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There is a lot going on in the article header image, isn’t there? B2 stealth bomber, vibe crafting, stickers from each state of the United States and… a whole lot more. Cinema.
Punk isn’t dead. It’s compiling.
Week Three Theme
The theme this week is “Data Punk”-and I ask you give preferential treatment to data from data.gov. I have a longer reason for this-which I recognize is not a shocker to anyone in this competition. “What, Eric has a plan behind the plan, behind the plans? So surprised. Where’s the shocked pikachu meme button?”
The Theme
The history of punk is interesting-it’s rebellious against the established order and it’s at the same time a creative force. As art styles go, Punk cemented it’s place in the art house with the birth, invention and civil disobedience of the Sex Pistols all those years ago. Before I get into Punk, I first want to talk about the front-side of the theme “Data” and WHY I’m asking you give deferential treatment to data.gov for this week.
The DATA part
Data.Gov and Civic Duty
Initially, the theme for this week was going to be “Civic Duty”. The core problem I had with this theme is that I was concerned we, as a group, might simply replay many of the same AI related ideas we toss out in Week2 only with “Civic Duty” attached. What I realized is that in the spirit of what makes America a great place, we could as part of this competition do something really remarkable, resume building (for those inclined), or just “darn fun” by taking a bunch of data no one knows about and turn those impossible to decipher files into something novel for the public. I had to prove this out myself, and so I recorded and wrote a detailed article on what I did-I’ll share that in a moment.
The higher virtue here is putting skills towards utility. In week2 we saw how practical tools and systems could be built on conceptually anything and with such rapidity that we saw more submissions in Week2 than all of Spring into AI 2026. That is, well, remarkable. And I thought, “How do I take the idea of Civic Duty and what I’m seeing with all the AI and create opportunities for folks?” That’s when it hit me: take boring and indecipherable federal datasets and make them interesting.
And so I realized that was part of the answer to the theme: DATA.
I go into a much longer explanation on the reasons bind the why of “data.gov” here, along with a process and procedure you can use *if you want.
The PUNK part
Velvet Underground sounds like a great Speakeasy that someone ought to open up within a walking distance of my house. I just read a nice little reminder that the term Speakeasy is because in the fledgling prohibition era these venues were popping up to serve beer-and a little more. Since the locations were already violating one law, why not violate another? The patrons were said to be told to “Speak Easy” upon entering, and thus the term. (Ref: https://www.amazon.com/Americana-400-Year-History-American-Capitalism/dp/0399563814 )
Sometimes the little things are big things, even if underground.
The history of Punk itself is seeded by many preceding artists. Talented musicians from the likes of Little Richard, Velvet Underground, a dash of David Bowie (just to tie the space app in with music-I didn’t include Bowie’s Space Oddity in the app that I write bout in the “Space Weather” article, and maybe I should have. These artists were all the key components of Punk. And, of course, the Sex Pistols. You’d think this is where I started with the Punk idea for the theme, but it wasn’t there at all.
I was stuck in the movies. In part because I watched an interview reel of some of the well known greats back in the, ugh it pains me to say it, the mid to late 1900s. The theme itself was based on a cinema experience.
It was a George Lucas movie-an older one. The movie before Star Wars-American Graffiti.
There’s something… timely about this movie as I stare out at a tidal wave of change of my life. American Graffiti I won’t twist the words of an otherwise great summary from Gemini and just present it here.
George Lucas captured the innocence of youth standing on the precipice of massive life changes and a turbulent decade, all set against a flawless wall-to-wall soundtrack.
When I saw this motley crew of app builders ship nearly fifty software applications, many more complete than some company backoffice operations, it had me realize we are on the very edge-the cliff of massive life changes and a decade that might well be defined as a “artificially turbulent” twenties that historians will write, debate and harass one another over in the centuries to come.
After mulling over the concept, I synthesized it up to the title and began to wonder: could Civic Duty and American Graffiti work? It seems rebellious in a way-the act of rebellion is almost a Civic Duty, really. In fact, if you ever downloaded an opensource model the government doesn’t want you to use, then you’re just proving my point: it’s in the fabric of our culture. The challenge I had was figuring out how to make this work in the context of this competition. Should we lean more towards Graffiti and art? But in detailed review of many submissions I found myself thinking we could do both-a rebelliousness to data. Data Punk. ‘murica Data.
It’s punk because you know the government never built apps for this data. You just know some bureaucrats pushed the data up hoping no one would ever build an app around the data they’re required by law to post on a website-is that too cynical? Let’s say it is. Maybe the bureaucratic lens just is not true, and by building an app around the right dataset there’s a civilizational level unlock that moves us all forward. All I know is that Data Punk doesn’t care. The build is what matters.
It’s all bollocks.
It’s ‘murica data.
Go build something.
Post the app.
Civic Duty: unlocked.
And lord help me, I’m writing like ChatGPT now. Or is ChatGPT writing like ME?
Go get that ‘murica data, competitors.
FAQ
“wHAt iF i hAvE My OwN dAta?” - First, it’s not fun to read ransom note in a FAQ. Have you ever noticed that? Maybe some apps should have ransom note typography for their FAQ (cough that photoshop company cough). However, for a FAQ let’s keep it normal typography.
“What if I have my own data? Does that count? Yes, it sure does. I just think you’re safer and better off on the balance of things if you pick random datasets from data.gov and demonstrate what it is you can do with it. There’s a real possibility you enable or inspire someone as a result-there’s something… remarkable about that federal data that you just can’t get with a vibe coded app alone.
“What if I don’t channel the full Punk Ethos and discover Jethro Tull by mistake?” Look, it’s fine. I’m sure whether we call it that or not, we all go thru a phase in our life where a little Jethro Tull would make the perfect soudntrack.
“Can I build a-” Yes, yes you can. Go ship it. Then do another. Volume, not perfection!
Original source
Canonical Substack URL: https://advisoryhour.substack.com/p/summer-into-ai-week-3-theme-datapunk.