Month: March 2007

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Polling booth maps clever, but whose map?

The NSW Electoral Commission has great interactive maps so you can find your local polling booth for 24 March. But they’re based on Google Maps. So as Richard Chirgwin points out, the mapping data is licensed in a very roundabout way.

Map of polling booths in Marrickville

The NSW Government street data is licensed to PSMA (the public sector mapping agency), which is then licensed to MapData Sciences, which is then licensed to Google Maps which is then licensed back to… the NSW Electoral Commission.

“We are surrounded by cretins,” Richard says. I tend to agree.

Though the defence is obviously that Google Maps provides a nice, convenient interface for programmers to use.

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Ruddslide? Don’t count your chickens just yet

This morning’s Sydney Morning Herald predicted that the forthcoming federal election will be a landslide for the ALP’s Kevin Rudd. But this graph — showing the pattern of Labor’s two-party preferred poll results leading up to the last elections — suggests that it might be too early to claim that.

Graph of ALP two-party preferred opinion poll results

According to the oz politics blog, the source of this graph:

Headlines proclaiming that Howard’s spoiling strategy had failed are a little premature. Howard is playing a medium term game. It is the standard two pronged game: pander to the punters and slam the opposition at every possible turn. The effectiveness of Howard’s medium term strategy cannot be judged after a few short weeks. If previous election years are any guide, It was not until the middle of the year that a recovery trend (from Howard’s perspective) was evident. Howard only achieved positive polling territory from the middle to late in the third quarter of the year.

Only time will tell…

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Universal Manufacturing to transform the world

Photo of Fab@Home Model 1

Remember the “replicators” of science fiction? You know, the gadget like a microwave oven where you dialled up “replacement gear wheel” or “9mm pistol” or “vegetarian lasagne” and out it’d pop? That’s what you’re looking at in the photo at right.

OK, not quite.

This is the Fab@Home Model 1 freeform fabrication system, sort of like an inkjet printer for making 3D objects.

These rapid prototyping (RP) systems have been around for a while, but the Model 1 has two key differences. You can build it yourself for US$2300 of parts you can buy off the shelf. And the plans and software are free.

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