200505

After B.C.’s failed (for now) attempt at bringing in proportional representation, P.E.I. is giving it a try. P.E.I. will be voting this fall whether to adopt a mixed member proportional system (see the article for more details). One bad thing about that system is that it gives independents a much larger disadvantage than they already have, since they obviously can’t get any seats from party lists. And now independents must compete in larger ridings, under the regular first-past-the-post winner-take-all system.

Personally, I prefer B.C.’s proposed system. Though both referendums were/are flawed, since they only offer the choice between sticking with the old system, or adopting a single alternative system recommended by the electoral reform commission. Thus people who prefer proportional representation, but prefer another system over the commission’s recommendation, are stuck. Personally, I’d like to see a reform commission suggest a referendum using the Condorcet method (or even approval voting), and offer multiple types of proportional representation, as well as a “further discussion on proportional representation” option.

A Minnesota court has allowed the presence of PGP on a defendant’s computer to be admitted as evidence. (/.) (PGP is an encryption program.) The question of whether law enforcement officials actually found encrypted files, or determined that the defendant had used PGP for illegal purposes, seemed to be irrelevant. The mere presence of PGP was allowed as evidence of criminal intent.

So for all the judges in Minnesota: I use encryption. I have GnuPG (which is very similar to PGP) on my computer. All my data is encrypted. Most of the network traffic coming out of my computer is encrypted. I guess that means I’m guilty of conspiring to <insert your favourite crime here>.

Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not defending the guy’s actions. If he is guilty of distributing child pornography, he should be locked up for a long time. But he does have the right to a fair trial, and admitting bogus evidence like that doesn’t do much in the way of getting a fair trial. This is just an example of what happens when technology grows faster than society’s ability to understand it: fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Well, I finally got around to cloning my guitar chord sheet (17kB, PDF) (or lower quality PNG format (83kB) if you don’t want to wait for Acrobat Reader to load). If you don’t understand it, don’t worry. Most people don’t. Maybe I’ll eventually put together a page that explains how it works.

I’ve had that sheet (or a sheet like it) in my guitar binder for a long time. The first sheet that I had made, I did by hand on a sheet of graph paper. I then remade the sheet in StarOffice, so that I could print it off again whenever I needed to. Unfortunately, I lost that file, so the sheet that I had was one of a kind. I even made a sheet protector, cleverly disguised as a “Hubert’s guitar binder” cover sheet, to make sure that my cheat sheet didn’t get ripped. Some people asked for a copy of my sheet, but not being able to print out another copy, they had to photocopy it, which wasn’t ideal.

Given the repetitiveness of patterns in the sheet, it makes more sense to generate it programmatically rather than using a normal drawing program. But I wasn’t sure what language to use, since I’m not a graphics guy. I had even considered learning PostScript to generate it, but I never got around to it, being busy with my other programming projects and school stuff. Then I came across Asymptote, which is co-written by John Bowman, who taught me MATH 217/317, and whose office was right across the hall from mine when I worked at PINTS. Asymptote is a vector graphics language inspired by MetaPost designed for high-quality typesetting for technical drawings. Since Asymptote has a C++-like syntax, it was easy enough to learn, and I managed to knock off the chord sheet in an evening. And I must say, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

In more political news, the recent B.C. provincial election included a referendum question of whether B.C. should switch to proportional representation using the Single Transferable Vote (BC-STV) system. (The non-proportional representation version of Single Transferable Vote (STV) is also called Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).) Unfortunately, the proposal failed to obtain the 60% supermajority required to pass, even though it got majority support.

While I support proportional representation, STV/IRV is suboptimal compared to something like Condorcet. (WikiPedia) However, Condorcet is more complicated than STV, and one news anchor that I saw said he didn’t understand STV. Also, it’s not completely obvious (to me at least) the correct way to adapt Condorcet to proportional representation. Then again, Condorcet results can usually be summarized in a simple table or graph, while STV cannot. But STV is better than the current first-past-the-post system – at least in the sense that it reflects voter preferences better. (First-past-the-post is the reason the U.S. is still effectively a two-party system.)

B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell has said that based on the results, which still show strong support for BC-STV, he would bring the issue to legislature.

The Martin government’s first budget barely passed by the slimmest of margins. Independent Chuck Cadman voted with the Liberals and the NDP to split the house evenly at 152-152 (with one Conservative MP absent due to health reasons, and one Liberal MP abstaining for pairing). That left the (Liberal) Speaker to cast the deciding vote. And with this, the government survives a confidence vote, and will stand ... for now.

Cadman voted for the budget (and the NDP amendment) based on a poll of 600 of his constituents, which indicated that two-thirds didn’t want another election yet. So there you have it. The fate of the government was decided by 400 people in BC.

Personally, I don’t see a point to having an election now. We would only end up with another minority government, be it Liberal or Conservative, and my guess is that it would probably be a smaller minority.

Stephen Harper has indicated that he won’t try to bring down the government before the summer recess. Hopefully this will end the Liberal spending spree, and the Conservatives and Bloc paralyzing the house. At least until the fall. I expect that after Gomery finishes his inquiry, we’ll have even more fun in parliament.

Canadian politics is weird. Belinda Stronach, a woman who once ran for leadership of the Conservative party has now joined the Liberals as Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development (which, by the way, is the department where former Waterlooer John Voortman works).

With Stronach’s defection, it looks more likely that the Liberal budget will pass on Thursday. The Liberals now only need one of independents Chuck Cadman or (Edmontonian) David Kilgour to side with them, instead of needing both. So, we may not have a spring election after all.

I’ve put up the pictures from last week’s Navs summer program in Nova Scotia. I’ve got 170 of them. Yes, that’s right, 170. I got back from Nova Scotia with a full 512 MB card — 321 photos in total. I had taken over 400, but deleted some.

The Muskoka gallery has over 200 photos, but that includes some pictures from three other people as well (Tallie, Isaac, and Nigel). Of course, 170 pictures isn’t close to the number I got from my Europe trip (370), but it’s the most that I have from any Navigators trips. Well, I guess that’s what happens when you have fun with your camera.

Boo, Adobe

According to Dave Coffin, Nikon’s decision to encrypt part of their RAW files is nothing out of the ordinary. (DPReview interview) It seems that Adobe is just whining. Interestingly, Adobe’s latest Camera RAW software claims support for the D2X. Hubert’s new opinion: Adobe is just a bunch of whiners trying to grab some attention. Nikon should still not encrypt their files, but that goes out to the rest of the industry too. I can now continue to recommend Nikon products. Dave Coffin still rocks for his work on decoding the various RAW formats.

No DMCA for Canada

As a followup to another previous post, Canada will not be implementing its own version of the DMCA. (/.) See the government’s reform proposal. One of the main highlights is that circumventing a technological protection measure is only illegal if it is done for illegal purposes. That is, I can use DeCSS to watch DVDs, but not to copy and sell them, which seems fair to me. Of course, the US doesn’t like our plan.

However, SOCAN wants 25% of the online music business. (/.) Will they not be happy until they have a levy on everything remotely related to music? It reminds me of the ING Direct commercials: just another hand in your pocket.

Free/open access research

The number of open access journals is growing. (/.) The Directory of Open Access Journals currently lists 1555 journal (59 in Mathematics, 50 in Computer Science). Now we just need some of these to build up a good reputation.

The Dutch are also providing free access to their research. (/.) It looks like the Internet is finally living up to its promise of a giant repository of information.

Speaking of journals, you know you need to revamp your review process when you accept a randomly generated paper. (/.) Note to self. Don’t trust anything you read in WMSCI. Best wishes to Stribling, Aguayo and Krohn, who will be giving a randomly generated talk at the conference.

It’s never too early for brainwashing

The Hong Kong Boy Scouts are introducing an IP merit badge. (/.) While I don’t outright disagree with such a thing in principle (I myself am pretty strict with regards to copyright, trademark, and patent law), this badge is being backed by the Motion Picture Association, which undoubtedly means that it will be extremely one-sided in its views. (The term "intellectual property" itself is misleading.)

REAL ID

Yet another reason to not live in the US. Read Bruce Schneier’s comment on REAL ID. Schneier is a brilliant man when it comes to security. To all the Americans who don’t like the way their government is going, come to Canada. We’ll never do something that stupid — unless maybe if the Conservatives come to power (although I doubt even they would try something like that). But we should be safe for a while. If the Conservatives win this spring, it will most likely be a minority.

Breeding for a cure

This is frightening.

RSA-200 factored

One more step in the RSA factoring challenge has been achieved. RSA-200, a 200-digit (decimal) number has been factored. (/., WikiNews, MathWorld). Apparently, the researchers used the General Number Field Sieve, and it took "55 CPU years", which is a useless unit of measurement.

Wow. I get back from Nova Scotia and find out that Sarge is frozen. Woody was released shortly after the PEI trip. Maybe I should head out to the Maritimes more often.