A couple of years back I wrote a javascript version of a quasi-diagnostic test used to help diagnose Asperger syndrome. I wrote it for a lark: I was working with peeps that were socially awkward (like me), and I wanted to play with javascript. I stuck it on this blog and forgot about it.
Today I noticed a link from Common Sense Atheism pissing on some god-botherer’s ebook. It turns out that my AQ test has been tramping around the intertubes and is now moonlighting in theist/freethinker debates.
The apple falls close to the tree.
US courts have a spread sheet that they use to ensure that sentencing is fair. The prosecutors fill in a few fields and the spread sheet spits out a suggested sentence. But apparently
there are data entry errors in about 10% of cases – simple stuff, like addition errors, or filling in the wrong field. The defense lawyers didn’t catch the mistakes, which resulted in variances of up to months in the final sentence. Oops.
Gawp has impressed on me the value of
curation – that’s the process of normalizing and verifying data so that it can be used elsewhere. Clean, useful data is clearly awesome, but I didn’t realize it would be possible to build a business on it.
AggData apparently has. They scrape publicly available data, normalize it and make it available for a small fee.
I’m amazed that they can
employ five people with a business model based on pure curation. Good for them! Further proof, if any was needed, that we live in the future. (Via
Weather Sealed)
Four hours, dear reader. Four hours. That’s how much
time is devoted to policy discussion at the upcoming
Green Party convention. Doesn’t seem worth the effort of dragging myself 1400(ish) kilometers to Pictou.
I just got a pushy call from a telemarketer telling me that I was getting a “second notice” of my car’s warranty expiring, and that I should re-register it through them. I’ve never owned a car. They refused to tell me where they got my phone number, anything about the car in question, or the company they are working for. It sounds like a scam (and the RCMP thinks so too).
The call was from 1.916.219.8163. It comes about five days after I moved the number to Rogers’ wireless service. I hadn’t received any phone spam in my 2.5 years with Virgin Wireless.
Anyone else gotten these calls?
Have you ever wished, fellow blogger, that you had a way to tell your readers when you comment on somebody else’s blog? I have. Whenever I comment on dubroy.com (for example), I’d like my blog to show that I did that.
I’ve put together the Elsewhere plugin to do that magic. When you comment on a blog with Elsewhere installed, that blog will ping the URL you entered in the ‘Website’ field on the comment form. If that website has Elsewhere installed, a link to your comment will be displayed in your sidebar.
As much as I try to avoid it, I occasionally get sucked into gadget marketing. The latest toy that has caught my eye is the Agora Pro made by Kogan. It’s specs are a laundry list of what I want in a phone:
it runs Android,
it has an FM receiver,
it talks wifi,
and it has a touch screen.
To top it off, the Canadian price after shipping is less than $375.
Now, if it just had a “democratically depose Stephen Harper” button, I’d pre-order one right now.
In 2000 the Conservatives made a deal with the Bloc Quebecois. The Bloc agreed to support the Conservatives, if they could pull together a minority government. Thanks to some deep investigative work by the tireless Pie Palace Parliamentary Bureau, we are able to bring you, dear reader, a copy of that very agreement.
Here’s are the highlights:
We, the leaders of the Canadian Alliance, the Bloc Quebecois and the Progressive Conservative Party, have met and agree that Canadians have delivered a clear message in the election held on November 27, 2000: [...]
Canadians also made it clear by their votes that they desired ___ Members of Parliament from the Canadian Alliance, the Bloc Quebecois, and the Progressive Conservative Party to govern. [...] we will be required to govern by consensus.
And here’s the original document, from our shadowy parking-lot dwelling informant.
Of course, this wouldn’t be such a big deal, if it weren’t for the bruhaha that the Conservatives are tossing up about the deal.
So far I’ve heard John Baird and Pierre Poilievre parroting the same lines about the upcoming non-confidence vote: non-confidence votes are back-room deals; nobody voted for a coalition; the opposition parties just care about the subsidies. And now, thanks to a
leaked set of talking points (scroll down to the bottom of the story), we can the original source.
Just for once I’d like to hear a politician speak and hear something that they had thought of. I’d like to hear them make a coherent and reasoned argument that wasn’t spin.
“Tina do you know what it’s like to be killed for looking like someone else? Yea nor do I but it’s probably a whole lot...” 
“It turns out that the plugin broke with 2.8.1. in July which “tightens security for plugin administration pages.” The...” 
“This plugin is partially broken by the 2.8 update to Wordpress. The settings page no longer works. Attempts to modify result in the...” 
“The question is, should we already be writing new posts about those subquestions and continuing discussion of them in...” 
“As a guest, the best part of the wedding was the giggling bride and groom. 
” 
