CodeGlutton - Code That Makes Me Happy
I’ve started a computer programming blog called CodeGlutton.
There is a printmaking and jewellery open studio this weekend at the Artspace building, (Winnipeg).
We are please to present a variety of custom jewellery, limited edition prints, water colours and photographs.
Open Studios:
- North Nassau Printmakers and Bryan Johnson Creations
5th floor, room 523 - Mary Krieger’s Print Studio
6th floor, room 607
We are located in the Artspace building (100 Arthur St @ Bannatyne).
The studios will be open from noon until 6pm on Saturday and Sunday (November 27th and 28th).
International Open Data Day
A Worldwide Hackathon on December 4th, 2010 to encourage the adoption of open data policies by the world’s local, regional and national governments.
The Blue W
Mapping municipal water fountains using Google Maps.
“The Blue W is a not-for-profit organization driven by a genuine appreciation for the hard work of municipal water providers. We supply detailed information on where to find healthy, safe municipal tap water anywhere around the globe.”
Sand dunes inside the Proctor crater on Mars. [via apod]
Improve Your Writing
Improve your understanding of grammar and punctuation. Skip directly to the exercises if you think you’re a pro.
Girl Talk makes illegal art.
All Day is intended to be listened to as a whole.
This album is a free download. [torrent]
Girl Talk thanks all artists sampled.
Perils of Internet Voting
The following is an expanded version of my letter to the editor featured in the November 12th edition of the Winnipeg Free Press.
In their editorial Modern times, ancient system, the Winnipeg Free Press recommends internet voting as a means of increasing voter turnout. Senior city hall elections official Marc Lemoine has also expressed an interest in online voting. As a computer engineer who teaches web programming courses I would urge them to reconsider.
Internet voting would be much less secure than our current system and would mean the loss of a physical record of votes for auditing purposes. We would also lose the ability to verify that each vote was cast by a unique voter. For example, a parent might be tempted to ask their 18-year-old children if they could vote on their behalf, or vice versa.
Recently, election officials in Washington D.C. invited security experts to test an internet voting system designed for overseas voters. Within 36 hours a team of computer scientists from the University of Michigan had compromised the system, allowing them to read and change recorded votes. One member of the team, J. Alex Halderman, had this to say:
“Major web sites like Facebook and Twitter regularly suffer from vulnerabilities. These high-profile sites have greater resources and far more security experience than the municipalities that run elections. It may someday be possible to build a secure method for voting over the Internet, but in the meantime, such systems should be presumed to be vulnerable based on the limitations of today’s security technology.”
Implementing internet voting in Winnipeg would require a change in provincial legislation.
More Information:
- Hacking the D.C. Internet Voting Pilot - J. Alex Halderman
- A Comparative Assessment of Electronic Voting [pdf] prepared for Elections Canada by the CETD.
- Casting a Vote Against Internet Voting - Michael Geist
Electronic voting machines are equally troubling:
Open Data - Canada vs. The UK
Brian Kelcey on Open Data in Vancouver, Winnipeg and across the pond.
“During Winnipeg’s recent Mayoral election, incumbent Mayor Sam Katz fended off even the most basic calls for more open government with absurd claims, arguing that no government anywhere would release contracts or other commercial records. My reply wasn’t to point to a civic example - although there are plently to choose from. Instead, I pointed to the UK, where, the Coalition Government’s transparency agenda is easily the most sweeping Open Data transformation on earth right now.”
Related:
- MyPeg - Measuring the well-being of our community. (Built on OpenStructs. RDF data provided as XML and JSON.)
- Google Refine 2.0 - The first Google/Metaweb tool. I wonder what they have planned for Freebase?
“Sometimes reality is too complex for oral communication. But legend embodies it in a form which enables it to spread all over the world.”
from: If We Don’t, Remember Me.
Replicants scare me. How long before robots like this Actroid F learn to pass the Voight-Kampff empathy test?
And if you thought that was freaky, meet Telenoid R1.
AskMefi: Rap music that's not gangsta?
You’ll find me amongst the responses.
Paper Mario is for reals!
Candidate Questionnaires Online - Winnipeg Free Press
A WinnipegElection.ca election brief in today’s Free Press.
Candidate questionnaires online
Two Red River College instructors compiled more than 1,000 articles about the election on a non-profit website called winnipegelection.ca. Information-technology instructors Kyle Geske and Jody Gillis created the site in July to provide voters with more information about mayoral, council and school-trustee candidates. As of Friday, their repository included 1,082 election articles, compiled from a variety of Winnipeg media websites, as well as 83 questionnaires completed by candidates.
October 23rd, 2010 - @bkives
History in Winnipeg Streets
The historical origins of some Winnipeg street names.
“Minecraft is just Farmville for dorks.”