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Idaho Gets Serious About Broadband
prostoalex writes "In an effort to boost the economy state of Idaho legislated tax credit for companies, who were investing in broadband Internet infrastructure. According to the latest news, the plan worked quite well, and about 150 thousand people can soon take advantage of tax-sponsored buildout. Speaking of wiring rural areas with cheap Internet access, there was an article in NY Times ($free_registration_quote), where Bill Gates admitted that in many cases building Internet in the rural area just speeded up the exodus of farmers, who were able to find a job somewhere else."
"In an effort to boost the economy state of Idaho legislated tax credit for companies, who were investing in broadband Internet infrastructure." Huh?
I don't see how broadband would boost the economy, except for creating (likely not too many) jobs in the broadband sector. Almost all the advantages of broadband are related to entertainment anyway... Unless you are downloading lots of videos or playing games (not stuff that helps the economy) a standard ISDN line is fine for internet access.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
WTF is this article about? The "Power of the Interweb" is turning dirt farmers into city slickers?
How did we go from taxpayer-financed broadband to a Hyperlinked Bill Gates Quote?
I think I know what happened between Michael reading the article on NYT and adding this story to slashdot. It's called marijuana. And I'm jealous.
Not that many years ago the federal gov't undertook to guarantee to rural customers telephone service, and electricity, and in the very early days postal service. The idea is that while these services are more expensive to provide and won't develop from market pressures alone, providing them at equal prices to rural areas is both just and, in the long run, good for the country.
Would a National Internet Access Initiative be a good thing? Or is internet access is some way frivolous, other than for people who work directly in the field? (In other words, its easy to picture why Ma and Pa Kettle need mail, electricity, maybe even cable TV -- but internet?)
My tentative answer is yes, that it's really just an expansion of telephony. But how ironic that it may result in a "brain drain" from rural areas (NYT article).
In other news, Slashdot posters get serious about run-on sentences and comma abuse!
building Internet in the rural area just speeded up the exodus of farmers, who were able to find a job somewhere else."
So they only became farmers because they lacked decent job sites? Hmmm.
I suppose we should take into account he possibility that the farmers got better farming jobs elsewhere..
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
In the meantime internet service providers will be available in Louisiana as soon as gators stop chewing on internet backbone or when Dukem Nukem Forever comes out whichever comes first. Seriously though that sucks that even Utah is ahead of us..
Oh well at least we got shrimp and crawfish down here so there! Take that Utah!
Bill Gates Views What He's Sown in LibrariesBy TIMOTHY EGAN
OLFAX, Wash. -- Bill Gates predicted in 1995 that the Internet would help rural people stay put, in part because they would have the same advantages as city slickers in the virtual world.
He made that prophecy in "The Road Ahead," a book whose jacket showed Mr. Gates standing in the middle of an empty highway in remote eastern Washington.
But when Mr. Gates, the richest man in the world, returned recently to the land of no stoplights as part of the last phase of a five-year philanthropic effort to put computers in every poor library district in the United States, he acknowledged that the road ahead was full of blind curves.
There is scant evidence, for example, that the wiring of rural America has done anything to make Mr. Gates's prediction about population flight come true. The new computers may even be aiding the exodus from rural America, as people go online to find jobs far away.
"I thought digital technology would eventually reverse urbanization, and so far that hasn't happened," Mr. Gates said, munching on a cheeseburger and fries at the Top Notch Cafe in Colfax, population 2,880. Among the bib overall set at lunch, he was largely unrecognized.
"But people always overestimate how much will change in the next three years," Mr. Gates said, "and they underestimate how much will change over the next 10 years."
He could well apply that maxim to himself. Three years ago, when stock in Microsoft, the company Mr. Gates co-founded, hit an all-time high of $119 a share, Mr. Gates was worth nearly $75 billion in Microsoft holdings alone.
Now, he is about $40 billion lighter, on paper, but he shrugs it off. "My value is still so much higher than I ever expected it to be by a factor of about 50," Mr. Gates said. "So the fact that at one point it was say, a factor of 60, well -- that wealth is all going back to society anyway."
The charitable group that Mr. Gates started with his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is now giving away $1.2 billion a year. Mr. Gates said he was pleased that its first major philanthropic effort, the library project, had helped to narrow the digital divide. More than 95 percent of public libraries now offer free Internet access, including those here in Whitman County, which mainly serve wheat farmers and received $93,000 from the Gates Foundation.
Inside the Seattle headquarters of the foundation, a giant map shows the progress of the campaign to give computers to libraries in every state. The campaign started with the poorest regions, mainly in the South and Great Plains, though distressed urban areas are included, too. But if superimposed over a map of population decline, it would show that many of these areas are not holding onto people, no matter how wired they become.
"They come into the library, and they may use the computer to get a job and leave," said Kristie Kirkpatrick, who is in charge of a library district in Colfax.
This land of rolling wheat fields has lost 10 percent of its population in the last two years alone, Ms. Kirkpatrick said. But she said the new computers had also changed many people's lives for the better, giving them more access to medical and agricultural information.
The foundation has fared much better than Mr. Gates's personal fortune. Other philanthropies, notably those started by David and Lucile Packard and by Ted Turner, have seen their assets shrink considerably with the stock market collapse. By contrast, the Gates Foundation has grown, and now has assets of $24 billion -- far more than any single philanthropy in the country. The foundation weathered the storm, Mr. Gates said, because less than 2 percent of its money is invested in stocks, though Mr. Gates said that could rise to 25 percent over the next four years, as it pursues bargains in the market.
"They are the only major foundation that is still doing great," said Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Mr. Gates used to think he would wait until he was in his 60's to give his money away. At 47, Mr. Gates has handed out $5.5 billion for global health issues, education and the library project, which is the first major initiative at the foundation to essentially run its course.
"The more I learned, the more I realized there is no time," he said in a recent speech to the United Nations.
(Second Page)
(Page 2 of 2)
Critics say Mr. Gates has raised his philanthropic profile at the same time his company has been battling court rulings that found Microsoft to be a monopoly that violated the law in trying to dominate the personal computer market. Even giving 40,000 computers to libraries is seen by some as simply an effort to create a bigger customer base for Microsoft products.
Patty Stonesifer, the president of the foundation, who started at Microsoft more than 15 years ago, says Mr. Gates was committed to putting computers in every library well before he was labeled a monopolist, and would be committed to it long afterward.
"He said, `History will get this right,' " Ms. Stonesifer recalled, referring to Mr. Gates's belief that the Internet can have a democratizing effect.
But whether history will show that bringing the digital world to places like Parrotsville, Tenn. (population, 127) or villages in the heart of American Indian Country had the effect that Mr. Gates intended is an open question.
Miriam Tarlton, 77, lives alone in a cabin 14 miles from the nearest town in the mountains of northwest Montana. She discovered the Internet at her library in the town of Eureka not long ago, after the Gates Foundation donated a computer and software.
"Oh, my gosh, it was like going on a ship to Mars," said Ms. Tarlton, who now uses the Web to find recipes, garden information, quilt sites and to keep up an e-mail correspondence with family members.
Andrew C. Gordon, hired by the foundation to evaluate the library project, labeled it a "a success, but not an unqualified one." In his surveys of libraries where the computers were installed, Mr. Gordon found that library use went up and usually not at the expense of books. He also found that most people who used the donated computers were poor, in the income bracket where the digital divide has been greatest.
But the No. 1 thing that people used the computers for was to keep in touch with family and friends through e-mail, Mr. Gordon said. He also found that 22 percent of new computer users in the libraries said they helped them find jobs; whether those jobs were in a different location was never tracked.
Staff members of the foundation answer questions and provide support to librarians, but that will be phased out in the next two years. The biggest question about the project is whether it will sustain itself once the Gates people walk away, after spending about $250 million on the project.
Mr. Gates seems ready to check the library project off his to-do list. His model was Andrew Carnegie, who left hundreds of sturdy libraries standing in small towns as part of his philanthropic legacy.
"You know, Carnegie was a pretty hard-core guy," he said, leaving Main Street here, where the biggest digital sign displays the price for wheat: $4.80 a bushel. "I'd be happy if I could think that the role of the library was sustained and even enhanced in the age of the computer."
broad band is an amenity that many companies and individuals require. Typically those home users requiring broad band are tech savvy. Thus making them valuable capitol. Also many small businesses are now at a point where broad band is a requirement. I'm a Admin for an Architecture firm with several sites and our locations that do not have accessibility to broad band are a pin in our side. relocating the office was a valid option until Allegiance gave us a T1 for half the cost of the local Telco.
In an effort to boost the potatoes of Idaho legislated tax credit for potatoes, who were investing in potatoes infrastructure. According to the latest news, the potatoes worked quite well, and about 150 thousand potatoes can soon take advantage of tax-sponsored mr.potatoe. Speaking of wiring mashed potatoes with cheap gravy, there was an article in Potatoe Daily ($free_french_fries_quote), where Bill "Mr. Potatoe Head" Gates admitted that in many cases building french-fry-barby-doll-houses in the rural area just speeded up the mashing of the potatoes, who were able to fry a french potatoe."
Bill Gates Views What He's Sown in Libraries
By TIMOTHY EGAN
OLFAX, Wash. -- Bill Gates predicted in 1995 that the Internet would help rural people stay put, in part because they would have the same advantages as city slickers in the virtual world.
He made that prophecy in "The Road Ahead," a book whose jacket showed Mr. Gates standing in the middle of an empty highway in remote eastern Washington.
But when Mr. Gates, the richest man in the world, returned recently to the land of no stoplights as part of the last phase of a five-year philanthropic effort to put computers in every poor library district in the United States, he acknowledged that the road ahead was full of blind curves.
There is scant evidence, for example, that the wiring of rural America has done anything to make Mr. Gates's prediction about population flight come true. The new computers may even be aiding the exodus from rural America, as people go online to find jobs far away.
"I thought digital technology would eventually reverse urbanization, and so far that hasn't happened," Mr. Gates said, munching on a cheeseburger and fries at the Top Notch Cafe in Colfax, population 2,880. Among the bib overall set at lunch, he was largely unrecognized.
"But people always overestimate how much will change in the next three years," Mr. Gates said, "and they underestimate how much will change over the next 10 years."
He could well apply that maxim to himself. Three years ago, when stock in Microsoft, the company Mr. Gates co-founded, hit an all-time high of $119 a share, Mr. Gates was worth nearly $75 billion in Microsoft holdings alone.
Now, he is about $40 billion lighter, on paper, but he shrugs it off. "My value is still so much higher than I ever expected it to be by a factor of about 50," Mr. Gates said. "So the fact that at one point it was say, a factor of 60, well -- that wealth is all going back to society anyway."
The charitable group that Mr. Gates started with his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is now giving away $1.2 billion a year. Mr. Gates said he was pleased that its first major philanthropic effort, the library project, had helped to narrow the digital divide. More than 95 percent of public libraries now offer free Internet access, including those here in Whitman County, which mainly serve wheat farmers and received $93,000 from the Gates Foundation.
Inside the Seattle headquarters of the foundation, a giant map shows the progress of the campaign to give computers to libraries in every state. The campaign started with the poorest regions, mainly in the South and Great Plains, though distressed urban areas are included, too. But if superimposed over a map of population decline, it would show that many of these areas are not holding onto people, no matter how wired they become.
"They come into the library, and they may use the computer to get a job and leave," said Kristie Kirkpatrick, who is in charge of a library district in Colfax.
This land of rolling wheat fields has lost 10 percent of its population in the last two years alone, Ms. Kirkpatrick said. But she said the new computers had also changed many people's lives for the better, giving them more access to medical and agricultural information.
The foundation has fared much better than Mr. Gates's personal fortune. Other philanthropies, notably those started by David and Lucile Packard and by Ted Turner, have seen their assets shrink considerably with the stock market collapse. By contrast, the Gates Foundation has grown, and now has assets of $24 billion -- far more than any single philanthropy in the country. The foundation weathered the storm, Mr. Gates said, because less than 2 percent of its money is invested in stocks, though Mr. Gates said that could rise to 25 percent over the next four years, as it pursues bargains in the market.
"They are the only major foundation that is still doing great," said Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Mr. Gates used to think he would wait until he was in his 60's to give his money away. At 47, Mr. Gates has handed out $5.5 billion for global health issues, education and the library project, which is the first major initiative at the foundation to essentially run its course.
"The more I learned, the more I realized there is no time," he said in a recent speech to the United Nations.
"Building the internet in the rural area"
You mean to tell me these people couldn't get any kind of dialup service out there? Almost anybody with any kind of internet access can search for a job in some city (or "elsewhere")... unless they mean the people who actually built the infrastructure itself... hrm
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
This sounds a bit like how the South Korean fiber lines that were built for use during the World Cup ended up being the infrastructure that let them install broadband access to a significant percentage of homes.
Admittedly, South Korea is a different sort of place than Idaho, but comparing it to a state is probably much better than comparing it to the whole US.
The problem is that no one really wants to pay for infrastructure unless they can see the "step n. Profit!" at the end of it. It is like roads and railways, infrastructure that allows companies to do business, but which is shared by others. I think this is a form of the 'free rider' problem, but I'm not an economist. Generally, the government gets to pay to keep the infrastructure going, and gets the money for it from taxes.
Short answer: good infrastructure allows many other activities, but individual entities are not always willing to make the investment.
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
Bill Gates admitted that in many cases building Internet in the rural area just speeded up the exodus
You mean like my hometown San Jose?
Admittedly, I love technology, I love the richness of information it brings into my life. Yet, seeing all of my families orchards being sold off one by one because of city land grabs has been sad to say the least.
I grew up on a family orchard in the evergreen area of san jose. I remember summer days napping on the stumps of the eucaliptus trees my uncle had cut down..
40, hell even 20 years ago the quality of life in Silicon valley was very different. Housing was more affordable, freeways less congested, about the only bad thing was we were known as the capitol of PCP here in san jose.
Now when I go up on Mount Hamilton, and look down at the city, it's a very different view than what I saw even 10 years ago, my families ranches all replaced with housing, and now there's this constant brown smog layer that comes and goes, but I fear eventually it will stay.
Bill, from one nerd beat up in school to another, please don't make insensitive comments like that. Sure the 799,999 people that have moved here in the last 20 years may agree with you, but watching cookie cutter sheet housing pop up because the city wants more housing for the "tech sector" is just plain wrong.
Here's a little history lesson for those of you going to evergreen valley college and are wonderin why the family tore up the ranch..
About 10 years ago the city of SJ got a stick up it's butt about flood control. Our property is ajecent to a canal that feeds thompsons creek. The first year they took a big chunk out of our property for a "flood control" project. Then for the next 10 they kept moving the fence 6 inches over. By the time they were finished we had lost a good 15-20 acres for the city's "flood control project"
It wasn't just that either, we used to pump water from the creek for irrigation, about 15 years ago Santa Clara county made the practice illeagle, meaning we had to get our water from the city, which made our costs go up.
Sorry mods if you read this as a flame, but Bill saying "Oh we can stomp out the farmers and they'll find other work" is a load of fucking crap.
Bill, I learned your OS and supported it for 7 years. Now i'm out of a job. The demand for MSCE is null right now. Fuck you go to hell.
You Karma Whore
> Bill Gates admitted that in many cases building Internet in the rural area just speeded up the exodus of farmers,
How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm / After they've seen Paree'?
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Bill Gates Views What He's Sown in Libraries
Quoted from http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyr ight.html
"...
All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of The New York Times Company. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content... "
I'd suggest slashdot start cracking down on this.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
See we arent just redneck potato farmers anymore, we are edjumakated and inforamated redneck potatoe farmers who fix dells ( We have the national dell call center ).
-Brandon Jank
Resident of the great state of Idaho
Long live the potato!
( We make the best memory too )
PRINT "Signature line broken."
GOTO 1
this is just atrocious..
In an effort to boost the economy state of Idaho legislated tax credit for companies, who were investing in broadband Internet infrastructure.
how bout proofreading for a change.. should be more like this
In an effort to boost the economy, the state of Idaho legislated tax credit for companies who were investing in broadband Internet infrastructure.
no comma before the who..
jeez.. you'd imagine with all this OpenSores ranting and raving, they'd create a proofreading program for slashdork editors..
why not call it slashspell.. now go make it so I can steal the code
thank you, and have a fabulous day/evening
There was a big anoying one about MS.Net on this article, what's up with that?
Well , I am writting this from Dell's largest US call center, I doubt they would be hear w/ all 600+ employees using dial up on the call floor.
Alright! Now I can kick my best friend's ass in CS without the lag! w00t!
now all the farmers can get online, read slashdot (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/ 08/1241250&mode=nested&tid=134), and learn how to farm
"In an effort to boost the economy, the state of Idaho legislated tax credit for companies (no comma) who were investing in broadband Internet infrastructure."
:)
Actually: "In an effort to boost the economy, the state of Idaho legislated a tax credit for companies that are investing in broadband Internet infrastructure."
I'm not wild about this use of "legislate," either. Suggest "enacted." Style book: is "Internet" still capitalized?
(Are we charging for are time?
I can tell you that I've never heard of this credit/plan/thingy before. And while I suppose the situation isn't *too* bad (I live in a town of about 5K, and afaik, everyone who wants it can get cable), I wouldn't say that we are the model of the modern major um, connected place :-) I guess I'm just bitter that after moving from Boise to Kuna (no, I didn't make that name up!), I had to downgrade from DSL to Crappy Cable. I'm serious, for the exact same amount a month, I get 1/3rd the upload speed, 3/4ths the download speed, and ten times the downtime... I never thought I'd prefer Qwest over *anything*, but at least my DSL line didn't drop out twice a week.
Oh, well. I'm probably going to get 20 responses from people living in Bliss and Sugar City (also names I didn't make up!), telling me I should praise the gods that I can even get cable. To them I say: "Move the hell out! I did!"
yes that means about as much as those 'This software is legal to use for 24 hours' crap that used to be postes on warez sites.
(ducks for cover!)
Although the guy who invented dynamite did make a noble effort to make amends.
I think Gates is more generally blamed for retarding technology through abuse of markets, conspiracies to destroy upstarts, etc. Now, this is all alleged, I ain't making no claims. I do give Gates credit for realizing that what the poor in developing countries need first is food and clean water, Wintel later. (Yes, I realize Idaho is not third world, I've been there!)
EAST.
West would put someone in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
hornbeck.cjb.net
has story about another site, doing this.
John Hornbeck
there was an article in Potatoe Daily...
At least we know Dan Quayle reads Slashdot, maybe there is hope for the Republicans.
"I thought digital technology would eventually reverse urbanization, and so far that hasn't happened," Mr. Gates said
Hightech and IT companies tend to stick together in certain areas for a reason. If you want a job in these industries, you better move away from the countryside since mentioned industries won't move to a small town in the countryside were they can't find enough skilled workers. I guess Bill thought that we all should be teleworkers, but most IT jobs require personal interaction, so you're still dependent on being close to the clients.
There are other reasons on why people wants to leave the countryside. It's not all about jobs, but the lifestyle you want. There are for instance more choices (eg. entertainment, restaurants) in urban areas. Thinking that the people leave because they've got the ability to search jobs is to make this issue a little bit too simple. This trend of urbanization is nothing new... and it will continue, with or without wired towns in the countryside.
"To boost the economy, in an effort, the state of Idaho were investing in broadband Internet infrastructure. [They] legislated tax credits for companies which [explicitive-deleted]."
"Eighty percent of the population in southern Idaho will have Internet broadband connectivity by year's end,"
SOUTHERN IDAHO!! This is typical of the State Legislature. We had a chance to do away with this last Tuesday, but noooo, Idaho has to vote 80% Republican every friggin year!!.
"150,000 people will benefit from this" Ya, that's about the population of the state capital, Boise. Don't let this fool you. This does nothing (it sounds like) for the towns of Moscow or Coeur d'Alene, a college town and suburb of Spokane, WA respectively, where we could definetly use tax benefits to corps up here. Spokane has about the poorest per capita in the country, but there is SOMEWHAT of a tech sector up here.
Where's my flying cars and teleporters. Food Generators?
According the infamous slashdot poll Slashdotters want Teleportation! As soon as we get that who needs flying cars? Or food generators? Hell, as soon as I can teleport instantly from place to place I'll get you Italian food from Italy, Mexican from Mexico (no more microwave crap). Please, oh please, sexually repressed and confused scientists make teleportation a reality.
I don't even need to read the article about Bill Gates to know how insightful his quote was.
For example, my farm has been in the familly for generations. These days it becomes harder and harder to compete with the mega-farm corporations and imported food products. Where does a man turn when faced with increased presure to sell the family heritage and give up his dreams? Bill Gates. Bill Gates is a man you can trust. He understands farmers because he is one.
I've been here in Boise for about five years, and its not as rural state as some would belive. He have here as headquaters Micron Technologies, SCP Global, and a major division of HP. Besides that, plenty of jobs with call centers (Direct TV, Sears, MCI to name a few.) Get further away from the city, then broadband becomes a problem.
About anyone with Cableone can now have a cable modem (which I've waited four years for.) The major problem is with Quest. It has tken them forever to roll out broadband, and you could be in one house and have it, but the next door one can't.
The major point of the article was 80% in southern Idaho will have broadband. Southern Idaho is where the major highway connecting our major cities and down to Salt Lake City. It will be a Big Thing(TM) when I can get broadband in a cabin up in Crouch, ID.
Yeah, Moscow, Idaho. He's a brilliant chem engineer out of the UofI (which is there in Moscow) and I'm trying to recruit him to work for my company. In one of the major university towns (two major universities - UofI and WSU within 10 miles of each other) and all they get is crappy dial-up at $25 a month, some 2.4ghz wireless and, apparently, cable. If there is a major Idaho push towards connectivity they haven't heard about it.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Should be, to distinguish between internets that do not connect to "the" Internet. But then again, a few years ago a lot of people for whom this distinction proved too subtle invented the equivalent term "intranet".
+5 Insensitive Goatse Victims
But how long will Idaho have that call center? I would be willing to bet that within 24 months most if not all of that call center will be outsourced to India.
duuuude
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
FLASH?
.net "content". It's on tv now too. I guess you can't figure out that one.
It's
Martin Galway, ad 2002
hilarious!
...appears later in the article
Performance is important in a rural area, he said, especially as the potential and need for telemedicine and distance education applications increases.
I used to work for a company that builds and installs distance education networks in rural areas. With the infrastructure they're referring to in the article, much of the cost of such networks is already taken care of. Why is distance education so important in rural Idaho? Because local schools with small numbers of students can't afford the staff required to teach the state mandated curriculum, much less elective courses such as language or (gasp) high school computer science. Without the ability to share teaching staff across distance education networks, many of the local schools would have to close and the kids would be bused long distances on a daily basis.
So, yeah, it's nice that farmers get to surf the web. But the real benefit is elsewhere.
How can we afford to ever sleep
So sound again
--ebtg
I didn't bother to read your entire post, but I got the gist of it.
You're a fascist american, and you're all anti-isrealite anyway. Especially that jew-hating movie industry of yours.
If it weren't for the socialist bastards from Europe, holocaust might've been a happy word for us jew fatherfuckers too.
I wonder if Idaho has been considering bribing its young people into staying in state. Oregon voters apparently just killed that measure. But that appears to be the same governing philosophy here. "150" people benefit from the latest tax loophole (in addition to a comparable number of Idaho accountants). Whoohoo. Even Idaho has a population that's several factors of ten larger. I think it just demonstrates the stupidity of politicians these days. Legislatures spend a whole year debating pressing issues like "mandatory school uniforms" in order to assure future peace and prosperity instead of reexamining the workings of the existing layers of laws, bureaucracy, regulation, and taxation.
Isn't that pretty much all of the midwest? Including cattle?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
if it weren't for the AMERICANS saving our butts in some A*L*A*N*A*L*D*A war some years ago, we would've had NARROW BAND! Like Utah.
Ugh. A denotative distinction based upon the capitalization of a term. Ugly. The distinction between calorie (1 g water 1 degree Celsius) and Calorie (food calorie, which equals 1000 calories) is bad enough, and in that case the context often makes the distinction clear.
First of all, how do you differentiate between Internet and internet when the terms when they begin a sentence?
More importantly, how would the distinction be conveyed in speech.
I haven't looked up the etymology to evaluate whether "people for whom this distinction proved too subtle invented the equivalent term 'intranet'", but I certainly view the coining of the word intranet as a clever and useful addition to English.
The term intranet seems only to allow clearer communication. Is there a downside to the use of the term "intranet" that I am missing?
Do the people of Idaho really need MORE pr0n?
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
"Hightech and IT companies tend to stick together in certain areas for a reason. If you want a job in these industries, you better move away from the countryside since mentioned industries won't move to a small town in the countryside were they can't find enough skilled workers. "
k _p r.html
Remember the "/." story awhile back about panama? One of the poster's links was to the idea of "callback", and the companies that did this Guess were they were?
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.09/callbac
That's right Fairfield, Iowa rural all the way The internet and broadband helps break the dependency between geography and business.
As for rural folks, I can tell you they're smarter than people give them credit for (I'd like to see how some of you "educated" folks do running a rural farm). Long-distance learning and other means, bring educational opportunities to them. Internet and broadband will help them run their business better.
I don't see how broadband would boost the economy, except for creating (likely not too many) jobs in the broadband sector.
Many non-tech businesses require broadband Internet access. For example, a retailer of outdoor apparel might want to set up a modest e-commerce site. A patent attorney might need to do online patent searches. I know someone that moved from Missouri because he runs a small business and could not get broadband. He is now in Northern, VA.
Broadband is like electricity and running water for most businesses today. It's not a luxury. It's a basic utility that they need in order to function.
I was amused to read Bill Gate's comments on computers and internet access halting the rural exodus by 1995. Having been born and raised on a large successful farm, I can tell you that yes, technology and computers are essential tools (even our tractors have computers in them that monitor and control every aspect of the engine and transmission, etc). But that's all they are. The tools need to be wielded better by farmers through education and better management.
There are several problems with farming in America that no broadband or computer is going to fix. (And thus the exodus will continue)
1. Farming is too innefficient. The days of small family farms under 640 acres are gone. You just can't do it any more. Sorry.
2. Farmers don't know how to manage their farms like a business. Even a family farm is a business.
3. Government subsidies eliminate incentives to improve these things and compete with the rest of the world. (Although Europe is the worst offender for subsidies.) Let's get rid of them.
4. Farmers are not diversivied enough. Thus my farm has gone from traditional wheat and grains to canola, peas, alfalfa, and flax. Also we use modern no-till techniques for increasing yeild without having to work the land. (stirring the soil can be counter-productive.)
My father has pioneered the use of computers in Agriculture as planning and managing tools (like a normal business, fancy that) since the IBM PC in 1981. The internet doesn't yet play a significant role in marketing, however, but it is a good tool for managing the books (online banking), researching and sharing ideas for innovation and so forth.
So things like rural broadband are nice, but if you don't fix the underlying problem, you'll soon have no rural population left and everybody will then wonder where their food is.
Michael
Remember the "/." story awhile back about panama? One of the poster's links was to the idea of "callback", and the companies that did this Guess were they were?
Do you think this is a trendbreaking thing? Why do you think that computer geeks from the countryside move to the urban areas? I can tell you one reason... job opportunities. This callback story is just a drop in the ocean.
As for rural folks, I can tell you they're smarter than people give them credit for (I'd like to see how some of you "educated" folks do running a rural farm).
I never put them down with my post, so I don't understand why you even bring this up.
But if superimposed over a map of population decline, it would show that many of these areas are not holding onto people, no matter how wired they become.
Well, duh, Bill Gates gave them a bunch of M$ grazing machines and MSN. Only Bill Gates can make money like that. "Hurrah!" cry the publishers, "It takes much more than a 2400 baud modem to compete with us now that we've forbiden servers and turned the internet into the World Wide Billboard for our services." You seem to have the same perception problem when you ask:
Would a National Internet Access Initiative be a good thing? Or is internet access is some way frivolous, other than for people who work directly in the field? (In other words, its easy to picture why Ma and Pa Kettle need mail, electricity, maybe even cable TV -- but internet?)
You should follow your analogy to it's conclusion. Industry has developed in new places thanks in large part to rurual electricity and telephone services. Sawmills and factories exist closer to timber rather than around tradtional ports and water and coal sources. New ports have been built inland which previously were unviable. Yet the management of those services stayed focused on several older "Empire States" due to, "Location, location, location." Phone services were useful but not enough to really get all the required information out.
Higher bandwith communications services will doubtlessly decentralize that command structure. There is much less advantage of being some place central when needed information can travel freely. The advantage of being where the resources are will never go away. Getting information to the resources is more important for the health of big companies than getting information from remote locations, but both are good. Better bandwith means being able to move that information to where it's needed when it's needed and it will help put production and management where it's needed.
In this recession, some companies are going backward in a failed attempt to retreat to the familiar, but this is temporary. Witness Intel who's CEO actually answered his own question about moving "back towards a neanderthal, top down, management style" affirmatively. Blah, the big dogs are not close enough to the real work to figure things out and micromanagement will blow them up. Hint, big dude, you fired the wrong people to save money. Local management can get all the information centralized management can but better extract the things that are relavant. Central management will simply be overwhelmed by details and choke on human limitations. These companies will realize the error of their ways as their competitors eat their lunch. The command economy of the Soviet Union was the ultimate example of this top down foolishness. You would think the world knew better by now.
It's impossible to predict what people will do with their bandwith. Saying all we really need is a phone line and electric power is kind of like saying that all we will ever need is 640K of RAM. Some people think like that. They build an OS designed for slaves to be pushed on at will. It comes with an EULA that forces updates, grants permision for file system examination and suffers from massive security and performance flaws from that and sloppy workmanship. Yet even those clumsy machines can be used to learn about and download real software.
The revolution is still happening.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
They don't have to take them from us anymore, they can get them from China, sigh.
We, however, have been giving the rest of the world a pain in the ass lately. Billy Tauzin, owned by Hollywood, is not your friend. Just click on that link and see his hand on many foul and stupid things.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
how can someone be blind and shortsighted?
Would he have benifited from better internet? It's hard to say because he did not have it to begin with. I can say for sure that he will benifit from better bandwith in the future as will all of us.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I moved from southern Idaho (Nampa/Boise area) to Moscow 11 years ago. I haven't seen a potato plan outside a family garden plot since I moved up here. Wheat, barley, peas, and lentils are the way to go up here.
But now we're talking NORTHERN Idaho, and that brings a whole 'nuther set of issues (Aryans/ various white power movements...).
When refering to THE Internet, the I is upppercased. When refering to an intenet (means of connecting two or more networks) the i is lowercase.
Never meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for you are crunchy and good with catsup.
I was in Colfax Washington just last Wednesday and there are TWO (count 'em) stoplights.
Where is NYT's journalistic integrity?
Is there no honesty in todays journalists??
Slashdotters should BOYCOTT the NY...
oh...nevermind...
A good thing? Jeez you must not work in tech support. I can only imagine now getting calls from "Ma and Pa Kettle" stating "my dawg gone internet broke!" Sweet Jesus, Serenity Now!
your subject is an invalid 'first post' anagram.
allow me to call your attention to
this informative post.
The faster the downstream, the quicker they can download their fertilizer and whatnot. The quicker the upstream, the quicker the mashed taters get to us. It's THAT SIMPLE.
xScruffx
Whole areas of the "flyover states" are being depopulated. Marginal farming and ranching operations in cold areas far from civilization can't compete, even with near-zero land costs. Kansas actually has more "frontier counties" ( 6 people/square mile) than it did in 1890.
Thank you for your concern. I will try harder.
I can only hope that you are one of the great ones? I have something special planned for my next FP attempt! I hope you like it!
In case you haven't noticed, agricultural supply is outstripping demand so badly that subsidies to prop up unneeded farms are a perennial political issue in the U.S. We desparately need to get as many people as possible out of farming and into other fields (pun intended).
I tend to agree, actually. What can you say about a place where the THIRD LARGEST CITY IN THE STATE has NO donut shop and NO decent bookstore...
Not that I'm hung-up on that lack or anything ... :-)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Background: I live in a high-tech world where a large portion of my career has been involved with technology, its advances and uses. I also live over 30 miles from the nearest city, my next door neighbor is a mile away (yes, I know my neighbors) and have to travel dirt roads for 20 minutes before I can find pavement.
I get dialup at 21kbps. On occasion, I get phone calls requesting me to come down and make some fix or change. I inform them that it will be a minimum of an hour for me to get there and the changes suddenly dont seem so urgent. With broadband, I could make those changes from home.
In the early part of the 20th century, it was realized that in order for the US to become the economic power that it is today it was necessary to bring the entire country along for the ride. Part of this was the Rural Electrification Project (mentioned in a few posts above). Pretty much, it ensured that electricity was available to all homes in the US. As we enter the first years of the 21st century, the same vision is true for data and the internet. We need a Rural Network Project.
One blaringly obvious example is the incredible number of CDs I have that include documentation, but only as a clickable link to the internet. Take a second and think about that. All this information available ONLY online. And with the tendency of everyone to move to brighter, shinier documents, increased bandwidth is required.
Or maybe we should consider it the other way. All computers used for web development and testing should have port 80 throttled to 48kbps maximum speed. Maybe then we wouldnt see all the Flash only sites. Oh, and while we're at it, all IT computers should probably be throttled to 48k also, just to help prove that code doesnt need to be bloated.
Just some rambling.
Kevin
Party lines used to be common in rural areas. I'm not sure how many people still have them. You can't legally use a modem on a party line.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It's even more important to have broadband in rural areas if any internet access at all is important. The reason is that phone lines generally suck once you get out of major population centers. No 56k connections out here -- 28k or 19.2k is more like it. And with the way web sites are built these days, that's totally unacceptable, as the web is almost useless at that speed. Plus, dialup POPs tend to be woefully inadequate and horribly overloaded, so you get kicked off all the time. It's like 1994 all over again. The scary thing is that much of the US is still like this.
Read the bottom of the page. "Comments are owned by the Poster." Doesn't that absolve slashdot of any legal responsibility?
Probably less then the "well were not hosting any of the content our selves" excuse worked for the p2p companies.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
Idaho also has HP, Micron, Crucial, Jabil and many more.
Please note that it is strictly implied that this article refers to southern Idaho, the great state of Ada, only.
As usual those of us here in the north are not included. Most Boise residence, including government employees, might have heard of Coeur d Alene. Most would be suprised to learn that places like Sandpoint, Wallace, Priest River, St. Maries, or Bonners Ferry are part of the state. Add to that the fact that these places do NOT have a largely Mormon population.
It's always good to hear news of foreign places. This won't apply to most of the state. I wish Boise luck with their broadband.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
> Add to that the fact that these places do NOT have a largely Mormon population.
Versus the population of Northern Idaho, which is filled with white supremisists and Mike Furman types. Moscow is probably the best town up there because it's a college town, and parts of Coeur d' Alene are ok. Anything north of that in Idaho (or south of Lewiston), are off-limits, unless 1). you're a Mormon in South Idaho, or you're a white supremisist in Northern Idaho.
FYI, I lived in Boise for one year, in Moscow for one year, and in Spokane for four years. I now live in San Francisco, and except for things being expensive, it's 100% better.
Three years ago, when stock in Microsoft, the company Mr. Gates co-founded, hit an all-time high of $119 a share, Mr. Gates was worth nearly $75 billion in Microsoft holdings alone.
Now, he is about $40 billion lighter, on paper, but he shrugs it off. "My value is still so much higher than I ever expected it to be by a factor of about 50," Mr. Gates said. "So the fact that at one point it was say, a factor of 60, well -- that wealth is all going back to society anyway."
Interesting... apparently he only planned on having a net worth of about $800,000,000. How modest.
What's more important: facilities like garbage collection, schools, sewage, highways, law enforcement.... or universal broadband access? C'mon people!
Since I only visit Moscow to visit them I relied on their information which is obviously out of date. I'll pass on the information on to them about the options that should be available to them since they live very close to the University. It's always nice to be corrected with useful information. :)
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
The farm to the north of us got condemned by the town. They took 68 acres of fields for two schools. They left the farmer with 8 acres. Not enough for a viable farm. Bastards. That is my tax dollars at work and it isnt nice.
mocom--
The laws of Leviticus are still important today. Just don't say I didn't warn you when God smites your ass.
is calling Bill Gates "Mr. Potato Head" funny? I get it, he's bashing Microsoft! Mod parent up! That's HILARIOUS!
...
You're a fucking retard.
"We don't do a new version to fix bugs." - Bill Gates
"The new version - it's not there to fix bugs." - Bill Gates
-- Retranslated from Focus 43/1995, pp. 206-212
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