I attended the Culture Hack Day at Wieden+Kennedy in Clerkenwell last weekend. It was a great venue, really good for hacking and socialising alike – and even some space for a quick kip when required!
I’ve been to quite a few hack days in the past, but I’ve usually used it as time to have a play on personal projects (like redesigning my photo website with WordPress 3 at Hack Camp), and in the past I haven’t really submitted a hack (WhichTee? hardly counts!).
One of the datasets available this time around which took my fancy was a SQL database of TV schedule information scanned from old copies of the Radio Times (1948 and 1977!), and then OCR’d – kindly supplied by the BBC via @BillT.
I knocked together a little site to browse and search the content. Unfortunately, I can’t put a working prototype online as the data is not (yet) in the public domain. So for the moment, you’ll have to put up with some screenshots (click for a bigger version):
Site home page
Browse the data by date
Search by Date
Search by Date and Time
Browse By Title (by clicking a link)
Search by Title (and radio or TV)
Episode Details - Bagpuss was a repeat in 1977!
Other Hacks
There were some great hacks built (you can find a list here). DanW has done a nice write-up too. Although my hack didn’t win any prizes, I was pleased to have actually produced something I was pleased with during the weekend.
I’m now looking forward to heading north in February for the Culture Grid Hack Day event there.
