[GB-Today] Monday Musings

[Susan Estrada]

Monday Musings
September 13, 2004

In the olden days of the Internet (mid-90s,) I was at a conference in San 
Diego with my pals Joyce Reynolds and Jon Postel. Now, at the time, I’d 
been doing Internet stuff for almost 10 years and Joyce and Jon had been 
around since the beginning.  A woman walked up to us and enthusiastically 
told us how she, too, was an old timer, having been involved in the 
Internet for over one whole year.  Anyway, we ancient ones cracked up and I 
commented how Internet years were like dog years – one year working in the 
Internet was like 7 years working in any other job.  Eighteen months later, 
I opened a copy of Newsweek and there it was in a feature story about the 
Internet – Internet years are like dog years.  Guess I was right!

Cities and We Woofers

This week on Friday, I am going to talk to folks at the League of 
California Cities Annual Conference about using our new publication – On 
the Road to a Gigabit: Are we there yet?  A Self-Assessment Guide for 
Communities.  (Yes, practically daily, I kick myself for the length of this 
darn title.)  In the past year when I’ve presented at events for city 
folks, I sense a lot of 
oh-my-gosh-how-do-you-actually-expect-us-to-care-about-broadband-when-we-can’t-even-fund-our-firetrucks. 
Not the best time for cities in California financially, is it?  But, we 
woofers (aka people who see the broadband future) are always stunned by 
folks who don’t see the broadband future clearly.

Anyway, this week, I’m hoping that some of you will have ideas, stories, 
and experiences on successes you’ve had at the community level in painting 
the vision of our broadband future.  Send them to me.  Please!  I’ll 
compile the responses and send them back to this list.

And, if you haven’t checked out the Guide or want to download the new, 
handy, binder-ready, black and white version, visit 
http://www.cenic.org/guide/ .

Freedom Machines and One Gigabit

On another note, my pal Jackie Brand sent me a note this morning about a 
film called “Freedom Machines” that is airing this week on PBS stations. 
She says, “After many years in development, it will be broadcast this 
coming week across the nation on the award-winning documentary series, POV 
on PBS.  I hope you will tune in. Freedom Machines takes a new look at 
disability through the lens of technology. The experiences of a group of 
very interesting people, including my daughter, Shoshana, let us re-examine 
ideas about ability and disability grounded in our culture and attitudes.”

The films shows the power of technology to change lives.  How will our goal 
of one gigabit change them again? Get those Tivos set tonight! (Check your 
local station by visiting: 
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2004/freedommachines/about.html )

Links, Links, and More Links

And finally, I’ve attached a bunch of links for intellectual property info 
courtesy of Ruston Brandis.  Thanks,Ruston!  I’m particularly intrigued 
with the Open Digital Rights Language Initiative.  There might be some 
synergies with our efforts in both the IP and Entertainment Technology Task 
Forces

Open Digital Rights Language Initiative
http://www.odrl.net/

Open Mobile Alliance
http://www.openmobilealliance.org/

Information Commons
http://www.info-commons.org/

On Authors Rights in Cyberspace
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue4/samuelson/index.html

What the Cultural Sector Can Learn from Enron
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_2/reilly/index.html

Digital Rights Management and the Breakdown of Social Norms
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_11/may/index.html

Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/

Online Archive of California
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/

California Digital Library
http://www.cdlib.org/

Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down 
Culture and Control Creativity - a free book under Creative Commons by 
Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School Professor
http://free-culture.org/freecontent/

Public Library of Science
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/


Susan

************************************************************
Susan Estrada
Director,  CENIC's One Gigabit or Bust Initiative
susan at cenic.org
760-510-8406 x1#
http://www.cenic.org/GB/index.html
************************************************************ 
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