vancouver

 by Brendon J. Wilson

A Message From Hedy Fry

In the midst of all the recent BC Liberal cuts and the federal budget, I received a Christmas update from my local MP, Hedy Fry.

Oh. My. God.

What are the things that piss me off? Let me count the ways.

1) Communication from a representative that doesn’t actually communicate anything of importance: the entire booklet consists of a Christmas greeting from Hedy, a Christmas greeting from the Prime Minister, and a half dozen or so pages consisting of a calender for the year (annotated not with political events, just ordinary holidays), and trivia factoids (again, little or no useful information).

What I want to know is what specific issues is Hedy addressing? What are the upcoming votes/bills/etc I should know about? I don’t need my MP to hold my hand on the political issues of the day, but if they’re going to send out mail under the guise of “connecting with the constituents” it better have some meat to it.

2) Paying for it: Does Hedy Fry, or any of the other MPs who send out these things, pay for the cost of printing, and distribution? Anyone know for sure? I’m guessing no. How many people out there got something similar from their own MP?? Anyone care to do the math? I’d like to think that the government is spending money wisely, but they keep proving me wrong. Sure, these kind of things are only small expenditures, but with 301 representatives for 10 million households, the costs add up quickly. If every MP sends one of these, and it costs fifty cents (probably closer to a dollar, really), that’s 5 million dollars! And for what it is, that isn’t really much value for the money.

3) Wasted paper: I hate junkmail in general…it’s a waste of paper, and again, I end up paying for it. My tax dollars are spent on recycling and waste disposal programs by the city. The more junk mail I get, the more tax money has to be spent on picking it up and disposing of it. Grrr. Oh, and of course, there are the added environmental repercussions. Double grrr.

Meanwhile, Hedy’s web site (www.hedyfry.com) is still under construction (“should be fully operational by the end of September”) and provides no information on what my representative is doing these days. Does anyone in government know the meaning of the word blog? I’m guessing no.

With all the money being spent on “connecting everyone”, you’d hope they be focusing some money on some real applications of the technology to lower costs and improve government. Nope. Welcome to Canada! You can’t e-mail your representative and expect a response, or conduct business with the government online, but at least you can surf for porn real quick. Yippee!

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 by Brendon J. Wilson

So, What’s New With You?

It’s been a while since I updated my profile, so now is as good a time as any. The last two months have been hectic, and it’s not like I’m gaining any free time these days.

I quit Infowave on August 25th (as opposed to getting laid off) to start at a new startup in Yaletown called PKI Innovations. Before starting my new job I took three weeks of vacation, one of which was spent in the Rockies on a heli-hiking trip, and visiting my parents in my home town of Cranbrook. The new job is quite interesting, as it focuses on one of my major interests: cryptography. The company is currently working on technology to allow Outlook users to request Digital IDs on behalf of other users, thereby enabling encrypted email communications.

The MP Survey I did has managed to gain some attention, most notably from Hillwatch and the CBC. During my vacation I did an interview with Hour Magazine (published in Montreal), and last week I did a radio interview on the Al Stafford Show for 630 CHED in Edmonton, and have another radio interview this week with CBC Radio Halifax’s Maritime Noon program. Some time in the next two weeks, an article on the survey will also appear in Canadian Business magazine. It’s amazing what a little effort, and a visit by National Security will get you in terms of publicity these days.

My wife’s Sony laptop finally got fixed, and Mark Hanson, the VP of Sony PC Marketing, emailed me to confirm that everything was working properly. I took the opportunity to chew him out for a crappy product, horrible service, and nine months of fighting with Sony to fix a problem they knew about beforehand. It felt good. I’m still getting emails from people who have had the same problem with their VAIO laptop, and I’ve sent every one of them on to talk to the Sony engineer that helped me. That’ll learn’em.

Finally, I started working on a book for New Riders on JXTA, which is taking up all of my free time these days. Today, I’m releasing the first three draft chapters to the JXTA Community to get their input, and provide something back to the community.

And that, in a nutshell, is what’s going on with me.

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