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Argentina introduces Huayra Linux

19/09/2013 Steve WoodsLanguage, Linux, Politics, Tech

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.
France’s Elysée Palace makes modest contribution to open data

18/09/2013 Steve WoodsOpen Data, Politics, Social Media, Tech

Le Monde Informatique reports that the website of the Elysée Palace, the official residence of the French president is taking a step towards open data. In a tweet on 16th September, it announced it was opening up its data in a new open data section of its website.

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.
LibreOffice improves support for OOXML

18/09/2013 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Tech

According to Heise, Suse and Lanedo have completed a project to improve the interoperability of the free and open source LibreOffice productivity suite with OOXML, the format used by Microsoft Office files. The requirements were jointly defined by several bodies, including Munich City Council, the Swiss Federal Court and the French Ministry of Culture and Communication and the project received total funding of €160,000.

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.
Switzerland launches open data portal

17/09/2013 Steve WoodsOpen Data, Politics, Tech

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.
Language row over new Belgian national stadium

16/09/2013 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

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 now better

15/09/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Social Media, Tech

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
Made redundant? No, I was ‘catalyzed’

13/09/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics, Social Media

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.
Bristol Post Balls – the featured image

13/09/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Oddities

As any journalist knows, an appropriate picture can add interest to what would otherwise be a dull story. However, what a quay full of cars has to do with a report on school expansion in Portishead, only the Bristol Post knows.

Evidently, the above image is so good, the Post decided to use it a second time for a completely unrelated report into Frenchay Hospital.

Both screenshots were taken from the Bristol Post website at about 7.00 a.m. on Friday. However, the ‘featured image’ might have changed by the time you read the articles. 🙂
Orca screen reader improves Braille functions

10/09/2013 Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

Orca, the screen reader for the GNOME desktop used on Linux machines, is now at the Beta 2 stage for its forthcoming 3.10 release. According to Softpedia, the 3.10 Beta 2 release fixes the broken text attribute presentation for Gecko, the new sliders are now present in GNOME Shell, partially-implemented value interfaces with range of 0 to 1 are now handled and a workaround has been added for Delete and Backspace text changed events.

Moreover, Braille functions are now performed only when Braille is enabled and object:active-descendant-changed has been added to events that may be part of an “event flood”.

Finally the Polish and Slovenian translations have been updated in Orca 3.10 Beta 2.

See the fairly basic change log for all changes since the last release.
Felix Road petition collects 3,500 signatures

10/09/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

I’ve received an email from my local councillor Margaret Hickman informing me that the petition to save Felix Road Adventure Playground from closure (posts passim) collected 3,500 signatures.

This means its future will now have to be debated in full council by Bristol City Council.

Well done to all who signed!

Update 13/09/13: The final total number of signatures for the petition was 3,660, as reported by Bristol 24/7.

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