HICK Tech 2008

April 10, 2008

Following great success in 2007, HICK Tech returns in April 2008 for another year of enlightenment, inspiration, and networking. HICK Tech is a one-day conference in Owen Sound. In 2008 it will feature a keynote presentation by Heather Champ (Community Manager for Flickr) wrap-up session moderated by CBC personality Nora Young and twenty sessions under the topics of Business, Community, Food & Agriculture and Technology.

The event will take place, April 30, 2008 at the Bayshore community Centre in Owen Sound from 8AM-5PM.

For all the details be sure to drop by HickTech.com

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Tech + Life, Web Tools, Community, theOwen Features, Internet

Earth Hour in Owen Sound

March 30, 2008

I had a chance to drop by City Hall/the Owen Sound Farmers Market last night to check out the Earth Hour Festivities. For some of the details on Earth Hour you can check out our previous post here. There was a good turnout at the event and more than a couple positive messages, including conservation of energy, the idea of community(and what it really means as we move forward as a population…) and some tough words against waste (in this case waste = light pollution, unnecessary/excessive lighting that apparently accounts for over a billion dollars annually and provides little to no useful service to society.

This latter point was made by the the Bruce County Astronomical Society, whose members were on site last night sharing telescopic views of the night sky and a message of hope/support for energy conservation, especially as it contributes to dark skies. More info about the Bruce County Astronomical Society can be found on the groups website and blog (includes photos form last nights event)

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Photos, Sustainability, Conservation, Community, theOwen Features, theOwen

Lawrence Lessig lectures on Free Culture

February 26, 2008

The following video is both lengthy (you will likely want to watch it full screen if you can!) and of great importance to our collective future. Definitely worth the watch in my opinion as it outlines a couple of different future scenarios as to how creative works will be protected (but more importantly be freed for many to build on…).

I first stumbled across this video on www.lessig08.org/, a site which it appears was created to potentially support an attempt to be elected to American Congress. You can read the whole story on the site but in the meantime free your mind and learn a little about free culture.

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Innovation, theOwen Features, Video, Internet

Net Neutrality

January 7, 2008

On a daily basis I follow a near ridiculous number of conversations on line. It’s only near ridiculous and not actually ridiculous of course as a result of the systems I have in place to track these many conversations across numerous websites, blogs, and a variety of other social media platforms(like Facebook and Twitter as examples).

I have written a little about this system in the past and I will offer some more insight in the coming weeks as well as I continue working towards building an effective means by which we can carry out an ongoing, time shifted discussion of all things Grey and Bruce.

One of the topics that has been increasing in prevalence over the past few weeks is the idea of Net Neutrality. The basic idea being the net should be neutral, that was the original idea and we should stick with it. The fundamental reason the debate is heating up has to do with the wishes of telecom providers (who do own most of the Internet infrastructure) to create a two tiered Internet, with the different characteristics of each tier effectively determined by ones ability to pay to have their information available on line. The following video clips and links will provide anyone interested with the varied details of this debate.

Obviously I am following the issue with great interest. It is the neutral nature of the Internet that allows myself as an independent content producer to easily distribute information and ideas to you, the reader/listener/viewer. Easily might be a bit of an understatement considering the time and money associated with my efforts thus far here at theOwen.com but in principal it is.

As a follow up to this post I will draft up a locally pertinent “future scenario” of how a two tiered Internet might impact your access to local information. In the meantime here’s your homework on the issue.

Do some reading about Net Neutrality. A good place to start would be www.neutrality.ca. Otherwise a quick google search will link you to numerous thoughts on the issue. If you happen to find something you think might be valuable to this discussion please send me a link.

You can also watch the following videos…

CityNews International - Amber MacArthur