My friend Mariann has been an avid promoter and attendee of Toronto’s HotDocs festival, lo these many years. So it was no surprise when she called to recruit me to be part of her entourage while attending said festival. I had, in fact, discussed one of this year’s selections with colleagues at my new place of employment (well, perhaps not so new any longer: I’ve been there about six months now; but more on that another time), and was keen to attend a screening of The Internet’s Own Boy: Aaron Swartz. But not just any screening: one of the several screenings was to feature a panel discussion with Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig, Gabriella Coleman and the director, Brian Knappenberger.
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Category Archives: good works
Remembrance Day at the Canadian Air and Space Museum
A few weeks ago I heard that the Canadian Air and Space Museum was embattled, under attack from its landlord, Parc Downsview Park.
David Soknacki, Chair of the Downsview Park Board of Directors has pulled every dirty trick in the book to evict the museum from its current home, the former de Havilland plant, where Tiger Moths and other gems of aviation history were first designed and built. Among his underhanded shenanigans, Soknacki has refused to recognize the historical and heritage significance of the building. Continue reading
Vigilance Alert: Time to Save the Web!
Saving the web, like saving the world, isn’t something you do once and then forget about it. You always have to be on the lookout for threats to our freedom of communication. Sometimes, those threats creep in through the backdoor. Continue reading
One Web Day 2009
This year I participated in One Web Day. OWD promotes Web issues to the public. It celebrates that every participant to the web is also a contributor.
As part of Tucows’ support and involvement, we collected over 10GB of public domain and Creative Commons ebooks. These will be loaded onto computers we donated to the Little Geeks Foundation, and sent to Northern communities.
Andy Walker, who started Little Geeks, and happens to be my boss, tells us these communities are rife with social problems, resulting in high rates of teen suicide. The last time books were sent there, the suicide rate dropped by 50%. So I’m hoping our efforts here will have a real, positive and lasting effect on these peoples’ lives.
Mozilla also supported One Web Day 2009. In fact, it capped off their Web Service Week; which is like seven days of One Web Day.
They had these cool OWD posters you could print, have your picture taken with, and uploaded it to flickr.
Finally, we had a terrific soiree at Cafe Taste, around the corner from Tucows HQ, sponsored by Tucows, Mozilla and WikiDomo.
If you missed One Web Day, don’t fret: it’s an annual thing. This was the 3rd, and only my first. Keep an eye on the OWD site. I expect I’ll also say something about it here, before the 2010 event. Until then, be good to our web: create some content.
SaveOurNet.ca Has Lost My Support
Wherein our hero (yeah, that’s me) finds his father was right (again). Has his picture taken with pr0n stars. (OK, not really.) And proves, once again (as if it really needed to be proved again) that he is an altakaker. Continue reading
Cycling Record Falls to Rader and Team
Congratulations to Ross Rader and his team! Together they beat the cross-Ontario cycling record by 45 minutes.
Check out the cycling blog at https://ultrarider.ca/.
It’s also not too late to sponsor them and help children with cancer. Donate to the Coast to Coast Cancer Foundation.
Ross Rader: Slayer of Records
While I’ll be lapping up the WordPress goodness at WordCamp this Friday, Ross Rader, avid cyclo-fanatic and director of Tucows‘ Hover division, will be hard at work on trashing the cross-Ontario cycling record. He’s doing this to raise awareness, and funds, for the Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation.
Ross will be cycling 874km, trying to beat the 1987 record set by Ron Dossenbach of Windsor, Ontario, of 35 hours and 39 minutes. He figures he’ll have to maintain an average speed of 27km/hr.
You can find Ross at his blog: https://ultrarider.ca/.
You can sponsor Ross and help a child with cancer lead a better life at: https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/donate.aspx?EventID=28290&LangPref=en-CA.
Thanks for your support, and all the best to Ross and his team!