Nutrition, Food Standards and Copyright

I have a simple wish: build a really simple calorie counter backed with some common products; so that I don't have to manually count calories.

I should be able to type "Rosella Condensed Tomato Soup", and it finds the right product for me and tells me that it has:

Energy 78.87189kcal
Protein 1.5g
Carbohydrate 16.8g
Sugars 12.3g
Fat 1.0g
Saturates 1.0g
Sodium 1,125.0g
Serving size 245.0g
Servings per package 4

... and I ate a whole can, meaning I ate 4 servings.

So, I set off looking around for things which already did this.

Nothing.

Update: Bigfoodlist is almost exactly what I want.

Apparently, you can get information from a bunch of sources, like Foodstandards.gov.au or the USDA; but after just a little bit of clicking my eyes bled from the web 1.0 of it all.

Finally, I find where I can get information in CSV form - by emailed request.

This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation.

Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ).

Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Information Officer, FSANZ, PO Box 7186, Canberra BC, ACT 2610 or email info@foodstandards.gov.au

I feel so very backwards that there isn't a simple, universal product database which stores this information.

This is the kind of thing I want from the semantic web - government data I can query so that I can control my calorie intake. Why is this idea so foreign to government? Why are all licenses by default set to "no".

We'll see how far I get with my can-I-have-information email, but past experience has led me to disappointment.

Update 2: Success! USDA SR21 is a bunch of data you can download and stick into a database. It would not be hard to RDFize this.

More feedback to the Government

I was wandering around the Green Vehicle Guide and I found a link or two about reusing their data - you just have to seek permission from the right people.

So I followed it and stumbled across this: Statement of IP Principles for Australian Government Agencies (read PDF).

It pissed me off to no end, as I've wasted time dealing with people who don't seem to be aware of this.

Basically; the document linked to boils down to:

• Open your data
• If a business a can use it; consider letting them
  
• More data, more access equals more jobs
• More access means the public is better informed
• Be flexible
  

The bit I really liked was:

Agencies should encourage public use and easy access to copyright material that
has been published for the purpose of:
.. snip ..
facilitating access to government services
.. /snip ..

So after being treated liked a moron the last time I tried to do something, the moment I saw a Feedback on Copyright / etc link; I bashed out:

This is just general feedback about public access to IP here in South Australia.

I recently contacted the DTEI here about gaining access to data - bus routes and timetables in a plain text format ('csv').

I wanted to create a 'google maps' type application to view the data on, and otherwise have better access to it. I had no commercial aims for it, and was very clear about that.

I also wanted it because the current way to view this data on the web is horrible and hard to use.

I'm a software engineer, so I [also] wanted to combine it with other data sets: for example a list of restaurants to create a 'find me a bus route to my restaurant booking @ 8pm Sunday'.

I was initially rebuffed; then after further persistence, I was invited a meeting - I thought I was in luck.

When I went in, after taking half of a day off from my full time work, I was completely stuffed around.
There appeared to be little or no understanding of 'Intellectual Property Principles for Australian Government agencies'.

I felt ridiculed by the way I was spoken to and treated.

Every question I asked was met with a look of confusion or a half hearted refusal.

While I can understand there is a balance between protecting commercial IP and public access, those I spoke to had no concept of a member of the public being able to make use of data.

I wasn't made aware of any other possible avenues or approaches I could take - basically; the matter was 'closed'.

I no longer wish to obtain this data, but I thought I'd let you know a first hand experience about us members of the public getting access to IP / data; and what (at least one) individual representing the government knows of your recommendations.

Your move, Australian government!


Update: My move again.

Dear Mr O'Connor

I refer to your email below to the Commonwealth Copyright Administration
requesting to use data - bus routes and timetables from The Department for
Transport, Energy and Infrastructure (DTEI) website. The DTEI administer
their own requests to use information from their website.

There is an online feedback form located at the following weblink
http://www.dtei.sa.gov.au/online_feedback_form.html

Regards
Commonwealth Copyright Administration
Attorney General's Department

Belgium, meet robots.txt

An article about Belgium really annoyed me today.

Take a peep at the rant on dotherightthing.com, and see what you think.

Insanity

This article scares me - it's a decision in an Australian court to hold the operator of a site responsible for copyright infringement for linking to copyrighted material.

Insanity.

The "Free" Trade Agreement

I think the Free Trade Agreement recently entering into force between the US and Australia is having some very, very worrysome effects.

First off this week, I got an email from the democrats, asking about open source copyright licences. I (and probably everyone else on their open source advocacy list) pointed them to Creative Common's Australia specific No Derivatives, Attribution licences.

This was explained as something that had to be cleared up so that no official party statement could be modified, must be attributed, and is free to use for educational and general purpose use.

Secondly, I saw an article via Slashdot. It's about a bid by Sony to monopolize the industry with circumvention device laws - outlawing mod chips. It's argued that Sony is interfering with fair use and locking out competitors to their gaming platform, the Playstation.

What's next?