 7 Developer (MHCLG)

JOBS: Big Brother Watch

JOB: Data Engineer (The National Archives)

We’re hiring engineers! (EBM DataLab)

JOB: Ethics Research Scientist (DeepMind)

JOBS: Ethics Team, Public Policy Programme (The Alan Turing Institute)

JOB: Senior Data Scientist (Business Intelligence and Analytics) (Ordnance Survey)

INVITATION TO TENDER: Demonstrate the impact and value of tools developed within the OpenActive initiative (ODI)

CALL TO ACTION: Audit reform (Luminate)

And finally...

#dataviz

Body language... (Wired/Reuben Binns)

While listening to council meetings in Montreal, local mayor Sue Montgomery decided to knit in red when men spoke and in green for women... (#WOMENSART, via David)

19 Data Graphs All About Disney That Are Beyond Fascinating (Ranker, via Heather)

Coronavirus in Florida (Dare Obasanjo)

Watch the impact of the internet in 3 mins (V1 Analytics, via David)

Everything else

Cryptography... (Josh Glendinning)

Stickers (Andrew Newman)

A Woman On TikTok Sang A Song Calling Out People For Using Racist Statistics, And It's Gone Super Viral (BuzzFeed)

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travelworldnetwork · 5 years

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Club Med and Peisey-Vallandry, France. Photo: Club Med

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Picture the scene: you're in a warm, woodsy brasserie perched in the French Alps, peckish after a morning's fun and games in the snow, snuggling up around a table with loved ones and new friends and licking your lips at the prospect of a deliciously cheesy lunch. There, on the table, emitting a heavenly scent to any fromage fan, is a bubbling pot of Fondue Savoyarde – a speciality of the Savoie region of France in which we're holidaying.

Cooked with white wine and garlic, this creamy ensemble is flavoured with three different alpine cow's milk cheeses – comte, emmental and beaufort – and is nigh on impossible to look at, and smell, without wanting to dip in your fork, to which you can attach crusty chunks of baguette nestled in the bread baskets on the table.

Exceedingly tempting, too, is raclette, another pungent alpine cheese that's being toasted to near-melting point on a small grill. We just have to scrape it off and drip it on to our baked potatoes and charcuterie. Complemented by vinaigrette-laced salads, Chignin-Bergeron (a crisp Savoie white wine) and a dessert of blueberry tart, whipped cream and espresso, this is a typical lunch in the Savoie region, and indeed in other parts of the Alps, and brings not just immense satisfaction but also provides fuel for further alpine adventures in the afternoon.

As we depart Brasserie des Pistes, the chalet-style venue for this calorific feast, the easiest thing to do would be to get back on the real pistes. A two-minute walk down the mountain-side, below the brasserie's sun terrace, is one of the myriad chairlifts of the Paradiski region, one of the Alps' premier winter sports areas.

Boasting 425 kilometres of ski runs, with altitudes ranging from 1200 metres to 3250 metres, Paradiski is spread across the gorgeous Tarentaise valley and sub-divided into three major zones: Les Arcs, Peisey-Vallandry and La Plagne. We're staying at Club Med Peisey-Vallandry, which is located at virtually the midway point of the region.

Walk, ski or snowboard out of the resort's back door and you'll find apres-ski bars, said chairlift (which whisks you to a variety of slopes suitable for all levels) and the Vanoise Express, a cable car that links Peisey-Vallandry with La Plagne. It bobs 1824 metres across the valley – and 380 metres above the valley floor at its highest point – in just four minutes.

We board this engineering marvel using the Paradiski pass that allows you to hop on the region's buses, chairlifts and funiculars (Club Med guests get the pass for "free" as part of its all-inclusive package). Unveiled in 2003 and made up of two double-decker cars that can each hold 200 people, the Vanoise Express is the longest cable car in the world without pylons.

Right now, we probably wouldn't be able to see any pylons even if there were any. The sun had been wrestling with the fog all morning and the fog has temporarily won the battle, wreathing the whole valley. In clear weather, spectacular views are a given through the windows and glass-bottomed floors, with everything from quaint little alpine villages to Mont Blanc, Europe's highest mountain, there to be gawped at.

As we close in on La Plagne, however, we can just about make out the tips of the frozen pine trees we're drifting above. My fellow passengers debate which movie or TV show this spooky scene reminds them of. There's talk of Game of Thrones and its zombie White Walkers. Some of the older folk – OK, me �� mention The Fog, a 1980 film by horror director John Carpenter. A few hours later, I find myself wallowing in nostalgia once more and daydreaming about The Chronicles of Narnia. I half expect the White Witch or Aslan to make an appearance as we tramp through the magical, snow-drenched Vanoise National Park, a few kilometres from our resort.

With the fog-induced poor visibility dashing any post-lunch downhill skiing plans, we opt for a safer and more leisurely activity: snowshoeing. We clip on our plastic snow-shoes, and grab some walking poles at the park's Nordic Centre, a chalet-style hub where you can hire equipment and source maps detailing local trails.

With the fog dissipating, we hike, in the company of local guides Yann and Marie, through this sublime slice of countryside – France's first national park, founded in 1963 –beneath towering, pine-carpeted peaks and past avenues of larch trees, sprinkled with white powder. Apart from the sound of us scrunching through the snow, and of water trickling under ice-blanketed streams, it's blissfully silent. It would have been much noisier here a few centuries ago, says Marie. She reveals that this was a bustling silver and lead mining area and we pass an abandoned stone building, formerly the French School of Mines, where engineering students from across the country would come to learn their trade.

Back then, the area was called Monts d'Argent ("mountains of silver", or money). A little further on, we come to a cluster of rustic wooden homes, icicles hanging from the roofs, in the one-street hamlet of Beaupraz aux Lanches. There is no sign of life as we shuffle along. We're told people live here in summer but in winter it's empty, almost eerily so, due to the threat of avalanches. With our cold breath wisping through the air and the setting sun causing bursts of pink and purple to mark the darkening sky, we return to the Nordic Centre, where the effects of a particularly torrid avalanche in 1995 are depicted in framed wall photos. Then we return, by bus, to base camp where roaring fires, hot chocolate, cocktails and nibbles await in the welcoming lounge area of Club Med Peisey-Vallandry.

Decked out with plush leather and fabric sofas, stone columns and timber beams, this 284-room resort opened in 2006 and is set to be "refreshed" over the next two northern summers. It has a quainter, more traditional alpine vibe than Club Med Les Arcs Panorama, which was unveiled, 10 kilometres away as the bearded vulture flies, last December.

While not as cool and contemporary as its sleek new baby sister, Club Med Peisey-Vallandry resort has a cosy charm, with many of the same perks and facilities as Les Arcs Panorama, such as free skiing and snowboarding classes, heated indoor and outdoor pools, all-inclusive meals and alcohol and quirky evening entertainment by the affable, youthful Club Med staff known as GOs (gentils organisateurs).

The Peisey-Vallandry location, with its cute village setting and wide array of easily-accessible slopes, might have more appeal, especially for beginners. And, as we discovered, if you fancy a break from the pistes and the resort, you're not short of alternative activities, whether it's fondue-munching in local brasseries or falling under the spell of the beguiling Vanoise National Park.

FIVE MORE THINGS TO DO IN VANOISE NATIONAL PARK

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING

Harking back to the days when hardy alpine folk would use skis to chase game and gather firewood, this form of skiing involves propelling yourself across snow-covered terrain, and guarantees a good upper-body workout.

HORSE AND PONY RIDES

Trot through the snowy forests in the saddle, keeping an eye out for local wildlife such as the alpine ibex, a type of wild goat that flourishes in these mountains.

BIATHLON

Try your hand at one of the most watchable of the Winter Olympic events, combining skiing and rifle shooting.

DOG SLEDDING

Glide across the park's winter wonderland in a husky-pulled sled and learn how to harness, steer and brake.

NORDIC WALKING

A step up from snow-shoeing, you'll eat up more ground – and burn off more calories – with this fast-paced hiking technique.

TRIP NOTES

Steve McKenna was a guest of Club Med and Peisey-Vallandry Tourism Board.

traveller.com.au/france

peisey-vallandry.com

FLY

Air France flies to Paris from Sydney and Melbourne; code share with Qantas or Etihad. See qantas.com; etihad.com

The nearest train station to Peisey-Vallandry is Gare de Landry, a five-hour trip from Paris. See en.oui.sncf

STAY

A seven-night winter stay (December-April) at Club Med Peisey-Vallandry is from $2385 a person; children under four, free. Nearest airports to the resort are Grenoble and Geneva, about 2½ hours by road. See clubmed.com

from traveller.com.au

#Travel Guide

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