So let me start by saying, in theory, I LOVE Car2Go. The service has helped prevent me from buying a car and has been indispensable in opening up more of Vancouver to me. For those not familiar with Car2Go, it is a car sharing service where the cars can be parked virtually
Continue readingTag: Commentary
eaves.ca: Open Data Day: Lessons for Hacktivists
This piece is cross-posted on TechPresident where I post articles on the intersection of politics, technology and transparency and serve as an editor. Three years ago, after a chance encounter with Daniela Silva and Pedro Markun of Sao Paulo and a meeting with Edward Ocampo-Gooding and Mary Beth Baker in Ottawa,
Continue readingeaves.ca: How Hackers Will Blow Up The World: China, Cyber-Warfare and the Cuban Missile Crisis
I have a piece on TechPresident I really enjoyed writing about how certain technologies – as they become weaponized – can in turn become highly destabilizing to global stability. The current rash of Cyber-Warfare, or Cyber-Spying or Cyber-crime (depending on the seriousness and intent with which you rate it) could
Continue readingeaves.ca: International #OpenDataDay: Now at 90 Cities (and… the White House)
Okay. We are 10 days away from International Open Data Day this February 23rd, 2013. There is now so much going on, I’ve been excited to see the different projects people are working on. Indeed there is so much happening, I thought I’d share just a tiny fraction of it in a
Continue readingeaves.ca: #Idlenomore as an existential threat
Almost three years ago (although I only worked up the nerve to post it two years ago, so sensitive is the topic) I wrote a blog post about First Nations youth, and how I suspected they were going to radically alter Canada’s relationship with First Nations, and likely change the
Continue readingeaves.ca: Til Debt Do Us Part: Reality Television and Poverty
I’m traveling for business and that means several things. Most predictably it means come the evening, I’m getting on a tread mill to exercise. I’m in Edmonton. It’s cold. Like -24C (-11F) cold. For whatever reason, while running the TV in front of me brings up Til Death Do Us Part a sort of
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Journal News Gun Map: Open vs. Personal Data
As many readers are likely aware two weeks ago The Journal News, a newspaper just outside of New York city, published a map showing the addresses and names of handgun owners in Westchester and Rockland counties. The map, which was part of a story responding to the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut,
Continue readingeaves.ca: Teach to Do – Lessons from Louise Glück
Somewhere along the lines I remember learning the line “those who cannot do, teach.” I’m sure there are many instances where this is true, it’s just not what I remember when I think of the great teachers I have had, or my own experience. Part of this crystallized for me a couple
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Beneficial Impact of Newspaper Paywalls on Users
There continues to be fierce debate about the cost/benefits of newspaper paywalls, a debate Mathew Ingram has been helping drive with a great deal of depth and with excellent links. It is interesting to watch Ingram take on, and have to rebut, the problematic thinking that seems to so frequently comes out
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Five Tips for Surviving Caregiving
A few weeks ago, I travelled to Vancouver to address a family association and also to give a talk about how we use Tyze Personal Networks to coordinate Nick’s care. I’ve written extensively on Tyze before, but for the uninitiated, Tyze is a softw…
Continue readingeaves.ca: Re-Architecting the City by Changing the Timelines and Making it Disappear
A couple of weeks ago I was asked by one of the city’s near me to sit on an advisory board around the creation of their Digital Government strategy. For me the meeting was good since I felt that a cohort of us on the advisory board were really pushing the city into a place […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Power of Weakness and the World’s Relationship with America
This past week, I had the enormous privilege of being invited to Washington, DC to attend the Academy of Achievement summit. This event – of which I knew nothing before receiving my invite – is an annual gathering of roughly 80 delegates (whose careers have shown some promise) from around
Continue readingeaves.ca: Doing Government Websites Right
Today, I have a piece over on Tech President about how the new UK government website – Gov.uk – does a lot of things right. I’d love to see more governments invest two of the key ingredients that made the website work – good design and better analytics. Sadly, on
Continue readingeaves.ca: Playing with Budget Cutbacks: On a Government 2.0 Response, Wikileaks & Analog Denial of Service Attacks
Reflecting on yesterday’s case study in broken government I had a couple of addition thoughts that I thought fun to explore and that simply did not make sense including in the original post. A Government 2.0 Response Yesterday’s piece was all about how Treasury Board’s new rules were likely to
Continue readingLeDaro: Rex Murphy on Standard of Conduct in Parliament
Once in a while Rex Murphy provides good commentary, as the following on the standard of conduct in Parliament – especially he talks about big-mouth Rob Andres. “Mr. Rob Anders, Conservative MP, whose reckless mouth is hardly news (he once wanted Nelson Mandela to be labeled a terrorist) went to
Continue readingeaves.ca: There is so much joy in what we do
Hello blog. I know it has been a a week since I posted. I want to apologize and explain it is not out of a lack of love, just a tremendous amount of travel. And of course, the fact that I also have this guy to take care of. (And
Continue readingeaves.ca: What the Quantified Self Movement Says and Tech and Gender
Over the past year or two I’ve been to a couple of unconferences sessions about how people are increasingly measuring different parts of their lives: how far they run, how they sleep, what they eat, etc… As some readers may be aware, these efforts are often referred to as part
Continue readingeaves.ca: Requiring Facebook for Your News Site (or website) – the Missed Opportunity
Last week I published I blog post titled Why Banning Anonymous Comments is Bad for Postmedia and Bad for Society in reaction to the fact that PostMedia’s newspapers( including the Vancouver Sun, Ottawa Citizen, National Post, etc…) now requires readers to login with a Facebook account to make comments. The
Continue readingeaves.ca: Why Banning Anonymous Comments is Bad for Postmedia and Bad for Society
Last night I discovered that my local newspaper – the Vancouver Sun – was going to require users log in with Facebook to comment. It turns out that this will be true of all Postmedia newspapers. I’m stunned that a newspaper ownership would make such a move. Even more so
Continue readingeaves.ca: Is the Internet bringing us together or is it tearing us apart?
The other day the Vancouver Sun – via Simon Fraser University’s Public Square program – asked me to pen a piece answering the questions: Is the Internet bringing us together or is it tearing us apart? Yesterday, they published the piece. My short answer? Trying to unravel whether the Internet
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