Category: North Carolina

Meet Congressman Brad Miller

Ruby and I are sponsoring a get together for Congressman Brad Miller at Mill Town in Carrboro on Thursday November 29. Its a great opportunity to chat with someone who works for US in Washington, DC. He’s a blogger, an incredibly nice guy, and interested in what you’re doing. Please join us in chewing Brad’s ear off! (See official invite info bellow)

Please Join Congressman Brad Miller

For a discussion hosted by Ruby Sinreich of OrangePolitics.org and Brian Russell of Yesh.com about the impact of blogging on today’s political environment.

When: Thursday, November 29, 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Where: Mill Town Restaurant, 307 E Main St, Carrboro, NC

Suggested Donation: $10
Cash Bar

Congressman Brad Miller is currently serving his third term representing North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District. He has often blogged on many progressive sites, including the DailyKos and Blue NC. Congressman Miller serves on the House Financial Services Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee, and Science and Technology Committee where he chairs the subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight.

RSVP by calling 919-834-2343 or e-mail andy@bradmiller.org or just stop by www.bradmiller.org

Elections are Over Yeah!

I get excited over local elections. Ever since I met Ruby and moved to Chapel Hill I’ve been hooked. I love learning about this whole process. One of my favorite bits this year was Ruby’s election coverage videos. (I’m a bit jealous actually. I want to do vids like this!) She made these with her Palm Treo 680 and a audio headset.

This is great citizen journalism that gets the info out there. Yes I said journalism. Ruby has publicly said many times she doesn’t consider herself a journalist. But she is providing information people want and need. She is trusted by many and scorned by others, but such is the life of a politico with a strong opinion.

Tarheel MeshNet Initiative

I just found this new group on Facebook. Its called the Tarheel MeshNet Initiative. If you’re using facebook login and look for this group. I’ll post an external public URL once I find one. 🙂 This is a wonderful thing to have locally. Yah UNC!

Our goal is to design and implement mesh wifi networks for future deployment in low-income communities.

What is MeshNet?
A mesh network uses multiple wireless routers, called nodes, to transfer data around a network. These networks are simple to set up, can run on off-the-shelf hardware, and can be used to blanket an area with network and internet coverage. For low income communities, this means that a small number of traditional high-speed internet connections, such as DSL, can be used to provide connectivity to an entire area. The range of the network can be extended simply by adding an additional node, which involves nothing more than just plugging it in.

Cross Posted on OrangeNetworking.org

Continue reading “Tarheel MeshNet Initiative” →

UNC Men's bball Number 1 on Coaches Poll

University of North Carolina Men’s Basketball team has won the preseaon coaches poll for 2007-2008.

This is the sixth season in which the coaches have selected the Tar Heels No. 1 to begin the season. UNC was also No. 1 in the initial coaches’ poll in 1957-58, 1981-82, 1985-86, 1986-87 and 1987-88.

via: Tarheelblue.com

Seems it was a tight “win”. So much to live up to.

In the tightest three-way preseason race since USA TODAY took over the poll in the 1991-92 season, the Tar Heels are No. 1 with 739 points, five more than second-ranked UCLA and eight points ahead of No. 3 Memphis.

via: USA Today

The top five where:
1) UNC
2) UCLA
3) Memphis
4) Kanasas
5) Georgetown

Gota give props to UCLA. I watched them place several times last year. They were fast, huge, and talented. Should make a great match up late in the season.

On top of this Carolina won the ACC Preseason Poll too.

The University of North Carolina was the unanimous pick as the favorite to win the Atlantic Coast Conference championship in men’s basketball in 2007-08 and Tyler Hansbrough was voted the preseason ACC player of the year when the ACC’s media convened in Greensboro on Sunday for the annual ACC Operation Basketball.

via: tarheelblue.com

I’m crazy excited to see both the Carolina men and women play bball this year. It was wonderful to read about this. Exciting! But man the pressure is on strong now.

Thank You Joe Herzenberg

OP Wears Black

Joseph A. Herzenberg 1941-2007

Joe Herzenberg — the first openly gay elected official in the American South, an ardent defender of civil rights and the environment, and the unofficial Mayor of Franklin Street — died on October 28, 2007 at UNC Hospital. He was 66 years old.

Check out the thread over at OP. orangepolitics.org/2007/10/well-miss-you-joe/ The comments about Joe are amazing and full of interesting detail. It shows how beautiful and loving our community can be.

MuniWireless.com analyst on Chapel Hill's free Wi-Fi

The Independent Weekly has a great article by Fiona Morgan called Carol Ellison: MuniWireless.com analyst on Chapel Hill’s free Wi-Fi. Its a short interview discussing Chapel Hill’s involvement with public wifi. Here is the most important part to me.

Carol Ellison –

I would be very surprised if Chapel Hill encountered any of the problems those larger cities have because they’re using a different model altogether. Chapel Hill is deploying one hotspot and then another. They’re not saying this is going to be citywide. They’re taking a very measured approach, as opposed to diving in and promising service to everyone. Secondly, the town is going to own the network, whereas in San Francisco and in Chicago, the private provider would have owned the network. San Francisco was working out the provisions of a contract with EarthLink at the time that EarthLink announced massive layoffs and the fact that it was retreating from the market, and Chicago was negotiating with EarthLink as well as AT&T. So both cities were really at the mercy of what the private provider was going to do. I’m impressed by what Chapel Hill’s doing because they’re really in control of their own fate. If for whatever reason things don’t work out with Clearwire, they could find another provider and it’s still their network.

This is important because it counters many other articles in the media that have been arguing the other side of this. That municipal Wifi is somehow a bad idea because these huge projects failed in Chicago and San Francisco. They failed because a big company called Earthlink is having serious business problems. These kind of problems are EXACTLY why we need public ownership of major resources like broadband. Which WiFi is but one.

I applaud the Town of Chapel Hill for being careful in their investigation of implementing WiFi. We can learn from the mistakes of others. Isn’t that what wise Towns should do?

200kbps is NOT modern Broadband

The Daily Tar Heel has a new article about broadband in Orange County. Its called Initiative looks to expand high-speed internet access. Here is a small bit of it:

About 90 percent of Orange County can access high-speed Internet, according to a report released Friday by the e-NC Authority.

The report reviewed an annual study that began in 2002 to track the availability of high-speed Internet access across North Carolina.

“We look at high-speed access based on the Federal Communications Commission’s definition of 200 kilobytes or higher per second,” said Cary Edgar, communications director for e-NC.

e-NC works with Internet service providers to determine what percentage of households in a given area has the ability to subscribe to a high-speed Internet connection.

Here is how I responded in there comments:

When considering these numbers I think its important to know how e-NC defines broadband. New studies put the United States lower on broadband adoption because more modern studies defined “broadband” as higher than services provided to most subscribers in Orange County. Also methods of measurement where flawed in old studies. Such as determining that broadband was available in an area because one company had a T1 line while the rest of the community had nothing.

From e-nc’s website
“According to the Federal Communications Commission, high-speed Internet access is considered to include connection speeds of 200 kilobits-per-second (kb/s) and higher.”

200 kbps is an old number than needs to be updated. It is no longer an accurate measure of what Orange County residents need. Its also important to consider that broadband services in our area are asynchronous. Meaning download speeds are faster than upload speeds. Plus the actual usable speeds of our cable modems are not constant. They fluctuate based on the traffic on them and the bandwidth shaping that is done by service providers routers.

I recommend a report called the Broadband Reality Check for more information about the actual state of broadband in the US. http://www.freepress.net/docs/broadband_report.pdf

I will write something later to elaborate further and provide links to more info. There is also the Broadband Reality Check II. http://www.freepress.net/docs/bbrc2-final.pdf

Eat Well and Blog about it

Anton has set up a cool Blogtogether food blogging event set for September 24. It starts off with a book reading at The Regulator and then a great dinner at The Peidmont Restaurant in Durham with Cleveland based author Michael Ruhlman. Ruby and I should be there celebrating my bday. 🙂

Schedule of Events

9/23 at 4:30pm: Reading and book signing — The Regulator Bookshop in Durham will host chef-author-blogger Michael Ruhlman for a reading from his celebrated books about the lives of American chefs.

9/24 at 7:30pm: A taste of food blogging at Piedmont Restaurant — BlogTogether will partner with Piedmont Restaurant chefs Drew Brown and Andy Magowan to host a five-course prix-fixe dinner based on local ingredients (featuring head-to-tail pig, perhaps). At dinner, chef-author-blogger Michael Ruhlman will share his insights about how to write about food.

When: Monday, September 24th at 7:30pm

Where: Piedmont Restaurant, 401 Foster St., Durham, NC

What: A ticketed five-course prix fixe dinner featuring local ingredients prepared by chef Brown and his kitchen.

How much: $65 prepaid (this will cover dinner, wine, & tip).

Who: Anyone who wants to enjoy a fabulous meal and learn about food blogging, a talented writer and a local chef. All dinner guests will be encouraged to write and talk about the meal and what they learn this night. SEATS ARE LIMITED

Get your seat at the table: If you want to attend this dinner, send a message to zuiker@gmail.com.

9/25 at 9am: Coffee with the Chefs — Chapel Hill’s 3CUPS coffee shop will host a morning coffee klatch for Michael Ruhlman to meet local chefs. Others are invited to stop by at 10:15am to chat with Michael, the chefs and 3CUPS proprietor Lex Alexander.

NC Science Blogging Con Registration Open!

Registration for the second North Carolina Science Blogging Conference is open! Its Saturday, January 19, 2008 at the Sigma Xi Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

I went last year and helped out a bit. (I designed the logo for one) It was fun even for a non-scientist like myself. I really dug it because its a good sized home grown blogging event. Even though its a NC event people from ALL OVER the world attend. If you publish in scientific journals you need to be at this event. Check out the program to get the details. Also read what other bloggers and media had to say about last years event.

Big props to Anton and Bora of BlogTogether for working so hard to make this happen. 🙂