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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| San Francisco to get free wi-fi for all! Or... not. |
| 2006-10-26 |
| Link found via Gateway Pundit Over the last two years, San Francisco has expressed an interest in bringing wireless internet access to the entire city, but two years later we are still arguing about how to get this done. It started in September 2004, when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a resolution allocating $300,000 for the city to investigate various wifi options so that they could bring affordable internet access to the entire city. In January of 2005, Mayor Gavin Newsom used his state of the city address to show his committment to free wifi by declaring that “we will not stop until every San Franciscan has access to free wireless Internet service.” Over the next year, the city studied the various issues associated with bringing free Wifi to the city and by December of 2005, the list of possible vendors had been narrowed down to 7 companies who offered formal proposals to the city. In April of 2006, the mayor announced that they had selected EarthLink and Google to help build and run the network at no cost to the city. At that time a lot of excitement and buzz was generated by the possibility of the citizens of San Francisco having free WiFi. Unfortunately, as with a lot of things in San Francisco, politics once again seems to have derailed something that could have been so great. Despite the announcement made last April free WiFi instead has turned out to be vaporware thus far with Google and Earthlink discovering that dealing with the local San Francisco political scene is about as fun as being set up on a blind date with Mike Tyson after being rubbed down in meat sauce. The lunacy of San Francisco politics can take several forms and town hall meetings are sure to attract some of San Francisco’s craziest nut jobs. While I was surprised not to see San Francisco’s representative from the 12 galaxies, Frank Chu, attend the meeting, I did get to see Chris Sacca from Google face a parade of activist oddballs who neither understood technology nor the positive social impact that free wifi could bring to some of the city’s most disadvantaged citizens. At the meeting, Sacca did an excellent job or remaining calm and explaining the technology in language that anyone could understand, still these local political gadflies seemed to feel that EarthLink and Google providing free WiFi to the citizens was akin to killing kittens because, they attacked Sacca with a venom that was absolutely shocking. Some of the crazier demands that were suggested at the meeting included a “requirement” for every San Francisco renter to sign a lease addendum with their landlords before being allowed to install a WiFi card in their PC, forcing Google to agree to transport kids back and forth to the Zoo in their Google buses and a requirement for EarthLink to pay the electrical costs for running computers in order to prevent brownouts... There's more, much more at the link. |
| Posted by:Seafarious |
| #6 The bar scene in Star Wars was actually filmed live in the old Eddie's Club in Gallup, New Mexico, which was a little north of the tracks on old US 666. |
| Posted by: Slaviger Angomong7708 2006-10-26 18:14 |
| #5 LOL I just love San Francisco! They never fail to entertain. I can just imagine a public meeting there, it would look like something out of the Star Wars bar scene. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2006-10-26 16:23 |
| #4 The whole idea is that SF will have its own free wireless ISP. The computers, etc. are not in the package. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2006-10-26 16:13 |
| #3 Poor Frank Chu (the "galaxies" guy) is the least of San Francisco's problems, and the least trouble among its crazies. He never makes trouble in public hearings, or ever says anything really. He just carries his sign. I see him nearly every day. As for the rest, yes they are a big problem. They sue, they petition, they hog public meeting time, they threaten people right and left, they gum up the works. And the worst ones are the ones in public office. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2006-10-26 16:12 |
| #2 Damn, just got my boggle back and now this. Wait... I'm getting cosmic vibrations... It decodes as: SF is flypaper |
| Posted by: .com 2006-10-26 13:47 |
| #1 ...Who's buying the poor and disadvantaged their laptops and WiFi subscriptions? Seems to me it doesn't matter whether or not you can get WiFi on Alcatraz, if you don't own a computer and don't have a WiFi account it ain't gonna matter. Or should I just sit down, shut up, and color? Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2006-10-26 13:40 |