Sometimes you just have to get those ideas out there...been thinking about this one for a while after listening to a GSLIScast and I wanted to wait for a research paper or something to smooth everything out. In light of my last post however, I'd rather see it enacted than take personal credit ; )
I think we should repurpose old houses in key locations within communities as digital-age, self-sustaining, community wide wireless internet access points.
This place will have no books in stock. It will have many computers.
It will be hyper-connected to other local libraries via Interlibrary Loan.
It will generate its own energy with whatever local means is deemed most cost effective by the community, feeding excess energy back into the local grid.
It will be focal point in continuing education for the local community.
It will be managed by librarians.
It will be state funded.
It will pay for itself.
It will be pretty awesome.
Posted: July 10, 2008 6:07 pm | 0 comments
Tags: free internet, microgeneration, new libraries
...In response to Meredith Farkas recent post Value in the online world
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Though the mechanics which surround and indeed engulf the reproduction of information are not free, information itself is free. It is the ability to affect the lives of others through pure thought alone which elevates the artist (in the medium-neutral sense of the word) above others -- we don't measure an EEG in kilowatt/hours. Nature is a social entity, an interaction of forces, and to no higher degree of value can information achieve than in the alteration of human consciousness and the betterment of society as a whole.
Information must compete for our attention, we privileg some forms over others. From this was can then sort thought into two categories, ideas worth spreading, and everything else. In a sense, it is able to spread itself in the same way even the smallest life form is a self-evolving, self-propagating entity. If an idea is able to fulfill these goals, then monetary compensation should then ... more »
Posted: July 10, 2008 2:57 pm | 0 comments
Tags: digital culture, mass media, publishing
First posts can be so awkward.
Posted: July 8, 2008 4:39 pm | 0 comments
Tags: shameless self promotion
