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.

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.)

I’ve been in New Orleans long enough that blogging is only a wee bit of fun.

These days, it boils down to spending more time in front of the computer. Not good.

It’s too nice outside.

It’d be nice to get some information out there, though. I’m conviced that blogging is a good way to do it.

It once was the case that I’d blog to converse. That was a colder climate.

Here are conversations aplenty just over the courtyard walls. High-bandwidth conversations, with eye contact, hand waving, and table pouding. Pure entertainment.

Human contact spoils you for the keyboard and CRT.

Much of the online conversation now seems dreadfully dull and self-referential. It’s a lot of conversation about a handful of industries, namely, software, media, and marketing.

I make the case for blogging as publishing, but not for conversation.

It’s hard to explain the value of blogging if you show a person the echoing non-sense of the A-List. It’s self-referential, and mostly meaningless.

I don’t show my neighbors the blogs that feature incessant articles about gadgets, networks, or copyrights.

I don’t show my neighbors the national political blogs, with their angry open threads. The polar politics that so closely mirrors the cable news cycle is both dull and horrifying. These are the rantings that people expect when they think online diary.

Rather, I show my neighbors something that is civic and human.

I show them Ann Arbor.

I show and tell recent articles, from Ann Arbor bloggers, exemplary of their authors.

You’ll here me tell of such bloggers as
Ann Arbor Is Overrated a look askance at the city’s culture, Ypsi~Dixit who tells tales of public transportation, Arbor Update with it’s scrutiny of city development, Superpatron Vielmetti’s writing on his work with the Ann Arbor Public Library, Larry Kestenbaum vinettes about Washtenaw County officaldom, and my friend Dave who writes about beer.

These are civic bloggers, with civic agendas.

They have blogrolls that link to the blogging citizens of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. Their blogrolls represent a network of friends and fellow citizens.

It is a challenge to get people in New Orleans to leave the anonymity of email, and move towards a more transparent way of organizing.

It is much easier to get folks to transition, when they see that the message does not travel that much futher.

Blogging is not broadcasting. Blogging is not journalism.

Blogging is not a about being naked, it’s about being transparent and inclusive.

Blogging is perfecly civic.