If you are wondering why it seems that everyone today is so defensive, you need look no further than your own television set, or newspaper. Bruce Schneier says it best: stop the war on different. And, going hand-in-hand with that slogan: refuse to be terrorized.
Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Political crazies
Things that are absolutely nuts:
- Net Neutrality is finally a completely obvious good thing, as opposed to just the sort of obvious good thing it used to be. (Of course, that issue isn’t really about Net Neutrality, but it’s at least tangentially related, which makes this bullshit an order of magnitude less bullshitty than what usually happens.)
- Verizon’s greed knows “unlimited” bounds.
- If we can’t impeach Bush, we can sue him, right? Yeah, that’s how we solve things in States.
In completely unrelated news, maybe here’s why I’m such a pessimist.
My tax dollars hard at…play?
The government’s admission:
Millions of dollars that are supposed to fight terror are actually going to the very worst kind of pork barrel programs. Meanwhile, many real homeland security needs – like those in New York City – remain unmet.
Unfortuantely, this is usually what happens in any large organization. Money is budgeted, then siphoned off for supposedly useful purposes. The problem is that the people doing the grant-giving for certain purposes don’t know the first thing about what is needed to fulfill that need. The result is the worst of human nature: people apply for “free money” in the name of the grant-giver’s ideals.
See the report (PDF).
Guide to Developing Low-Cost Wireless Networks
There’s a new book out today. It’s called Wireless Networking in the Developing World, and it’s available for free downloads online. I’ve already snatched my copy.
Even though it was written with the intention of making wireless telecommunications infrastructure more readily accessible to developing nations by means of educating implementors, I’ve already found it to be a useful reference and excellent learning tool to get a strong grounding on the considerations of setting up any wireless network. It starts you off with a grounding in radio physics, and then quickly goes through the stages of network design: the physical network infrastructure and the logical collision domains. It even has good advice on how to secure the network you create.
This book will be useful for everyone who wants to build their own wireless network that is more complicated than a simple home router. I can also see this guide being extremely handy for those managing and planning community wireless “hotspots” since its focus is on low-cost, yet effective, infrastructure. With the U.S. severely lagging behind the rest of the developed world in terms of broadband internet access, community wireless projects can breathe new life into local economies just as effectively in America as they can overseas.
Books like this that make it easy for individuals and other organizations to inexpensively maintain wireless telecommunications infrastructure is a welcome addition to the fight for better Internet access across the globe.
