What I would think would be a GREAT way to implement universal broadband access is to have the government encourage the creation of wireless mesh networks.
The government wouldn't even have to connect the wireless mesh network to the Internet, at first. This could kinda be like an Internet3, (where Internet1 is the network we use everyday, and Internet2 is the network that is being developed with big fiber pipes between Universities).
This could be implemented fairly easily at the local level, where the government would set up servers on the wireless mesh Internet3 network, encouraging local businesses to do the same.
For the lower class, the government would subsidize the price of the routers, and for them and the upper classes could even provide their citizens with custom firmware that would mesh their routers together into a cohesive network.
As more cities follow the first cities example the larger the project grows until eventually Internet3 grows to be as big as Internet1. With the costs now of Internet connection merely being the initial cost of the router + the electricity to keep it running.
This to me seems a lot more economically feasible than the government subsidizing FTTC or FTTH, even if they own the network and lease it out to private business. With Internet3, the people DIRECTLY own part of the infrastructure. Those who can afford the equipment can buy it themselves, those who can not, can get it through government subsidy, which would also benefit the ones who payed for the equipment outright, cause the more routers there are the more redundancy is built into the actual Internet3 network.
Utah in General and Provo specificly is probably the MOST conservative city on Earth, (riviling that of Nazi Germany), and they have already impimented FTTH for the ENTIRE city. Granted the city is not that large and Utah is about as backwater as you can get, but still, at least the people in Utah have some sense of community that the rest of the Republician Party lacks. (Though this is not surprising that Provo, through iProvo, and other Utah cities through UTOPIA, would build goverment owned Fiber based networks. This idea goes along with the Mormon ideal of a "United Order" where all things are held in "common" ( which church leaders will DENY is communisim , I personaly, as a Mormon, do not see the deference between the ideal of the United Order, and Marxism as Karl Marx envisioned it ) ).
As I mentioned above, we need all of/. to relocate to Provo, so we can not only have our FTTH connectinos but also help the Democrats (yes there are a few in Utah) oust Orrin Hatch in the next election!;-)
We need to get a bunch of/.er's to move to Provo, Utah, (which has already implimented FTTH). That way we will have our high speed symetric pipes, and also be able to help oust Orrin Hatch in the next election (mind you that it would have to be nearly all of the/.er's on/. to do that, but rest assured, there are still people in Utah who are upset with Republicians and Orrin Hatch;-) )
Unless you have a Linksys WRT54G router, where there are already open source firmware projects. Once the standerd is settle on, (which sounds like it is pretty much settled on now, from RTFA), I would expect these various projects to upgrade to WPA2.
Linksys may not like this, and may attempt to sue these projects into oblivian, (using our "friend" the DMCA). But it shouldn't be to hard to implimate.
1. Competition will be prohibited (if it isn't driven out by the state product being "free").
Not necessarily true in all cases, just because something is "free" does not mean there can not be any competition. Especially because it is free means that it will most likely be sub standard, (IE, zombie machines spamming, taking up bandwidth so that even the most trivial web browsing takes 30 seconds to load a simple page), if you want more bandwidth above and beyond what is offered, ( if you have ever lived in a dorm, or an apartment building that offers Internet access, you know that there are many idiots who don't know how to secure there computers, and thus end up using tons of bandwidth).
The whole point of having the local government provide the service is that the local democratically (at least in the US) elected government is there to represent the people, and are thus responsible to the people, thus if usage fees, pandering to the RIAA, catering to special interest groups, tracking political opponents, etc start happening it is up to the people to vote for or against these policies.
This is, of course in theory. I know we like to talk a lot on/. about how the government, democratically elected or not, republican or democratic, is in the palm of special interests groups, however, I feel that while this may be true at say the federal and state level, it is not as rampant in local communities and governments where there is a closer relationship between the officers of government and the people. IE its more more likely for you to know, and even influence, the local Mayor and Board of Trustees, than it is to even know your State and Federal representatives.
The *poor* may not know how to do these things, however there are legal entities called *charities*, and there is such a thing as *volenteer* work. You can buy a $20 dollar computer off e bay, and install Linux on it, set it up for email and web browsing and then donate it to a charity group, church, or even give it away to someone you know who could use it. If u set it up right, by, say re-naiming the Firefox icon 'Internet' and Thunderbird as 'E Mail', then all the poor person will do is go and double click the icon, just like he/she would do in windows.
While it is true that *IF* the Library had in there TOS you must use your computer inside than you must use it inside, in this particular case the TOS of the library does NOT say that you MUST use it inside, hence this amounts to nothing more than the usual harrassment we get from the local authorities.
And exactly WHO are the patrons of a PUBLIC library? The Public of course. Its the public that is paying for the Internet access hence why the library offers it open and unencrypted.
Personally, if I where to use a public libaries AP outside, and a cop told me it was illegal I would 1) Goto the TOS of the Libray online and ask him where it says I can not sit outside the Libray (in this case the TOS does NOT say it is illgeal) and use its AP, and if that was not sufficent, then 2) I would look up the cities ordances online and ask him to show me which one says I can't use the Libraies AP online.
If he wants to arrest me, then he can expect 1) to lose, and 2) at the very least a civil suit agienst him AND the city for harrassment.
A little OT, but OEM machines with OEM parts are VERY HARD to get Linux running properly. You really have to build your own computer if you want to run Linux cause of all of the propitiatory windows crap the OEM's throw in there computers.
Slightly more on topic, when I was planning on getting a power book I had every intention of putting Linux on the computer, but once I got it and started using OS X I said screw that, and now I wonder why anyone would muddy there Mac with Linux when they have such a viable commercial OS.
You need to remember, too, that most applications will BITCH (and not install) if you try to install them with anything less than Admin privlages. For ~90% of Linux/Unix programs, you can install them as a user in your home directory, with no problem. This is not the case with the majority of programs for windows, (even if it installs in a user directory, the installer still complains that your not running with admin privlages and tells you to get admin privlages before installing said software.
And how, praytell, are people swapping illegal BOOKS? Don't tell me you're scanning in your 400+ page tomes of wisdom and trading them on Kazaa?
Belive me its being done. I have seen the D&D 3.5 Players Handbook, DM's guide, and Monster manual (all ~300 pages) pefectly reproduced as PDF's, so obviously someone has A LOT of time on their hand.
Furthermore I wonder why the RIAA hasn't gone after.binaries newsgroups, torrents or some of the other networks where people have been "sharing" high quality MP3's and lossless audio for years.
Partially on topic (its about Mars) but wasn't that the one NASA screw up because one team was working with "Imprieal" measurements and the other team was working with Metric measurements, and they kinda got confused??
However, it is not the best for developers since they cannot create commercial application for it without paying TrollTech.
Alas this is very FALSE. You can develop QT based apps and charge for them, as much as you what to charge, as long as you use the GPL as your license. As long as you make the source available per stated in the GPL License, etheir as a free download, or available on a CD for no more than the cost of media + shipping.
Though if you can some how set up servers and such with in the wi fi network than you use the bandwidth of the community network and not the bandwidth of the outside internet connection.
The larger the community wi fi network the greater a possablity this could be done, though dont expect it to be so with a small group of less than a 100 people.
The question is: Will the Telcos allow such a thing to happen?
I know in Utah, (of all places where the vile Orin Hatch is elected into office by Republician Religious sheep (yeah yeah, Flamebait I know)), both the local phone company (QWest) and Comcast are loobying HARD in the Utah legeslature to stop UTOPIA (a coallition of local cities to impliemnt FTTH).
bout the only good thing Provo is doing is implimenting there own seperate FTTH system that is a basis for the more generalized UTOPIA FTTH that other Utah cities are attempting to impliment.
Or you could record the votes electronicly, print out a verified ballot that is placed in a ballot box.
The electronic vote would be used to declare a winner, however, in order to confirm that the person is a winner, there MUST be a recount of the printed paper ballots. Which wouldn't take long, we would have between the beginning of Novembet to the middle of January to do the re count.
I really dont see anything less as Fair and Balanced(TM), (there will always be voter fraud, IE, graveyards voting, or peoplein retirement homes voting who haven't voted at all.), but we have always had those problems, even when we where checking boxes with pencils/pens.
Though on the other hand, Office is currently ported to OS X, which would make it a hellva lot easier to port to linux, because of OS X being based off of BSD Unix.
they would feature many references to the above and other in-jokes from high school subcultures that could be dropped in to make for greater entertainment value.
uh this is Stargate NOT Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you want refrences to high school subculture, and jokes about said sub culture, go get seasons 1-7 of Buffy off of Netflix.
Stargate SG-1/Atlantis is geered way more towards sci-fi than Buffy ever was, (it amazes me how someone can classify Buffy as Sci Fi, where in they have some elements of sci fi, all in all the show is not about sci fi), also Buffy, for the first three seasons is in a high school setting. Stargate is set in a MILITARY setting. It would be hard pressed for any writer to attempt to conform Stargate into refrences of a sub culture that is many years younger than the characters themselves.
slightly OT, but I wonder if the SGC will just ship about a 100 or so Naqidah generaters to Atlantis that should provide enough energy to open the gate back to Earth, and allow them to come back home.
Though I think a more likly way to handle the Atlantis team coming home is to bring Atlantis back to Earth. From what I could get from the season 8 premeire of SG-1, Atlantis was actually built on Earth, but soon after left to head toward the Pegasus Galaxy.
Image the international bickering that would insue if said "Lost City" happened to come back to Earth, and they thought they had there hands full with the bickering over the Antartic Ancients base.;-)
Just had the thought of a bunch of geeks sneaking over to Cuba to get Fidel Castro to set up a BT tracker.
On second thought that probably wouldn't work out well for him, that would just give GWB a reason to invade Cuba, (like GWB really needs a reason to invade ANY soverign country)
And that is a good way to get busted for kiddie porn. With Free Net you don;t choose the info that is stored on your computer, so it is quite possable that you will be serving out kiddie porn, when the next Law enforcement kiddie porn sting comes around, you get busted, (Free Net is THAT secure).
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What I would think would be a GREAT way to implement universal broadband access is to have the government encourage the creation of wireless mesh networks.
The government wouldn't even have to connect the wireless mesh network to the Internet, at first. This could kinda be like an Internet3, (where Internet1 is the network we use everyday, and Internet2 is the network that is being developed with big fiber pipes between Universities).
This could be implemented fairly easily at the local level, where the government would set up servers on the wireless mesh Internet3 network, encouraging local businesses to do the same.
For the lower class, the government would subsidize the price of the routers, and for them and the upper classes could even provide their citizens with custom firmware that would mesh their routers together into a cohesive network.
As more cities follow the first cities example the larger the project grows until eventually Internet3 grows to be as big as Internet1. With the costs now of Internet connection merely being the initial cost of the router + the electricity to keep it running.
This to me seems a lot more economically feasible than the government subsidizing FTTC or FTTH, even if they own the network and lease it out to private business. With Internet3, the people DIRECTLY own part of the infrastructure. Those who can afford the equipment can buy it themselves, those who can not, can get it through government subsidy, which would also benefit the ones who payed for the equipment outright, cause the more routers there are the more redundancy is built into the actual Internet3 network.
Utah in General and Provo specificly is probably the MOST conservative city on Earth, (riviling that of Nazi Germany), and they have already impimented FTTH for the ENTIRE city. Granted the city is not that large and Utah is about as backwater as you can get, but still, at least the people in Utah have some sense of community that the rest of the Republician Party lacks. (Though this is not surprising that Provo, through iProvo, and other Utah cities through UTOPIA, would build goverment owned Fiber based networks. This idea goes along with the Mormon ideal of a "United Order" where all things are held in "common" ( which church leaders will DENY is communisim , I personaly, as a Mormon, do not see the deference between the ideal of the United Order, and Marxism as Karl Marx envisioned it ) ).
/. to relocate to Provo, so we can not only have our FTTH connectinos but also help the Democrats (yes there are a few in Utah) oust Orrin Hatch in the next election! ;-)
As I mentioned above, we need all of
We need to get a bunch of /.er's to move to Provo, Utah, (which has already implimented FTTH). That way we will have our high speed symetric pipes, and also be able to help oust Orrin Hatch in the next election (mind you that it would have to be nearly all of the /.er's on /. to do that, but rest assured, there are still people in Utah who are upset with Republicians and Orrin Hatch ;-) )
Unless you have a Linksys WRT54G router, where there are already open source firmware projects. Once the standerd is settle on, (which sounds like it is pretty much settled on now, from RTFA), I would expect these various projects to upgrade to WPA2.
Linksys may not like this, and may attempt to sue these projects into oblivian, (using our "friend" the DMCA). But it shouldn't be to hard to implimate.
1. Competition will be prohibited (if it isn't driven out by the state product being "free").
/. about how the government, democratically elected or not, republican or democratic, is in the palm of special interests groups, however, I feel that while this may be true at say the federal and state level, it is not as rampant in local communities and governments where there is a closer relationship between the officers of government and the people. IE its more more likely for you to know, and even influence, the local Mayor and Board of Trustees, than it is to even know your State and Federal representatives.
Not necessarily true in all cases, just because something is "free" does not mean there can not be any competition. Especially because it is free means that it will most likely be sub standard, (IE, zombie machines spamming, taking up bandwidth so that even the most trivial web browsing takes 30 seconds to load a simple page), if you want more bandwidth above and beyond what is offered, ( if you have ever lived in a dorm, or an apartment building that offers Internet access, you know that there are many idiots who don't know how to secure there computers, and thus end up using tons of bandwidth).
The whole point of having the local government provide the service is that the local democratically (at least in the US) elected government is there to represent the people, and are thus responsible to the people, thus if usage fees, pandering to the RIAA, catering to special interest groups, tracking political opponents, etc start happening it is up to the people to vote for or against these policies.
This is, of course in theory. I know we like to talk a lot on
The *poor* may not know how to do these things, however there are legal entities called *charities*, and there is such a thing as *volenteer* work. You can buy a $20 dollar computer off e bay, and install Linux on it, set it up for email and web browsing and then donate it to a charity group, church, or even give it away to someone you know who could use it. If u set it up right, by, say re-naiming the Firefox icon 'Internet' and Thunderbird as 'E Mail', then all the poor person will do is go and double click the icon, just like he/she would do in windows.
While it is true that *IF* the Library had in there TOS you must use your computer inside than you must use it inside, in this particular case the TOS of the library does NOT say that you MUST use it inside, hence this amounts to nothing more than the usual harrassment we get from the local authorities.
...for our patrons.
And exactly WHO are the patrons of a PUBLIC library? The Public of course. Its the public that is paying for the Internet access hence why the library offers it open and unencrypted.
Personally, if I where to use a public libaries AP outside, and a cop told me it was illegal I would 1) Goto the TOS of the Libray online and ask him where it says I can not sit outside the Libray (in this case the TOS does NOT say it is illgeal) and use its AP, and if that was not sufficent, then 2) I would look up the cities ordances online and ask him to show me which one says I can't use the Libraies AP online.
If he wants to arrest me, then he can expect 1) to lose, and 2) at the very least a civil suit agienst him AND the city for harrassment.
A little OT, but OEM machines with OEM parts are VERY HARD to get Linux running properly. You really have to build your own computer if you want to run Linux cause of all of the propitiatory windows crap the OEM's throw in there computers.
Slightly more on topic, when I was planning on getting a power book I had every intention of putting Linux on the computer, but once I got it and started using OS X I said screw that, and now I wonder why anyone would muddy there Mac with Linux when they have such a viable commercial OS.
You need to remember, too, that most applications will BITCH (and not install) if you try to install them with anything less than Admin privlages. For ~90% of Linux/Unix programs, you can install them as a user in your home directory, with no problem. This is not the case with the majority of programs for windows, (even if it installs in a user directory, the installer still complains that your not running with admin privlages and tells you to get admin privlages before installing said software.
And how, praytell, are people swapping illegal BOOKS? Don't tell me you're scanning in your 400+ page tomes of wisdom and trading them on Kazaa?
Belive me its being done. I have seen the D&D 3.5 Players Handbook, DM's guide, and Monster manual (all ~300 pages) pefectly reproduced as PDF's, so obviously someone has A LOT of time on their hand.
Furthermore I wonder why the RIAA hasn't gone after .binaries newsgroups, torrents or some of the other networks where people have been "sharing" high quality MP3's and lossless audio for years.
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn it man don't give them any ideas!!
Partially on topic (its about Mars) but wasn't that the one NASA screw up because one team was working with "Imprieal" measurements and the other team was working with Metric measurements, and they kinda got confused??
You can always get it from a distributor outside the US, and as long as you are not distributing it inside the US your OK. ;-)
Slighty OT, but with the first Oylampics in ancient greece that is exactly how the athletes would compete, in the nude.
I can just imagine the Christian Fundumentalists in America getting in an uproar if that tradition was continued on today.
However, it is not the best for developers since they cannot create commercial application for it without paying TrollTech.
Alas this is very FALSE. You can develop QT based apps and charge for them, as much as you what to charge, as long as you use the GPL as your license. As long as you make the source available per stated in the GPL License, etheir as a free download, or available on a CD for no more than the cost of media + shipping.
I can't read danish etheir but I would see this kinda project as a perfect way to impliment IPv6...
Though if you can some how set up servers and such with in the wi fi network than you use the bandwidth of the community network and not the bandwidth of the outside internet connection.
The larger the community wi fi network the greater a possablity this could be done, though dont expect it to be so with a small group of less than a 100 people.
The question is: Will the Telcos allow such a thing to happen?
I know in Utah, (of all places where the vile Orin Hatch is elected into office by Republician Religious sheep (yeah yeah, Flamebait I know)), both the local phone company (QWest) and Comcast are loobying HARD in the Utah legeslature to stop UTOPIA (a coallition of local cities to impliemnt FTTH).
bout the only good thing Provo is doing is implimenting there own seperate FTTH system that is a basis for the more generalized UTOPIA FTTH that other Utah cities are attempting to impliment.
Or you could record the votes electronicly, print out a verified ballot that is placed in a ballot box.
The electronic vote would be used to declare a winner, however, in order to confirm that the person is a winner, there MUST be a recount of the printed paper ballots. Which wouldn't take long, we would have between the beginning of Novembet to the middle of January to do the re count.
I really dont see anything less as Fair and Balanced(TM), (there will always be voter fraud, IE, graveyards voting, or peoplein retirement homes voting who haven't voted at all.), but we have always had those problems, even when we where checking boxes with pencils/pens.
Disclamer: I don't have Office for the Mac.
Though on the other hand, Office is currently ported to OS X, which would make it a hellva lot easier to port to linux, because of OS X being based off of BSD Unix.
they would feature many references to the above and other in-jokes from high school subcultures that could be dropped in to make for greater entertainment value.
uh this is Stargate NOT Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you want refrences to high school subculture, and jokes about said sub culture, go get seasons 1-7 of Buffy off of Netflix.
Stargate SG-1/Atlantis is geered way more towards sci-fi than Buffy ever was, (it amazes me how someone can classify Buffy as Sci Fi, where in they have some elements of sci fi, all in all the show is not about sci fi), also Buffy, for the first three seasons is in a high school setting. Stargate is set in a MILITARY setting. It would be hard pressed for any writer to attempt to conform Stargate into refrences of a sub culture that is many years younger than the characters themselves.
slightly OT, but I wonder if the SGC will just ship about a 100 or so Naqidah generaters to Atlantis that should provide enough energy to open the gate back to Earth, and allow them to come back home.
;-)
Though I think a more likly way to handle the Atlantis team coming home is to bring Atlantis back to Earth. From what I could get from the season 8 premeire of SG-1, Atlantis was actually built on Earth, but soon after left to head toward the Pegasus Galaxy.
Image the international bickering that would insue if said "Lost City" happened to come back to Earth, and they thought they had there hands full with the bickering over the Antartic Ancients base.
Just had the thought of a bunch of geeks sneaking over to Cuba to get Fidel Castro to set up a BT tracker.
On second thought that probably wouldn't work out well for him, that would just give GWB a reason to invade Cuba, (like GWB really needs a reason to invade ANY soverign country)
Put up a freenet node and keep it running
And that is a good way to get busted for kiddie porn. With Free Net you don;t choose the info that is stored on your computer, so it is quite possable that you will be serving out kiddie porn, when the next Law enforcement kiddie porn sting comes around, you get busted, (Free Net is THAT secure).