A bus with a webcam and “3G” delivers internet to remote areas in the UK. While we don’t have 3G in the United States, we’ve got something just as good - Wi-Fi.
Portland’s Mt Hood Cable Grant has money to spend. Let’s help them.
Say, $15K for an outfitted bus, live cameras, and a Wi-Fi link to Winfield Wireless. Then add $10K for drive-up training and hands-on demos, and another $5K for maintenance.
Partners could include Intel, the Arts Commission, City Repair, Free Geek, Portland Fire Department, Portland Cable Access, Schools, Libraries, Portland Green Map, Eco Trust, Neighborhood Associations, AARP and the History Center to name a few.
Portland’s Ethos (right) does a similar thing around the city. They drive their Firetruck and London bus to schools. Since many schools have dropped music classes, Ethos can supply kids with hands-on workshops.
Used firetrucks are easy to find. Check out usedfiretrucks.com and Firetec or E-Bay.
Personal Telco’s Satellite Truck was picked up for a song ($500) from a local television station and came with a pneumatic 30 foot mast. Of course, expenses like insurance and other incidentals boosted up the cost (paid for by Nigel Ballard bless his heart). PTP and Winfield teamed to provide Internet access for a science fiction convention at Jansen Beach (15 miles north of Portland). Winfield’s wireless backbone can extend 15 miles or more.
City Repair’s T-Horse (above) demonstrates how a space can be transformed into a place. Unwired.
Gordon Bell’s project, MyLifeBits, scans his books and family photos. Retrieving any memory from one’s life is becoming practical.
One mission; map areas of interest around each neighborhood. Neighborhood residents get hands-on while creating a resource for the whole community. Oral histories could be recorded and Geo Coded via Lat/Long in URLs or Blog Mapper, then available in the “blogosphere” from any web browser or on a CD/DVD. Portland Maps (or anyone) could use it. Cityblogs and Blockblogs - created at no cost - could establish long-term resource hubs. Content run by and for local people, could link to the larger community. Local news and features could be syndicated by topic and location and feature sections for classified ads and birthdays that month.
Portland’s Burning Man contingent could supply entertainment. After all Matt Peterson did create the first real community network with the BM Wi-Fi net (back in 1943, I believe). And that Eugene band, Rubberneck.
It would not be a “product”, run and edited by the library. It uses the interests and expertise of the community. Anyone could participate in creating the database and anyone could access it. Guidelines would be established for information collection and sharing using this public resource. An academic component would compare neighborhoods with and without “connectedness”.
The end product would be a geo-coded, audio/visual “tour” with elements of history and community integrated into a map interface.
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