Mostly it’s a pain, but there are a few simple pleasures associated with shutting down an old web site and bringing up a new one. One of the pleasures is the doinking around, the fiddling with style sheets and such. Another even greater pleasure is visiting old friends to thank them for shifting their links to the new sites. There’s usually something delicious being served at the neighbors’… take this bit on the Unitarian Jihad at Doug Alder’s place.

Or the promise of skateboard lessons from Monster Mike Golby… ummm, yeah, Mike — for sure, for sure — I’ll be out there with you at the Northern California Downhill.  Those kids better just get out of the way.

… and now they’re a verb! Thanks, Beth… I never would have thought of that myself. The last sessions at Freedom to Connect featured Mark Cooper and Chris Sacca. Chris showed us what Google’s doing in Mountain View with wireless, among other things. Mark… well, I hope someone else blogged Mark’s session. The guy was info intensive with great power-point slides and I spaced through most of it. I was coming down off the Reed Hundt high, or something, and couldn’t do justice to Cooper. He’s a genius and he probably gets my kind of lame-o response a lot.

Earlier, during a break, I talked with Dewayne Hendricks about meshy networks, and while Tropos was a F2C sponsor and they can provide an out of the box solution, Dewayne advocates a build it yourself approach. My take is if you have more money than smarts, you might want to go with Tropos.

Ahh well, the F2C conference is over and I’m not going to the BarCamp dinner. Rather, off with Beth to a seafood restaurant somewhere.

Mary Godwin has a del.icio.us bookmark from pro-blogger. PRO-BLOGGER… how cool is that?

Quotes Galbraith: The US has always been a country of private wealth and public poverty. Critiques privatized Iraq war, privatized health care… educational costs, tuition at public universities… “private Internet, that’s an oxymoron”… quotes Susan Crawford, calls her brilliant… 1997 WTO treaty has brought broadband to those countries that pay attention to it… the US thin trickle of bits up and down remains a problem that the administration is not willing to solve, that is exacerbated by a congress that declares the FCC shall have no rules… this is being taped and I want to watch the video again, and share it widely… “the govt ought to create a public thoroughfare to the internet by regulation, yes — just like in France… the public thoroughfare ought to be constantly improved.” Reed Hundt is a powerful thinker. I’m going to buy his book.

Ron Sege (Tropos) sells muni mesh wifi gear. Esme Vos is a muni wifi evangelist. Jim Baller calls himself “the luckiest attorney in the world” because he gets to practice in this space. The back-channel is full of controversy around the issues of whether or not municipal government should sponsor this first mile access business…

discussion of sock-puppets and astroturfers…

Jim Salter comes on to yak about municipal FTTP… Jim has a smoking dog.

The Internet has reached its peak, hasn’t it?

Ed has a blog - Freedom to Tinker. Pace of innovation IS ebbing. The market for spotless white lab coats has shrunk to nothing. Freedom to tinker with the end-point is equal to the freedom to connect. Biggest threat is the lawyer in his spotless white lab coat… legal standards full of prohibitions… most of these are copyright driven… e.g. anticircumvention rules in the DMCA…

Day two.

Gordon Cook recommends two books: America at the Internet Crossroads by Michael Bookey and Tom Vest’s The Wealth of Networks (internet ecology)

Dave Hughes… “Dammit we have a RIGHT to communicate!” Dave presents his bonafides and darn if I don’t predate him in the world of datacom.

There was a passion in Dave’s presentation that us young snapperwhippers with our cool pomo facades don’t seem to share. Dave has climbed mountains for the cause of network neutrality and freedom of speech.

Tomorrow morning, shortly after one a.m., a once in a thousand years moment will roll by on our digital clocks. If you, like me, take pleasure in watching simple odometer alignments in the family car, then you may want to stay up for this momentary temporal signifier as the clock strikes:

01:02:03 04/05/06

Thanks to Greg Humphrey for emailing about this.

Long since the indictments, the lying skunk-weasel Tom Delay has been permitted an orderly withdrawal from the mid-term elections. Neither tar, nor feathers are planned for dermal application at this time.