Interview behind le jump.

Local group works to make Ottawa’s data open
Posted Mar 10, 2011 By Andrew Sztein

Source: http://www.emcottawaeast.ca/20110310/news/Local+group+works+to+make+Ottawa%27s+data+open

EMC News – A local group of self-proclaimed tech geeks is working with the City of Ottawa to make lives of residents easier through technology.

Open Data Ottawa is an association with six or seven local members and another 150-200 remote members. They work (essentially) as a lobby group to continue to nudge the city into not only providing data publicly, but to make them available with licenses that give users the ability to use, merge, modify and re-distribute the data.

“Open Data Ottawa is taking what the city already has and giving it to citizens to make things for other citizens,” said Alex Lougheed, a member of the Alliance of Students Associations, and a member of Open Data Ottawa.

“Open Data Ottawa is a loosely organized collection of developers, librarians, engaged citizens that really believe in the idea of open data. The goals of open data are to get governments to be more open with their data.”

Lougheed said that there are “three laws” by which the organization wants governments to release their data.

“First, when a government has a data base or is collecting information on anything, that it is released to the public in a way that can be spidered or indexed, so computers or machines can find it or search through it,” he said. “The second law would be that it is open and machine readable so we can automate computers with applications so we can use the information. Third, the data is released in a legal framework that allows it to be repurposed. So an example of that is that there are a number of licenses out there which allows systems to really take that data and use it for any purpose, even for profit.”

For the most part, the city has taken a policy stance that it is in favour of the open data project.

Recently however, a winning submission of the people’s choice award for the city’s Apps4Ottawa contest called Where’s My Bus? had trouble with the supposed open data. The iPhone app was rendered useless when OC Transpo pulled public access to their live GPS data. Open Data Ottawa is working closely with OC Transpo to make the data available again, although no firm time frame was given.

“OC Transpo’s IT department is run by the city, which creates an interesting dynamic,” said Lougheed. “What happened is since our community has a strong working relationship with the city, in particular their IT department, they got in touch with us and told us about a trial stream and to feel free to use and tinker with it to make it better down the road. All of that was without the knowledge of OC Transpo. they discovered what was going on, looked at their long term plan, and what was going on at the time didn’t really work well. We’ve since been in touch with OC Transpo, and they reaffirmed they are super committed to open data and are working to get another, more secure and reliable stream online that more coincides with their long term goals can get to the community.”

No timeline was given, but Lougheed expects it will happen within the year.

Open Data Ottawa also gives back to the local development community by hosting local Hackfests.

“Anyone can come to these events that we host at city hall,” said Lougheed. “It’s an opportunity for anyone to come to a session where citizens come into a room and we present all the data that’s out there. Then people start working on brainstorming and actually developing applications for stuff that’s out there. A lot of the apps we saw at Apps4Ottawa were born out of these Hackfests. We’ve been the voice of the community while supporting them and participating in the creative process.”

Lougheed believes that Open Data Ottawa is simply a natural extension of the city working for its citizens, and that the organization is necessary to maintain open data in a way that’s consistent with modern technology.

“I think what open data does is what citizens have always expected from their cities,” said Lougheed. “Citizens expect their cities to be forthcoming, honest, accountable, and to be working for them. Open data achieves all those goals. Citizens can take this data and draw their own conclusions and produce things for other citizens.”

asztein@theemc.ca

• Apartment 613
• http://www.apt613.ca

Apt 613 is an institution. Not that great for pure bulk of information, but it’s well curated, and written by folk that know local scenes.

• Couch Assassin
• http://couchassassin.com

A new startup, thanks to the Apps4Ottawa competition. Super stoked and already found some events I didn’t know about using this omghuge database.

• The Wig
• http://thewig.ca

I recently discovered The Wig. How I didn’t know about it before remains a mystery to me. A ton of events of all types under the rainbow.

• Dial 613
• http://dial613.ca

Dial 613 was a great show listing site. It shut down though. The host is looking for someone to take over, though!

Full article below the jump.

Source: http://thevarsity.ca/articles/37171

Jon Stewart’s Moment of Zen
by Meghan Lawson

If you haven’t seen the sci-fi horror flick The Faculty, you’re not alone. Not much is memorable about the 1998 film save for its colourful cast of characters, including Usher, Salma Hayek, Elijah Wood — oh, and Daily Show host Jon Stewart.

Before he took centre stage in Washington D.C. for the Rally to Restore Sanity on October 30, a clip of Stewart’s turn as a high school science teacher in the B-rated film was played for the crowd gathered on the National Mall.

No doubt included simply for a good laugh, the clip pinpointed a contrast with Stewart’s current cultural stature.

Before the sky-high ratings and presidential interviews, before the best-selling books and award show hosting gigs, Stewart was working as a busboy and making the rounds in run of the mill horror films and romantic comedies. Along with bit parts in Half Baked and Big Daddy, Stewart also hosted a series of forgettable shows on MTV and Comedy Central in the early 1990s.

So how does a guy who seemed doomed to play the role of comedic wingman wind up inspiring thousands — most estimates put the number well over 200,000 — to show up for a day of engagement in America’s capital?

One rally-goer’s hand-painted sign said it all: “It’s a sad day when our politicians are comical, and I have to take our comedians seriously.” Disenchanted with political and media elites in America, many have turned to Stewart and his self-described “fake news program” for the most honest portrayal of what’s taking shape in their country.

But an ability to cut through hysterical punditry isn’t the only thing the 47-year-old New Jersey native has going for him. His fearless, razor-sharp wit doesn’t hurt either. The particular brand of satire honed by Stewart and Daily Show correspondents attracts an average of 3.5 million viewers who tune in live and online at comedycentral.com. Only Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly pulls in a larger audience.

“Satire is all about challenging the status quo, and that’s what he’s doing, both in response to the media and to the political system,” explains Professor Lauren Feldman, who works in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C.

Feldman devotes much of her research to determining how less-traditional sources of political communication, like late-night comedy programs, shape the public’s political perspectives. “You can achieve something with satire that you can’t do with other forms,” she says. “Satire assumes that the audience is on the same level as the satirist. It doesn’t talk down, it doesn’t pander.”

Since taking over the fake news desk of the Daily Show in 1999, Stewart has spent much of his airtime lampooning fellow commentators. O’Reilly and fellow Fox News broadcaster Glenn Beck are frequent targets, but so are decidedly less conservative commentators, like former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez. This persona of an outsider to the media establishment is a key part of Stewart’s appeal — and his credibility.

In fact, when asked which journalist they most admired for a study by the Pew Research Center in 2007, Americans ranked Stewart number four. The likes of CNN’s Anderson Cooper, CBS’s Dan Rather, and NBC’s Brian Williams nabbed other top spots.

According to Nikki Schwab, a political columnist for the Washington Examiner, Stewart has the ear of so many because he personifies the increasingly marginalized political moderate. “Stewart tries to make the point that most of the country, they’re not the pundits that are in D.C. They’re not the Glenn Becks that are freaking out about the end of the world,” Schwab told The Varsity.

“His show is always about media criticism. In recent years, it has increasingly become a call for more reasoned political discourse,” echoes Feldman.

On October 30, that call to reasoned discourse — to “taking it down a notch” as Stewart put it — struck a chord on the National Mall.

A great deal of ink has been spilled over the size and motive of the crowd at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. To be sure, the number far exceeded the 60,000 estimate listed on the rally’s permit application to the National Park Service.

While NPS officials refused to provide any numbers, other third-party organizations used aerial photos to peg the crowd size at around 215,000. The same group determined that the Rally to Restore Honor, the brainchild of Glenn Beck, drew about 87,000 this past August. Ridership on the D.C. transit system set a new Saturday record, with more than 825,400 passengers packing into Metro trains on October 30. Compare that to ridership on August 28, the day of Beck’s rally, which clocked in at about 510,000 riders.

By any account, Stewart and fellow funny-man Stephen Colbert managed to coax a tidal wave of supporters into partaking in their highly-publicized, three-hour variety show. As predicted, one of Stewart’s main demographics attended in full force: college students.

“Younger on the whole, more politically knowledgeable, more interested in politics, higher levels of education, more left-leaning,” are the criteria Feldman uses to describe the demographic.

“It’s going to be the constituency that is Jon Stewart — the Obama voters, the young people, the more affluent and educated types,” Schwab forecast before the Rally. From South Carolina to Vancouver, from Illinois to Ottawa, young people reached the Mall by train, bus, and carpool, some even being forced to camp out because of a shortage of accommodation in the District.

Alex Lougheed, a recent graduate from the University of British Columbia, journeyed by both bus and train for 20 hours to reach D.C. from Ottawa. Asked why Canadians like himself were in attendance, Lougheed responded that “American politics are kind of Canada’s biggest pastime. We have this curiosity about American politics because America is the great experiment of the modern world.”

However, it wasn’t just college kids, but also costume-clad seniors and stroller-pushing families, that became part of the Million Moderate March.

Jan Richmond, 70, left Chapel Hill, North Carolina, at 4 a.m. to attend the rally. “The main reason is to send a message that I’m upset about things,” she explained as she stood waiting for the headliners to make their first appearance. “It’s extremism in general that’s upsetting to me,” said friend Paula Clark, 65.

Jason, a lawyer from Virginia, shared similar concerns, but took more direct aim at the conservative Tea Party movement. “This focuses on what’s ridiculous in politics, and there’s so much of that going on right now,” he said while sporting a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “Republicans for Voldemort.” “I’m looking to counteract the energy of the Tea Party with a more rational and perhaps progressive message.”

According to Feldman, many rally-goers shared this intention. “What was motivating a lot of people to show up was to be counted, and to have their count exceed what was at the Tea Party rally,” she said in an interview following the event. “I sensed not necessarily animosity towards the Tea Partiers, but definitely a need to be heard alongside them.”

Others were there simply to witness Comedy Central shtick firsthand. “We just want to have fun,” said Daphne Polichuk, a student who journeyed down from Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec. Polichuk and her fellow road-trippers showed up wearing banana costumes and carrying signs with slogans like “Sanity is a-peeling.”

But much of the ironic garb and signage faced criticism in media analysis. “Hipster Woodstock celebrating political apathy,” is how Washington Examiner columnist Gene Healy characterized the event. Washington Post op-ed writer Anne Applebaum called Stewart’s rally a “gloomy development” for anyone who takes the label of political “moderate” seriously.

And over at left-leaning blog the Huffington Post, UCLA professor Bob Samuels lamented that Stewart’s “type of humor undermines American politics by turning everything into a joke and a source of mockery.”

While supporters celebrated both the medium and the message of Stewart’s rally, these and other critics decried its ironic, not-altogether-clear goal. Even Stewart himself asked, in his closing monologue, “What exactly was this?”

The more striking question for the future media landscape is what exactly does this mean for Jon Stewart? In the rally’s aftermath, can Stewart still safely sit on the sidelines as a “fake” news anchor, or has he thrown himself into the ring of political activism?

According to Lougheed, Stewart is still constrained by his jokester persona. “He’s not really in the best position to be that voice either because he’s a comedian, he’s there to make jokes, he’s there to ridicule the status quo.”

For her part, Feldman takes issue with the distinction between entertainment and politics. “Why shouldn’t an entertainer or a comedian be able to talk about serious political issues?” she asks.

“What [the rally] really symbolizes is push-back against this need among certain members of our political and media elite to try force this very rigid distinction between entertainment on the one hand, and reasoned politics on the other.”

Reviewing Stewart’s track record over the past decade, the Rally to Restore Sanity is only the latest in a series of attempts to appeal for moderation — and to hold the media accountable. Take, for example, Stewart’s now-famous 2004 appearance on CNN’s debate program, Crossfire, in which the comedian called out the show’s “partisan hackery.” Within six weeks, Crossfire was cancelled. Another example is Stewart’s 2009 criticism of CNBC’s irresponsible financial reporting, which ultimately led to an on-air face-off with Mad Money’s Jim Cramer.

The “bipartisan” label attached to the rally by Stewart and Colbert has also drawn fire. “They were not issuing a call to go out and vote for specific candidates. They weren’t promoting a particular ideology,” points out Feldman. Still, she notes that “by and large, the people there tended to be left-leaning.”

Beck, who also claimed his Rally to Restore Honor was apolitical, faced similar criticism. As Schwab notes, “we know who watches [Stewart] and we know who watches Glenn Beck. The fact that either one of them thinks this is bipartisan is kind of a joke.”

“Jon Stewart is trying to keep a message that is ‘apolitical.’ It’s an impossible endeavour,” echoes Lougheed. “To try to claim that of something of this stature and this size, and the fact that a lot of people listen to him and believe what he says, is very naïve.”

While not necessarily endorsing any candidates, Feldman predicted that the rally could push apathetic Americans to the polls. “If anything, it’s going to motivate people to go and vote who might have otherwise not voted,” she said the day before America’s November 2 midterm elections.

If one considers Stewart’s target demographic, the sweeping victory by the Republicans — who recently picked up 60 seats, giving them a majority in the House of Representatives — suggests otherwise.

The Rally to Restore Sanity is largely what you make of it, and plenty did — both on the right and the left. What Stewart really seems to have accomplished is to provide a voice for those who speak but don’t scream, those who agree to disagree. While certainly overstepping the arbitrary entertainer-commentator boundaries of the media establishment, Stewart only reinforced his role as one of the few watchdogs left on television.

Standing on the National Mall before more than 200,000 admirers — or at least curious onlookers — Stewart himself declared, “I feel good. Strangely, calmly, good.” Maybe he was inspired by the sheer number of supporters, maybe he felt compelled to voice a shred of hope in desperate times, or maybe he too was reflecting on how far he had come since his role in The Faculty.

Whatever it was, Jon Stewart had finally reached his own moment of Zen.

If there’s one crucial protip I’ve learned from these is that if you want consistency in procedures, if you want long-term memory, and if you want cohesion in your brand, you must integrate your secondary procedures into your day-to-day. Three important principles to enact this:

1. Systematize public accountability.
2. Avoid individual-enforced rules.
3. Avoid duplication at all costs.

For instance, say your organization keeps and maintains a library of policies, which are to be reviewed tri-annually, and proactively disclosed online. The way this is poorly done is:

1. Have a ruleset in a .doc on a shared drive/online.
2. Have custom-edited list on a website with pdf links to each policy.
3. Have a policy analyst whose job it is to enforce the ruleset, and ensure the website list is kept up-to-date.

This procedure is silly in a high turnover environment. Should a policy analyst make one mistake one year, there is no accounting for their gaff, and no accountability once they turn over. Policies will get lost in the share drive, never get posted online, due to the number of minute actions required. You’ll undoubtedly end up with every new policy analyst coming in, getting frustrated with the organization of the status quo, ignoring the hierarchy of the shared drive, and developing their own process.

The key problem here is that the policy analyst is accountable to a .doc, and responsible for being the machine that enforces the .doc. In other words, they’re accountable to themselves, because no one will invest the time to reading the .doc, and making sure the machine is well-oiled (except in the case where someone’s out to get your policy guy.)

The elegant solution is to axe the offline database, and make the online listing the only available directory of your policies, and have the system either send automated reminders about deadlines, or make it easily-discoverable that there are policies that need review. This way, should someone want access to a policy, they automatically know of the only place to get them, and the curator of the bunch becomes publicly accountable to ensuring the rules are being enforced. If they’re not, it looks bad on the organization, and suddenly, proper enforcement becomes the priority of everyone.

Everything from link sharing, tweeting, facebook posting, press releasing, media monitoring, and others can be systematized in the way above mentioned. The idea to integrate as many independent processes as possible, so the one core action automatically results in all subsequent. Your business can’t rely on an all-knowing overseer to ensure everything’s getting done–that overseer turns over every two years. Let exposure demand training, and things will work much smoother.

And hey, we filled out those surveys and pay for your office already. And you’re not letting me use it freely. Not only is that double taxation, it’s really dumb.

This is a moronic policy in the modern world. Next government that fixes it gets my vote and full support.

End rant.

Licence Agreement for CANSIM retrievals

© Statistics Canada, 2007

Bullshit.

An explanation as to why we moved. While the UBC Blogs platform offered us a great home, we have ambitions, and there were a number of things which that platform limited us with.

On the new site, you’ll notice a handful of features.

* Business management: We’re trying to grow. In order to grow, we needed to take our business practices more seriously. Things like: monitoring site visits, site usage, feed subscriptions. Now we’re keeping detailed track of how Insiders is used and our reach. By integrating a new revenue stream (ads) into this, we hope to develop the capital to expand even further. This is also an experiment for me to learn little entrepreneurial tricks here and there.

* Asides: We found we were throwing out the vast majority of the stuff we found, because either it was too small, or not newsworthy enough for a full post. We’ve now captured this content into short, one paragraph posts, called “asides”.

* Graphics: Our recent survey indicated people didn’t like the site design. Yes, it is bland, and that was the original intention. As we try to expand our audience though, we needed more graphical control.

* Complete control: Now, since we own the server and domain name directly, we can do things like: properly implement our calendar feature, register @ubcinsiders.ca email addresses, upgrade our wordpress ourselves, and have autonomy from UBC’s servers (not that we suspected anything fishy–we had backups).

* I could learn WordPress better: I was looking for a Summer project. Learning WordPress better was on the backburner, and this was an obvious venture to tinker with.

I’m pretty proud of what I managed to get done here. While the front design of the site doesn’t look that different from the theme we used, the back end was gutted, and you’ll find a lot of attention to detail. It wasn’t easy balancing reader demands and writer demands with the vision I had in mind. I think this strikes that balance.

There’s a couple of gems in this city. Of special note is Zaphod Beeblebrox, a bar themed after the Hitchhiker’s Guide. It’s basically the everything bar. The clientelle runs from chauch to scene, and the music from industrial to indie. My favourite to date.

Also of note is Babylon on Bank Street. It’s, as far as I can tell, one of the only divebars/hipster hideouts in town. Sunday Mod Nights are like a watered down Ice Cream Social. It’s the only place I’ve seen the hip congregate en masse. Aside for that night, they’re without a home as far as I can tell. Yes, they don’t even flock to the Soviet Union themed bar. Fascinating.

Food

Apparently Ottawa has a good food scene. I’m starting to understand the lay of the land a bit better. For any newcomers, you’re basically stuck to shitty Irish pubs and diners. Seriously, that’s 80% of the bars and food at first glance. You really need to look to find the gems.

So far I’ve discovered some of the best pho I’ve ever had. In Chinatown (a theme?), Pho Thu Do is rather epic. At typical pho prices, you get more noodles and meat than I’ve ever experienced, and a carafe of tea. And it’s delicious.

Best cheap pub is hands down Hooley’s. Their specials often include a $5 appy (which will fill you), and a $3.75 pint. I’m a regular on pierogi Thursdays. $10 for a filling dinner and pint? Please!

Also incredible is the boringly named Shawarma Palace. Look at these servings. Look at them!

Shawarma Palace noms.

Kinda pricey at $13 total, but oh so worth it.

Coffee

There’s a derth of indie shops around where I live unfortunately. Bridgehead is a local chain which is nice, but only has one hour wifi. Second Cup wins for the chains, because of it’s infinite wifi, and occasional french vanilla coffee.

The nicest indie shop I’ve found so far is Raw Sugar in Chinatown. They also host music nights, workshops, and various queer/activisty things. I met the owner on my first visit–seemed nice enough. We had a short discussion over why her coffee shop should have wifi.

Fortunately down the street is Umi Cafe, which while not as nice (e.g. does not have chandeliers in the washroom), is still plenty nice, has infinite internets, and Tuesday games nights.

Oh, and everything has the HST. No one in Ontario cares.

WS 0564

I’ve been orienting myself to the city for the past week, thanks to the ol’ census and Google Maps. This city is quite a bit younger than Vancouver, thanks to two universities and a parliament, its density is half that of Vancouver’s, its mean temperature is roughly the same, but its temperature variance is far far greater. The biggest urban difference thus far is that downtown is architecturally abhorrent, and has no residential, meaning it’s a concrete graveyard by 6pm (I suddenly understand Jane Jacobs).

I’ve been learning the regional vocab. For instance, the humidex explains why yesterday was as hot as Kandahar. Thankfully, the Egyptian Method kept me cool in my non-AC’d interim sleeping quarters.

Office Muk Muk

Day one was spent getting a quick car tour with my new boss, then beers with friends. One of these friends has been on the hill for a while, and is an insider with the leader of the opposition office. He mentioned what I’ve just been starting to notice. The hill is like undergrad, without the partying. Parliament is a very young place, filled with summer students, recent graduates, and the idealistic youth. There’s also a strong base of former student association executives around. Who knew.

Day one at work was great. I’m basically a nerd-generalist. I’ll be doing some research, some numbercrunching, some idea-generating (20% independent project time!), some on-the-hill lobbying, some web design, and, of course, some data entry (I am the intern, after all.) I’ve already got two independent projects thought up of–one I got over beers with my boss.

I’m off to venture from my base of operations (nearby AC’d coffee house) to the bedroom sauna. If you want me to comment on anything in particular, drop a line in the comments.

What this data needs, aside from conforming to an open standard, is apps on top of it. One I’d love to see, Rotten Apples, dings at you when you’re in an eatery that… is less than stellar. You would be able to customize how severe things have to be before you get dinged, and the information that pops up. It could also ding at you when you’re making a good choice (though you will be awfully spammed in that case–most places are stellar.)

A simple app which would go a long way in keeping eaters safe, and eateries accountable.

Many of my friends have asked, “what are you aiming for in the coming years?” I could never rummage together an adequate answer. My interests are varied, and I enjoy doing many things. Looking at my library card shows I have out books on food, education, geopolitics, and data visualization. Looking at my RSS reader shows I follow the courts, economics, music, fashion, and design.

I started answering the question with “I want to get into policy and research.” In what realm? “Something tech related,” but that answer was really just a comfortable placeholder. It only describes one of my interests–it misses over half of my headspace.

I was born in the late 80′s. I was raised in the middle of the telecommunications boom. As such, my childhood was spent in a world like my mother’s, and my adulthood is being spent in a very different world. When I was in elementary school, the cellular phone was a gimmick; now government forms have two phone fields (with one, ‘home phone’, being left empty). In elementary school, Doom was between me an the imps; now it’s between folk all across the world.

Living in the chokepoint between generations has irritated me, because the future of the young is being delayed by the olds’ ways. Fortunately though, this lends me the opportunity to bring my mother’s world into the world of my children.

I think I want that job. I want to be a generational translator. I want to translate the systems created by our parents into a language that’s understood by the collective conscience of the next wave.