There are three things that I love about this: they are tremendous and witty words of wisdom from Mark Twain. it is narrated by John Lithgow, who’s voice alone makes me laugh. the sleeping man scares me, and reminds me to be entertaining, as he s…
Continue readingTag: Commentary
eaves.ca: Canada’s Draft Open Government Plan — The Promise and Problems Reviewed
Backdrop On Friday the Canadian Government released its draft national action plan. Although not mentioned overtly in the document, these plans are mandated by the Open Government Partnership (OGP), in which member countries must draft National Action …
Continue readingeaves.ca: On Journalism, Government and the cost of Digital Illiteracy
Earlier today the CBC published a piece by Alison Crawford about Canadian public servants editing wikipedia. It draws from a clever twitter bot — @gccaedits— that tracks edits to wikipedia from government IP address. I love the twitter account
Continue readingeaves.ca: Canadians love for census Star Op-Ed
I’ve a small piece in the Toronto Star today about the census, Canadians reaction to it, and what it says about Canada. You can find it here: Canadians love for census says a lot about who we are.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Hollow Men – Poem and Commentary, for All Hallow’s Eve
Want something spooky, even terrifying, for Halloween? Read this. The Hollow Men: I think this truly epic poem (one place where the word is meaningfully used) should be read at least once a year, if not once a month, just to remind ourselves of what is actually going on. It
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Hollow Men – Poem and Commentary, for All Hallow’s Eve
Want something spooky, even terrifying, for Halloween? Read this. The Hollow Men: I think this truly epic poem (one place where the word is meaningfully used) should be read at least once a year, if not once a month, just to remind ourselves of what is actually going on. It
Continue readingmark a rayner: The Digital Sabbath, or Why I Never Reply to Your Emails on Saturday
If it’s Saturday and you’re reading this, I am far away from you. That’s because every week, I unplug and celebrate what I call the digital sabbath. I know, I know, it’s kind of blasphemous, but it is the best way to think about the activity of disconnecting from the Internet to
Continue readingmark a rayner: You tell ’em Kurt
I post this quote for no particular reason. It’s from his collection, Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons. Alltop has some insanely fun links.
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Tweeting in two places may break my brain
And god help me if I ever get confused! "When my brother and I go to the swinging singles bar, we look for the girls with the dog poopie on their shoes… " pic.twitter.com/ZUmCPUBjk4 — Mark A. Rayner (@markarayner) October … Continue reading →
Continue readingeaves.ca: Government Procurement Failure: BC Ministry of Education Case Study
Apologies for the lack of posts. I’ve been in business mode – both helping a number of organizations I’m proud of and working on my own business. For those interested in a frightening tale of inept procurement, poor judgement and downright dirty tactics when it comes to software procurement and
Continue readingArt Threat: The Act of Killing: My family lived through it
Editor’s note: Christine Phang has recently written a contextual analysis of the Oscar-nominated documentary, The Act of Killing. After we read her essay we asked her to give us her opinion on the recent attacks on the film that have been levied by BBC honcho Nick Fraser. Fraser is extremely
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data Day 2014 – Five Fun Events Around the World
With over 110 Events happening world wide it is impossible to talk about every Open Data Day event. But looking almost every event on the wiki I’ve been deeply moved and inspired by the various efforts, goals and aspirations of the people who have organized these events. In order to
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data Day in 110 cities Worldwide! Here’s 6 things to do
It is, as always, with a fair amount of wonder that I watch the open data day wiki grow each year. This year there are 100 self organized events taking place worldwide (at last count). It is an impressive number. This includes events in places like Buenos Aires (which is
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Commentary: Legal safeguards for tenants are meaningless without enforcement
by: Kendra Milne | First published by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Housing is a right. [Photo by Obert Madondo/The Canadian Progressive Safe and secure housing is a cornerstone of overall health and well-being. The housing affordability crisis in BC is common knowledge, but less well known is the fact that
Continue readingeaves.ca: What Werewolf teaches us about Trust & Security
After sharing the idea behind this post with Bruce Schneier, I’ve been encouraged to think a little more about what Werewolf can teach us about trust, security and rational choices in communities that are, or are at risk of, being infiltrated by a threat. I’m not a security expert, but I
Continue readingeaves.ca: Some thoughts on the relaunched data.gc.ca
Yesterday, I talked about what I thought was the real story that got missed in the fanfare surrounding the relaunch of data.gc.ca. Today I’ll talk about the new data.gc.ca itself. Before I begin, there is an important disclaimer to share (to be open!). Earlier this year Treasury Board asked me
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Real News Story about the Relaunch of data.gc.ca
As many of my open data friends know, yesterday the government launched its new open data portal to great fanfare. While there is much to talk about there – something I will dive into tomorrow – that was not the only thing that happened yesterday. Indeed, I did a lot
Continue readingeaves.ca: Policy-Making in a Big Data World
For those interested I appeared on The Agenda with Steve Paikin the other week talking about Big Data and policy making. There was a good discussion with a cast of character that included (not counting myself): Kenneth Cukier, the Data Editor for The Economist and author of “Big Data: A Revolution That Will
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Value of Open Data – Don’t Measure Growth, Measure Destruction
Alexander Howard – who, in my mind, is the best guy covering the Gov 2.0 space – pinged me the other night to ask “What’s the best evidence of open data leading to economic outcomes that you’ve seen?” I’d like to hack the question because – I suspect – for
Continue readingeaves.ca: Canada Post and the War on Open Data, Innovation & Common Sense (continued, sadly)
Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a blog post on Canada Post’s War on the 21st Century, Innovation & Productivity. In it I highlighted how Canada Post launched a lawsuit against a company – Geocoder.ca – that recreates the postal code database via crowdsourcing. Canada Posts case was never
Continue reading