Locally Grown

In today’s Star Tribune, there is an article about the City of Monticello’s efforts to make itself one of the most wired communities in the country. Apparently, the effort has been complicated by a lawsuit.

According to the city’s attorney, when Monticello asked TDS Telecom to provide fiber-optic connections to every home and business in the community as a means of stimulating economic development and increasing the quality of life, the company refused. The city then held a referendum in which about 75 percent of the voters approved spending $25 million in revenue bonds to create a city-owned system.

TDS filed its lawsuit the day before the revenue bonds were to be issued. The company claims that it was willing to work with the city, but couldn’t come to terms. The lawsuit contends that municipalities shouldn’t be allowed to use revenue bonds to create fiber-optic infrastructure.

There have been several conversations, by both public and private entities, in Northfield over the past few years about making Northfield one of the most wired communities in the world. If I recall correctly, then Council and EDA member Dixon Bond suggested that it could be considered like any other utility, and provided publicly or privately.

It appears, at least to me, that no group stepped up to provide leadership in the effort. Perhaps now we’ll have to wait for the lawsuit to be settled.

Apparently every Northfield area landline with a 645 exchange got a vishing scam phone call yesterday. We got a voicemail at our house. The scam prompts you to dial a number to reactivate your bank ATM or debit card.

I’m heading to the Minnesota Journalism Center at the Univ. of Minnesota later this morning for a conference titled New Pamphleteers/New Reporters: Convening Entrepreneurs Who Combine Journalism, Democracy, Place and Blogs. It’s one of a ongoing series of national conferences from the Journalism That Matters team.

The RepJ team will be attending, too, and so we’ll be talking about Locally Grown, the Northfield civic blogosphere, and the rest of the local media here in Northfield.

The vigilante blogging post and subsequent discussion is relevant to all this, so I do want to continue dealing with issues raised there. Randy Jennings has graciously agreed to be on upcoming LG podcast to talk about this stuff, so stay tuned for that.

I can’t tell if this is a “joke”, or if our friends at Northfield.org (now Southfield.org) were hacked. What gives?

Click here to see the screenshot I took around noon today, with “Page Not Found” error.

What is twitter?

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Like my colleague Michael Fraase, I tried Twitter a few times when it was first introduced but it didn’t ‘take hold’ for me.

But after reading Howard Rheingold’s reasons for why he’s hooked on Twitter, I’m ready to give it another try, only with a local, Northfield twist. I plan to focus my Twitter posts on Northfield-related ’stuff’ - my whereabouts in town, as well as miscellaneous other Northfield-related musings. I’d like to ‘follow’ (that’s a Twitter term) other Northfield-area citizens doing likewise with their Twitter accounts.

I’ve got my cell phone and Google Talk (IM) account hooked up to my Twitter account so that I can send and receive messages with both.

I’ve added the above Twitter badge to our LoGroNo sidebar (about halfway down the page, right after the comments section).

I’ll consider switching that badge to one like this (the above image is recent screenshot, not a live view) that tracks all the people I’m following who’ve likewise committed to focusing their Twitter posts on Northfield-related activities. So join me, will ya?

As Chair of the Northfield Mayor’s Task Force on Blogosphere Grammar, I feel compelled to dispel a few misperceptions.

A blog is analogous to a newspaper. A blogger is like a reporter or columnist who publishes articles or opinions in the paper. Blog posts or entries are like the individual articles or columns. Readers who attach comments to a blog post are like newspaper readers who submit letters to the editor.

So here on Locally Grown, there are only three bloggers: me, Ross and Tracy. We author blog posts or blog entries, like this one. Many of you, our dear readers, attach comments to our blog posts. (Thus far in January, 125+ people have contributed comments).

There’s not really a good term to describe people who submit comments, just like there’s not a good term to describe people who submit letters to the editor in the newspaper.  I sometimes use the terms ‘commenter’ or ‘participant’ or ‘contributor’ here but all are a little awkward.

A string of comments attached to a blog post is best referred to as a blog discussion or a discussion thread. Other phrases such as message thread’ or ‘discussion topic’ are acceptable but they’re more commonly used in web-based forums, AKA message boards.

So here’s what correct blog lingo might look like in conversation:

I saw that you posted a comment the other day to a discussion thread on Locally Grown’s blog. It was that post of Tracy’s in which she…

See the Wikipedia’s List of blogging terms for more.

You may have noticed a subtle change when viewing comments - a teeny little photo of the commentors by their comments (as of right now, just Griff and me). We know from our online and offline feedback that the LoGroNo community wants a better sense of who’s talking in our online dialogs, and so, our wunderkind ubergeek Sean Hayford O’Leary has set up our site to use a service called Gravatar (globally recognized avatar) to allow users to put a face to their name.

To get your own avatar, go to the Gravatar site and sign up. Be sure you use the same e-mail address that you use for your comments on this site (if you’ve used more than one, that’s fine; you can add other addresses later). After you’re in, upload an image of yourself — you’ll be able to crop it right on the Gravatar site. As soon as you’ve added your photo and the gears of the internet grind a little, your avatar will automagically appear on all your comments past and future.

Since the Gravatar service allows people to create multiple avatars, you can have fun and be creative. But in the same way that we require real names for our comments on our community blog, we’re also requiring real faces (of you, not your dog, cat, or Aunt Tillie) to go along with those names.

After you’ve got your Gravatar, show it off: comment after the jump!

Tracy and I discussed our Locally Grown civility/discussion guidelines. Ross’ attorney says he’s still on medical leave.

And for those of you wondering about the use of the phrase ‘you ignorant slut’ here on Locally Grown, here’s a little Saturday Night Live (SNL) historical blurb on Jane Curtin:

In a parody of the “Point-Counterpoint” segment of the news program 60 Minutes, Curtin portrayed a controlled “liberal”, Politically Correct viewpoint (referencing Shana Alexander) vs. Dan Aykroyd, who (referencing James J. Kilpatrick) prototyped the right-wing view, albeit with an over the top “attack” journalist slant. Curtin would present the liberal “Point” portion first, then Aykroyd would present the “Counterpoint” portion, sometimes beginning with the statement, “Jane, you ignorant slut.”

Our radio show/podcast, Locally Grown, usually airs Wednesdays at 5:30 PM on KYMN 1080 AM. You can also subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe with iTunes. We seek your comments and suggestions.

My buddy Curt Benson, owner of Fab Lab, is among the lucky people who now have FTTH/FTTP: communications fiber to the home/premises.

He sent me this picture of an installer named Charlie from Jaguar Communications wiring up his no longer ’secret underground bunker’ last week at his house on Circle Lake. He’s getting the whole package: phone, TV, and internet access. I blogged about local fiber infrasructure and Jaguar Communications last August and April.

In September, the Northfield News ran a story, City gets grant to study fiber optics, about the City of Northfield receiving a $25K matching grant from the Blandin Foundation “to conduct what Information Technology Director Melissa Reeder termed an open network feasibility study… A request for bids will likely go out this fall and take four to six weeks to return.”

Anyone have an update?  A search on the city’s web site for the word ‘fiber’ turns up nothing, and I couldn’t find anything on the EDA portion of the site.

Northfield-based blogger/teacher/author Ken Wedding alerted me that the Google Maps Street View feature now includes much of Northfield. Their rooftop camera-equipped car evidently made the rounds sometime this summer.

Left: All the streets outlined in blue have been photographed for 360-degree views.

Center: The intersection of 3rd and Washington, facing the library to the northwest

Right: Who are those babes walking in front of the First National Bank Northfield, now captured for all eternity? Click the thumbnails of the screenshots to enlarge.

FYI, Google Maps considers Division St. through downtown as Dennison Boulevard.

Update 12/15, 5:00pm: Gloria Krusemeyer attached a comment below alerting us that none other than Maggie Lee was captured, “crossing Union at 4th Street.” Shore ’nuff, here are some screen captures. Is that perfect or what? Thanks, Gloria!

It may be a while before NWUG (Northfield WordPress Users Group) gets formed. So until that happens, feel free to use this blog entry for questions, sharing tips and info, and giving free help.

Think of this as a temporary, online NWUG.

There are a few business-folks in town, me included, who earn money by helping people with WordPress. So it would be unfair to expect me and my WordPress-savvy colleagues to donate lots of time helping people here. (However, we may occasionally do so out of the goodness of our hearts, just to show off how much we know, or as another way to indirectly promote our fee-based services.)

Soooooo, got a question? Got a tip? Know some WP-related news? Attach a comment!

With so many citizens, non-profits, and small business owners using WordPress (both the .com and .org versions) here in Northfield, we need an organization where people can ask questions, share tips, and get free help: a Northfield WordPress Users Group (NWUG).

If anyone wants to take on the task (actual F2F meetings and a blogsite), I’d be thrilled. Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

In the meantime, if you’re a WordPress user, or you know of an area blog/website where it’s being used, post a comment here.

They may have done this a while ago but I noticed this morning that Northfield News apparently has ended its practice of requiring site visitors to have a paid subscription in order to access all the content of its website.

I don’t think they’ve announced this and their FAQ page, last updated in July of 2002, still says “Most of the content is secured so subscribers can see the full story when they click on the briefs shown in each section.”

On top of their recent release of some stories on their website in between print editions and their addition of an online comment box at the end of many articles, this is a very welcome change. It may be economically smart but more importantly, it’s a great benefit to the area’s civic blogosphere because area citizens and leaders can easily link to issue-related articles and discuss them anywhere. Kudos to publisher Sam Gett.

Two articles on energy from today’s (Monday, August 6th) Wall Street Journal caught my eye. I thought that they were an interesting contrast of two situations surrounding the same issue.

The first on page A2,

“International Power to Buy Trinergy Wind Farms“:

United Kingdom-based power producer International Power PLC will become one of the world’s largest wind-farm operators after agreeing to buy a portfolio of wind farms in Italy and Germany for E 868 million ($1.2 billion).

International Power said it will buy the 648-megawatt Trinergy Wind Portfolio from Ireland-based wind-asset-management firm Trinergy, including 581 megawatts in operation and 67 megawatts under construction.

Many investors have been plowing funds into the burgeoning wind sector to take advantage of stable and attractive subsidies that have been designed to help European Union nations achieve their ambitious renewable-energy targets.

“Both Italy and Germany are attractive markets with significant growth targets for renewable generation, supported by clear regulatory frameworks,” said International Power Chief Executive Phillip Cox.

The second on page A3,

“Push for Energy Legislation Enters a Tricky Dance of Trade-Offs“:

Democratic leaders hope to send President Bush an energy bill this fall that lessens U. S. dependence on foreign oil, but first they must strike compromises acceptable to both House and Senate that will require politically delicate trade-offs involving the auto and utility industries.

In the House of Representatives, which approved its package Saturday on a 241-172 vote, any increase in vehicle fuel-economy standards would risk eroding support among Democrats, especially business-friendly moderates worried about U. S. auto makers and their workers. In the Senate, any bid to require electric utilities to dramatically increase use of renewable resources, such as solar and wind power, would strain ties with Republicans whose continued backing is needed. The White House is lodging its own complaints, including concerns that neither bill does anything to boost domestic oil and gas productions.

“We have fundamental disagreements” that “are going to be very difficult to negotiate,” said Rep. Diana DeGette (D., Colo.).

With gasoline prices high and voter concern rising about the nation’s energy security, Democratic leaders kept the House in session during the weekend to take on the energy issue, reflecting the importance party leaders now place on the initiative. Both the House and Senate bills are designed to improve the energy efficiency, and begin weaning the nation off its reliance on fossil fuels.

To summarize my reading of these two articles: in Europe, wind energy is a multi-billion dollar industry, fluidly crossing national borders, and benefiting from growing investment, and in the United States, wind energy is a promising industry, threatening various interest groups, and awaiting assistance from decisive leadership. I know I may be over-simplifying things, but it would be interesting to see a comparison of the wind energy per capita between these two communities.

Yesterday the EDA/City Fiberoptic Task Force met to plan their application for a technology grant from the Blandin Foundation. At the last City Council meeting, the council OK'd matching funds if the City is awarded the grant. The grant's purpose is to fund feasibility studies for deploying open networks (defined as those which "enable multiple, competitive retail providers to use the same network by purchasing access from a wholesale network owner and manager").

While the outcome of both the grant app and the study results are unknown, this is a very positive step for Northfield. Community Development Directory Brian O’Connell, who is not known to be particularly geeky, is a seasoned pro who "gets" why fiberoptic cables are significant for Northfield, and might be more accurately understood as infrastructure rather than as amenity. On a practical level, figures provided to the Task Force indicate that for many businesses in town, the cost for business-level high-speed internet is roughly 30% higher in Northfield for roughly 30% lower speeds/bandwidth compared to the metro area.

Obviously this puts Northfield's businesses at a competitive disadvantage if they rely on the internet for anything other than email and consumer web surfing.

For the long-term view, there are reams of data describing the woeful condition of US broadband compared to all other developed countries, and even many developing ones.

It’s not quite “fiber-to-Griff’s-condo”, but at least the City is moving.

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