What to make of 'smart' meters

I haven't been following this too closely but from this story in the local paper from Jan 2011: Smart meters coming this year it looks like BC hydro has plans to implement them across the province.

Installation is to begin by mid-2011, and customers will receive notices along with their bills when installers are coming to their community.
Once a smart meter is installed, customers with computers will be able to log into their secure BC Hydro account and see a nearly real-time display of their electricity use.

Here is a skeptical opinion piece from the Tyee in Aug. A Skeptic's Guide to BC Smart Meters

And a report from securityweek.com of some problems people in Main are experiencing with smart meters:

Smart Meters Interfering With Home Electronics

About 200 customers of the Central Maine Power Company recently noticed something odd after the utility installed smart meters in their homes: in some cases other wireless devices stopped working, or behaved erratically.

I like the idea of having a more granular understanding of what is using the most power in my house, when our peak power use is, etc.but it is apparent from a google search on 'smart meters bc' there are far more results related to people opposed to the plan than for it.

BC has a long history of grass roots movements derailing government initiatives like this so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Issues like this are prime targets for movements like OWS as, in my opinion, a lot of resistance comes from a lack of trust that companies like BC Hydro or the provincial government actually have the best interests of the citizens at heart.

My suggestion would be to err on the side of transparency.

Careful who you hitch your wagon to

We get a number of local Abbotsford and Mission news papers delivered to our door.  The letters to the editor are usually well worth reading as people around here are not afraid to let their feelings be known about anything and everything affecting life in our little corner of the planet.

I also appreciate that people have the courage to sign their names to their opinion.  Especially on contentious issues and as with anywhere else there is no shortage of those around here.

It is well known on the web that if people are given the ability to post opinions anonymously, generally the level of discourse degenerates and can become extremely negative.

It seems this phenomenon has infiltrated the comments section of one of the local paper's, the Mission City Record to the point they are banishing anonymous posting.  (note: the paper is actually part of the Black Press and the previous link is to a Kamloops version.  I read the same story in the print version of our local edition.)

So far so good; makes sense.  What I find interesting though is how they are dealing with the issue of anonymous posters. They are only going to allow people to post via their facebook profile.

So effectively if you want to comment on a Mission City Record story you must have a facebook account.  It's their web site so they can do what they want with it but I wonder if this is the best way to 'fix' the problem.

According to the announcement regarding the comments:
"Your comments are part of an important dialogue that enlivens and enriches civic life in our communities."

I agree it is an important dialog, some might say critical to the success of local newspapers.  By restricting the comments to those with facebook accounts you are cutting out 2 important constituents, those who are not technically savvy enough to have a facebook account, and those who either don't want a facebook account or are wary of providing too much personal information to the site.

Arguably the former group is unlikely to be affected by this as that group is more likely to use the existing comment method, aka letters to the editor in the print paper.

I count myself in the latter group and while I have a facebook account I am savvy enough to have concerns about what I post or make available on the site.

Here is the current section from the facebook terms and conditions regarding the information you supply facebook:

We give your information to the people and companies that help us provide the services we offer. For example, we may use outside vendors to help host our website, serve photos and videos, process payments, or provide search results. In some cases we provide the service jointly with another company, such as the Facebook Marketplace. In all of these cases our partners must agree to only use your information consistent with the agreement we enter into with them, as well as this privacy policy

Contrast this with the current terms and conditions on the Mission City Record site:

We do not sell or rent Personal Information to others.
We do not use cookies to track movements on websites other than our own.
We do not disclose Personal Information to others.
We take reasonable steps to protect your Personal Information.
We maintain reasonable physical, technical, and procedural measures to limit access to Personal Information to authorized individuals with appropriate purposes

It will be interesting to see how/if they are able to reconcile the two.

It isn't difficult to divine why they are choosing facebook to manage comment accounts as it is effectively 'free' and saves Black Press from having to invest in the account management in-house.

But there are also 'costs' associated with this approach.  Besides a theoretically diminished diversity of opinion, there are some good reasons to want to collect and manage user information directly.

The Mission City Record is a 'free' newspaper meaning the advertisers actually pay for the production and distribution.  The more information the advertising sales folks at the news paper have about the target audience the better right?

If you farm out the collection of that information to facebook, you are effectively giving away the most valuable commodity on the web today - user information.

Most companies on the web work very hard to try and capture their user data due to the potential value so the decision to actively avoid collecting and using this information is curious for a 'media' company.

It wasn't very long ago that My Space was 'the' go-to social media site and no-one had even heard of facebook.  That of course has changed and I am not suggesting facebook is as vulnerable to collapse as My Space but the point is that things can change very quickly in cyberspace so tying your  users to a facebook account poses a few questions to ponder.

Mandating people have a facebook account will exclude people and reduce the vitality of the online debates regarding the news and events affecting Mission and it's residents, the question is how much and at what cost?

I guess it comes down to priorities and perceived value. I'm not convinced BC Local News / Mission City Record have them aligned properly IMHO.

Municipal elections in Mission

The results are in and we have a new Mayor and council in Mission.  Incumbent James Atebe lost his bid for a 3rd term to Ted Adlem of the party: Citizens for Responsible Municipal Government who swept the seats they were challenging. (ref: mission city record)


The only one I am familiar with is Jenny Stevens and she seems like a pretty straight shooter so hopefully the other members of her party share similar traits.

We only lived here for a year and a half of Mayer Atebe's administration but he seemed like a decent fellow.  He was always present at community events which was nice to see.

Personally I was hoping Kevin Francis might do better but there's always next time.

Congratulations to the new administration.