As a regular flyer, I’m an enormous fan of TripIt. It’s a simple service in which you forward almost any reservation – airline, hotel, car rental, etc… to plans@tripit.com and their service will scan it, grab the relevant data, and create a calendar of events for you. While it’s a
Continue readingTag: technology
Trashy's World: Goodbye to the VCR…
… it was a long ride. I remember my parents buying our first VCR. A big, hulking and noisy machine it was! And back in ’77 or so it likely cost about 2 grand or so! But technology marches on and the tape world has been replaced by the digital
Continue readingeaves.ca: I Stand for My Rights & Privacy: The Coming Online Police State
“He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.” This was Mr. Toews’s, the Minister of Justice, counterattack to a question in the house regarding concerns of letting the police monitor citizens internet use without a warrant. Apparently this is our choice: a big brother state or child
Continue readingeaves.ca: Two Reasons I love blogging: Helping out great communities
Non profits and governments… this is how open source works: If someone is doing something that is of value to you, help make it better. There have been two great examples of this type of behaviour on this blog over the past week. On Monday, I blogged about Represent, a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: December 2, 2011
Friday, December 2 saw the final day of debate in Parliament on the Cons’ omnibus crime bill. And for at least a moment, the proceedings took a perhaps surprising turn. The Big Issue As debate wound down on C-10, Irene Mathyssen questioned why the Cons insisted on delaying the passage
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Exciting Launch of Represent.ca and What It Says About Open Data in Canada
Last week a group of volunteer programs from across Canada announced the launch of Represent.ca – a website that tries to map all of Canada’s boundaries. Confused? Don’t be. It’s simple. This is a nifty piece of digital infrastructure – try visiting the website yourself! After identifying where you are
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: Say “NO!” to C-11 now!
The Harper government re-introduced the Copyright Modernization Act, Bill C-11 in September 2011. Wonder about where the coverage is on Bill C-11? Me, too. SOPA + PIPA may be dead — or shelved — but Bill C-11 is alive and well and set to pass ASAP in 2012. The Harper
Continue readingeaves.ca: Algorithmic Regulation Spreading Across Government?
I was very, very excited to learn that the City of Vancouver is exploring implementing a program started in San Francisco in which “smart” parking meters adjust their price to reflect supply and demand (story is here in the Vancouver Sun). For those unfamiliar with the program, here is a
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: On SOPA + PIPA + [Un]Lawful Access…
Millions of internet users and entrepreneurs already opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act (aka SOPA and PIPA), including Google. Why NO SOPA? In case you missed it, somecanuckchick dot com went dark — along with thousands of others — on January 18, 2012 to protest SOPA
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: Liberal Live/En Direct!
FYI: The Liberal Party of Canada will be streaming its Biennial Convention… live/en direct from Ottawa, January 13 – 15, 2012.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Carbon-Absorbing Material can Clean the Air
A new material that is inexpensive to produce is also good at absorbing CO2 emissions in the air. Hopefully we’ll see this material being applied to the medians on highways and other places close to planet-damaging carbon emission sources. Reporting their findings in the Journal of the American Chemical Society,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Galling Hypocrisy of EthicalOil.org
Mordor It’s really very simple. A front group for tarsands polluters is accusing opponents of being puppets of foreign interests. EthicalOil.org thinks only Canadians should be permitted to take part in the tarsands climate debate, which would exclude anyone or any group involving foreign resources or money. An organization called
Continue readingeaves.ca: What I’m Digesting: Good Reads from the First Week of January
Government Procurement is Broken: Example #5,294,702 or “The Government’s $200,000 Useless Android Application” by Rich Jones This post is actually a few months old, but I stumbled on it again the other day and could help but laugh and cry at the same time. Written by a freelance computer developer,
Continue readingeaves.ca: Solving the Common Standards problem in the Open Data Space
Last year during my Open Government Data Camp keynote speech on The State of Open Data 2011 I mentioned how I thought the central challenge for open data was shifting from getting data open (still a big issue, but a battle that is starting to be won) to getting all
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Not Your Standard Christmas List
The High-Tech Priests at CNET have published an unusual, Top 10 List that they describe as the 10 technology trends that “keep us up at night.” Most of their tech worries concern technological destruction of personal privacy and the spread of the surveillance society including geo-tracking. Another was the development
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Future of Academic Research
Yesterday, Nature – one of the worlds premier scientific journals recognized University of British Columbia scientist Rosie Redfield as one of the top 10 science newsmakers of 2011. The reason? After posting a scathing attack on her blog about a paper that appeared in the journal Science, Redfield decided to
Continue readingeaves.ca: Why is Finding a Post Box so Hard?
Sometimes it is the small things that show how government just gets it all so wrong. Last Thursday The Daily Show’s Wyatt Cenac has a little bit on the US Post Office and its declining fortunes as people move away from mail. There is no doubt that the post offices
Continue readingeaves.ca: Not Brain Candy: A Review of The Information Diet by Clay Johnson
My body no longer kills me when I come back from the gym. However, I had a moment of total humiliation today: theoretically my ideal body weight is 172 pounds and I weigh 153 Ibs. The woman at the gym calibrated my fat/water/meat/bone ratios, made an inward gasp and
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Government Consultation, Twitter Townhalls & Doing Advocacy Wrong
Earlier this week the Canadian Federal Government launched its consultation process on Open Government. This is an opportunity for citizens to comment and make suggestions around what data the federal government should make open, what information it should share and provide feedback on how it can consult more effectively with
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: The Stages of Human Communication Technology
Language (pre-history) Written Language (circa 3200 BC) The Printing Press (circa 1440 ) (Johannes Gutenberg) Telephone (1861/1875) Radio Broadcasting (circa 1910) Television Broadcasting (1928/1936) The Internet (1969) (ARPANET) Smart Phones (1992) (RIM BlackBerry 1999)
Continue reading