There are 396 posts filed in Futurist (this is page 39 of 40).
It looks like the big telcos are trying once again to block municipal broadband projects in North Carolina. Legislation is expected to be introduced in the N.C. Senate’s Revenue Laws committee next week that will seek a moratorium on municipal broadband projects, allegedly because it will “harm state tax revenue.”
Please contact the folks below and let them know this bill is harmful to North Carolina:
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Daydreaming at a meeting last night, I realized that companies have it all wrong when they periodically gauge the performance of their employees. What they should be doing is asking their employees about the performance of the company. The shop-floor worker has a keen insight into what works and what doesn’t work, and her thoughts might not necessarily filter up to management. How can a process be improved? What causes slowdowns? What should the company be doing that it’s not? How can you as an employee be more successful?
Employees are valuable parts of the team and crucial to the company’s success. A smart business will do all it can to make that employee successful.
One of my coworkers is out today, ill with what he thinks is a stomach virus. It made me think that an online registry may be useful in cases like this where one is too sick to work but not sick enough to deal with the hassle of seeing a doctor. An online registry may be able to show how a virus like this one spreads.
Google’s James Kelly, Product Manager for their Google 1Gbps Internet project, talks about where they go from here.
So what’s next? Over the coming months, we’ll be reviewing the responses to determine where to build. As we narrow down our choices, we’ll be conducting site visits, meeting with local officials and consulting with third-party organizations. Based on a rigorous review of the data, we will announce our target community or communities by the end of the year.
So, it’s all in The Goog’s hands, at this point. I’m hoping the City of Raleigh makes the cut, in spite of the less-than-motivating city effort.
Previously:
Raleigh works to woo Google Fiber.
Gaga for Google’s fiber – Independent Weekly
Astonishing, indeed.
China’s demand for oil jumped by an “astonishing” 28% in January compared with the same month a year earlier, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says.
I got a little ink in this week’s Independent Weekly, discussing the Triangle cities’ efforts to lure Google’s proposed 1Gbps fiber network:
East Raleigh organizer and blogger Mark Turner said the Bring Google Fiber to Raleigh! Facebook group he created the day that Google announced the fiber program now includes more than 600 members and has drawn the support of elected officials. He hopes upcoming Internet conferences in Raleigh will add muster to the effort.
“I see fiber and Internet connection as being almost as vital nowadays as sewer service and water service, as far as building communities,” Turner said. “It would really position us for some long-term growth.”
The announcement today of Google Fiber to the home was covered in today’s Washington Post:
The company said it will build fiber-to-the-home connections to a small number of locations across the country that will deliver Internet access speeds of 1 gigabit per second. It will take bids from municipalities beginning through late March to determine what areas would be part of its experiment. Google said access prices for consumers would competitive and that its network would reach at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people. A source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the company doesn’t currently have plans to expand beyond the initial tests but will evaluate as the tests progress.
Having one’s city wired for blazing-fast Internet access would be a huge shot in the arm for a municipality. I sure hope it comes to Raleigh!
I’ve started a grass-roots effort to help Google identify where to set up it’s 1Gb fiber Internet trial run. Check out Google To The Home.
Too subtle?
Researchers have shown that people move faster when reacting to something than when they perform “planned actions”. The movements that took place when reacting to something took an average of 21 fewer milliseconds than a planned action.
Inspired by Hollywood westerns, scientists at the University of Birmingham (UK) tested this with a simulated shootout. Participants given buzzers and not given a particular signal as to when to buzz their opponent.
Dr Welchman explained that it took around 200 milliseconds to respond to what an opponent was doing, so, in a gunfight, the 21 millisecond reactionary advantage would be unlikely to save you.
“The person who draws second is going to die. They’ll die happy that they are the faster person to move but it’s not much consolation in this context,” said Dr Welchman.
I think this must have been a fun experiment to conduct. Makes me wonder if there is some mental process that gets overridden or short-circuited when reacting to something. Also makes me wonder if we can train ourselves to override this process at will, i.e. consciously put our minds in “turbo mode” when needed.
The snow has already begun falling here in East Raleigh and it may continue for another 24 hours. This is shaping up to be an insane amount of snow and any hopes of hitting the road for work Monday morning may be pure fantasy.
That may leave many Triangle workers stuck at home when they could be working. While some will play in the snow with their families others will try to work from home, firing up their connections to the office. This is when many of them will realize just how pathetic their so-called high speed Internet service is when it comes to upload speed. Those web conferences will crawl. That videoconferencing you hoped to do? It’s buffering … buffering … buffering.
While the major ISPs want to treat their Internet service like a one-way pipe, in reality it takes a speedy connection in both directions to bring the Internet to its full potential. Collaboration suffers when one side has its hand tied behind its back.
Yes, municipal broadband may seem expensive but consider the cost of hundreds of thousands of workers stranded at home, unable to work properly because of 1990s-era Internet policies.
