Alan Gutierrez

The reason the Wiki doesn’t work for me is because of the concept of neutrality. I’m interested in using the Internet to further establish a goverment that is by the people. The concept of a Wiki as the democratization of information doesn’t sit right, because information is ideally passive. Democracy is about opinion, decisions, and comprmise. There is nothing neutral about it.

Today I merged in a branch that I created for Strata. I’m observing some revision and branch discipline, even though I’m the only person working on my code. I do this because I’m looking for techniques to master, rules to follow so I don’t have to think so much about so many little things. The merge procedure I’ve used is decribed in Common Use-Cases for Merging in Version Control with
Subversion.

Last week, I spoke in a tone I regret to a woman I respect. It is foolish to feel put upon. Don’t do it. I got a message today from a different worman that I respect, where she voices how put out she is. It is a rather poisionous little message. I don’t want to be exchanging this currency. I tagged it “Don’t Be That Way” using Mail Tags. I’m going to create a search folder. When I’m feeling exasperated I’ll read through them, in the hopes that I’ll catch myself, and not say something I don’t mean. It might have the opposite effect. Maybe I need to tag the good things that people say, refocus my efforts on them.

CHAT sent neighborhood representatives to testify before the U.S. Senate’s Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery. Listening to this intelligent and informed testimony on C-Span made me very proud. New Orleans resident Frank Silvestri addressed Senator Ted Stevens’ dismissive closing with fact and precision. I am proud to have the experience of working with these citizens who have become so savvy with information.

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.

This strange anxiety sets in. It makes my writing petulant, peevish and snippy. It concerns me, because it has been a direction that I’ve been taking thoughout the course of the week. It seeps out into my writing. I was quite content a few days back, feeling in control of the infomration and eager to release new software. It’s slipping. I’m only blogging this, so I can remember it, put my finger on how it feels. I want to have this thread ready when it lifts, so I can think about how it was lifted. It is a feeling from a time past. It is a feeling I associate with isolation.

Crazy Egg is using Amazon S3. I noticed because Paul Christmann said he was going to consider S3 for his application BoxPop.

Found a project outside of GNU that is using the Classpath exception to the GPL. Read the licensing section of Restlet.