Thursday saw the launch of the latest Apple iPhone models – the 5C and 5S – when scores of people with more money than sense queued overnight to make an elitist US technology company even richer.
Naturally the Bristol Post covered it in Friday’s edition as there’s an Apple shop in Bristol’s monument to Mammon otherwise known as Cabot Circus.
Part of the Post’s coverage consisted of a photo gallery, which featured as follows in its news section.
How does one spell queue? Certainly not how the Post has done.
This crime against orthography is also perpetuated on the gallery page itself.
The French Prime Minister has just distributed a circular promoting the opening up of public data, according to Le Monde Informatique. This was accompanied by a practical guide to assist public sector organisations in joining in this move.
The “Vade-mecum sur l’ouverture et le partage des données publiques” (= Handbook on opening up and sharing public data) was published on 17th September 2013 by the Prime Minister’s office. Originating from the CIMAP (inter-ministerial committee for public [sector] activity modernisation) meeting of 2nd April 2013, the handbook has the aim of encouraging the public sector to open up their data fully by encouraging it to do so. At just 11 pages, the document is very short. It is also based on a provision in the ethical charter signed by each minister of the present French government upon entering office and which makes provision for opening up the data of each ministry as fully as possible.
It also gives a reminder that open data should be referred to on the data.gouv.fr portal. This portal currently hosts 350,000 files according to the Prime Minister’s office.
After having given a reminder of the issues and objective of opening up public data, the handbook sets out the legal forms for so doing, along with the methods and good practice. It concludes by setting out possible examples of the re-use of open public data.
Linus Torvalds ponders answering another awkward questionAt this year’s LinuxCon held in New Orleans, Linus Torvalds and fellow kernel developers were asked whether they’d been approached by US security services to put a backdoor in Linux, thus compromising the operating system’s security, The Register reports.
Linus responded to the question by saying no whilst at the same time nodding his head, thus indicating that he had been approached. He then resumed by completely denying any approach had been made. This was followed by another developer saying that such things couldn’t be discussed. Linus’ reaction is reminiscent of the reserve Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, on the NSA‘s Prism programme because any mention of it could be “treason”.
Rumours of backdoors and other forms of hidden access routes in operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and security protection products have been in circulation for years. These rumours have been given a fresh lease of life following the recent revelations by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Linus’ and the other developers answers have not exactly cleared the air as to whether Linux is as secure an operating system as its users are likely to believe. As The Register article points out:
Worried netizens have become far more paranoid about the possibility of backdoors in the technology they use and this paranoia extends to both closed-source and open-source software.
However, it is pointed out by The Register that security service agents who are rebuffed by developers then tend to leave them alone.
Finally, there’s one point to consider: in open source anyone with the requisite skill is free to examine the code, modify and adapt it. On that principle, wouldn’t it therefore be more difficult to hide vulnerabilities and backdoors in open source products than closed, proprietary software?
The Argentine state has developed its own Linux distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux, Germany’s Heise reports. Huayra Linux (the word huayra is from Quechua and means wind) is part of the Conectar Igualdad programme, which is aimed at closing the digital divide in Argentina by equipping schools better. Three million netbooks were handed out to pupils and teachers under this programme between 2010 and 2012. Huayra Linux is an important building block for achieving this programme’s goals since it frees users from reliance on proprietary software suppliers, such as Microsoft.
At present this open data section consists essentially of the diary of President François Hollande which has been appearing since last December at the top of the site’s home page in the form of a timeline. The data in this timeline are offered in two formats: XML and JSON.
The Elysée is also releasing the origin of visits made to its website during the previous week in JSON format. Some 41% of its visitors originate from Google, 30% reach the site directly, 8% are referred by Twitter and 4% by the Elysée’s Facebook page. There are also daily statistics for the site’s servers (energy consumption, load) and visits displayed in graphical form: number of visitors, number of pages viewed per hour and the source of visits.
Since the announcement of the the French government’s open data portal data.gouv.fr in February 2011, several public sector organisations, publicly-owned companies (e.g. SNCF and RATP) and local and regional authorities have opened up some of their data.
The improvements have been incorporated into LibreOffice versions 3.6, 4.0 and 4.1. The code is licensed under the LGPL and MPL 1.1 3, but may also be used under the Apache 2 licence, so it can also be incorporated into Apache OpenOffice.
The Swiss Federal Government launched its open data portal opendata.admin.ch comprising over 1,600 public data sets, including election results, key figures for cantons and local authorities, as well as demographic information and data at the start of the Open Knowledge Conference 2013 in Geneva, the German technology news site Heise reports. The portal will provide a central point of access for the open data portfolio in Switzerland. The website already features the first applications based on the data made available.
Open Data currently ranks fairly high up the Swiss political agenda: last week the National Council called for a master plan for open government from the Swiss Federal Council. The Swiss Federal Council in turn announced the development of a national open data strategy by 2014, which, amongst other things, should clear the way for the repeal of restrictive usage rights, as well as the abolition of fees on public data.
A dispute has broken out in Belgium over the language to be used in the new national stadium just one day after agreement was finally reached to build it, Reuters reported at the end of last week.
The planned 60,000 capacity stadium will be the centrepiece of Brussels’ bid to host matches during the 2020 European football championships and replace the current 45,000 seat King Baudouin Stadium (formerly known as the Heysel Stadium).
The venues are only about 1 kilometre apart, but while the King Baudouin Stadium is in Brussels (which is officially bilingual but largely French-speaking), its planned successor is in the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders.
Flemish politicians are indignant of Brussels extending its francophone to Flanders. Flemish Sports Minister Philippe Muyters has stated that language rules must be respected.
“One of the underlying elements should be an agreement on the use of Dutch there,” said Muyters on a television programme last Wednesday.
Language is a frequent source of controversy in Belgium. The 6.23 mn. Flemish majority fiercely protects its Dutch language and culture and is constantly alert to encroachments by French speakers, who comprise some 3.32 mn. of the Belgian population.
Know Your Place, Bristol City Council‘s historical mapping service that allows you to explore the city through historic maps, images and linked information, has been featured before on this blog before (posts passim).
Earlier today Pete Insole, archaeologist for Bristol City Council, announced via Twitter that Know Your Place has now been augmented by the addition to the Hartley Collection layer of original architects’ drawings for the reconstruction of Bristol after World War 2.
Bristol was the fifth most heavily bombed British city of World War 2. The presence of the city docks and the Bristol Aeroplane Company made it a target for bombing by the Luftwaffe whose pilots were able to trace a course up the River Avon from Avonmouth into the heart of the city using reflected moonlight on the waters.
A screenshot featuring the new one of the new additions – one of the drawings for what ultimately became Broadmead shopping centre – is shown below.
Now improved – Know Your Place. Click on the image for the full version
For decades, managers have been trying to come up with anodyne terms for dismissing people and making them redundant.
Some of the more common ones are: give someone their notice, get rid of, discharge, terminate; lay off; sack, give someone the sack, fire, boot out, give someone the boot, give someone their marching orders, show someone the door, can, pink-slip; cashier.
Following this trend, bosses at Bristol City Council have now come up with another, ‘to catalyze’, as evidenced by a mole down the Counts Louse (since renamed ‘City Hall’ by Mayor Red Trousers (posts passim). Ed.) who tweeted the following yesterday.
I’m sure all employees of the council are reassured that the management has their best interests at heart by not wanting to hurt their feelings as they’re unceremoniously handed their P45s and shown the door.
The French Prime Minister has just distributed a circular promoting the opening up of public data, 
The Swiss Federal Government launched its open data portal 
