I’ve been drafting a post about open source software being used in big ways, in an effort to dispell the idea that utilizing open source is a security risk.  The PM’s site is a big addition to the list, and should show the detractors that if the PM’s office thinks WordPress is secure, you should too.

If you really want some laughs, compare his old picture to his post arrest picture.

This is rather incredible. To run down the article, the Canadian city of Nanaimo has released lots of information that can be used in Google Earth. This informations includes an RSS feed (see an introduction to RSS feeds here) of Nanaimo Fire and Rescue responses, a Google Map applet to show the response RSS feed on a map, and lots of planning data. Here is more information on the planning data:

The city’s planning department has, over the past five years, steadily fed Google a wealth of information about its buildings, property lines, utilities and streets. The result is earth.nanaimo.ca, a clearing house of city data viewed through the robust and freely available Google Earth 3D mapping program. The site sorts and maps every business, from restaurants to car dealers, while a click of the mouse brings up the lot size for every property in the city, including the building permit number and zoning history. Homeowners can use the facility to find out specific information about their garbage collection schedule, while the city’s 150-year-old downtown core is rendered in 3D and dotted with 360-degree panoramas.

This planning data can be found here in files that are meant to be imported into Google Earth.

The RSS feed of incident responses, updated 24/7, might be the neatest of these. Citizens can get data on traffic accidents and other emergencies, and even see the time of callout, location, description, and equipment dispatched (including firetrucks, EMS units, and even officers).

In fact, here is a Google Map of the current data about fire and rescue callouts (this updates continuously, so you are always watching the locations of fire trucks and EMS units in Nanaimo):

The city of Nanaimo is betting that by making this data more available that they can encourage business growth, increased development, and more tourism.

Warning: rant follows.

This is so interesting and incredible. Governments often refuse to open their data (data that is most likely an open record anyway) to public purview, use proprietary formats that are expensive to gain access to, and sometimes only allow viewing of the data through crappy websites that are hard to use and poorly designed, like Gwinnett County’s GIS data browser. You’d think that instead of wasting money on their own departments that design ugly and inaccessible web applications, they would allow open access to their data and use well established, open (often), and FREE software.

Sometime after 7 p.m. and before 5 a.m. on Wednesday evening, February 13, 2008, C.W. Matthews Contractors will begin re-striping the travel lanes on U.S. 78 so that beginning Thursday morning, Valentine’s Day, Section 1 will have three permanent lanes inbound to Atlanta and two permanent lanes outbound to Snellville. The striping will also include a center turn lane the length of Section 1. Once the paint drys, the overhead lights will be no more.

For some of my previous coverage of Highway 78 and the improvements, look here and here.

This is quite a momentous occasion for the Snellville area residents, and especially for the Evermore Community Improvement District. The reversible lane system is a hazard for everyone. A close friend of mine, his mother died in an accident on Highway 78. The current mayor of the City of Snellville, Jerry Oberholtzer, suffered a broken sternum and a bruised heart in a collision on Highway 78.

Let’s all hope that this construction is finished quickly, and remember to keep supporting the businesses along US 78.

The video is an hour long. I listened to the lecture while working on a paper for class. I really like Lessig’s Powerpoint slide techniques, along with his logic and outcomes.

The video of Lessig’s first lecture on corruption follows after the jump.