Government exists only to provide services that cannot be provided by the free market
But how about those services that the free market chooses to provide only selectively? In the case of advanced broadband services, rural areas are generally excluded because the service providers don't consider them viable markets for advanced service delivery. While they might get limited 'broadband' services, they don't get the services that those of us who live in large urban areas can readily expect.
And as I have pointed out elsewhere, neither Texas nor any other state I know have has considered legislation to prohibit municipalities from operating grocery stores.
Austin Wireless City has set up over 100 hotspots in Austin, all free, within various venues. This includes a partnership with the city to use its network for free wireless at city buildings and parks. The recipe for building hotspots the AWC way is at Less Networks, which provides a backbone for the AWC sites. However there's more to it than the recipe would suggest... e.g. getting visibility with the city and getting support from the wireless industry within Austin was party a function of the Wireless Future project. Bottom line is that we laid a lot of groundwork and had a major university helping suppor the effort, as well as over 90 companies in town with an interest in making Austin a hub for wireless activity. The businesses formed the Austin Wireless Alliance, and it's been promoting business and commercial aspects of the wireless explosion. Verizon just selected audience as a launch point for its 3G service. Rich MacKinnon (founder of Less Networks and Austin Wireless City) and I are both willing to talk to other folks in other cities about the work we did... and the Wireless Future report can be downloaded as a pdf here.
Austin has done more than our work at Austin Wireless City, though. The City of Austin actually has implemented wireless in its own buildings and parks. And we're looking for ways to do more to create complete coverage. Also note that Verizon has just launched its new 3G service in Austin, and though it's proprietary, it's a more complete coverage.
Meanwhile Austin Wireless City created a replicable approach; we're always willing to help other orgs do similar work. Email info at austinwirelesscity.org.
The answer's yes. In fact, the Austin Wireless City project has warmed the hearts of SBC and Time Warner salespeople by bringing in so many new business accounts.
Bruce is in the midst of a two week discussion about the state of the world hosted by the WELL. You can post a comment or ask a question directly to the topic if you're a WELL member; if not, you can send a comment or question to inkwell-hosts at well.com, and they'll post it for you.
The Dean campaign is decentralized, and one aspect of decentralization is that you'll have a lot of activity that's inherently outside the campaign's control. The fact that it's supportive of Dean doesn't mean that the Dean campaign sent it. For that matter, Dean's opponents might've funded it to make him seem less clueful about the 'net.
EFF and EFF-Austin are organizing oppostion to the "super DMCA." If you're interested in opposing the bill in your state, send email to info@effaustin.org.
Don't assume, d00d. Ms.G. is on the Board of Directors of EFF-Austin, and has been working hard to oppose the Texas version of the bill... hope you'll do the same in your state.
Bruce Sterling's speech from CFP 2002
on
CFP 2002 Wrapup
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· Score: 2, Informative
Sterling's speech is posted on the Viridian Design web site, specifically here.
I was registering a new domain name last week, and couldn't log in properly using my existing account number. I attempted chat with a netsol CSR who wasn't very helpful (must be network congestion... try again later). The problem persisted, so I did the chat thang again and got a clueful CSR who told me that I had the "old type of account," and those hadn't been merged since netsol became part of verisign... they expect to reconcile everything eventually; meanwhile, I had to re-register and get a new account number in order to register a domain name. Everything went swimmingly from that point on.
"The National Academy of Sciences report makes it look like there is a great deal of unanimity among scientists - this is just manufactured consent."
Not exactly. The problem is good scientists are shy about certainty, but many are stepping forward to clarify that the global warming trend is certain, and that it is certainly the result of human activity. (See my article in the Viridian issue of Whole Earth Magazine for more info on this.) The actual results are unpredictable as to what exactly will happen or when, but knowledgeable scientists agree that our best course of action is to curb greenhouse gas emissions and work on mitigation strategies.
I pretty much agree with you, Kevin: you build a platform for community, and the community builds itself. However through structure and leadership you can influence the community's direction.
Cliff's book and Amyjo's are really the best. She's more into a strategic view of communities and their structure, whereas Cliff focuses more on the tools and skills required of hosts regardless of architecture. In my opinion, your best bet would be to use both books, because they're complementary.
Re:"Viridian Movement"? someone tell me more!
on
Ask Bruce Sterling
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· Score: 1
The more or less official Viridian source is http://www.well.com/mirrorshades/viridian/
Slashdot Mirror
Government exists only to provide services that cannot be provided by the free market
But how about those services that the free market chooses to provide only selectively? In the case of advanced broadband services, rural areas are generally excluded because the service providers don't consider them viable markets for advanced service delivery. While they might get limited 'broadband' services, they don't get the services that those of us who live in large urban areas can readily expect.
And as I have pointed out elsewhere, neither Texas nor any other state I know have has considered legislation to prohibit municipalities from operating grocery stores.
You think this is just happening in Texas?
Austin Wireless City has set up over 100 hotspots in Austin, all free, within various venues. This includes a partnership with the city to use its network for free wireless at city buildings and parks. The recipe for building hotspots the AWC way is at Less Networks, which provides a backbone for the AWC sites. However there's more to it than the recipe would suggest... e.g. getting visibility with the city and getting support from the wireless industry within Austin was party a function of the Wireless Future project. Bottom line is that we laid a lot of groundwork and had a major university helping suppor the effort, as well as over 90 companies in town with an interest in making Austin a hub for wireless activity. The businesses formed the Austin Wireless Alliance, and it's been promoting business and commercial aspects of the wireless explosion. Verizon just selected audience as a launch point for its 3G service. Rich MacKinnon (founder of Less Networks and Austin Wireless City) and I are both willing to talk to other folks in other cities about the work we did... and the Wireless Future report can be downloaded as a pdf here.
I found the link to Austin Wireless City's "recipe" for free wireless hotspots... I'm going to post it in a reply to the main post.
Austin has done more than our work at Austin Wireless City, though. The City of Austin actually has implemented wireless in its own buildings and parks. And we're looking for ways to do more to create complete coverage. Also note that Verizon has just launched its new 3G service in Austin, and though it's proprietary, it's a more complete coverage.
Meanwhile Austin Wireless City created a replicable approach; we're always willing to help other orgs do similar work. Email info at austinwirelesscity.org.
The answer's yes. In fact, the Austin Wireless City project has warmed the hearts of SBC and Time Warner salespeople by bringing in so many new business accounts.
Bruce is in the midst of a two week discussion about the state of the world hosted by the WELL. You can post a comment or ask a question directly to the topic if you're a WELL member; if not, you can send a comment or question to inkwell-hosts at well.com, and they'll post it for you.
The Dean campaign is decentralized, and one aspect of decentralization is that you'll have a lot of activity that's inherently outside the campaign's control. The fact that it's supportive of Dean doesn't mean that the Dean campaign sent it. For that matter, Dean's opponents might've funded it to make him seem less clueful about the 'net.
The language in the Texas bill re. 'justification' was removed.
EFF and EFF-Austin are organizing oppostion to the "super DMCA." If you're interested in opposing the bill in your state, send email to info@effaustin.org.
Don't assume, d00d. Ms.G. is on the Board of Directors of EFF-Austin, and has been working hard to oppose the Texas version of the bill... hope you'll do the same in your state.
Sterling's speech is posted on the Viridian Design web site, specifically here.
I was registering a new domain name last week, and couldn't log in properly using my existing account number. I attempted chat with a netsol CSR who wasn't very helpful (must be network congestion... try again later). The problem persisted, so I did the chat thang again and got a clueful CSR who told me that I had the "old type of account," and those hadn't been merged since netsol became part of verisign... they expect to reconcile everything eventually; meanwhile, I had to re-register and get a new account number in order to register a domain name. Everything went swimmingly from that point on.
"The National Academy of Sciences report makes it look like there is a great deal of unanimity among scientists - this is just manufactured consent."
Not exactly. The problem is good scientists are shy about certainty, but many are stepping forward to clarify that the global warming trend is certain, and that it is certainly the result of human activity. (See my article in the Viridian issue of Whole Earth Magazine for more info on this.) The actual results are unpredictable as to what exactly will happen or when, but knowledgeable scientists agree that our best course of action is to curb greenhouse gas emissions and work on mitigation strategies.
Wrong URL, coward: it's http://www.viridiandesign.org
There's an ongoing conversation with Neil Gaiman at the WELL. You can submit questions or comments to the hosts of the WELL's Inkwell forums and they'll be posted pdq.
I pretty much agree with you, Kevin: you build a platform for community, and the community builds itself. However through structure and leadership you can influence the community's direction.
Cliff's book and Amyjo's are really the best. She's more into a strategic view of communities and their structure, whereas Cliff focuses more on the tools and skills required of hosts regardless of architecture. In my opinion, your best bet would be to use both books, because they're complementary.
The more or less official Viridian source is
http://www.well.com/mirrorshades/viridian/