Blog Archives
Ridings overlay using PostGIS, Mapnik, and Mapstraction
July 4th, 2010
Last month I finally got around to adding a ridings overlay to the "Find your MP" tool for How'd They Vote. Here is an overview and source code for the tiles generated.
eBay Developers Conference 2008
June 20th, 2008
Last week I was off in Chicago to take in the eBay Developers Conference and a few hours of eBay Live! (and a wee bit of YAPC too).
2007 FOSS4G Conference
September 29th, 2007
This week I took a few days off to partake in the 2007 Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial Conference (FOSS4G2007) conference. Being a very mobile conference, I was quite fortunate to have it here in Victoria -- I simply couldn't pass it up (last year in Switzerland, next year in South Africa). Given that this is a hobby at the moment, I chose to volunteer; in retrospect, I regret this decision as I missed a number of presentations -- on the bright side, I did sit through some presentations which I would not have otherwise attended.
Victoria Rodent Data
July 29th, 2007
As a fun side project, i've been tinkering with the VIHA health inspections data for Victoria.
New Job!
July 18th, 2007
Yesterday was my last day at Refractions. I had some enjoyable projects and some not-so-enjoyable projects there, but it was a valuable use of the last two years.
Kusam Klimb 2007
June 24th, 2007
Another magnificent race in Sayward: mountains, gatorade, and snowflakes.
How _did_ they vote?
October 22nd, 2006
Progress on HTV is slow, but eventual.
Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit
October 16th, 2006
This weekend was an exciting one: myself and Paul Ramsey booted it down to Google HQ for the GSoC Mentor Summit.
Royal Victoria Marathon 2006
October 8th, 2006
Marathon #2: RVM '06
Atlanta
July 29th, 2006
This afternoon I returned from a week of QA testing in Atlanta.
Gutbuster Half
July 16th, 2006
It was a warm day today at Westwood Lake. 21k of Gutbuster goodness was a welcome exertion, followed by a couple dips in the lake, intermittent gorgings, and snoozing.
Mt. Cokely/Arrowsmith
July 9th, 2006
Yesterday I embarked on a 9-hour hike up Mount Cokely, and approaching Mount Arrowsmith.
Kusam Klimb
June 18th, 2006
Today more than one muscle is sore -- quite a few of them, in fact, as yesterday was the Kusam Klimb, in the village of Sayward, BC.
Hard work pays off
June 4th, 2006
Yesterday I was quite pleased with my Mt. Doug Gutbuster performance, accomplishing both of my goals.
Double double
May 30th, 2006
Training continues for the Mount Doug Gutbuster!
Missing the Mark
May 7th, 2006
Oceanside 10k today; goal: 40:00, actual: 41:03... sigh.
A day for running
April 30th, 2006
I awoke at 4:30 this morning to help out with the TC10k, and then capped off the day with a nice long jog.
Civic Access
April 26th, 2006
An exciting new group was launched today, of which I am a "founding" member. I encourage you to check it out!
Gutbusted!
April 15th, 2006
Gutbuster #2 today at Mt. Tzouhalem.
Fun with swatch
April 14th, 2006
The drones continually attack; i've finally got around to securing my server.
Catching up
April 7th, 2006
The 39th parliament is well-underway!
Bazan 5k
March 13th, 2006
Yesterday I ran a short race in Sidney, along with 908 others.
Prep for the 39th
March 2nd, 2006
With the new parliament on the horizon, there's lots of work to be done on HTV.
Island Series 2006
February 15th, 2006
The 2006 Island Race series is well underway.
Federal Electoral Risk 2006
January 23rd, 2006
It's election night in Canada, what is one to do? play Risk with federal electoral boundaries, of course!
Hiking around Cowichan
January 22nd, 2006
It's sunday and once again, I was out romping around in the trees.
East Sooke
January 15th, 2006
Got out for a brief hike to East Sooke Park along the ocean today; got some sun too.
Backpacking the Kludahk (or "How to Stop Bushwacking and hike the Juan de Fuca Trail")
January 8th, 2006
A nice group of 6 headed off for the Kludahk Trail this weekend -- we almost found it too!
Five Obstructions?
January 2nd, 2006
I sat down with a friend tonight and watched a documentary by the name of "The Five Obstructions".
Political Fromage
January 1st, 2006
Like most westerners, I'm ignorant of the plights of Quebec.
CBC != Ads
December 30th, 2005
Having sent Gentoo Linux down the road kicking stones and playing with my fresh Ubuntu install, to my horror I discovered there were ads on the CBC website!
Snowmobiling in Kamloops
December 27th, 2005
Snuck out to Leitchen Mountain today.
Forevertron
November 30th, 2005
Due to an unpredictable chain of events, I ended up at "Mana: Beyond Belief".
Gunner Shaw 10K
November 26th, 2005
Lomas Lake
November 19th, 2005
I certainly wasn't expecting a cloudless sky in November; what a gorgeous hike!
The Dungeon
November 18th, 2005
Well, catching up... I survived infoman.
Hiking in the rain, an HTV update, and Infoman
November 6th, 2005
Another busy week + end! We've been aiming to get the french interface online for How'd They Vote by early November; today the site got updated with the new code.
"The Take"
October 17th, 2005
Tonight I wandered down the street to take in the "Monday Movie", a weekly by-donation movie, with a friend. The theatre is adjoined to the mental hospital, so there was an interesting mix of activist-types, homeless, and complete nutters.
Saltspring
October 16th, 2005
PKD
October 9th, 2005
Caught another cool documentary today...
The boys are back in town
September 29th, 2005
Parliament is back in session, and i'm woefully unprepared.
Radio 3 made easier
September 20th, 2005
Yesterday I threw together a quick shell script to make listening to those CBC Radio 3 podcasts that much better.
The potholes, a fire, and a moonlight hike
September 18th, 2005
Today was jam-packed.
Ferry rides, Guinness, and Gipsy Curses
September 16th, 2005
Mt. Wells
August 28th, 2005
Another day of hiking.
Arrowsmith
August 21st, 2005
I finally had an opportunity to climb Mount Arrowsmith yesterday.
Kayaking the Gorge
August 14th, 2005
Got out for a quick (3-hour) trip through the Victoria Harbour.
Getting started
August 12th, 2005
It's been a wild week. Taking three 8-hour trips to/from the interior within a few days, finding a place to live, and starting work...
Gainfully employed
August 5th, 2005
It's official: i'm now the newest employee of Refractions Research in Victoria.
Camping in the Kootenays
August 2nd, 2005
I had a great trip to the Kootenays this long weekend; my parents and I met up with my sister and her boyfriend at Radium Hot Springs. We stayed overnight in a shoddy campsite, and ventured onwards to Whiteswan Lake Provincial Park.
Hackers suck
July 24th, 2005
The UVic Outdoors Club website got hacked the other day. Fortunately they seemed to be more interested in using the server for spamming than in corrupting or stealing any data.
Absence makes the compile take longer
July 23rd, 2005
It's upgrade time! My desktop has been patiently awaiting a kernel upgrade from 2.6.11-r8 to 2.6.12-r6, among other things.
Potentially Employed
July 21st, 2005
I'm jumping the gun here, but it appears i'm going down to Victoria in the next week or so to meet with an interested employer.
North Island Humour
July 20th, 2005
As a little distraction today, i'll point out the "shoe tree".
Google hates me
July 19th, 2005
Yahoo, Altavista, MSN, Teoma, and Lycos are working normally, but Google seems to think i'm up to something "evil".
After the storm
July 18th, 2005
It's been a busy 2 weeks! Time to reflect and look at the numbers.
Vindicating Betty
July 9th, 2005
My MP, Betty Hinton, got quite a bit of criticism from the media, from what I thought was a decent record.
Grandma on "Politics in the family"
July 7th, 2005
Given all the recent excitement, my grandmother Audrey pointed out where my interest in politics may be from.
Enter the Press
July 5th, 2005
Word is getting out about "How'd They Vote". Today I had my second interview with the press.
Parallels in Hansard
July 4th, 2005
Here's a few notes regarding some sites similar to HTV.
MIT Weblog Survey
July 4th, 2005
I did a survey today; here's some search engine fodder...
The Hunt Continues...
June 30th, 2005
My search for a job: sent another app to PML... will they finally respond?
Which Canadian Supreme Court Justice are you?
June 23rd, 2005
16 months old, but still pretty cool (to me, anyways).
WTO Subversion: Yes!
June 22nd, 2005
I saw "The Yes Men" tonight... a cool documentary mocking the WTO.
Down with that sort of thing
June 21st, 2005
I really want people to use "How'd they vote", but masquerading as it is unacceptable. The right-wing marriage seggregationists are out of control... time to even the score.
Death to bad robots
June 4th, 2005
I've hacked together a functional, yet somewhat lacking webbot blocker. I intend to GPL it when it's presentable, but nonetheless BotScan v0.1 is available upon request.
Mahood Lake
May 23rd, 2005
I spent Wednesday and Thursday out with my parents at a friends' cabin. A charming trip.
Say it ain't so, Paul
May 21st, 2005
Look kids: government-funded propaganda!
How'd They Vote?
May 20th, 2005
It's finally up. My Canadian politics feature which i've been tinkering with for the last few months (at my leisure) is now in a presentable fashion, and has been published; see the voting history of your MP.
FC2 + PHP 5.0 + MySQL 4.1 --> FC3 (FC4)
April 22nd, 2005
I spent a few hours upgrading my server from Fedora Core 2 to 3 "today"; it would have been simple, had I not already upgraded from the obsolete versions of PHP and MySQL.
Audioscrobbler Rules...
April 6th, 2005
I came across a great site yesterday. They were having growing pains previously, but it seems this is a great way to find new bands.
Something ate my NTFS partition
March 30th, 2005
(or "how I learned to stop panicking and retrieve my files using SalvageNTFS")
Back in the Bischoffs
March 25th, 2005
Another gorgeous trip in the "Bischoffs" area.
Blue Lake
March 20th, 2005
Was snowmobiling again today... in the rain, snow, and clouds.
Spyware: Fun for Everyone
March 16th, 2005
Some notes on removing m00.exe and CoolWebSearch.
Snowmobiling in the Bischoffs
March 13th, 2005
Was out exploring the north-east of Adams Lake this weekend.
Getting Shell Access With Barren Hosting Providers
February 22th, 2005
Many hosting providers don't allow SSH access due to some religious belief, which usually equates to laziness; here's a workaround.
Gentoo Dual Monitor Support with 9600XT and X.Org
February 20th, 2005
After several hours of meddling with ATI's proprietary linux driver, fglrx, I found its feature set did not meet my needs. Now i've got 2 sets of xorg.conf: one for 3D and one for dual-monitors.
FC2 + PHP 4.3 + MySQL 3.23 --> PHP 5.0 + MySQL 4.1
February 11th, 2005
I spent a few hours upgrading my server to MySQL 4.1 today, in order to obtain advanced character set support.
Ski-doo 670 Submarine Edition
February 6th, 2005
Dad and I went to help a friend get his sled out of the river today...
ImageMagick Convert
February 4th, 2005
How to resize and compress multiple JPEG files simultaneously using ImageMagick
cvs [add aborted]: there is no version here; do 'cvs checkout' first
February 3rd, 2005
Learning CVS can be painful at times, but here's how one little problem can be solved.