Sometimes, it's better to think before you tweet. We're betting Emma Way of Norwich, UK, wishes she had, after being investigated by the Norwich Police. Ms Way not only apparently knocked a cyclist off his bike, but then decided to tell the world about it using the social network.

"I knocked a cyclist off his bike. I have right of way, he doesn't even pay road tax!" She is said to have Tweeted over the weekend. She then added a hastag for good measure: "#bloodycyclists"

When committing a crime, most people try to keep it quiet. But Ms Way seemed pretty proud of what she'd done. Proud, that is, until some other Twitter users caught wind of her tweet, and sent it viral.

People reported her to the Norwich Police, who responded on Twitter: "@emmaway20 we have had tweets ref an RTC with a bike. We suggest you report it at a police station ASAP if not done already & then dm us”.

Oops.

She quickly deleted the offending Tweet, and subsequently, her entire Twitter account, but it was already too late. Concerned parties from Twitter began posting photographs allegedly taken by Ms Way of her speedometer at 95 mph, and also Tweeted the local newspapers. Then, someone found her Facebook page, worked out where she was employed as a trainee accountant, and told the company about it.

And then, this, from the Norwich Police:

"We have identified parties believed involved and are progressing with them. Thanks for all the comments and feedback".

For the record, road tax does not exist in the UK. It is a vehicle exise duty, imposed on some vehicles for ownership and fuel usage. It is not designed to pay for roads. The UK government spells this out pretty clearly.

There are, of course, cyclists who don't follow the rules (check out some videos here). But there are also drivers who don't know the rules of the road, and who seem to treat cyclists like second-class citizens (videos here). The difference being, of course, that drivers are encased by 4000 lbs of metal propelled by an engine, whereas cyclists are essentially sitting on a stick with absolutely no protection. This is what makes some of the Tweets found on the cyclehatred Twitter account, which collects Tweets about anti-cyclist rage, so worrying.

Twitter is a place where amazing things can happen. But it is also a place where some of the most irresponsible activity can surface. What's the worst kind of obnoxious comment that you've seen on Twitter or Facebook? 

Where do all the bigots live? In the US, at least, hatred for others seems to be concentrated more in the east than in the west - at least, as far as Twitter is concerned. Geography students at Humboldt State University in California have created a map of bigoted tweets south of the border.

The US government has just opened up huge swathes of data to the public. Canada is doing the opposite.

President Obama signed an executive order today announcing an Open Data Policy. This directs government agencies to publish newly-generated data in open, machine-readable formats. This means that programmers can take them and mash them up into their own applications, visualising the data, and analysing it in useful ways.

The US government went further. it is producing some of these data analysis tools itself, and making them open source, so that developers can tinker with those, too. That initiative is called Project Open Data. It is refreshing its Data.gov site over the next few months, with more tools to visualise public data.

The government is even open sourcing its own Open Data Policy. It published the policy on github, which is a site typically used by software developers to work together on program source code. Github has been used to collaborate on documents, too, and now the US government is getting on board. Now, people can 'fork' the policy document itself, creating new versions with suggested changes. How open the government will be to actually including those changes remains to be seen, but in principle, it's a great idea.

It's all very encouraging. But up here in Canada, the contrast couldn't be more stark. Statistics Canada, long lauded as one of the leading statistical agencies in the world, has released its latest survey data. This is the first version of the survey that doesn't include the mandatory long-form data that was so important to statisticians. 

Until 2010, the Canadian Census (which collects data on the population) consisted of two parts: a short form, that everyone had to fill in, and a longer, more detailed form that was sent to a subset of the population. That longer form was mandatory, too. 

Then, in 2010, Prime Minster Harper replaced the mandatory long form with a voluntary one, called the National Household Survey. This sent statisticians into a spin, because they argued that a voluntary form wouldn't give them the same amount of data as a mandatory form. Canada's chief statistician Munir Sheikh resigned over the issue three years ago, saying that the voluntary form couldn't replace the mandatory one. 

In the latest census, only 68% of people responded to the voluntary form, compared to over 95% of people who filled out the mandatory form. Statisticians have argued that the people not responding to the form are most likely the poor, new immigrants, and aboriginal groups. It is those groups that social policy makers need to know the most about, so that they can be helped. 

But blindfolding Statistics Canada isn't the only way in which Mr Harper has reduced visibility into Canadian data. His government has also outlined new regulations that muzzle Canadian librarians and researchers, preventing them from speaking to the public under a 'duty of loyalty' clause. Library associations are far from happy.

But Mr Harper's muzzling of scientific researchers and their data appears to be systematic, and the Federal Information Commissioner has been asked to investigate. 

I'm worried that Canada is locking down our access to government data (or indeed, simply not collecting it at all). Are you?

Danny Bradbury, MSN Tech & Gadgets

Fancy being famous for 30 minutes? Well, if you play online space game Eve Online, now's your chance. The Icelandic company that bought us the Eve massively multiplayer game is about to make a TV series based on things that have happened to players in the make-believe intergalactic world.

Are you a bit worried about conventional currency? After all, the dollar was downgraded, and Cyprus is the latest sign of a financial system that seems seriously stressed. Even gold is tanking. Could bitcoin be the answer?

We’ve all seen social media gaffes in the past, but this one takes the biscuit. Foodie site Epicurious used the Boston bombings to promote recipes yesterday.

Snopes is already beginning to track conspiracy theories after the atrocious bombings at the Boston Marathon yesterday.

The Vatican may have been busy electing a new Pope, but it doesn't seem to have kept the priests too busy for a bit of porn. Some enterprising bloggers nosed around the Internet to find out what people were downloading from Vatican IP addresses. The results were surprisingly earthly.

A whole bunch of my friends have changed their Facebook profile photos from pictures of their beautiful faces and pets to pictures of an equal sign on a red background.

I know many change their names in an effort to remain anonymous and private on the social network - but why a red block with two white horizontal lines?

This trend is part of a growing movement for equality.

Here's a marketing fail. A specialty foods store in Australia has introduced a 'show rooming fee' for customers who are just browsing. The rationale? It's fed up with people checking out its goods and then trying to find cheaper prices elsewhere. It's a good example of what happens when ecommerce collides with bricks and mortar. In marketing terms, it's also as dumb as a post.