Derek E. Silva

This is a terrific video I came across in one of my RSS feeds, done by Dr. Phil Plait. From the Dr. Plait’s site:

In July, I spoke at The Amaz!ng Meeting 8 in Las Vegas. Sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation, it’s the largest meeting of critical thinkers and skeptics in the world. Unlike my usual talks about the abuse of science that I had given at previous TAMs, this time I wanted to tackle a much thornier issue: how we skeptics argue with believers of various stripes.

This isn’t directed towards any group in particular, so please relax and just enjoy the talk. No matter what side of an argument you’re on, there are some very valuable lessons to be learned here. I think this talk is particularly good for anyone wanting to get involved in politics or activism at any level.

So a story appeared in the London Free Press this morning (linked to below) regarding Middlesex County Council’s decision to replace 2-year old laptops with Apple iPads. I find this to be a waste of money for reduced functionality replacing very usable computers. I just sent this email to Middlesex Centre (that’s where I’m a taxpayer) Mayor Al Edmondson and received a response. See below for my original email and Mayor Edmondson’s response. [...]

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. [...]

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!