Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Track where US gov bailout trillions went with augmented reality mobile app

A new augmented reality app from Layar allows Android and iPhone 3GS users to view recovery.gov contract dollars at play work in the real world.

Image above: an example of what those happy blue bailout bubbles look like, bouncing about on the thoroughly bailed-out streets of Washington, DC. My only criticism so far (I haven’t tried the apps): instead of blue circles as representational icons, the designers really should have chosen taxpayers’ tears. Snip:

Layar is an application that overlays your view of the real world with waypoints representing your favorite coffee place, the movie theatre you’re trying to find, or in this case, where some of that $787 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is going. If you have an iPhone 3GS or Android device you can install the Layar app for free and then search for “recovery” or “sunlight” within Layar to find this layer. The layer works best near large cities where you are most likely to find recovery contracts.

Recovery.gov Augmented Reality Mashup [Sunlight Labs, via Micah Sifry]

Layar Reality Browser [Layar]

Chess variant from 1934 that pitted agitators against engineers

The March, 1934 issue of Modern Mechanix introduced this remarkable Depression-era chess-variant that pitted “agitators” against “engineers.” Love how the entire historical zeitgeist appears to have been captured in 16 chessmen.

MODERN as tomorrow morning’s headlines, a newly simplified form of the game of chess has for its game board the Modern World, and for its pieces Farmers, Mechanics, Engineers and even Agitators struggling against forces symbolized by opposing Armies, Bankers, Radio, Press, Law and Middlemen trying to become Rankers.

The play, which is solely a matter of skill, centers around opposing forces trying to dominate one neutral piece called Government while either the red or white side, as the antagonists are named, is in power.

The game may be played by either two, three, or four persons and is substantially like chess. But gone are the Pawns, the Knights, and the Kings and Queens,

Agitators, Engineers Are Chessmen (Mar, 1934)

Voting machine source-code leak shows election-rigging subroutines?

Sequouia, a company that makes many of the electronic voting machines used in the US and elsewhere, has inadvertently leaked much of the secret source-code that powers its systems. The first cut at analysis shows what looks like illegal election-rigging code (”code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election”) in the source.

Sequoia blew it on a public records response. We (basically EDA) have election databases from Riverside County that Sequoia insisted on “redacting” first, for which we paid cold cash. They appear instead to have just vandalized the data as valid databases by stripping the MS-SQL header data off, assuming that would stop us cold.

They were wrong.

The Linux “strings” command was able to peel it apart. Nedit was able to digest 800meg text files. What was revealed was thousands of lines of MS-SQL source code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election, in violation of a bunch of clauses in the FEC voting system rulebook banning interpreted code, machine modified code and mandating hash checks of voting system code.

I’ve got it all organized for commentary and download in wiki form.

This is the first time we can legally study a voting system’s innards without NDAs or court-ordered secrecy.

Sequoia Voting Systems hacks self in foot

(via MeFi)

Access Copyright tells Canadian gov’t: no home TV recording, no ripping music, no moving old ebooks to new readers

Access Copyright, the Canadian organisation that collects library royalties for writers, filed a jaw-droppingly dumb set of comments in the Canadian Copyright consultation. Access Copyright came out as opposing the right to record TV shows at home, and the right to “format shift” your media (e.g., load a CD on your MP3 player, or put an old ebook on a new reader or phone). They also say that almost all commercial use, no matter how trivial, should require a license and not fall under fair dealing. They come out against the interlibrary loan system, because it is digital.

Man, if these yahoos set out to destroy the public’s faith in copyright, they could not do a better job than they’re doing now. Yeesh.

The so-called format and time shifting exceptions, also known as personal use exceptions, were apparently included in Bill C-61 to address a practice that has become common among the public. Access Copyright submits that good public policy should not be dictated by legalizing common public practices.

It is worth mentioning here that Article 5(2)(b) of the EU Directive 2001/29/EC allows member states to introduce exceptions and limitations to the reproduction right for private use (which includes format and time shifting) “on the condition that rightsholders receive fair compensation”. The requirement for fair compensation is to ensure that the private use exception complies with the three-step test.

Access Copyright believes that copyright owners should be given the opportunity to address these “common practices” through market-based solutions. We caution against the assumption that uses made by individuals for their personal use are inconsequential on the existing or potential market for a work. Format shifting for example is relatively new to printed works. Copyright owners should be given time to develop and test new services and business models for the delivery of content in the digital environment. The introduction of a format shifting exception for books could undermine the development of emerging business models. At the very least, the government should ensure that any restriction of the copyright owner’s reproduction right be accompanied by fair compensation.

Access Copyright: Reduce Fair Dealing, No Taping TV Shows or Format Shifting