Stung Eye link

Link: Internet Voting: A Requiem for the Dream

Sat, 07 May 2016 08:32:29 +0100

Before taking any serious examination of the flaws inherent in internet voting, the question must be asked, why do people want internet voting? The answer is: 1) civic engagement, 2) money, 3) want of power, and 4) technophilia.

--[ Table of contents

 1 - A Backstory
 2 - Why Do People Want Internet Voting
 3 - The Evolution of Counting Votes
 4 - Where is Internet Voting Piloted and Used
 5 - Other Problems of Being On the Internet
 6 - End-to-End Verifiable Internet Voting Schemes
 7 - Push Back
 8 - But We Use The Internet for [Foo]
 9 - Imagining a More Secure Internet Voting System
10 - Conclusion
11 - Acknowledgements
12 - References

Link: Open Democracy Meetup #OGT14

Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:36:00 +0100

Saturday September 6th at Cousin’s Deli, 55 Sherbrook.

A post-#OGT14-Winnipeg jam session with Richard Pietro.

A Winnipeg Open Democracy Community Hang Out. Let’s talk data and governance and reporting and technology. Perhaps you’ll drink a few wobbly pops.

Round-robin table discussions on:

The 2014 Open Government Tour with Richard Pietro.
Available Municipal Data From data.winnipeg.ca.
A Citizen’s Guide to Interpreting Data.

There will be name tags. Is that a selling point? I hope so.

Link: Open Government / Open Data tour comes to Winnipeg

Wed, 06 Aug 2014 15:21:32 +0100

Next week, a man on a mission will ride his motorcycle into our fair city, as part of an ongoing effort to open up the world of government.

Great article by Noah Erenberg of the Community News Commons about the Winnipeg stop of Richard Pietro’s Open Government Tour.

Also: Our Press Release about the Event.

Link: Richard Pietro's Open Government Tour - Winnipeg

Sat, 26 Jul 2014 10:20:00 +0100

August 11th is the Winnipeg stop of Richard Pietro’s Open Government Tour. Richard is driving his motorcycle across the country promoting democratic engagement by way of technology, transparency and accountability. I’m the Winnipeg “city champion” for the tour and am organizing the event with the help of my fellow Open Democracy Manitoba members.

The intent of his tour is to “introduce Open-Source, Open-Data and Open-Government to Canadians, hopefully acting as a spark that will help push the movements over the tipping point and change the perspective that this kind of stuff isn’t only relegated to the uber-civically engaged, politico, or super-techie.” [source]

Join us on August 11 at the Millennium Library as engaged citizens. Together we’ll explore the benefits a culture of openness can bring to government.

Confirmed local guests include:

Representative from Winnipeg’s new Open Data Portal.
Mary Agnes Welch of the Winnipeg Free Press.
Colin Craig of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Charles Thirst of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
Dennis Lewycky of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg.

More details about the planning of the Winnipeg Open Government Tour event.

Link: Understanding Computation - The Lambda Calculus Explained

Sun, 22 Jun 2014 09:54:00 +0100

Historically it’s been difficult to explain a mechanical universe, because it’s difficult to explain the possibilities and limitations of machines*.

It’s now posited that machines compute. That computation describes what machines can and cannot do.

The Lambda Calculus is a tiny system for describing computational machines.

*Machines here refers to mechanical entities like molecules and DNA, not dump trucks. ;)

Link: Process & Technology · An Open Democracy Manitoba Blog

Fri, 04 Apr 2014 19:19:00 +0100

I’ve started blogging about the technologies and processes we are using to build and maintain the Open Democracy Manitoba websites.

Link: BSides Winnipeg 2013

Mon, 19 Aug 2013 13:24:00 +0100

I’m happpy to have been selected to present at the BSides Winnipeg security conference this November. Tickets are on sale now for $20. Buy now, there are only 150 tickets available!

From the organizers:

We’re proud to be hosting the first ever BSides Winnipeg security conference this November in Winnipeg! BSides is a different kind of conference - it’s highly technical, providing the latest up-to-date information “from the trenches”, so to speak. The combination of low cost with high quality talks makes this perfect for anyone from students to industry professionals!

The conference will take place over two days (November 16 and 17, 2013) on the second floor of the King’s Head Pub. It runs from noon - 7pm both days, after which the bar is open to the public (attendees are welcome to stick around, if they want!)

My presentation:

This talk is about building bots. Specifically, it will focus on @abotlafia, a Twitter bot inspired by the “bot” in Umberto Eco’s 1988 novel Foucault’s Pendulum. The talk will demonstrate how little code is required to create automated accounts on Twitter. This will be followed by a discussion of the security/ethical implications of algorithmic social media accounts, and the possibility of a future where we are unable to determine who is real and who is a bot on the Internet.

Link: What is Consciousness

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:06:53 +0100

An infographic-based survey.

Also from information is beautiful: Rhetological Fallacies

Link: Winnipeg’s most perpetuated myth: Downtown is dangerous

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 11:24:04 +0100

Brett Geisel argues that “Winnipeg’s downtown is not only safe, and the suburban idea that it is dangerous is driven not by facts, but by racism.”

Plus a thoughtful response by Kate Sjoberg:

“Brett’s assertion that Winnipeg’s downtown is safe is only partly true, and raises issues that need more attention. Winnipeg’s downtown is safe depending on a number of social markers. It is most safe for white able bodied, heterosexual men between the ages of 20 and 60 who have a job and a place to live, whether they live there, commute in to work, or attend a hockey game.”

From the Spectator Tribune, news and opinion pieces from the Canadian prairies.

Link: No Way Kids Will All Make Games

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 15:49:00 +0100

_why in 2007 on teaching kids to code:

“The problem is: game programming isn’t just an exercise in programming. You have to muster up the math, design, writing, and personality — especially if you want to create something original. A lot of people have it in them and the magic is there. What I’m saying is: starting everyone off with game programming is going tire most people out too quickly.”

I teach an introduction to programming course at RRC using Scratch and Processing. Some of my students build video games for their mid-course Scratch project. The project is fairly open-ended so I have students who build screen savers, choose your own adventures, music apps, animated videos, etc. Although many students do successfully implement a game, most are shocked by the complexity of video game coding.

Link: A Weather Moment

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 23:24:57 +0100

Commentary and educational posts about weather across the Canadian Prairies with a focus on Southern Manitoba.

Link: Field Papers

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 15:09:31 +0100

Print a paper atlas of anywhere in the world. Scribble on it, add features, take notes. Your annotations can be shared online, transcribed in digital form as photos uploaded back to the Field Papers site.

Link: Best of MetaFilter

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:45:17 +0100

No time to meander through the big blue? Catch the curated best of MeFi.

Link: Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:37:36 +0100

A printable poster.

Link: Things to Worry About

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:07:00 +0100

A letter from author F. Scott Fitzgerald to his 11-year-old daughter at camp, in which he threatens to beat her cat (“Do you react to that?”) or call her Egg if she ever calls him Pappy again.

More endearing is his list of things to worry about, and those things which she should not worry about.

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about Cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

Things not to worry about:

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

Link: I’m Not a “Curator”

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 23:08:00 +0100

A response to the curator’s code, an attempt to codify and standardize “via” links and attribution from link blogs and aggregators.

I usually try to provide “via” links here on stungeye, but I don’t believe online discovery should require attribution.

“The value of authorship is much more clear. But regardless of how much time it takes to find interesting links every day, I don’t think most intermediaries deserve credit for simply sharing a link to someone else’s work.”

Also, from Infinite Monkeys and Infinite Links:

“The idea of taking the relatively rigid and formal conventions of academic attribution and translating them to a website doesn’t sit very well with us. It’s not just that we’re lazy, but that the lack of proper attribution is not the same as plagiarism or copyright violation; no-one is losing out financially by not being credited with an online ‘discovery’.”

Link: Mobile HTML5 Post: Tumblr App Groundwork

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:17:46 +0100

“It’s time to build our first native app using web technologies. We are going to build a simple photo gallery app using images from my Meow Reader Tumblr. The code presented should be flexible enough to turn any Tumblr into an app.”

Link: Switcheroo

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:31:19 +0100

Couples swap clothing for photo shoot.

Link: L.E.D. Surfer

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:05:51 +0100

A man, covered in light emitting diodes, snowboards at night.

Link: New Mobile HTML5 Post

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:48:32 +0100

“Hi there. I hear that you want to build native mobile apps using only web technologies. Me too. Before we begin we need to define our required toolset.”