Alan Gutierrez

The Detroit newsletter slash website Metromode reports that SRT opens Ann Arbor office, more than triples its employees. Although, it looks as though it was a reprinted press release, the notion of third spaces is one that I’m pursuing with coworking meetups at our lovely New Orleans coffee houses.

Coshirking: A coffee break lasting more than one hour where local industry gossip is exchanged over open laptops. Coined by William Tozer.

Note: If you’ve forgotten the Series of Tubes speech, Jon Stewart does an excellent job of explaining Ted Stevens’ explaination of the Internet. A classic, you can hear the whole Seriese of Tubes speech on YouTube.

The following story does little for my confidence in the future of Michgian’s technology industries. It is a cause for concern for those of us tracking the decline of it’s manufacturing industries.

A man in Grand Rapids, Michigan was arrested and charged with a felony for checking his email from a coffee shop’s WiFi connection from the comfort of his parked car. The cringe worthy local news story casts it as human interest in Wireless (In)security — A wireless felony, while Ars Technia recongnizes it for the statewide humiliation that it is in Michigan Man Arressted for Using Cafe’s Free Wifi From His Car:

An enterprising police officer looked it up on the books, and based on a year 2000 reivision of a 1979 law, checking your email from an open Wifi hub in Michigan is considred computer tampering. The man is actually going to pay a $400.00 fine and do 40 hours of community service for this Michigan crime.

New Orleans has whole streets covered with Wifi from various providers, plenty of open hubs, and we’re establishing mesh and municipal Wifi networks. Our pedestrian streets have coverage from many different hotspots. In fact, do any of us even know if we’ve connected our current coffee shop’s Wifi, or the Wifi of the bar next door? People put up these hubs and don’t think about it.

The reactions of the denizens of Grand Rapids in the forums of WOOD are very different form the reactions of the savvy at Ars Technia who make such lucid comments as…

> This law needs to be challenged. A wireless access point is a radio transmitter. The Communications Act does not allow broadcasters to place restrictions on who may access their transmissions. The coffee shop cannot pick and choose who can use their public unsecured radio broadcast. It falls upon the shop owner to secure access if he wants only his customers to use his wireless network.

It is enough to make you cluck your tounge and shake your head and think, “Well, at least I don’t live there anymore. I don’t have to worry about this.” That can’t be something that Lansing wants a expatriot native Detroiter and nine year Ann Arbor resident to think.

Regarding the use of open Wifi hubs the Kent County procescutors office is stern.

> The next time you’re tempted, though, think of Sam Peterson. “People need to know that this isn’t legal and if you get caught there are some pretty serious consequences.”

Again, I don’t have to worry about this.

When I search Google for Kiloblog I get a page at Bloglines that reads People subscribed to this feed also read, and the list of websites includes Alan’s Kiloblog and Alan’s Blogometer. The site in question, is Edward Vielmetti at the School of Information, which is pretty much empty.

Here is a dashed off list of things to like about Twitter.

1. You stay connected without disconnecting from the world around you. I’m not a Blackberry user yet, but this shows me the appeal. I don’t mind stopping in the street to Tweet. I don’t feel like a self-absorbed cell phone user, filling the air with half a conversation.
2. Twitter is an effective digression. It is keeping me productive by giving me an outlet that is finite. Rather than check CNN or BBC, and get lost for hours. I read the recent Tweets.
3. No title. That is wonderfully liberating. You do not have to think about a title. You simply have to think about your short, 140 character message. You simply tweet.
4. Narrowcasting at it’s narrowest. I enjoy little updates on other people’s days. I like basic tweets about what a person is doing. It is good to know that Mitten is listing to her ten year old expound on storytelling, that Dave Coustan is eating apple slices for dinner, that Edward Vielmetti is toying with Twitter as a to do list.
5. There are no tasks in Twitter. It is not an inbox. I do not have to dread opening it. No place to inject an obligation in 140 characters.

Edward Vielmetti sent me a link to Hurricanes at Twitter. Which might be reason enough for you to join, if you are a New Orleanian.

Karen Gadbois strikes me as the right person to spur Twitter adoption in New Orleans. She’s a master of the away mesage. She posts away messages in GMail that make you wonder what’s up. It’s never with a link either, so you have to look at the Northwest Carrollton blog, search Google or NOLA.com, or simply send her a message and ask.

I don’t know if she’s proficent at text messaging, but the web interface is simple enough. I’d like to get one key New Orleans denizen going, because our away message network works pretty well for us.

With a few key people, a New Orleans Twitter network could do a lot to keep tabs on our shifty government.

I’m going to Santa Fe for another Think New Orleans related information thing, while at the same time Ann Arbor blogger David Bardallis will be visiting me from Ann Arbor. David had planned this trip for some time, but mine is on short notice. I need help! Can someone help me fetch David from the airport? Who wants to show him around town while I’m away. (I’ll be back for the Geek Dinner, of course.)

My friend Stephen Goodfellow sent me the Detroit fireworks, or the fireworks of the International Freedom Festival, to be perfectly clear. What’s the reasoning behind having them so far in advance of July 1st and July 4th?

If you live in Detroit, you are liable to form the opinion that anarchy is the best form of government. Or maybe, if you have formed that opinion, you are drawn to the anarchy of Detroit. Either way, you can do your part to stick it to the man, by listening to the Cass Corridor based Layabouts on MySpace. From Stephen Goodfellow, “In existence since 1981, The Layabouts is not so much band as a community of musicians who hold similar beliefs about the state of the World. They express this by composing and performing music of their own making, meaningful lyrics set to a beat that set your feet a-dancin’. Rock, reggae, ska – lyrics that’ll make you want to pull down the pyramid of authority while you gyrate to a beat that is in harmony with the Universe.” I always loved listening to the Layabouts perform at Dally in the Alley and the 4th Street Fair.