Agenda

  • Discussion of English political debates yesterday
  • Projects from last meeting (ALPR)
  • Victoria’s community calendar
  • Makerspace promotion ideas
  • Home automation
  • Powered bike trailer

Back to the VictoriaChapter

Minutes

Attendees

1) Kurt

2) Ryan

3) Ernie

4) Kris

5) Fabian (skype)

6) Lisa (skype)

7) Kevin

8) Chris

9) Herb

10) Derek (skype)

PreMeeting

  • Kris already had a dubious experience with the VPS service he was trying.
  • Ernie talking about home automation questions. Kris may have some useful knowledge from being the Nortel Home Automation club president.
  • Fabian - how about a 3D model - spy movie animation.
  • Kurt setting up a webcam for the ALPR discussion

Discussion of English political debates yesterday

  • Everyone decided to vote Bloc next year. (Joke)
  • Police say need Harper…but crime has gone down in the last couple of years.
  • michealgeist.ca - if reelected w/i next 100 days he’ll impose a surveillence state. A campaign promise.
  • Fear-based agenda.
  • Discussion about how coalition governments function. Also could have a liberal minority gov’t with support of some one other party. Not the same as a coalition.
  • After the last election Harper got the support of xxx.
  • Last time Harper lost the confidence of the house, Harper went to the governor-general and xxx
  • Prorouge the house. (Have ‘em go away until they can come back and make nice)
    3 choices _ priorougt, call another election, or appoint another party.
  • Harper making it sound like a coalition vs a confidence motion.
  • Could be a liberal gov’t w/support of NDP rather than a coaltion gov’t.
    • primary diff is? Who all gets appointed to cabinet? NDP would get some kind of rights via some contract.
  • ShitHarper - went down today
  • Unrest
  • Folks discussed how to decide for whom to vote. Party vs. person. Strategies. Whether and how to donate money.
  • Question of MPs that have strong enough principles to maybe switch parties if necessary.
  • What do they think of electoral reform as a litmus test question.
  • One fellow found that the senators did listen and accept a suggestion from him when he bothered to go all the way to Ottawa to make it. Senate costs taxpayers $9e6/yr. House of Commons mostly about getting in its sound-bites.
  • Nolan report - Justice Taliano in Ontario. Struck down a couple of provisions. References the Nolan report. An effort of the Senate.

Projects from last meeting (ALPR)

  • Privacy Commission okayed a three-month trial, but this is already not good.
  • Oak Bay - 10 risk points, Esquimalt at night + 10 risk points.
  • Scenarios via Google Maps - demo of project to show that three months of data could constitute a huge invasion of privacy.
  • Violent crime in Japan - GPS driving can route you around the bad areas. But does then stereotype those areas.
  • polymaps
  • DEMO

Victoria’s community calendar

  • go to ideas meetings then victoria chapter.
  • Kris changed it from a calendar format to an agenda format.
  • Has given a few other people edit access with some guidelines. Events should be:
    • victoria-based,
    • non-profit,
    • community-based. (ie not a conference) e.g. 4square day on Saturday, babes go bare head-shaving… also calendar can now be embedded in more places.

OpenData

  • Kris shmoozed a BC Transit fellow & might get the opportunity to present a business case for opening BC transit data.
  • survey of heatmaps
  • Victoria just collecting this sort of data. Want to make it open data. Herb following this.
  • Kevin talked about a website crimemap

Makerspace promotion ideas

  • Lisa thinks maybe Kris could hook Derek up with his CBC reporter connection.
  • Kris will redo the makerspace.ca website. Members only drupal, public facing on wordpress. (Kris worked at the site last weekend & made a shelf. Was very satisfying.)
  • Lisa hasn’t heard back from Tyler B. Tyler did email Kris about posting ASC.
  • Derek will make a video. Kris suggests a local videographer - maybe trade 1 month membership for her working on a video. Nicole.
  • Need list of upcoming classes to lure participants.
  • Kris contacted John Adair about all-grain brewing for teaching as his own recent experience is skimpy.
  • Makerbot class can happen soon per Derek.
  • Derek found old info from Tyler, sent to Kris & Lisa. (Does not include T’s dreamhost access)
    • Kris will take fist cut on making changes then let Lisa also have access.
  • Derek just finished building a quadcopter. Could teach about it. But components are expensive. $300 in parts. Could build one collectively.
  • Derek using sparkfun sensor.
  • Kris got to do quadcopter fighting with some commercial ones at CANSECWEST.
  • What is the space? collection of everyone’s fun tools plus some more that have been purchased. Two garage bays. One is the office - has computer, makerbot, laser cutter. The other has the woodworking and other messy tools. Vinyl cutter.
  • How to participate? Unlimited monthly use keyholder $100, Unlimited monthly use with a keyholder present $50 (6 months min), day passes $25 or $20 can’t remember which.
  • Electronics classes. PHP classes if enough interest. Brain machine.
  • Ian’s soldering class went great. (He’s actually a professional solderer!)
  • Tyler R. just brought an oscilliscope so could do an electronics test bench class.
  • jtag use -
  • Kevin would like to see java dev eg Kurt. Kevin could show PHP dev.
  • Kevin got to test drive Kris’s brain machine. Kris described it again - see earlier minutes for the full description as we’ve done this before.

ASC

  • 15 or 16 people in the pot chipping in $50 each. Room for 4-5 more awesomites.
  • doors open for submissions. Go to asc

Wordpress.com

  • Chris P. says Wordpress was hacked. Recommend everyone using this in any way (incl. AOL, TED) should change passwords asap. Techcrunch.

Home automation

  • Ernie asking - Anyone know any good ones?
  • Perhaps not quite ready for prime time yet at the entry level
  • X10 is the existing entry-level spec. Derek’s had more luck w/RS45 serial port driver but required specialized h/w.
    • both Kris & Derek have some of the X10 components. E.g. firecracker set. Light switches to dimmers.
    • Kris had some good past experiences with X10. $200 can do whole house. Fun for simple things - not for security. Lights&stereo on/off.
    • Derek had problems. Fridge on/off would confuse his lights. Changed channels & eliminated that problem. But plugging things in would affect other things.
  • Control4 - even more expensive and possibly also higher quality.
  • misterhouse PERL demo from a while ago. Serial port for X10.
  • Ubertooth Kris says is coming out soon & will change the bluetooth landscape. Kevin talked about scanning for bluetooth mac addresses.
  • istumbler - on airport. Kris found a local n/w of a high profile individual, but at least they had WEP.
  • bluetooth is very hackable. Not recommended for home security.
    • Kevin showed some bluetooth specifics.
  • some discussion about googling and finding folks home security cameras, poor password protection on security cameras, etc. by Kevin and Chris P.

Powered bike trailer

  • Kurt has a friend who is a farmer who had to buy a car to haul things, wonders if there is an alternative.
  • Kris also curious about bicycle rules. Must be human-powered to avoid motor vehicle act. Electric bikes CAN be so compliant. Trailer would need same workaround. also need governed speed max of 32kph.
  • Kevin would need some feedback control.
  • Other folks brainstormed considerations and suggestions.
  • Segways are banned most places in BC - not human-powered
  • Disabled folks can use scooters most everywhere.

For Next Week

  • we will try videoconferencing software found by Fabian; everyone should try downloading the client from:

https://www.ekiga.net

  • Also, Lisa signed up for a Skype subscription that will allow group video conferencing. However everyone on the call must have Skype 5.0 or higher running.