Derek E. Silva

I’m looking for your submissions on this one. If you could change just one thing about London, Strathroy, Kilworth, etc. (wherever you live in Middlesex County), what would it be?

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?

The first ever Ignite London took place on Wednesday night over at Gigs Grillhouse (great food and service!). It was a very interesting evening, to say the least. I got to meet more people, re-connect with some folks from high school that unexpectedly showed up (not on my behalf), and had my chance to stand up in front of the 100+ crowd to deliver my Ignite Talk about MuniFibre. (more…)

I’ll be doing an Ignite Talk at Ignite London tonight. It’s happening a Gigs’ Grillhouse – doors open at 6:30pm, things really start up at 8:00pm.

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

Don’t kid yourself – Facebook cares very much about your data! They care about how much they can get their hands on, how easily they can index it, and then how much easier it becomes for them to target ads based on information you have on your profile and apps you use.

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. (more…)

Disclaimer: I was “born” and raised Catholic. Baptized at about 1 month of age, have been through four of the seven holy sacraments, “lost the faith” at around 15 years of age and never looked back. Best decision I ever made.

I know this story is several months old now, but it isn’t too late to talk about it. St. Joseph’s Hospital and London Health Sciences Centre embarked on restructuring the hospital system here a long time ago and both hospitals say they are very well “integrated” now. Cliff Nordal, the current CEO of both hospitals, had a significant role in this restructuring. (more…)

Please forgive the slightly crude blog title, but there really isn’t a better way to ask that question when I’m feeling the way I am.

Photo by plousia

London implemented a pilot project last summer that supposedly cost $140,000. The project? Letting people park overnight on city streets. The $140K cost comes from the apparent revenue loss of parking tickets that are normally issued to the poor saps caught leaving their vehicles on the road in the middle of summer.

A lot of people loved being able to leave their cars on the street. House parties, people too drunk to drive home or hail/call a cab (admit it, you’ve been there!), or a simple lack of parking in your driveway or on the lawn. The reasons you may need to leave your car on the street are numerous. (more…)

Not good enough anymore

While researching innovative approaches to educating our children, I came across a pilot project that was run this past summer at a single school in New York City. It’s been dubbed “School of One,” and the approach is very similar to the types of things I mentioned as possibilities in “The Textbook of the Future?” To quote this New York Times article:

The program [...] consists mainly of students working individually or in small groups on laptop computers to complete math lessons in the form of quizzes, games and worksheets. Each student must take a quiz at the end of each day; the results are fed into a computer program to determine whether they will move on to a new topic the next day. (more…)

I came across a story on TechCrunch early this afternoon about Time Inc’s plans for a digital version of Sports Illustrated. What they’re doing here is really cool and it’s worth a look because a big part of my ideas here are based on what I saw in the video.

(more…)

Earlier today, in an attempt to do something instead of simply sitting on the sidelines, I contacted both the ATU Local 741 and the LTC with an idea:

Publish your offers on your websites. That way the public is informed, the media has access to it and the “other side” can’t distort your numbers because everyone can fact-check.

Unfortunately, ATU Local 741 President Pat Hunniford has already replied to my idea basically saying that it’s not going to happen. Here is the full text: (more…)

This post has been a long time coming. The current strike by the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 741, which drive and operate the buses for the London Transit Commission (LTC) was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Lately it has been clear that the requirement and use of unions in the developed world is no longer necessary. Indeed, unions seem to be doing far more harm than good these days. First it was the catastrophic downfall of the North American auto manufacturers (not the only cause, but a big one no doubt). Three months ago, here in Ontario, the union representing driving examiners at the DriveTest centres, which are run by a private company called Serco (clearly outsourcing it was a big mistake) went on strike and there’s no end in sight to that one. (more…)