Happy Holidays and best wishes.
If you can please make a donation for those suffering in Sudan and for the tsunami victims either through the ICRC or UNHCR
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Month: December 2004
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The Rough Guide to a Better World
I'd heard about this extraordinary little book in passing but it wasn't until I picked up a free copy in Brighton's main Post Office that I realised quite how good it was. It's packed with uplifting stories and no-nonsense explanations to globalisation, development and changing to world.
You can download, read or order the book online.
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Links 16-12-2004
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MP Richard Allan's blog continues to be a pleasure to read. He's spot on with his recent post on how we want it both ways with politicians – seriousness and 'real' personalities
http://www.richardallan.org.uk/index.php?p=287 -
Over at Swing Digital we've just completed two Christmas games for clients. Try Snowballing with builders for COINS or complete the great Inhuman Resources for Courtenay HR.
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I've finally found a fairly good summary of how the Indian electronic voting system was run.
http://techaos.blogspot.com/2004/05/indian-evm-compared-with-diebold.html -
The Irish Commission on Electronic Voting have released their first report
http://www.cev.ie/htm/report/download_first.htm -
Good overview of the Lenovo's purchase of IBM's PC business
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1106.cfm -
Bizarre political strategy of the week goes once again to the Tories who have decided not to oppose the ID cards bill on the grounds that they don't want to send mixed messages on law and order. They don't half make it easy for the LibDems to keep claiming they're the true opposition. Letting through the government's most controversial bill since Labour came to office is just extraordinary.
KableNET
That's basically what the Government has said in it's very very long awaited responses to the Electoral Commission's hard work.
Kable have a good summary of the situation with some extra quotes. I would love to dissect the Government's reports and report on the Kreminology of the whole affair but I'm moving at the moment and really can't spare the time. Ikea wardrobes don't build themselves you know!
The Times has a good article on the Government's obsession with boosting turnout hence their continuously trying to force postal ballots. As many of the people they quoted comment, it's a bit odd to undermine confidence in the electoral process in favour of a few extra percentage points of turnout.
Louise Ferguson has links to a Radio 4 piece on all-postal voting which I haven't had a chance to listen to but I'm sure must be good if Louise recommends it.
PublicTechnoloy has an article on the reports which leads on the need for a centralised electoral register. This project was once called LASER but now is known as CORE, if it ever happens then it will be another national ID database of sorts. Oh joy. The key point is that while e-voting is on hold CORE could re-awaken e-voting pilots once completed. Oh more joy.
The two government reponses are on the Department for Constitutional Affairs' website here and here
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UK Parliamentary inquiry on e-voting
A bit unexpected but good news I think… there will be a Parliamentary inquiry into e-voting early next year. It will be run by the House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee with a sub-committee of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Hopefully it will be an open and frank exploration of the issues. Submissions can be made until 14th January 2005 to odpmcom@parliament.uk
Reports: Industry Standard and TechWorld
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Transport that just works
I've just hopped off a tram in East Croydon and now I'm on a slam door train which is crawling towards London. The tram was cheap, quick, clean and reliable. The train is none of those. I'm going to be late to a Voxpolitics do at Westninster grrrr. Bring on the trams!
Bonus thought In Lublin, Poland they have electric buses powered by tethers just like trams are. They look odd but there's no need to lay track. Why do we need track for trams? Isn't road enough?
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That syncing feeling
Last week I managed to finally get me a Blackberry. They're much harder to get hold of then one might think… Anyway eBay came through for me and I settled down to learn the ins and outs of this extraordinary device. The interface is not of iPod simplicity but it is very good when put next to my last experiences of Palm and Symbian interfaces. There really is no good need for a touchscreen in simple PIM applications.
Unfortunately Research in Motion (creators of all things Blackberry) do not support the Mac. So I had to buy some 3rd party software, PocketMac to get synchronisation working. It works great but it felt like going back 10 years when I realised I had to use a docking station and a Windows PC to update any software on the device. Why is syncing still such a fragmented higgledy-piggledy affair? I thought SyncML would sort this mess out but no, we still need to use the software equivalents of duct tape and string to get data in and out of these devices. We should should demand much more from the suppliers.
The European Commission has an incredible service called IDA (Interchange of Data between Administrations) which rounds up all sorts of great e-government news from across the EU. You can receive very detailed weekly emails on e-goverment and also Open Source in government.
Highly recommended.
Jason Kitcat 