Massive wireless networks

In the words of Homer Simpson: Mmmmmmmmmmm......wireless.

According to this article from CNN.com, a massive tract of land in Oregon, mostly farmland, has a privately-financed wireless network. While there aren't any major cities in the area, the network has proved very useful to farmers and emergency management teams. The reason why similar efforts for public wireless internet have been stymied in more densely populated areas is conflict between massive communication companies and the municipal governments.

Will there be a similar battle in Rome over the proposal to make the whole city wireless? Worth watching. Will wireless eventually become a public utility of sorts? I think it's inevitable, although it may end up being provided by private companies (kinda like Georgia Power's monopoly). Interesting for all those laptop-users (which I'm not) who would love to be able to connect to the net anywhere.

By the way, I hope to move to Oregon someday (no joke).

Long Tail

Just a couple of points to wrap up our discussion of the Long Tail effect from class in Friday...

It's an interesting phenomenon, in short. It's weird to me that it seems so simple yet the author of the article (who's expanding that article into a book) could make it seem so complex. The phenomenon reminds me of piggybacking in the Senate (when legislation is attached to unrelated proposed legislation so that when the original passes, the other thing -- like a tax break -- passes along with it). The example of Touching the Void and Into Thin Air -- the latter is one of my favorite books, by the way -- best illustrated that. The other thing that it reminds me of is network TV lineups, in the way that sometimes the success of one show depends on where it is slotted and on what night, what programs it is before and after and what programs it is up against on other networks.

Another point: I keep thinking of the Long Tail couched in the example of Britney Spears on Rhapsody. You can get from Britney to an unknown '80s punk band in a couple of clicks (kind of like the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon thing). Most major e-commerce sites -- Amazon, Borders, Eastbay, others -- have some sort of feature like that, where it offers recommendations on what you might like or shows what other customers who have bought a certain product also bought. This led me to say in class that, eventually, everything could be connected via the long tail effect, as demonstrated by the music industry. However, what if it isn't? If the long tail takes a more and more visible role in our increasingly digital lifestyles, what happens if we get tracked into a certain group and can't break out of it? For example, take the music industry: If I buy a Disturbed CD online, I'll only get recommendations for rock bands, then maybe get from that to country, etc...but would I ever see classical music? I know that we're way far away from a situation like in Beta where the computer basically tells us what we like, but could that happen? Could we get to the point where one simple choice places us into a track that we have no way of getting out of, due to the oppressive influence of computers on our lives?

Food for thought.

Harriet Miers

Here's a cool little link that relates to our discussion of ant theory earlier in the semester (I think).
Harriet Miers info gathering

I got this from a mass email sent out by Moveon.org, a progressive listserve that I subscribe to. The aim of the site is for people to submit their own information about Miers. It's basically a politically-minded Wiki. Yes, I know that the questions up there are pretty well-slanted towards a politically liberal perspective (that's not the point of putting this link up here). It's a really good practical example of how the internet can be used to collect political information about an individual.

ESPN blog discussion

Honestly, I read this last week and meant to post it sometime before now. Dr. Carroll's pointed reminder that I need to start posting more frequently on this blog for COM 429 in class today, coupled with the fact that I got done with an assignment for another class earlier than expected, allows me to post now.
Here's the link to Bill Simmons' web site. I've been a big fan of Simmons for a couple years now, and try to read him whenever possible (usually three or four times a week). While most of the material in this feature I linked to is irrelevant to digital communication, he and Chuck Klosterman did discuss blogging and new journalism in the top half of this post. I like this because Simmons said something I've been saying for a while (I hate it when I come up with an idea, then a nationally-recognized writer says the same thing a couple months later). Anyways, happy reading. Read the whole Klosterman convo, it'll help with understanding another one of my posts.