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Here is a report on Taxi's, which measures maintenance at about 5% of expenses, about 10% of the costs of the gas. Clearly Uber drivers are not spending $1620 dollars a day in gas, you must be orders of magnitude away from correct.

You should look into the Web Experience Toolkit: https://github.com/wet-boew/wet-boew/.

The Web Experience Toolkit is an open source framework for developping Web sites that was created by the Canadian government, and is now developped by a community that spans various levels of government, the private sector and the open source community. It integrates with various CMSs, including Drupal (https://github.com/wet-boew/wet-boew-drupal) and WordPress (https://github.com/wet-boew/wet-boew-wordpress). This gives you the flexibility of using whatever platform suits your needs to host your site. It also allows you to create themes to adapt the layout and visual look and feel to your needs and branding and uses responsive Web design to make sites mobile-friendly.

You can see the various components of the Web Experience Toolkit in action on the Working Examples page: http://wet-boew.github.com/wet-boew/demos/index-eng.html. You can also see the responsive views in action using the responsive emulator: http://wet-boew.github.com/wet-boew/test/responsive-emulator.html.

For examples of Web sites currently using the Web Experience Toolkit, see:
Industry Canada: http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/icgc.nsf/eng/home
Service Canada: http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/home.shtml
Get Cyber Safe: http://www.getcybersafe.gc.ca/index-eng.aspx
City of Ottawa: https://ottawa.ca/en
Open Source Alliance of Canada: http://www.osacan.org/

Worth a read.

Except for this inflammatory part:

Although I was only watching the video [of a set of three red-light cameras that I pinpointed to an intersection in eastern Texas], the fact was that I had accessed a set of public security cameras that were left wide open for anyone to get in.

Because he accessed the feed through the back door, he probably didn't see the welcome mat on the front door. Many jurisdictions put traffic cameras (which are not the same as 'security cameras') online intentionally so people can plan their commute for the day.

Heck, over here the municipality has a Google Maps Mashup of their webcams for your viewing pleasure.

- RG>

Here in Canadia our red light cams snap two pictures in rapid succession, one before you enter and one after. Source: http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/onthemove/driving/road_safety/motorists/red_light_cameras_en.html Now given our current leaders' abhorrent love for all things American, I wouldn't be surprised if those cameras came from the U.S. in the first place, so you might have the same systems down there.

The biggest issue with red light cameras is they don't actually help with safety. Unless the driver notices the two flashes, the offending driver is not aware of their misbehaviour, and since they get the ticket anywhere from a few days to several weeks later in the mail, they're not going to stop doing it. At least when the cops pull over those goddamned white trash Gatineau street racers, there is an element of deterrence that just might help the Civic-driving imbecile slow it down a bit, especially if it's the fifth time that week and monkey boy has his license suspended, something a camera ticket cannot do since it's not "legal enough" to be worth demerit points.

Put another way: the roads were fine ten, twenty, even fifty years ago. Assume any technological development since then has been in the name of profit. In a world where our municipalities spend more money on traffic cams than road repair, it's not all that difficult to connect the dots.

• Pay and Display (What the article is describing): http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/parking/automated/pay_and_display_en.html
• Pay on Foot (A slightly more sensible approach, but only works in enclosed lots or garages): http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/parking/automated/pay_on_foot_en.html
• Parking Meters

Both Pay and Display and Pay on Foot allow for either credit cards or "parking cards" (Smart cards that carry a cash-equivalent balance) to be used. http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/parking/automated/parking_cards/parking_card_use_en.html). Parking meters can accept both coins and parking cards.

• Pay and Display (What the article is describing): http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/parking/automated/pay_and_display_en.html
• Pay on Foot (A slightly more sensible approach, but only works in enclosed lots or garages): http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/parking/automated/pay_on_foot_en.html
• Parking Meters

Both Pay and Display and Pay on Foot allow for either credit cards or "parking cards" (Smart cards that carry a cash-equivalent balance) to be used. http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/parking/automated/parking_cards/parking_card_use_en.html). Parking meters can accept both coins and parking cards.

• Pay and Display (What the article is describing): http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/parking/automated/pay_and_display_en.html
• Pay on Foot (A slightly more sensible approach, but only works in enclosed lots or garages): http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/parking/automated/pay_on_foot_en.html
• Parking Meters

Both Pay and Display and Pay on Foot allow for either credit cards or "parking cards" (Smart cards that carry a cash-equivalent balance) to be used. http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/parking/automated/parking_cards/parking_card_use_en.html). Parking meters can accept both coins and parking cards.

You're also busy assuming that the article contains all relevant legal terms and conditions of ownership of the cable --- so you're assuming extraordinary journalistic behavior and impeccable research

The City of Ottawa and Société de Réseaux Dédiés Privés Inc have entered into a municipal - telco agreement -- so once again -- I really think they have been granted the required easement rights and yes I do think that the home owners get to be Third Party Attachments to this agreement ( section 11 )

http://www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/occ/2007/04-25/csedc/ACS2007-PWS-INF-0003.htm

English home page for Société de Réseaux Dédiés Privés Inc http://www.srdptele.com/en/home/

Unless you have access to the consumer document and it states otherwise -- I'm going to assume that the cable runs are part of the service corridor and that the home owner as the potential third parties will be granted any required easements under the terms of this agreement.

I would imagine that your $732/week, particularly after taxes, buys a lot less than the Indian fellow's $800/month.

Maybe, what's the cost of living like in India?

I looked up the cost of a new Honda Accord here and there, here it's about 18,225 USD*, which is about $20,000, there it's about 15,42,000 Rs, which apparently translates to $37,143.

I also looked at housing costs in Ottawa vs Goa. The average cost of a house in Ottawa is $219,713, while the average cost of a house in Goa appears to be around 55,000 pounds, which is around $113,853.

Finally, I looked at food costs. Various fine dining restaurants here would cost about $50 on average for two people, there it's about 1200 Rs, which is about $29.

Overall, it doesn't appear that $800 in India buys more than $2900 in Canada. If anything, it buys quite a bit less, even if that's 10x the minimum wage compared to only ~2.5x.

* honda.ca uses Flash, and nobody in their right mind would ever install Flash.

After I finished university, I took a job in Detroit . People where really friendly, and asked me questions about my hometown and stuff and one question was about how many African-Americans were there in Ottawa. I didn't understand the question. I figured, we have 3 universities, lots of diplomats, tourists, people on work visas etc....It's hard to estimate.

I was wondering...is there any argument FOR e-voting, from a pro-technology, pro-democracy standpoint?

We have over a hundred billion CDs out there,...

Ballparking the figures, assume that every one of those is in a "thick" jewel-case, 1/4 x 5 x 6 inches. 7.5 cubic inches or 112.5 cubic centimeters (12.5 x 15 x .6). One hundred billion is 10**11, so this is roughly 10**13 cubic centimeters of CDs, or 10**7 cubic metres of CDs! Which sounds huge, but is a 215 meter cube.

The City of Ottawa, Canada has a 56 hectare (5.6 x 10**5 square metre) landfill. All the CDs ever made would make an 18 meter or 37 foot layer in this one city's small landfill. That's noticable, about ten years garbage for a population around a million. (I'm interpolating from the numbers in the proposal to extend the life of the landfill.)

But is it an important waste disposal problem? If it's ten million people years of garbage, then a CD is roughly one ten-thousandth (10**-4) of a years average garbage. If I ditch a hundred this year, that's likely one percent of my garbage output.

I don't think that justifies worrying about CDs separately from any number of other categories of garbage.