Mar
12
Friday Open Thread: Great Googly Moogly
By
Fill out a Community Application (seriously – it’ll take you five minutes).
Come out to Asheville’s Google Fiber Initiative Town Hall meeting on March 18th at 6pm at the Asheville Civic Center Banquet Room.
While some may argue the virtue of diminutive pipes and the value of Charter, this is also a thread for everything else under your suns. Illuminate. Reflect.
27 Comments
March 12th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Well, since Barney Google (“With the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes”) and Snuffy Smith hail from this area, we should have an in.
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March 12th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Is anyone going to Netroots Nation in July? Gordon – didn’t you go to the predecessor gathering YearlyKos a few years back?
Movies:
Shutter Island – Oh yeah! Go see! You know you’ve watched something when you watch all the credits at the end and don’t leave the theater until the lights come on…
Brooklyn’s Finest – Meh. I think Ebert’s review sums it up best. There’s some good acting. Wesley Snipes pretty much steals every scene he’s in from Don Cheadle and Cheadle didn’t make it easy for him. There’s a high level of tension in almost every scene and I walked out of the theater thinking, what the hell was that for?
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March 12th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
ummm… actually I misspoke above, Snuffy Smith lives in the Kentucky mountains, Barney Google met him on one of his runs from the law. Snuffy, of course, quickly eclipsed Barney in popularity. The strip is one of the longest running ones – originated in 1919, it is still being drawn.
Barney, however, got a national hit song in 1923, “Barney Google with The Goo-Goo Googly Eyes.” I nominate this song as the Asheville Google groups theme song. Let’s see Topeka top THAT. Especially when the massed citizenry of Asheville serenade the Google officials with it, Gordon Smith directing.
But, hey, this is one project of Gordon’s that I am 100% in favor of.
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March 12th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
In case nobody knows what the heck Ralph is talking about:
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/s/BARNEY+GOOGLE+1923/KTFWI
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March 12th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Precisely the purpose of Google, eh?
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March 12th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Well, I went straight to Grooveshark for that. I wasn’t sure how deep and extensive their catalog was. Now we know that it goes back to at least 1923.
(Not a bad vinyl transfer from 78, either)
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March 12th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
when i click the link to fill out an application, it gives me an error message that says i don’t have access to this page… I’ve tried it from several computers. what gives? i feel personally excluded.
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March 12th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
never mind… got it to work from the googleavl site. who knows.
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March 12th, 2010 at 11:55 pm
Yikes, Laura. Thanks for letting me know that link is broken!
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March 13th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Ralph & Deus – Y’all make an amazing team.
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March 13th, 2010 at 10:28 am
Okay, so how did folks answer the question “what can we do with all that bandwidth?” Compared to some folks around here, I’m kind of a luddite, so talk slowly.
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March 13th, 2010 at 10:47 am
Deus, you can get some good sounds out of old 78s with minimal work… here’s an example of using “Soldier’s Joy” by Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers in one of my promos:
http://forums.1vid.com/index.php/topic,538.0.html
–Ralph
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March 13th, 2010 at 11:30 am
I love the Skillet Lickers, Ralph. Here’s a link to something I wrote about uses for the Fiber: http://googleavl.com/2010/03/03/lets-change-the-world-together-with-google/
Not only that, but you’ll be able to upload video 100x faster!
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March 13th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Looks good, Gordon. I’m always in quest for more speed. I started on the Internet in 1978 (actually ARPAnet then) using a connection to UNCA via phone and a 192-baud modem.
Kept on getting faster and faster, riding and writing about the technology wave. Now (thanks to http://skyrunner.net) I’ve got an above average speed of 10mbit up and down. But, MAN, 1gigabit! I can dig THAT!
I do support what you’re doing.
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March 13th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Nice. I read the Wet Machine article you linked to – the guy suggests that Google might choose a variety of communities, including “one upscale rural community,” which probably fits Asheville’s image for many outsiders.
What I don’t get, though, is – is data coming into our community at these high speeds? If so, what’s stopping us from receiving data at those speeds at our home right now?
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March 13th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
“one upscale rural communityâ€
it is now, for most of my life it was just one rural community that knew and understood its roots and place in the greater community of WNC.
“what’s stopping us from receiving data at those speeds at our home right now?”
that’s actually a good question, Doug. The answer is money. You could, for example, get a T3 line to your house and enjoy about 40mbits or so, up and down, 24/7 for around $15,000 a month.
or you go to Skyrunner for a wireless connection like I have and enjoy 10mbit up and down (as I do) for a few hundred a month (which my business pays for but I have it in the house as well).
what Google offers is not new but cheaper and better.
now what Cisco is coming with blows Google completely out of the water.
http://bit.ly/aPWsIi
get us that Gordon and I’ll establish a residence in the city and vote for you forever.
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March 13th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I guess what I’m wondering is whether we’re not going to have bottlenecks somewhere. Does it help us to have data moving in and out at 1 gbit speeds when the rest of the world is so much slower?
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March 13th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
another good question but with a highly complex answer.
the Internet (as alluded to by its name) is not one network but rather many thousands of interconnected networks.
the main trunks (called backbones) connect more localized networks and allow traffic (data) to pass from one computer to another many networks away. … there is all kind of redundancies and devices call switchers and routers work to get packets of data from one place to the next, relaying them (called ‘hops’) all over the place to do so. … envision a planet-sized spiderweb – if you run along the strands, there are any number of paths to any specific destination.
if Google ties us (and surely they one) into some of the major backbones, we would be fine MOST of the time. But “internet weather” (see http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm for the current weather) varies depending on loads.
in short, having a very speedy connection (like mine) is great most of the time but I predict even a Google one would clog from time to time.
bandwidth is finite
bottom line: raising the bar is always good and getting fiber in here on “the last mile” (the final connenction to your home and business, which the phone company, for one, has been promising for years) would be good.
we may not win as big as some people think but we can’t lose.
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March 14th, 2010 at 7:52 am
Wow… I remember those days, playing on BBS’s on a Commodore PET with a state-of-the-art 300 baud modem. Fun times.
Ralph – a music project I was involved in about five years ago used decommissioned classroom phonographs and “prepared vinyl” as musical instruments, very much like this clip of Christian Marclay from Night Music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIFH4XHU228
Except I was also running them through dozens of guitar pedals…
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March 14th, 2010 at 10:09 am
Heh, heh… that’s cool … back in the 70s I owed store that sold records. When it went out of business I many thousands of records left and that would have been a good use for them.
Luckily, I moved them in flea markets for really good money… albeit I still have a huge record collection.
But… the point is … creativity comes in a lot of packages and with fiber optic, we can move those packages a lot faster.
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March 14th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Or, here’s a different way to play records!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCeK5vNZepI
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March 14th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Urk! There is a warm and toasty corner in hell awaiting Mr. Marclay.
He probably bends the spines on books, too.
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March 18th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Will Heath flip? His Blue Dog neighbor just did. Ahooooo, Blue Dogs of London, ahoooo…
First, Blue Dog Bart Gordon (TN) flips from NO to YES!
RT @jonathanhsinger: Democrats now have their second No-to-Yes switcher on #hcr: Tennessee Blue Dog Bart Gordon (per @CapitolHillCNN)
8 minutes ago via TweetDeck
And Luis Gutierrez is also a YES.
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March 20th, 2010 at 6:48 am
I see it’s official. Shuler will vote no HCR. Thanks Congressman. Which Insurance company promised you a fat job after you leave Congress? You define corruption Mr. Taylor. Ooops, I mean Mr. Shuler.
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March 28th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Gordon, will Google consider the recent media marriage of Ashvegas and the Asheville Citizen-Times to be something that encourages local independence and creativity? I doubt it.
Perhaps you’ll start a thread on this matter. If so, please feel free to add my commentary about this unholy media marriage at
http://www.downtownasheville.com/index.php/1152
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March 29th, 2010 at 10:15 am
Byron,
I’m excited to see what happens with this collaboration. Remember, please, that Jason was once a reporter at AC-T while also blogging at Ashvegas. I’m optimistic about the union.
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April 4th, 2010 at 9:16 am
Fiber headed our way?
Golden LEAF Awards Over $24 Million to Help Bring High-Speed Broadband to Rural North Carolina
http://www.goldenleaf.org/press/n20100401.html
Grant looks to help implement $111 million broadband fiber project proposed in North Carolina
April 1, 2010
Kinston, N.C. — April 1, 2010 — The Golden LEAF Foundation announced today that it has awarded a $24 million grant in order to help secure $78 million in federal funds and leverage other private and public resources to bring broadband fiber to 69 counties across North Carolina. Sixty-seven of the 69 counties are currently underserved or partially underserved for broadband connections.
“The expansion of broadband access in rural counties is critical to jobs, economic investment, education and communications,” said Governor Bev Perdue. “The Golden LEAF Foundation has provided the critical matching dollars which will make this project possible. More than 1,000 jobs are associated with just the installation and creation of the network, and the lasting benefits to homes, schools and businesses will be significant.”
The $24 million grant, part of the Golden LEAF Rural Broadband Initiative, was awarded to the non-profit MCNC, to provide matching funds for round two of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). If federal funds are forthcoming, MCNC will be able to implement a $111 million broadband fiber project and install 1,448 miles of new fiber through 69 counties in northeastern, northwestern, north central and south central North Carolina.
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