CBC Maritimes

The notion of "Net Neutrality" has moved from the domain of IT specialists into the world of everyone who wants to use the internet freely

We opened with an comment from the CBC website from someone who had a new and plausible theory for recent email problems between Eastlink and BellAliant clients (see November 4th podcast). Then we moved on to Net Neutrality.
It sounds like an antiseptic phrase, but Net Neutrality has been tossed around a lot lately in the wired world. It's one of the founding principles of the internet, and it simply means that the net should be kept free from interference or restrictions from service providers. That is, certain users or applications should not be favoured over others. Users should not be "throttled" (that's when an Internet Service Provider deliberately lowers the speed of your internet connection to let someone else download more quickly). 
Terry Dalton is President & CEO of Canadian Informatics Consultants. He tackled the issue of Net Neutrality at a public forum Maritime Noon attended recently called "Who's Shaping Your Digital Future ?"

One definition of insanity is that it occurs when you repeat something that's failed over and over, expecting a different result.
Some say that describes what's happened for years with management of Eastern bluefin tuna stocks.
Next week the International Commission on the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or ICCAT, will hold its annual meeting. Delegates from 48 countries will decide how much Atlantic bluefin will be caught in the coming year.
There are two separate populations of bluefin. The Western, which ranges from here in Atlantic Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico, is managed with an eye toward conservation. But the Eastern, which breeds in the Mediteranean, is being fished in numbers that some scientists say will eliminate the stock.
Faith Scatalone is the regional director general for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and she's the head of Canada's mission at next week's ICCAT conference. She described what's at stake.

Recently a man in Charlottetown was sentenced to 90 days in jail for being under the influence while delivering a pizza.  During that case, the court heard he'd been drinking through the night to dull his pain.
That man is not alone in trying to deal with chronic pain. About six million Canadians are affected by pain - that's one in every five people. But Dr Mary Lynch says pain is   undertreated and not well understood. She's the President of the Canadian Pain Society & Director of the Pain Management Unit at Dalhousie University.She fielded questions about the treatment and management of pain.