Pie Palace

It’s now officially panic time. In order to finish my thesis in time to hit Burning Man, I have roughly 2.5 weeks to (a) write a couple of chapters, (b) write enough code to prove my theories, and (c) evaluate the freshly written code to demonstrate that my that my “proof” is founded on reality.

It seems unlikely that I will be making many more Green Party related posts before the convention. Same goes for MiniPosts.

For anyone who is interested (and likes lines and graphs), here is the unoptimized state machine representing SMTP. Clicking on the highlight will give present you with the huge and yummy SVG file. These things are remarkably useful for debugging.

The Conservative government’s recent decision to reduce the GST by 1% are getting negative reviews from economists. The gist of their argument seems to be that keeping consumption taxes (like the GST) high, and reducing income taxes would do more to stimulate the Canadian economy. It does seem to make sense.

Meanwhile, the GST cut is going to cost the government $5 billion in revenues. $5 billion dollars so that I can save a lousy penny the next time I buy a coffee. The largest purchase I’ve made in the past while was a $260 skateboard (which my Lovely graciously paid off). The savings from the GST cut if I’d waited until July? $2.60. I would much rather pay the extra 1% on all of my purchases if I knew that the cash was going to a good cause, like healthcare, education, or any of those other useful things that the government is supposed to do.

I’ve always loathed Popular Science. Every time I’ve opened the magazine, I’ve been impressed by its blind faith in technology. The latest feature on “The Future of Energy” is (almost) enough to make me reconsider.

The special, funded by Toyota, lists ten ways to “end America’s fossil fuel addition”. The methods are the usual suspects of hydrogen, solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass; with a delicate sprinkling of conservation and decentralization tossed into the mix. In my mind, the greatest opportunities for lessening our reliance on fossil fuels don’t come from alternative fuel sources, but from conservation. There are plenty of opportunities for lessening the amount of energy we use through efficiency, and better design choices. Similarly, be designing our cities better, changing existing zoning laws, and improving public transit, we can lessen our reliance on single-occupancy vehicles.¹

The Popular Science piece has the usual slack-jawed amazement at the power of new technology. Where I’m impressed with their coverage is in their predictions for 2025. Through the use of “negawatts” (their word for conservation), they say that the US can lessen its energy demand by 36% (of projected use).

1. The Green in me says that we can do this without incurring too much cost on society, by changing what we tax. But I don’t want to keep referring to the Green Party, so I’ll save that rant for another post (back)

Matthew Baldwin and umm, Goopymart have created a cute comic strip about file sharing and DRM.

I’ve released a bugfix of MiniPosts2. Download it from the MiniPosts page.

There are so many reasons to envy California: San Francisco, great surfing, great skiing, and amazingly progressive laws. The Californian legislature recently passed a law forcing electronics manufacturers to put a label on all of their products showing how much power the device consumes when on standby.

This coming from the state that created the de facto standard for organic food in 1973. The same state that has some of the tightest car emissions laws on the continent.

I’d forgotten how annoying spam could be. My personal email address isn’t posted anywhere, and spam filters keep the worst of it off my back. But I’ve recently been inundated with wave after wave of spam in PiePalace’s comments. Which is quite annoying.

The standard solution to this is to employ a CAPTCHA (which stands for “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart”). A CAPTCHA encodes some text that is fairly easy for a human to extract, but difficult for a computer to get out. When a website wants to verify that it’s dealing with a human, instead of a computer, it displays a CAPTCHA. A human can extract the text, but a computer can’t. Meaning that the automated comment posting engines that spammers use can’t post unwanted comments.

I’ve opted to use a slightly lower tech solution, annoyingly named Did you pass math? It asks a simple addition question before allowing users to post a comment. Similar to a CAPTCHA, spambots aren’t smart enough (yet) to figure out the answer, freeing me from loads of spammy goodness.

If you have any problems posting comments, please use the contact form to let me know.

There is another “unofficial” leadership debate for the Green Party leadership, coming up on Saturday, June 24. Sadly, only Elizabeth May and Jim Fannon will be present. No Mr. Chernushenko.

Date: Saturday, June 24th
Location: 252 Bloor Street West OISE Auditorium
Time: 7:00pm
Event: Green Party of Canada Leadership Debate

This debate is open to the public and media.

Please send your questions promptly, by e-mail only please, to Cam Miller at miller dot cameron at rogers dot com. He will pass them on to Gord Miller, who will make the final selection of the questions he will ask.

I’ve seen a few links stating that the Green Party old guard¹ supports one candidate or another in the leadership race. As someone who lives a dozen blocks away from the central office, and periodically drops in to volunteer, I have to say that every employee that I’ve spoken to has made a point of not supporting any of the three candidates.

Of course, I can’t find the links to the allegations of tacit support. But I did email the current leader², Jim Harris, to ask him who he is supporting. My original question:

Hi Jim,

I’ve seen a few postings on the Internet saying that you support David Chernushenko’s bid for leadership, and that you are not supporting Elizabeth May. Is that the case?

I’m asking because I thought that you weren’t going to endorse any one candidate, and I’d like to get the truth from the source.

If you don’t mind, I’m going to post your response to my blog: it’s at http://www.piepalace.ca/blog.

thanks,
e

In his usual style, Mr. Harris responded:

Dear e

Thanks for your email — and thanks for asking.

The Internet may be the primary breeding ground for rumours… (just a theory.)

David and Elizabeth are both EXCEPTIONAL candidates — and I am supporting both:

• Financially I’ve donated equally to both campaigns – and was one of the first donors to both campaigns;

• I’ve offered to answer any questions either candidate ask of me and provide advice as requested;

What more can I say? I think both Elizabeth and David are FANTASTIC!

Jim

Of course, if you see the shadowy hand of conspiracy behind every action, this only proves that the Illuminati are setting the world agenda…

1. In my experience, the Green Party doesn’t have much of a old guard. There isn’t really an old boys club (other than a self-selecting group of the volunteers who have enough time to do the work), nor is there a shadowy group of people calling the shots. Unless, dear reader, they are so shadowy that they are undetectable to the naked eye. (back)
2. He is reachable at: leader at greenparty period ca. Not exactly a hard man to find. (back)

The upcoming Green Party AGM isn’t just about the leadership race, it’s also about resolutions that will change how the Party works. The local CMM riding has put together a few resolutions.