[Geowanking] Tricorder Challenge

[Andrew Larcombe]

Andrew Turner wrote:
> Mike Liebhold  wrote:
>>  This year, I'm thinking of finding a sponsor, and formally 
>> articulating a
>> 'Tricorder Challenge'   (perhaps at Where2.0) to geo hackers, search 
>> engines
>> and  GIS guys, to demonstrate the deepest, richest,  and ideally filtered
>> collections and views of -standard- and -interoperable- geodata, and
>> hypermedia in a single place. Ideally a tricorder will tell us 
>> -everything-
>> about  a very narrowly defined place: Here!   Everything about the
>> environment,  infrastructures, health and safety, public resources, 
>> history,
>> culture, commerce, and commentary, decorations, and entertainment, 
>> available
>> - here-  (wherever )
> 
> Have you seen Kevin Kelly's, "The Big Here" Challenge?
> http://www.kk.org/helpwanted/archives/001084.php
> 
> It is a 30-question challenge of what a "tricorder" should be able to
> do. Things like:
> * Where does your garbage go?
> * Point North

Watch your tricorder blow up when you get to the north pole! (Anyway, 
are we talking magnetic north, map north, what?) A lot of these 
questions though are pretty context specific, the context being a 
US-Western Europe one, and require a certain amount of subjectivity on 
behalf of the respondant. Concepts like 'wilderness', 'recycling' or 
'spring' aren't universal, so the tricorder will present may present 
answers which are correct for one person, but not for another.

Cheers,

A