Permaculture Database

[Matthew Shultz <deepwinter@winterroot.net>]

Nice to hear again from this list.

Last year I had hoped to finish a basic interface to try out w/ this list of 
what I was then terming 'Vast Sprawling Attribute Set' as a way of 
conglomerating all the different types of information on relationships that 
people out there may be aware of in their permaculture project.  I was 
looking heavily at Amazon SimpleDB as well as an open source drop-in 
replacement M/DB  http://gradvs1.mgateway.com/ , which also supposedly runs 
on an object oriented database.  The main gain here would be to facilitate 
data collection and connection making without having to set a schema at the 
beginning, one of the main issues with any plant or ecosystem related data 
model (at least in the real world).  I didn't get to the point of 
implementing this simple interface, since my time ended up being put into 
another database related project with similar object flexibility, but with 
different purposes.  Jedd, I'd be interested in your views of Vast Sprawling 
Attribute Set as a first step, since it sidesteps the issues of needing to 
try to shoehorn a normalized set of relations - of course this has 
significant downsides as well.   If anyone is interested, I'd also be willing 
to demonstrate the system I've built which allows an easily evolving data 
architecture, as well as relationship management, without knowledge of MySQL 
- it's an open source project that we at our collective Made of People could 
use some help with.  It's written in PHP/Kohana w/ Javascript/Mootools.

Also on my plate has been the development of an IPhone application in 
conjunction with a well known forager here in the USA.  It should be released 
in about a month's time and may be of interest to users of this list.  The 
full version will contain 160 well known naturally occurring plants, along 
with a host of minor lookalikes and poisonous to avoid.  We also have several 
other ecology related apps in the works, it's looking to be a very exciting 
year!  I've developed my Iphone/IOS/IPad skills significantly, so anyone with 
ideas or wishing to partner should feel free to contact me off list.  My 
plate only gets larger, as I am also scheduled to interview as UC Davis for 
their Population Biology PhD program this coming weekend.  We'll see if I 
decide to bite, but either way I've started to see some value to high power 
statistics, and I'd be interested in views of more 'ground level' 
permaculture folks on this as to notions of where statistics could be 
leveraged for the layman perma-eaters.

m.



On Feb 6, 2011, at 7:22 PM, jedd wrote:

> Heck, tempus fugit eh?
> 
> Time for a yearly check-in on people's lack of progress.
> 
> I'll go first -- I haven't (progressed).  I've been working some
> ridiculous (for me) hours the past twelve months, and that isn't
> likely to change for a while.  It's sad.  I'm sad.  I have many ideas,
> but realise I lack insight and skills on how to tie them together.
> 
> I still doze off to sleep every now and then with a particular
> schema / relational problem in my head in the hope that I'll have
> the answer the next day.  Alas . . .
> 
> Lately these focus on geo data, and absolute .v. relative (think
> location on planet for helpers, suppliers, climate comparisons etc,
> versus detailed mapping within your own property say, for tracking
> what you've planted - but without having to consider where on the
> planet that may be).  Need to learn more about MySQL's geometry
> types to get some ideas.
> 
> I see another Pc portal has opened up.  Had a curious experience
> there where apparently my profile wasn't considered sufficiently
> complete, and my account was deleted without notice.  I'd tracked
> down one of the admins to see what was wrong, and only then
> found out about this.
> 
> Left me a little perturbed.
> 
> Anyway, I thought portals were a bit 1990's?   Or at least tried
> some number of times, unsuccessfully in the past decade.  Can't
> work out what their plans are for this thing - it seems to have
> been a bit of a secret project, which in itself doesn't bode well.
> The geo info they're gathering could be fascinating .. but .. we'll
> have to see what they decide to do with their system & data.
> 
> Mind, the emphasis might be on 'their', there.  Consider the tone
> of this page:   http://permacultureglobal.com/terms
> 
> Jedd.
> 
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