Community Values

Dee Hock writes: Without an abundance of nonmaterial values and an equal abundance of nonmonetary exchange of material value, no true community ever existed or ever will. Community is not about profit. It is about benefit. We confuse them at our peril. When we attempt to monetize all value, we methodically disconnect people and destroy community. The nonmonetary exchange of value is the most effective, constructive system ever devised. Evolution and nature have been perfecting it for thousands of millennia. It requires no currency, contracts, government, laws, courts, police, economists, lawyers, accountants. It does not require anointed or certified experts at all. It requires only ordinary, caring people. True community requires proximity; continual, direct contact and interaction between the people, place, and things of which it is composed. (07/05/02)

Building Cultural Bridges

Edward Kennedy and Richard Lugar write: Americans now know that many Muslims believe our country and the West are at war with Islam, not terrorism. With nearly 1.5 billion people living in the Islamic world today, we ignore these and other pervasive anti-American sentiments at our peril. ... In a May 3 speech to the World Affairs Council in California, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spoke of the need to strengthen voices of moderation in the Islamic world and to bridge the "dangerous gap" between the West and that world. There is, he said, "no time for delay." ... One of the most effective ways to enable the Islamic world to understand American values and culture is through international educational exchange programs, which promote people-to-people contacts between Americans and citizens overseas. (07/05/02)

Better Than a Cell Phone

New York Times -- The new system allows anyone with a wireless network card and a laptop to log on to the Web anywhere in the park. Mr. Eckhaus bought his computer and an AirPort wireless network card a few weeks ago and has since been a park regular. Bryant Park is one of more than 70 wireless access sites in New York City and one of the first to formally span a city park. The wireless high-speed connection funnels into the park via a T-1 line, a high grade of Internet cable, and is sent through the park's airwaves by a radio transmitter. On a recent afternoon, Mr. Eckhaus was sitting near the carousel, reading an Israeli newspaper and downloading music. Directly across the park, Loren Finkelstein, a computer network administrator, was exchanging instant messages in the sun. On the east side of the park, Kingsley Rowe, a recent graduate of New York University, was sitting at a table, reading e-mail messages and checking for more tips in his job search. Mr. Eckhaus said: "The first time you browse the Internet, it was wonderful. It's like that all over again." (07/05/02)

Broadband For Pennies

Business Week -- Writing a book at home can be isolating, so London author Ben Hammersley set up a simple wireless access node in his office window so he could surf the Web from the café opposite his house. Like many civic-minded techies, Hammersley was happy to share his connection. The problem: How to let everyone in his South Kensington neighborhood know that an ultrafast wireless broadband connection, known as Wi-Fi, was available and free to use? Hammersley printed up fliers and stuffed them under his neighbors' doors. But the network remained largely unused. Then, on June 24, Hammersley's friend, information architect Matt Jones, posted a set of rune-like symbols to his Web site designed to alert Internet users when and where wireless broadband was available. The idea: Create a set of international road signs to the Internet. Two half-moons chalked on a pavement or a wall indicate that a connection is available. At 10:50 a.m., Hammersley headed out and scratched two half moons on the wall of his house. He also snapped a digital picture of his work and zipped it over to Jones. Hammersley had become the first "warchalker." Within an hour, news of the symbols quickly spread across the Internet. Jones received 60,000 hits to his Web site and Hammersley's Web log, an online journal, was a top link on ultrapopular, ultrageek site Slashdot.org and top portals for graphic designers. By the weekend, Jones had received news -- and photo evidence -- of warchalkers from Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Seattle, even from the CIO of the state of Utah. "We're joking that a piece of chalk could destroy the entire multibillion-pound 3G [third-generation wireless] industry," laughs Jones, who admits he has been caught off guard by all the attention. (07/05/02)