Getting the City of Hamilton to release expense spending of elected officials and senior management
Do citizen’s have a right to know how their elected officials are spending public funds? Should government provide citizens with that information? Should citizens have to pay to learn how their money is being spent? In the case of the City of Hamilton, the answer to those questions…
The CFS and SFSS settle: SFU vote to leave CFS recognized
The Canadian Federation of Students and the Simon Fraser Student Society have reached an out-of-court settlement to the CFS lawsuit against students at Simon Fraser University. The settlement, the terms of which are not disclosed, allows an overwhelming vote by SFU students to leave the CFS to stand…
Remember LiveJournal? Anyone?
It was a big deal back in the early phases of blogging. A pre-TheFacebook. I’m spending some time working on fixing my blog archives and there are a couple of posts about LiveJournal and my attempts (eventually successful) to script a cross-posting module in MovableType to share my…
TheSpec gets NYT: Is Torstar responding to possible competition from CBC Hamilton
In a welcome addition to The Hamilton Spectator, the print edition of Hamilton’s daily will include a The New York Times supplement on Saturdays. Since the announcement that CBC would be opening a digital bureau in Hamilton, we’ve seen some interesting changes in the local media landscape. *Torstar *is…
Listening to lectures for leisure
As I spend time coding, I always enjoy the distraction of some background noise. Normally, this means music. Recently, I’ve listened to lectures that are available as podcasts in “open course” packages. I browsed iTunesU and selected a wide selection of courses with my focuses – not surprisingly…
Hamilton Labs: A modest proposal for open data innovation at City Hall
The following is my column from the January 2012 print edition of Urbanicity in which I briefly propose the creation of a new city department – Hamilton Labs – to innovate while improving community assets and skills. It’s time for Hamilton Labs – a new department within the…
Off to the Boys and Girls Clubs
I’m finally starting my Monday schedule – during Wednesday afternoon. I’m off to the Boys and Girls Clubs for a quick meeting before going to fix my grandmother’s wifi router that’s acting up. I’m meeting at the Club on a few projects I volunteer with. The first is…
The Google Iowa live results map
As I continue to struggle with a nasty cold that doesn’t seem to want to go away or more accurately the symptoms related to the cold, I enjoyed watching the results of the Iowa Caucuses tonight. I have to admit surprise at the results. What really peaks my…
City of Hamilton responds to my transparency efforts – again
I’m engaged in a weird game of cat and mouse with the City of Hamilton – I make City information open and the City plays “catch-up” by finally making that information available themselves. The latest example? The Office of the Integrity Commissioner finally provides information on the Internet.…
The Hamilton Grand now "rising" to five stories?
[](http://blog.joeycoleman.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Hamilton_Grand_Image_Dec_2011.png)Proposed Hamilton Grand project as of December 2011 / hamiltongrand.ca Harry Stinson’s on-again, off-again, [Hamilton Grand project](http://hamiltongrand.ca) is on-again. This according to the project’s website which was recently updated to show a five-storey building in place of the 15-storey tower Mr. Stinson once dreamed of building. Suites…