Raleigh

Community-focused posts

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Official Blog: Exploring new cities for Google Fiber

Google Fiber coming to Raleigh?

Google Fiber coming to Raleigh?


Google is considering the Triangle area for its next rollout of Google Fiber! As a veteran of the broadband fights here in North Carolina and the founder of the Bring Google Fiber to Raleigh! Facebook group, I am thrilled that we’re being considered for this.

Last week’s snowstorm provided me a perfect use case for Google Fiber. I was itching to organize a musical jam session with a few neighbors only travel conditions were too dangerous to all get together in one place. While one can do video chats with our current, abysmally-slow broadband connections, playing in time with others remotely requires highly-synchronized connections. These could be done with low-bandwidth and exorbitantly-priced ISDN circuits or on high-bandwidth, uncompressed fiber networks like Google Fiber.

I think adding Google Fiber to our area’s mix will benefit our musicians as much as our techno-geeks, pharmaceutical scientists and our other traditional area jobs.

Over the last few years, gigabit Internet has moved from idea to reality, with dozens of communities PDF working hard to build networks with speeds 100 times faster than what most of us live with today. People are hungrier than ever for faster Internet, and as a result, cities across America are making speed a priority. Hundreds of mayors from across the U.S. have stated PDF that abundant high-speed Internet access is essential for sparking innovation, driving economic growth and improving education. Portland, Nashville PDF and dozens of others have made high-speed broadband a pillar of their economic development plans. And Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio, declared in June that every school should have access to gigabit speeds by 2020.

We’ve long believed that the Internet’s next chapter will be built on gigabit speeds, so it’s fantastic to see this momentum. And now that we’ve learned a lot from our Google Fiber projects in Kansas City, Austin and Provo, we want to help build more ultra-fast networks. So we’ve invited cities in nine metro areas around the U.S.—34 cities altogether—to work with us to explore what it would take to bring them Google Fiber.

via Official Blog: Exploring new cities for Google Fiber.

WRAL TV’s spammy Facebook contest

WRAL TV has started a cash giveaway contest on your Facebook page. It is so spammy that I’m going to unfollow them.

I think there are ways to drive people to social media outlets and there are also ways to drive them away from social media outlets. WRAL’s approach is definitely the latter.

I hope WRAL realizes the damage they’re doing to their Facebook brand and changes course soon.

Amazon.com coming to Raleigh?

AmazonI noted with interest the announcement that Amazon would begin collecting sales taxes in North Carolina. This seemed curious since the Constitution’s Commerce Clause means Congress is the only entity that can regulate interstate commerce and thus the state can’t impose taxes on Amazon. As far as I knew, Amazon doesn’t have a physical presence in North Carolina. It seemed strange to me that Amazon would willingly start paying taxes. Who does that?

Well, looks like I found the reason. This job ad from Amazon ran on Craigslist yesterday and there are plenty more on other job sites. Amazon.com is interviewing for software developers and says they’re coming to Raleigh!

Software Engineer, Digital Products (coming to Raleigh) (Seattle, WA)
We will be in the Raleigh area conducting interviews February 20th-21st!!
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East Raleigh rising

When the cops arrived after I called about the metal thieves raiding the subdivision under construction, they began peppering me with questions. I was amused to hear the questions had nothing to do with the crooks.

“Hey, what can you tell me about this subdivision?”

“Is this a multi-family or single-family project?”

“Any idea what these will sell for?”

Crime happens so rarely in my area that cops don’t have much opportunity to visit. The ones that do express surprise that such nice homes like Bennett Woods’s and (soon to be) Oakwood North are tucked inside East Raleigh. “It’s like Wisteria Lane or something,” one told me incredulously upon seeing Bennett Woods for the first time.
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Energy cost of snow days

You know, if I were a local reporter on the energy beat, I’d think it’d be very interesting to study how last week’s snow days affected our community’s energy usage. Did a near-week of school days cause our area to use more or less electricity and/or natural gas? Did our local businesses burn energy to heat and light mostly-empty offices during this time? What about the gasoline saved from all the school buses that weren’t running? Or the commutes that didn’t take place? How about the fleet of municipal utility trucks that constantly worked to clear our roads?

Unlike hurricanes and ice storms, last week’s snow caused relatively little damage to our electricity infrastructure. I think this makes an ideal situation to study because one can essentially rule out downed power lines as the cause of energy savings (if any). I’d love to see a breakdown of the energy costs of this recent break.

Atlanta Snow Storm – POLITICO Magazine

Two inches of snow caused massive gridlock and laid bare the governmental fault lines of the Atlanta region. It was Raleigh 2005 all over again. I know I took a dig at the Wake County Public School System for its Tuesday closure but it’s certainly better than gridlock.

As an Atlantan, I’m concerned that this storm revealed just how unprepared we are in case of real disaster. If Atlanta, the region, wants to get serious about public safety, its mayors, county officials, and state officials will need to start practicing regionalism instead of paying lip service to it. And whether threatened by a dangerous pandemic, a major catastrophe, or just two inches of snow, we need to have ways to get around—and out of—the city other than by car.

via Atlanta Snow Storm – POLITICO Magazine.

Preemptive school closings and delays

Wake County Public Schools just announced they will stay closed tomorrow. This comes a week after the school system had a two hour delay for about a half-inch of snow. Tomorrow’s threat of anywhere between 4 and 8 inches of snow is a bit more serious, at least, but you have to wonder if the school system isn’t getting a bit too snow-shy.

Everyone who’s been around here long enough remembers the utter disaster of 2005, when an inch of snow at morning rush hour closed schools and sent everyone on the roads at once to fetch their kids. The roads promptly froze over, leading to colossal gridlock the likes of which I’d never seen before nor since. Certainly, no one wants that to happen again. I sure don’t. I’ll never forget it!

Even so, that incident is now nine years in the past. Raleigh has grown up considerably since then. The city now pre-treats the roads with salt brine and gets ahead of the storm. I think the city has handled subsequent storm events very, very well. In essence, I think it’s highly unlikely Raleigh will get caught off guard again.

So if the city has improved its snow response, what about the schools? Seems to me the school staff aren’t making a call based on how a given storm will impact school transportation. Rather, the school system should be deciding based on how well the City of Raleigh and NCDOT can keep the roads clear. Yes, it may be -9 degrees or, yes, it may snow two feet overnight. It shouldn’t really matter what happens if the city and state can clean it up in time for the early buses to roll.

Shiny craft in sky

At 7:27 AM Saturday, I was running late to meet my brothers and dad for breakfast downtown. As I hurriedly turned south onto Blount Street from Peace Street, I spotted a very bright object in the eastern sky, roughly above Oakwood Cemetery. It seemed to be stationary and extremely shiny. The bottom half glowed brilliant amber. It could’ve been catching the morning sun that was rising behind it.

Was it an airplane? Normally I’d say so, but in the second it took me to look back at the road and then back to the sky it seemed to vanish. It wasn’t shaped like an airplane but was more spherical, perhaps even oblong or diamond-shaped. It was so reflective to be almost mirror-like. There were no visible navigation lights, either, nor was this airplane on any flight path to or from RDU airport.

There are general aviation planes which are silver but these are rare in my experience. Most small planes are painted. Helicopters are normally painted as well. I don’t ever recall seeing one so reflective – certainly none of the usual TV news helicopters common around here.

Am I a little spooked by the other weird lights I’ve seen recently over Raleigh? You bet. That doesn’t mean what I saw yesterday is anything but some shiny, everyday aircraft. Even so, I sure wish I would’ve had some extra time to investigate it.

RALEIGH: Raleigh Housing Authority: Where the streets have magicians’ names

A prominent local journalist commented that this “story” smacks of “piling on.” I have to agree. Naming streets? The nerve!

There might be a lot of things to take issue with regarding Steve Beam but to jump on him for naming streets is not one of them. This is weak and petty, N&O. It’s your credibility that’s in a disappearing act.

RALEIGH — When the Walnut Terrace public housing complex reopens next year, its residents will find that their new addresses bear the names of obscure magicians.

Steve Beam, Raleigh Housing Authority director and card-trick expert, has named the new development’s streets after historical figures in magic, most of whom – like Beam – were known for masterful illusions with a deck of playing cards.

via RALEIGH: Raleigh Housing Authority: Where the streets have magicians' names | Wake County | NewsObserver.com.

Dogs in parks issue moved to committee

Last week, the Raleigh City Council moved the issue of restricting dogs from certain areas of parks to the Council’s Public Works committee. I was aware that might happen but don’t know what the committee might hit on that the parks board and its committees did not. We have carefully considered the issue, collected public feedback, and made sure all along to take our time to get it right.

Again, I feel the key to success here is to provide more dog-friendly areas, whether they be dog runs in existing parks or biting the fiscal bullet and ponying up for additional much-needed dog parks in our growing city. Part of the Parks board’s recommendation was to be tasked with studying where more dog-friendly resources could be added. I hope the Council will see fit to approve that.
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