J'aurais dû m'en douter que les Perséides se voyaient mieux dans l'hémisphère nord. La constellation de Persée ne se lève qu'après 22h à la latitude de Hong Kong.
Vendredi soir, le 13, je suis sorti prendre une marche de minuit dans la jungle de Lamma.
Derrière le stand à tofu-dessert, j'ai pris le chemin qui longe le champ d'aubergines qui va jusqu'à la plage de la centrale électrique, car elle est juste à côté justement d'une central électrique (au charbon) qui alimente une bonne partie de la ville. C'était difficile de voir les étoiles, tant les lumières de la centrale scintillaient. J'y suis resté quelques instants, et j'ai repris le chemin vers l'autre plage, celle aménagée par le département du loisir.
La route entre les deux plages était en béton, assez large pour des camions (quelque chose que Lamma n'a pas, en général, sur ses routes), mais sans lampadaires. C'était ma première fois dans une jungle, la nuit, je me suis dit. Pas la jungle profonde, mais quand même. Une chance que j'ai amené ma grosse lampe Maglite, laissée dans l'appart par le locataire précédent.
Il y a trois ans, j'étais allé voir les étoiles au Mont St-Hilaire pour la fête de quelqu'un que je ne connaissais pas. C'était une belle soirée, même si j'ai fini par dormir sur le sofa de la cabane du centre de recherche/retraite McGill louée par l'amie de mes amis. Probablement que ça a été la meilleure récolte de tous les temps en étoiles filantes...
***
Hier soir, j'ai eu de la belle visite sur Lamma. Les amis avec qui j'étais venu sur l'île pour la première fois étaient de retour pour célébrer la fête d'une de nos amis. Ça me donne l'occasion d'émettre la réflection très profonde que, wow, les choses ont bien évolué en une année. Il y a dix mois à peine, je venais d'arriver à Hong Kong, sans emploi, pas certain si j'aurais une chance de revenir à mon ancienne job à Montréal. Et aujourd'hui, je pourrais me dire que, quoique ce n'a rien de la stabilité à Montréal, j'ai quelques assises solides sur lesquelles bâtir.
Je pense que mes amis savaient que j'aurais aimé que tout le monde reste, comme tout le monde savait que notre ami américain voulait ses smores. :D Mais bon, je pense que sur toutes les choses qu'on voulait collectivement, il y en avait certaines qui n'étaient compatibles avec les désirs de tous et chacuns. Le problème des groupes nombreux...
Ce « bon temps » comme la chanson des Cowboys frigants chantent, c'est peut-être maintenant et plus jamais ? Peut-être qu'en vieillissant, on devient moins flexible, moins ouvert sur notre conception du bonheur, des bons moments de la vie ? Un peu trop heavy là.
C'était le premier vrai get-together chez moi, en tout cas, je voulais dire. Et comme c'est pas si facile que ça se rendre à Lamma, je suis quand même content d'avoir pu rassembler tout le monde pour voir ces fameuses (ou foutues) Perséides, même si elles ne se sont pas du tout pointées, à cause surtout des lumières intenses des bâtiments autour de la plage publique (toilettes, etc.). On a quand même allumé un petit feu, qu'un gars qui travaillait p-ê pour le département du loisir nous a crié quelque chose qui nous a fait comprendre que c'était interdit et qu'il était la personne en position d'autorité icitte.
Le monde a quitté sur le ferry de 23h30, le dernier qui sort de Lamma de la nuit, avant celui du matin à 6h40. C'est dommage qu'il n'y ait plus de traversier de nuit, comme c'est le cas pour d'autres îles extérieures plus peuplées. Comme j'ai oublié mes clés prêtées à un de mes visiteurs, j'ai dû attendre le retour du ferry à 1h, quand un matelot me les apporta. Avec une note qui dit que c'était pour 沈先生 (M. Shen), une faute commune sur mon nom de famille, qui est 岑 (Cen -> Sam).
Je suis rentré chez moi à 1h10, épuisé, plein de sable sur toutes les parties de mon corps, et j'ai pris la douche que je voulais prendre une heure et demie auparavant. Je suis ensuite allé sur mon toit, chasser les étoiles filantes. Et j'en ai pas vu une seule, puisque le voisin shinait ses grosses lumières sur sa terrasse en brassant quelques parties de Mah jong.
Finalement, je pense que la conclusion serait qu'on a eu du bon temps, malgré le manque d'étoiles filantes. Quand je suis rentré, j'ai pensé à cette chanson populaire québécoise. Le band de garage de mon frérôt la joue, mais qui est probablement marquante pour les gens de notre génération, et étrangement (ou pas) aussi pour nos amis anglos néo-montréalais.
(Peut-être je me souviens de ma conversation en juin à Montréal avec une amie, qui en conclusion aurait pu se terminer sur la pensée que plus on recherche le bonheur, moins on le trouvera... Alors, eille, faut juste chiller un peu plus. En tout cas, c'est une réflection qui sera bonne pour plusieurs!)
Probably one of the most improbable flights I've done (aside from HKG-CAI) that I'll be doing tonight.
I don't know. Maybe this break from my life in HK will do much much good. Living on Lamma is already a daily break, but perhaps the general breathing space of North America will also do good.
I'm also only gone for a week -- just enough to adjust to jet lag (will be v. happy to pop the melatonin pills).
Did I pack too much? Probably.
I'm a little nervous -- have no specific idea why.
Flight's at 22:45. Will arrive at 20:30 in SFO. Will have traveled 2 hours in the past. Yay!
Once in a while, it's good to put down an assessment of things of the moment.
So, this week marks pretty much the seventh month I am in Hong Kong, and not sixth month as I thought. For some reason, it doesn't seem that long, but seven months is a long long time. You do a lot of things in seven month. Two more months and it's as long as it takes to carry a baby!
The weather's getting really humid. I've lived on my island for a little more than six months, and it's still rather enjoyable. The ferry, however, makes my social life less prone to late-night improvisations. Weekends on the island feel like being in a resort town: the calm and quiet, birds chirping, dogs barking, and of course, tourists bustling.
Work is about what I am expecting, at times very intense, and at times a little less intense. Getting the impression that I am doing something important, which I've always wanted to do; and of being at the right place, at the right time. Enjoying my time there as well.
How has my life changed from September 2009 until today? I have a mobile phone with broadband Internet access. I take the ferry and minibus every day, rather than use my legs to propel myself (on a bike). I feel that 18 Celsius degrees is cold weather. Everyone is Chinese and speaks Chinese. :O I think that hk$100 (ca$14) is overly expensive for dinner at the restaurant. And a bunch of other things.
There is more subtle stuff, I'm sure, but that'll be for another day...
I guess that my interests have changed too, and things that I thought were important or which had a particular interest to me (Chinese indie music) has been evened out by different factors.
I don't think I'll elaborate too much on people, but the people I've met have been great in general. People relationships, but also institutions, groups, whatnot, also seem to be of a different ballgame altogether, because of volume and amplitude. Montreal is just not an international city, while Hong Kong is. Because of that, I often feel like here, right now, is the real thing. It's the major league, to follow the sports metaphor.
I wonder how you would feel or felt about moving to a different city for the first time?
We have this weird problem with the air conditioner at the office. Whenever you turn on the AC, 30 seconds after the fan starts, big black ants start spewing out of the mouth. I think the outside pipe might be too close to the ground, the ants made a colony in the pipe, or they are collecting the dirt accumulated in the AC (which was recently cleaned, actually). But this afternoon, when we turned on the AC, instead of the 4-6 blown out, 25-30 actually came out. Let me just tell you it was quite a messy extermination...
Ok, so after being the official vendor of the Hero in Hong Kong, the Android platoform's former flagship handset is now proposing to hand you HK$4280 if you bring them your Nexus One and sign a monthly contract of HK$398 for two years. That's HK$410 with the fee.
If you bring a phone to them, you sign a 18-month contract and would pay for HK$250 (238+12) a month. If you do the maths, say if we extend this contract to 24 months, you would pay $6000 (250*24) at the end of it. With the other plan, it's HK$9840 (410*24), minus the rebate it's HK$5560.
So the longer contract by six months, and the special plan for Nexus Ones, will save you some 440 over two years, or about HK$19 a month.
Since February 22nd, Google Earth is available on certain Android handsets, including the Nexus One. Just like Google Goggles, it's a neat app that you want to show all your friends without a Nexus One -- but not a terribly useful one. I wrote a review piece for Vox Asia this week, detailing my thoughts on the N1.
Je viens de changer le plan de données illimité de mon téléphone pour me permettre de faire du tethering et ainsi m'alimenter en Internet chez nous. Du coup, on m'a donné le Access Point (APN) du broadband résidentiel qui s'appelle juste "Internet". Et ça me coûte que HK$50 (CA$6.50) de plus par mois, et un beau total de HK$300 (CA$40) par mois.
Donc, à part que je puisse maintenant faire du tethering avec mon cell (j'aurais pu aussi avant, mais ça aurait contrevenu à mon entente), le nouvel APN me donne constamment de plus grandes vitesses de transfert de données et me permet maintenant aussi de streamer de l'audio à travers le réseau mobile.
Armé de mon Nexus One (que je vais reviewer la semaine prochaine), je peux donc me promener dans la rue à Hong Kong et écouter les streams de Radio-Canada (et de CBC, de Bande à part, etc., par extension) comme si j'étais à Montréal! Le seul hic: c'est à travers le réseau 3G, alors ça va drainer de la batterie.
En fouillant dans les fichiers Javascript de BAP, j'ai trouvé que le serveur des publishing points chez Abacast servait aussi une page index: http://in-1.atl.icy.abacast.com/. C'est aussi peut-être un alias/serveur géo-spécifique de http://icy1.abacast.com/ que j'ai trouvé dans les ASX de R-C.
CBC et Radio-Canada sont de leurs partenaires et la liste de la page mentionnée ci-dessus comprend donc pas mal tous les mount points de ses feeds audio, servis pour appareils mobiles, applications Web, etc.
Comme c'est public, on peut pointer à ces addresses directement sur son browser mobile, et si la connection est assez rapide (devrait être HSDPA, à 3Mo/s), on peut les écouter comme de la radio à travers les ondes. On va sur la page, on copie le lien M3U, et on enlève le ".m3u" de l'adresse (ou on ouvre le fichier m3u dans un éditeur de texte).
Des streams taggés "128" (comme ceux de BAP) sont en fait du 192kbps. Ça tire un peu beaucoup avec ma connection sur l'île chez moi, mais quand ça marche, ça sonne mieux que la radio FM. Y'a d'autres streams comme les radio musicales qui sont aussi à haut débit. Le talk radio est à 64.
Autre goody: la page nous montre le nombre d'auditeurs présentement connectés. (Bon, ça serait p-ê une bonne idée que qqu dise à Abacast d'arrêter de laisser cette page publique?)
I got a new desk lamp tonight. I really like it and I think it changes the whole atmosphere in my apartment. Now, instead of having the chandelier weakly illuminate the entire living room, I can shut down the lights in the whole flat and have my lamp focus on my desk only.
Back in Canada, I used to have a weaker lamp, but which did almost the same effect of letting me dim the surroundings. It's rather soothing, and comforting at night, especially when bringing back work home.
Android Dev Phone 2 cover. The AD2 is also known as the Google Ion, a software remix of the HTC Magic. Was handed out to Google I/O 2009 attendees and made available to other developers in November 2009.
When Google's new "superphone" Nexus One was released yesterday, it was made available for online orders shipping to four places in the world: the US, the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong.
In Canada, I was paying CA$40/mo for high-speed (7mbps) Internet over fixed-line, on top of a mobile phone service (no data) that costs me CA$35/mo.
Hong Kong is a city where you can get pay-as-you-go SIM cards for your GSM phone with a company like China Mobile HK for just HK$100 (CA$13.50) and get charge HK$0.10 (just above one cent) per local minute, and HK$0.25 (about three Canadian cents) per minute for Overseas calls to places like Canada, the US and the UK. If you sign up for a monthly postpaid plan (need a HK ID, or pay a ~HK$3000 deposit), you can get ridiculously cheap plans. My family and friends here constantly tell me about plans going for HK$50-100/mo. (CA$6-15), giving them access to stuff like 1000 minutes, up to a practically unlimited amount of minutes to call to Canada.
But one of the reason -- I think -- making Hong Kong such an appealing market for Google to roll out its version of the future (in the cloud) is also the cheap price of mobile broadband.
Android Dev Phone 2 with a SIM card from Bell (Canada).
Back in Canada, all major phone companies offer mobile Internet, but always with some sort of limitation on the bandwidth. Bell released its new HSPA+ network in Fall 2009, with potential speeds up to 21mbps (that's 3 times as fast as the typical high-speed Internet by fixed phone line), but typical speeds going much lower, probably running at 3-7mbps (just speculating). The price? A regular 500Mb data plan for iPhone goes for CA$50. That's not a lot of data, if you consider that each video watched on YouTube can be 5-10Mb. Other Bell data plans range from CA$60-100 for bandwidths of 1-3Gb.
Now in Hong Kong, I am also a personal consumer (I don't get any phone, let alone phone plan from any company that would employ me), and recently switched from a prepaid plan with China Mobile HK (the lowest of the low in HK, but a v. good short term prepaid option) to a postpaid data plan with SmarTone-Vodafone, probably the company with the next to the best (CSL/Telstra) mobile network coverage and quality in Hong Kong. Now this plan sets me back HK$250 (all fees included) and gives me unlimited data (and an insane to Canadians, but expected by Hongkongers, amount of minutes) at typical speeds of around 2-3mbps.
Now, bear in mind that in this market, HK$50 monthly plans are the norm for the masses. But with a comparable cost of living to Canada (3/4 of Canada in daily expenses), this means that with tethering (using your phone as a modem for your computer) for an extra HK$50, for a total of HK$300 (or CA$40), people in Hong Kong can drop their fixed Internet line altogether, and like to paraphrase Google, merge their phone with the Web for ridiculous prices for North American wallets.
Unlimited high-speed data plans are sold by 3 or 4 companies in Hong Kong, with prices varying around HK$250/mo, the price at SmarTone-Vodafone with a 18-month contract. The selling point, at least for me, was that you can break your contract at any point for just a HK$500 (CA$66) fee.
Is that the sign that mobile phone contracts are starting to become a thing of the past? The plan is again very poorly advertised by SmarTone, because subsidized phones are still the way. This HK$250 monthly contract is only available if you bring your own unlocked smartphone, very common in Hong Kong... and now available directly from Google at US$530, or US$580 (HK$4500) when counting an AC adapter and international shipping to Hong Kong.
If your needs don't justify such expenses, Hong Kong is probably one of the easiest places in the world to find second-hand phones of reliable quality (this is not the jungle of Mainland China). One of my friends went to Mong Kok and bought a "used" HTC Tattoo (came out just in October 2009), HTC's budget-range smartphone that is running Android 1.6 for only HK$1000-something (around CA$200 if I remember correctly).
250/mo becomes 3000/yr (CA$400), for all your Internet needs. When I'm going to read these numbers in 5 years, I'm probably going to be as amazed as what a regular laptop or desktop computer used to cost 5 years ago...
Mon père (un photographe émérite) a pris ces photos de moi devant le bâtiment du journal La Presse, et puis avec au loin la Maison de Radio-Canada derrière mon épaule droite. C'était à l'angle de la rue Saint-Antoine et du boulevard Saint-Laurent.
Woaw, les deux dernières semaines. J'ai passé du franchement bon temps avec la famille et les amis à Montréal. J'ai fait de petits paquets avec ma vie montréalaise, tant au sens figuré qu'au sens propre, et j'ai dit au revoir à à peu près tout le monde en ville. On a bien mangé, et j'en ai même rapporté ici.
Ici, c'est Hong Kong. Malgré un attentat déjoué dans les airs la semaine dernière, les choses sont revenues à peu près à la normale -- en tout cas pour mes vols. Pas de fouille supplémentaire, pis ça a pris à peu près le même temps pour tout passer ce que j'avais passé en septembre dernier lors de mon départ initial de Montréal. -- À peu près à la normale, vu qu'à cause d'un problème de papiers, nous disait le pilote, le vol CO99 entre Newark et Hong Kong a quand même été retardé d'au moins deux heures et demie, mais on est quand même arrivé en retard juste par 1h30. J'ai pris le Airport Express -- ce que je ne fais pas d'habitude -- et je suis arrivé à Hong Kong Station à Central vers 23h30. J'ai eu le bonheur ensuite d'assister au décompte du nouvel an en face de mon quai du traversier pour l'Île de Lamma. Ça fait du bien de savoir qu'on sera bientôt à la maison -- du moins ma seconde maison.
On passe maintenant devant Aberdeen et Ap Lei Chau sur le ferry.
À Montréal, je me suis débarassé de pas mal de choses. J'ai développé une certaine « haine » des choses matérielles, en particulier du papier. Pourquoi promener tant de papier, quand l'essentiel est en fait ce qui est écrit dessus? Alors pourquoi pas tout digitaliser et le traîner dans le nuage? Ma vie en ce moment est un peu comme l'état de mes choses : dans un nuage, qui virevolte, disparait, et réapparait à des endroits différents du monde.
Je m'installe à Hong Kong : peut-être pour quelques mois, peut-être pour quelques années. Le reste de mes jours? Bon, on verra pour ça...
Une chose est sûre, je ne m'ennuierai pas des hivers canadiens. Depuis l'adolescence, j'ai cessé d'apprécier la neige et le blizzard. Ok, peut-être qu'il y a encore un peu d'amour, mais c'est seulement pour le hockey et les soirées passées au chaud à l'intérieur avec ceux qu'on aime et qu'on aimait.
Il doit faire 16-17 degrés maintenant, nuit du Nouvel An à Hong Kong. Tout à fait dans les normales saisonnières et très agréable. Bon, la cloche qui indique qu'on est presque arrivé vient de sonner! 15 minutes de marche avec mes bagages: on est capable!
Assuming that you have an Android emulator running, and listening at the default port (5554). First, you need a script called getGeo.sh that gets the GPGGA line from gpsd running at its usual port. gpspipe attaches to gpsd and we get the line we want, put it in a file:
#!/bin/bash # get nmea from deviceFOO="geo nmea `gpspipe -r -n 10 | grep "GPGGA" | tail -n 1`"
echo ${FOO}
echo ${FOO} > ${HOME}/geo.nmea
Then, second code calls telnet and sends it the contents of the file with the "geo nmea
#!/bin/bash # simulate sending gps info to android emulator${HOME}/bin/getGeo.sh
exec telnet 127.0.0.1 5554 < ${HOME}/geo.nmea > /dev/null &> /dev/null
You could loop it to make refresh the positioning as you walk around with your GPS.
Might be at the other end of the world, but I'm not missing this election for nothin' in the world... These are links to results by poll in the October 2008 election for the four ridings in play. They're all safe to stay in the same hands (Cumberland's Bill Casey was an independent, but formerly Conservative who voted with them as well).
Cumberland - Colchester - Musquodoboit Valley: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/#12007
Hochelaga: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/#24021
Montmagney - L'Islet - Kamouraska - Rivière-du-Loup: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/#24058
New Westminster - Coquitlam: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/#59017
Let's go back to 2005, on my second stay in HK, and the longest (for about four months)...
When I miss home, I go to City Super. One time, I went home with three pieces of swordfish to cook for my "adoptive" family, which set me back for around 120HKD (20CAD). The time before, I craved for food we didn't even have at home, the U-shaped French saucisse sèche (80HKD/12CAD) (and with it, a freshly baked baguette (15-20HKD/2-3CAD)). Which is fine, because the saucisse lasted for a whole month (which never happens at home), and the baguette almost as good as the one we get in Canada.
Now, I've done it again. Tonight, went crazy at City'Super, and got myself a French saucisson (HKD$90), a baguette (HKD$20) and olive oil (HKD$80 for 250mL - Australian, no less). [The exchange rate is roughly HKD$7.5 for each Canadian dollar). I also got a small stick of Danish butter (200g) for around HKD$35, which makes it twice as expensive as it would in Canada...
In photos:
These are the things you can get in a truly international city (or in a city that can sustain a fancy place such as city'super). Mind you, I'm going back to forced-vegetarian menu of noodles with Chinese veggies or plain rice with soy sauce for the rest of the week...
I also got pasta. So yes, no-meat, no-cheese (but yes-olive oil) garlic linguine, here I come...
And in the weird packaging ploys category, low-sodium sea salt:
IKEA in Hong Kong is as you would expect anywhere else in the world, except that it does not have a warehouse, is more compact and completely subterranean.
One of the IKEA stores in Hong Kong is located in the commercial area of Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island. You find familiar items such as the IKEA food (hot dogs + cinnamon rolls), those vanilla-perfumed cartridge candles and Poang chairs.
It can be a little unsettling when you see rows of text scrolling down the screen in front of you when sitting in an airplane. That happened twice during my flight to Hong Kong yesterday, as the captain needed to reboot the server running the touch-screen system controlling on-board entertainment and flight status.
I'm not so surprised that they use Linux. It's pretty nice to see the text cascading across the screen -- I'm getting perhaps a strong sense of familiarity.
http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/
Inspired by Stephen Taylor's post (and my own past project from Fall 2008), I set out to produce a website where people could navigate election results by riding, but also by poll.
I used cartographic data from the Geogratis.gc.ca website. I imported the Shapefiles to a PostgreSQL database with Postgis. Then, I processed results by polling divisions from the 2008 election, data available on the Elections Canada website. It was put in a separate table on the same database. A custom program in Python using the very handy libkml (a code library developed and supported by Google) took the data and outputted pretty KML code. It was packed as a KMZ and uploaded to my webspace. [E-mail me, if you want to exchange ideas on the code]
The webpage itself is rich in JavaScript and the code can be seen here. I use hashes to make the webpage bookmarkable and loadable with a given riding pre-loaded.
For instance, the Papineau riding (24048) can be accessed through this link:
http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/#24048
The website requires the Google Earth plugin, available for Windows and Mac. It works very smoothly on my old computer (bought in 2003).
You could also download the individual KMZ files (they are in fact zip files, so on Windows you would rename them with .zip and unzip them with your usual utility). They are at: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/ridings/ . However, if I post updates (which I will), you won't see them.
A new grocery store on Victoria Avenue just opened its doors last week. The half basement shop offers a variety of organic (and non-organic too) produce. It may fit the look of a Westmount upscale boutique, but the prices shown for the basic stuff (tomatoes, apples, lemons) are at market price (similar to PA's price, comparatively lower than the nearby Metro).
On top of that, you also find a unique offering of Asian products (the owner Clara happens to be a food-loving Canadian Chinese) such as soy milk, bok choy and ramen noodles. They are also importing a type of pasta from Italy.
334A Avenue Victoria, Westmount
Speaking of young entrepreneurs, I found out that the newest my cup of tea shop is just next door:
Download the KMZ / Téléchargez le KMZ
Finally finished the first phase of my data visualization project for electoral donations to political parties. The data is for individual contributions during the 2008 election in Fall. Here is the KMZ file: contrib40_2009-09-11.kmz
Finalement, j'ai fini la première phase de mon projet de visualisation de données de contributions aux partis politiques. Les données sont pour les dons de particuliers lors de l'élection d'automne 2008. Voici le fichier KMZ: contrib40_2009-09-11.kmz
Here are a few examples of stuff that I found while fooling around... / Voici quelques exemples que j'ai trouvé en me promenant...
David Kilgour gives to the Conservative Party. We think it's _the_ David Kilgour, because wife Laura is also listed for the same postal code. For the notice, Kilgour was a former Jean Chrétien minister (originally was a Progressive Conservative). Retired as an independent in 2006 and known to be a Falun Gong sympathizer.
Michael Sabia, the Caisse de dépôt et de placement du Québec CEO, formerly a Bell Canada CEO, naturally gives to the Liberals.
Edit (2009-11-11): I completed the project a few days after describing it in this post. This link gives you an overview of what it does. Here is the web version (requires Google Earth plugin): http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/contributions/
***
Some time ago, I wrote a lot on this particular project without providing much specifics. This said project is the electoral contributions project.
The idea is pretty straightforward. Once a year, Elections Canada releases data on donations to political parties, whether it's from individuals or companies, directly to candidates or the party itself.
They have some database behind to power it, but none of it is open to the public. The only information available is under the form of webpages such as this one:
Also, you can click on the name of a contributor and find basic info such as the address where he sent his contribution from, specifically on this popup:
So, what if you got the data and tried to use the postal code to put every contribution on a map? It's been done in the States by the Huffington Post, the well-known web media outlet.
How to do it?
To get the 100-something pages containing the data, you write a shell script with wget on the address (check the post data with Firebug) and download all the pages. Then, do the same for the pop-ups (you find their script's URL by reading through their JavaScript code, all of which is ungarbled).
Then, parse the pages with a script. I wrote mine in PHP, because I didn't know better. I'll post it if there is interest for it. Then, the same script does the INSERTs to the PostgreSQL database. You can download this following database dump:
I chose the columns to be of a super permissive datatype, because the data in those webpages is surprisingly not very well normalized. You also find invalid postal codes and basically no practical way to identify two different donors with, say, the same name.
Then comes the interesting part that I've finished once but did not save anything useful, that is to visualize the contributions geographically with the postal code. I made a separate table called "postalcodes" which is a unique list of postal codes contained in contrib40, and the geographical point representing this postal code. I obtained the point coordinates using a script that called the Google HTTP geocoding service. It's for Postgis that I used PostgreSQL.
Now it's maybe the fun part, that is to fetch the data and make it into something useful, either using MapServer + Google Maps, or libkml (to generate a file for Google Earth).
Interesting, telling uses? Since we only have access to data up to the end of 2008, we could show the rise of the Liberals in the post-electoral months of November and December, when Stéphane Dion stepped down in favour of maybe-Michael Ignatieff. We can surely superimpose donation origin and actual voting patterns at the poll level.
If you have more visualization ideas, feel free to drop me a line: cedricsam@gmail.com. I'd like to hear your ideas, propositions. I think that this data ought to democratized, and using graphical methods like maps is one of the best methods nowadays.
About Smurfmatic
Smurfmatic is Cedric Sam's weblog. I was born and raised in Montreal, and am of Chinese Cantonese ancestry. The language that I am most fluent in is French, however, while I do my online writings in English. My Chinese? Rather pathetic.
I work in new media. I am a Linux and open-source enthusiast, am amused with taking photos (and videos), am a relative foodie and appreciate this thing we call Chinese indie music. Also a Habs fan.
Reach me at: cedricsam@gmail.com