Please reply in the comments, and I would really appreciate it if you would throw in whereabouts you do live. I’ll get it started.

If I could change one thing right now, it would be that Middlesex County/London owned and operated its own fibre-optic network and Internet service provider (ISP) with no bandwidth caps or throttling policies. It would be called MLfibre or FibreLDN and you could get a 100Mbps down (maybe 5Mbps up for residential and 50Mbps up for businesses) for under $100/month.

So… what would you change?

I really enjoyed hearing Sean Galloway, a city planner, talk about ‘The Future of London.’ It was very interesting and exciting, especially once some of my friends and I asked him how much of what he was talking about would eventually be implemented in London. I’m pretty sure the answer was “100%.” Nice! Here is Sean’s Ignite Talk:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some of the other presenters I really enjoyed were Nik Harron and Chris McInnis. Ignite London’s YouTube account has the first half of the night uploaded so far, the second half of the night is coming soon.

Lastly, I’m embedding my Ignite Talk and then my slides right after them in case you missed the night or wanted to see it over again. Next time I do an Ignite Talk, I’m really going to have to work on not going over 15 seconds per slide (or having less slides and throwing them back-to-back!).

Click here to view the embedded video.

And the slides:

If you’re coming, I hope to see you there and I really hope my talk on MuniFibre gets you thinking about the possibilities!

In fact, the defaults for Facebook’s privacy settings completely expose your profile not only to everyone on Facebook, but to the entire public including non-Facebook users. Meaning your current and potential employers, people you like and have pissed off, your parents – everyone – can see your Facebook profile. For a visual representation of Facebook’s expanding public defaults, click here.

Those pictures of you drinking and smoking weed on the weekend? Those pictures of you in your slutty Halloween costume? The status updates about how you’re looking for a new job? All public, all the time unless you change your privacy settings.

Not only that, but Facebook’s new, and much maligned, “Open Graph” program, which is basically a 20x worse version of the failed Beacon, will invade your privacy in ways you never thought possible. Here I’m going to help you put an end (somewhat) to Facebook’s over-the-top campaign to make all of your data public and available to advertisers. The addition of “Connections,” which I opted out of, is also generating some harsh feedback from users.

1) Open up your privacy settings control panel by clicking Account > Privacy Settings. That will bring you to this screen:

2) Click Profile Information and be sure that everything is set to “Only friends”

3) Click Back to Privacy and then click Contact Information. Adjust accordingly according to your wishes.

4) Click Back to Privacy and then click Applications and Websites. This is one of the most critical sections of the site for protecting your privacy and data from websites/companies that you don’t want to allow access to! First, click the Edit Settings button beside What your friends can share about you. The default settings allow your friends to unknowingly share everything about you – fix this!

5) Click Save Changes at the bottom, then click Applications and websites at the top to go back to the previous page. Edit the setting for Activity on applications and games dashboards to your desired setting (mine is Only friends), and then click Edit setting beside Instant Personalization. Unclick “Allow,” then hit “Confirm” on the box that comes up.

6) Click Applications and websites at the top again, then click Back to privacy to bring you back to the main control panel. Now click Search. This is another really important tool because the default settings let people find your Facebook profile using search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Change your settings to what you’re comfortable with for Facebook search results and uncheck the box beside Public search results.

7) Click Back to privacy, and you’re done! Not that it was easy by any means.

Facebook suffers from a very poor user experience when it comes to managing your privacy, and my opinion is that it’s on purpose. They make money by giving advertisers access to your data they deem public; a ridiculous list that includes your interests (books, movies, music, etc.), list of your friends, etc. How Facebook can deem that type of information public is beyond me, but that’s their policy.

There are actually two other things you can do.

1. Don’t “Like” news stories and blog posts using Facebook’s “Like” button with the thumbs-up on it.
2. If you normally click the “Keep me logged in” checkbox on the login screen so that you don’t have to login every time you head to the site, discontinue this. Facebook can’t automatically share your information with other sites if you’re not logged into Facebook when you’re visiting Open Graph partners.

If you’re curious to see what information Facebook makes public about you before you get started, try using this tool.

Alternatively you could simply delete your account – which quite a few people have done including some engineers at Google – and use other social networking and sharing sites more heavily.

Your data is yours. Start treating it that way! As they say in the financial services world, CYA… cover your ass.

1. Integration of RPX. This means you can login using your Google, Yahoo!, Twitter, OpenID, Facebook or LiveJournal account and start participating in comments/discussions.
2. The current theme/layout. This theme has a lot of hidden features. One major one I’d like to highlight is if you hover your mouse over the top-right corner of the webpage, you’ll be given options to increase/decrease the size of the text and also the ability to change from a fixed-width version of my site to a fluid-width version of my site.
3. Addition of a formspring.me form. Formspring.me provides you with the ability to ask me any question. Clearly there are some I won’t respond to, like sexually explicit questions, but I’m going to do my best to answer every question asked of me as honestly as possible. The form is just to the right.
4. The book store. I used the Amazon Associate aStore feature to setup my own book store featuring books I enjoy or want to read. These books are laid out by topic area (food, education, etc.).
5. Dedicated pages for issues. For example, the London 2.0 page. It’s not done yet, but I’m using it as a public way to flesh out my ideas and opinions on topics. London 2.0 is just the start – I’ll be adding more as time goes on.

I hope that gives you a good breakdown of what’s new and maybe not so noticeable. My ultimate hope is that knowing more about how the site works will ultimately lead to more engagement with readers and a general satisfaction with your visit.

• Curse less. It’s been brought to my attention that the amount of cursing I do at work bothers some of my colleagues. I’m going to do my best to keep it to a minimum and only when I can’t think of another, less serious expletive. My fiancée and I are also going for a school-friendly zone as far as language goes.
• Get back into shape. I was in the best shape of my life up until mid-2008. I let things slip in 2009 with th
  

  Media Maratón de Béjar 2008

  e arrival of my son and purchase of a house. I will get things back on track in 2010 and run a 5km race (at least, possibly a 10km) sometime this year.

I have two major goals for 2010 with a few other minor ones:

• Get promoted. That’s a simple one. I’m aiming for one step higher on the career rung and already taking on additional responsibilities. For example: I’m going to be the Project Manager on the next research project I embark on under the tutelage of two Senior Research Analysts.
• Build a business. I have one major idea here that I would like to take to market. Thankfully it won’t take much work but it does involve bringing someone in with more technical knowledge than I have about JavaScript if I would like to add additional features (or finding time I currently don’t have to learn more JavaScript).
• Make a name for myself. This, clearly, is already a work in progress. I have my blog, Twitter account, Vimeo and USTREAM accounts (at least one of which I plan to start properly using), and I comment regularly on other blogs and news organization websites when I have something to say. I’m currently debating proposing a presentation at AgendaCamp on January 31, 2010 here in London and hope to participate in other (un)conferences this year.  I may also volunteer for a board of some sort if I have the time.
• Blog more often. I have the time, I just didn’t have the clear focus I needed to focus on just a few topics and create compelling arguments/content to post. I’m still hashing out the best way to keep track of what’s happening in food, education and local politics. I should be able to blog far more often in 2010 than I did in 2009 (I’m aiming for at least once a week).

That’s it. What are your resolutions or goals for 2010? Please share them here by posting them or simply linking to your blog or other public space you own.

After being exposed to nothing but European news for almost 2 weeks, I began thinking about ways that Canada could improve it’s government in (probably) 12 months or less. Some of these require lengthy explanations, others don’t because others have done the explaining family. So let’s get right into it!

1) Proportional Representation
Though I hate to see the type of power fringe groups on both the left and right-wing of the political spectrum might obtain, the fact is people vote for them and therefore they deserve a seat at the table (as long as enough people vote for them to warrant handing them 1 out of 308 seats). For more information on proportional representation, click here.

2) Senate Reform
I’m not referring to the full-of-fluff Senate reform that Prime Minister Harper has been asking for. No, I’m referring to the Senate reform that I wrote about back in October 2008. Lower pay ($122,700 is far too much), fewer senators (105 unelected Senators is far too many for a country of 32 million people), they shouldn’t be able to hold other jobs and they should be elected. Much of the reasoning for these proposals are on that older post.

3) Actively Solicit Feedback on New Bills
The Canadian government, and Members of Parliament, should be actively pursuing public comment on new bills far more often and in a far more engaging way than they do now. While I don’t appreciate the waste of paper (and campaign-style leaflets), the Conservative MP in my riding actively sends out messages to his constituents. And why not? If he communicates more actively, the chances of him being re-elected are much higher and you also have a more highly educated constituency. That’s good for politics, despite the fact that it may not be good for most politicians.

The Canadian government needs to get involved in social media sites, and so do more MPs. The Canadian government needs a newsletter system that people can sign up to in order to receive alerts on new bills; it should setup accounts on sites like Identi.ca, Twitter and Facebook so that people can receive alerts outside e-mail; more MPs should be holding townhall meetings using their own websites along with social media sites to organize them; and the Canadian government should allow online voting of new bills on a secure site, ideally using a unique identifier (like your SIN) in order to prevent fraud, as a way to gauge popular sentiment for new bills.

4) MP Websites
Some published standards for MP websites, ideally giving them some standard templates to follow and a choice of 2 or 3 different content management systems for them to use. The website for Ed Holder, my MP, is horrendous. Irene Mathyssen’s website, on the other hand, follows the standard NDP template and is much, much easier to use. This way, if your riding elects a new MP, you can expect the new MP’s website to look at least somewhat similar to the old MP’s website, albeit the backend may be entirely different.

5) Fixed Election Dates
This is a no-brainer. October, April or May every 4 years. Why those months? Well October would avoid overlap with the American elections in November (if they fell in the same year), and April or May would place the elections out of winter for most of us (very northern areas possibly excluded). No one wants to trek to the polls when there’s over a metre of snow on the ground, and summer elections will negate the possibility of many people even being near home to participate in debates leading up to the election or being at home when the actual election happens. Those months just make sense to me.

6) Webcast CPAC
Actually, this one’s already happening. I had no idea until I checked, but CPAC is available in both official languages live online. Kudos to CPAC for getting that going! What disappoints me is that it’s encoded in Windows Media format, so it’s not available on every type of computer. If CPAC were to offer the stream in an open format, like Ogg Theora, that would be much better for the public at large (and their, and in the end everyone’s, wallets).

What do you think? What other quick-win ways could we improve government?

What prompted me to write this is the allegations that the Afghan government has signed a new law that allows Shi’ite Muslims the ability to rape their wives. Or rather, the wife is not allowed to refuse sex nor would she be allowed to leave the house without their husband’s permission. According to a female parliamentarian quoted in the Reuters article, it would also legalize marriage for girls as young as 9 years old, and also require a woman to wear make-up if her husband demanded it.

Now if the allegations aren’t true, though I suspect they are, then some of what I’m about to say is moot. However most of it is not and speaks to the issue of special laws for “special” people and the damage they have on society as a whole.

Speaking particularly to this latest issue, it’s a travesty if it’s true. Especially when you consider the countries, Canada included, that have committed thousands of troops and billions of dollars to help Afghanistan in so many ways – this new law is a slap in our collective faces. To put in place a law that provides a minority civic law that lines up with their religious law is ridiculous and screams of a theocracy that isn’t truly interested in becoming a democratic nation unlike when it was under Taliban rule.

If this law truly has been passed and is published in the official gazette, then Canada and the US should pull their troops out immediately. There is no possible reason for us to support a nation that dupes us into helping them only to revert to practices that required us to assist in the first place. Pass a law, and enforce it, that doesn’t allow a woman to refuse sex?! Sorry, no more help for you. It’s that simple.

And in reality, this speaks to a much larger issue that has been getting a lot more coverage from us secularists over the past few years. Special laws for “special” people. You are allowed to attack my personality, my politics, my views on how the world should work, my interests… but heaven forbid you should knock my faith! Oh no! Once you start expressing your opinion on how stupid is, people think they have the right to become violent towards you! And worse yet, very few people say that that shouldn’t be the case!

Why shouldn’t that be allowed to happen? Why shouldn’t I be allowed to engage in public discourse over the merits of Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism et al? I’m allowed to put down your political views, your likes/dislikes, your choice of significant other; why are your religious views any different? We sacrifice the ability to engage in a critical, public discourse over the merits of something that the majority of the world has (that is, a religion/faith) meanwhile far more people have political views that are just as destructive. We allow religion to dictate the way we behave with others, to dictate how we behave at home, to dictate how we raise our children instead of thinking for ourselves how such things should be done.

And for what? The promise that I’ll get to spend eternity in some invisible paradise that you have no proof actually exists? Sorry, I’ll pass. The day I allow any book to teach me how to live, without thinking critically of the suggestions/recommendations/rules and the effect they will have on my life is the day I die. The ability to think critically for ourselves and to choose what we feel is right purely for us is part of what makes us human. So is the ablity to argue and disagree about something without resorting to violence. It’s not instinct, it’s critical and analytical thought.

There’s also a problem with the infighting in almost every religion out there. If you can’t get your beliefs straight with one another and what other people should be doing when following your religion, then stop bothering the rest of us with it! We shouldn’t have to deal with Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, Christian Reform, Calvinists, Baptists, etc. You all need to get together, settle on one stream of belief and then you may feel more free to attempt to preach it. If you can’t, please don’t bother because the various messages are simply disillusioning.

Forgive me for going on a tangent, but I could talk about religion and it’s negative effects on society all day… probably for 2 or 3 days straight.

The point is, when you allow special protection for groups of people that do not have the greater good of society (let alone the people who are a part of the group) in mind, you degrade the rest of the society around it. Allowing Shi’ite Mulism men in Afghanistan to rape their wives, to force their wives to wear make-up and marry 9 year old girls is bad for all of Afghanistan and, indeed, all Shi’ite Muslims. The reputation of that entire division of Islam is affected negatively, plain and simple. If you think people have a bad impression of Afghanistan now, this will only make it worse.

Should we spend? Should we save? Do we invest in long-term projects or short-term projects? Or BOTH?

The question is being posed to London councillors, and apparently most of them agree that we need to spend. The London Free Press spoke to all 14 city councillors over the weekend and apparently most of them are leaning towards investing stimulus money coming from the federal government in long-term projects that will create jobs. Apparently a favourite is centred around some expansion and upgrades that could turn London International Airport into a major access point, along with upgrades to Veterans Memorial Parkway and access the Highway 401.

Not being one of the people who pays too much attention to what’s going on at City Hall until fairly recently, I would hope that most of the plans for projects like these have already been drawn up and simply need to go through the bidding process now. If not, it will be at least 6 months before any shovels hit the ground.

And you know what? I don’t disagree. I would love to fly in and out of London International more often, rather not driving to Toronto, Detroit or Buffalo. Other things in the area need to be addressed though.

The Hale-Trafalgar railway overpass should be addressed immediately. It’s going to cost us a huge chunk of change – might as well get the federal government to chip in while we can! Not only would it ensure that CN Rail keeps the trains coming through London, but it would ease up congestion in that area and help reduce pollution. Idling at that rail intersection can be horribly long, especially during the winter, and no ticket for idling would go unchallenged.

The other idea being thrown around is extending Veterans Memorial Parkway north. My goodness, that’s something that should have been done when they first upgraded VMP! The fact that it ends at Huron St is mind boggling. It should connect with Fanshawe Park Rd at the very least, preferably all the way up to Medway Rd.

We may not be able to put in a ring road, but dammit we can get something resembling one! And we surely need better, easier ways to get from south to north London, especially right off the highway. VMP is really the only way you can do that now, but clearly it doesn’t get you all the way there.

Other than that, there are some thoroughways that need some major work. Wharncliffe Rd S, near Bad Boy, needs to be re-paved now that Bad Boy and the new Teppermans are complete.

Apparently the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority would like to move ahead with a new $10 million headquarters. As long as they’re only using stimulus money, I’m all for it but not at the expensive of other initiatives that Londonders can quantify and see immediately. I think the airport idea, along with expending VMP would be far more beneficial both in the short and long-term.

And what of some of those much needed infrastructure upgrades? Should be we doing what we can in order to avoid yet another sinkhole? Or will it take the watermain going down Wonderland Rd N at Oxford busting again, or better yet another major downtown intersection turning into a hole, before we say that’s a good thing to spend stimulus money on? It would involve engineers, construction workers, local firms producing new watermains, the works!

What do you think we should spend the stimulus money on?

First off it’s worthy to note that Fast Company, a magazine & website all about business innovation, recently put up an article entitled the Ten Best Green Jobs for the Next Decade. The very first job listed? Farmer. Why? Because the move to a sustainable food cycle invites urban/vertical farming to be a part of the solution. Translation – we’re not going to replace the farmers we currently have, we’re going to offset the lack of supply during non-growing months. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Indeed, it may be high time for a former client of mine to realize his dream of it “being a good time to be a farmer” fairly soon. And the message that Mark Bittman, cookbook author, journalist and TV personality, has been espousing recently just lends more credence to that.

Bittman, in his own TED Talk filmed back in December 2007 but not made available on TED’s website until May 2008, talks about the rise of meat in our diet in the last 100 years or so. If all of his stats are anywhere close to correct, it’s a little staggering! Bittman, like myself, thinks that less meat is a part of the solution. Not THE solution, but simply a part of it. More plants, less meat. It’s a fairly simple message that Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, has been promoting for several years as well. And not only does Bittman touch on the malnutrition that eating too much meat causes us but also the vastly negative effects that producing livestock has had on our environment. I believe it was said that 33% of the Earth’s surface is being used either directly or indirectly for livestock production.

That’s a bit much, isn’t it? Surely 33% of our land isn’t being used for the production of edible plants!

Funny that, in the end, technology got us into this mess and that it ultimately will lead us out of it. The real difference is in how the technology is used and the motivations for using it.

When you factor in that so many areas of Africa are still under-nourished, yet we can’t seem to satisfy our hunger for food in North America, the need for new ideas, new development and a more local focus is now more necessary than ever. Projections have our world population hitting 8 billion by 2025 – approximately 2 billion more than we have now. Alex Steffen, founder of WorldChanging.com, talks about even more topics regarding sustainability in his TED Talk where he also talks about WorldChanging.com and the models for sustainability they are looking for and featuring on the site.

In the end, cities are going to have to become more diverse, more progressive and those who fear change or fight change are likely to simply be left behind. Cities need to begin attracting entrepreneurs who are interested in innovations in the farming and livestock industries. The city that can foster this type of innovation will a wide array of new jobs and, therefore, help protect itself from economic downturns. We’re in a vicious cycle that we need to plow through and change in order to avoid the mistake’s of our ancestors.

That being said, I’m going to do my best to produce a new entry on urban design ready to go for a week from now. I have been fairly busy lately but I have a renewed energy in me thanks to various feedback I’ve received! Look for more very soon!