David Isenberg emailed me and PLEADED that the Madison folks make this a free WiFi service as he rarely pays for it any more (other than hotels). That is largely my experience. There’s often a free hotspot available in the big cities (I parked recently in San Francisco prior to a meeting and fired up my laptop, only to find several free WiFi hotspots).
I think any local WiFi network based on subscriptions will be a challenge.
Letter to America: Jurik Martin on The Airport Security Mess
Dave Farber forwarded Jurik Martin’s email regarding the impression the current airport security mess makes on visitors:
The collective agony is compounded because to complain publicly is not allowed any more when the issue is national security, even if its implementation is far from perfect. It is, for example, patently obvious that Dulles does not have enough security gates, but to point this out could mean a one way ticket to Guant?namo.
It would also be unwise to ask if it is always entirely necessary to half undress before passing through screening, frozen-footed, clutching belt-less trousers, boarding passes and government-issued identification clenched between teeth.
Last month I witnessed a security agent ordering a mother to pass a three-month-old separately through screening (by rolling the child through, perhaps).
Wyland battles destruction of his Milwaukee Mural
Tim Kelley: Kenton Peters on local politics & development
Tim Kelley summarized a recent letter on Madison’s downtown development trends from local developer Kenton Peters. [I’d like to link to it, but their articles go offline rather quickly]. Peters likely makes some useful points on the City’s “development process”, however, I for one, do not want to see another Peters building inflicted on the city. Peters’ federal courthouse (the blue silo version) and the WARF monster on University Avenue are surely more than sufficient eyesores. Background links: Alltheweb Clusty Google MSN TeomaYahoo Search
Singapore Math?
Cris Prystay discusses the growing use of the Singapore Math curriculum in US schools.
Dunkin Donuts vs. Starbucks: Will Speed Win?
John Moore summarizes Dunkin Donuts’ strategy to take on starbucks: sell latte’s faster (time from order to delivery) and cheaper than Starbucks.
Wisconsin Agri-Business: South American Competition
Larry Rohter takes us to Brazil where he explores the world’s new breadbasket.
Sometime over the next decade or so, Brazil, which Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described as “an agricultural superpower” during a visit in October, hopes to pass the United States as the world’s largest agricultural producer. But the trend is far broader and can be felt also in parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay, with a deep impact on the region’s economy and environment. And it has spurred a debate that has mainly focused on expansion into areas where the Amazon rainforest is thought to be jeopardized.
“There has been a silent revolution in the countryside” since the 1990’s, Brazil’s minister of agriculture, Roberto Rodrigues, said in an interview in the capital, Bras?lia. The past four or five years in particular, he said, have been “characterized by spectacular growth and a huge increase in demand” abroad for foodstuffs, which has given Brazil “the capacity to compete with anyone.”
1906 San Francisco Aerial Photographs
Chicago’s George R. Lawrence used his captive airship to take aerial photographs of San Francisco just after the 1906 earthquake. Take a look at these fascinating photographs here. More on Lawrence.
Madison WiFi RFP
The State of Wisconsin Department of Administration Friday issued this RFP:
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP) For CITYWIDE WIFI ACCESS And DESIGN, INSTALL, OPERATE, MANAGE, MAINTAIN AND MARKET A COMMON WIRELESS ACCESS SYSTEM (CWAS) for DANE COUNTY REGIONAL AIRPORT [654K PDF]
I’ll post some comments after I’ve had a chance to review the document. Let’s hope this flies in a citizen friendly way (rather than the recent anti-citizen legislation that was passed in Pennsylvania).
It’s due January 10th, 2005. I wonder what the odds are on a SBC win (SBC is the incumbent, all powerful local telco. Local player TDS perhaps has a shot, along with others).
Esme Vos has already posted comments on the RFP. Via Glenn Fleishman
David Bernhardt: Clear Thinking on the Role of Sports in Society
David Bernhardt offers some rather clear thinking on sports & society, in light of the recent Detroit NBA fight, steroids and the NHL strike:
What are our expectations of these athletes and our own son and daughters? Hopefully, it is to watch them compete, have fun and perform to the best of their natural ability. When society begins to focus on winning at all costs, we see where the fun leaves the sport, performance enhancement cheating begins and frustration of continual expectation boil over in an unexpected violence. In addition, the rapid firing of college coaches from an upstanding university where the student-athletes were students first and athletes second, makes one again question the values of the institutions of higher learning.