You damn kids get outta my yard!

I like the last sentence about all of us united by a common goal: surviving winter. I think that is the secret ingredient in "Duluth Nice."

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While babbling about using "big" words, you have not succeeded in relaying any information to the audience. I couldn't agree more, put away the thesaurus.

"Duluth in particular represents a bastion of human kindness and advanced social responsibility the likes of which are nearly incomprehensible on a large-city scale; our downtown area is immensely reflective of this."

While I love Duluth, can you cite any specific examples that support this statement? I've found that kind humans exist everywhere, even in large cities like New York and Los Angeles. How does Duluth exhibit its "advanced social responsibility" more than other cities?

Indeed, point taken already!

@Ramos, that's why NYC cabbies lock their doors until you pay up! Why aren't you doing that?

Nicely done!

Nicely done everyone. I so enjoy the witty banter and observations!

Anybody else having trouble clicking on the link to vote for the Google fiber project? I get a funky page error. Not sure that my vote counts as I live outside of the city limits but I'm all for the project. Especially if it would extend say...15 miles from downtown.

It doesn't.  In the words of Davidson and Rugge, "it's like throwing good sugar at bad biscuits."

Don't get me wrong, but let's be realistic.  Google might throw a bone to a few small cities, but I don't see any added value for Duluth in this case, or, for that matter, Google, or pretty much anybody.  Yes, I'm a cynic, but we have to see it for what it is; just a political potential.  You might be able to play the medical industry we have that's located pretty densely, but I think that's about it.

Especially combined with the new Cisco CRS-3.

Using a CRS-3, every person in China, which has a population just over 1.3 billion, could participate in a video phone call at the same time. (Or you could pump nearly one Library of Congress per second through the device, or give everyone in San Fransisco a 1Gbps internet connection.) AT&T said it has been using the CRS-3 to test 100Gbit/sec. data links in tests on a commercial fiber route in Florida and Louisiana."

It would have meaning if someone took the time to put meaningful data online. When I am researching anything now the library ALWAYS wins out over Google (well, a good university library). So I can see how it might be amazing for everyone in China to be on the same phone call. But how would that move anything forward? Garbage in garbage out.

The lack of imagination in kramer's post is astounding. kramer, just think for a second -- putting away your ridiculous conspiracy theories about Google being responsible for chemtrails or whatever -- about what one of the biggest companies in the world coming to town to install the latest and greatest technology could spark (besides enslaving us all and forcing us to work in labor camps). Do you think that maybe lots of other companies might be inspired to come to Duluth to benefit from this latest-and-greatest tech? Do you think they might start employing the thousands of college kids that come streaming out of the doors of our many colleges every spring, usually bound for bigger, hipper, more technologically-advanced places? As well as the highly-qualified locals who have sacrificed the ability to earn big money for living in such a beautiful place? 

No, you're probably right. Google wants to harvest our organs and keep us alive in pods, using our electromagnetic energy to power their doomsday machine.

Why would that happen, exactly?

1.3 billion Chinese people conducting voice calls simultaneously was an illustration of bandwidth capacity, for fuck sake.

@TimK

I hope you are right.  But does Tim or huitz actually need fiber-to-home?  If I worked at Google, I would express a resounding no.  (that's ok, you can joke about why I don't work at Google).

Truth is, your visionary idea of fiber causing increase of twin ports productivity lacks vision.  Come up with something better and I'll believe you.

Okay, that was the mean part.  Realistically, Google has nothing to benefit by choosing Duluth.  It sucks that's the case, but that's mostly how it goes.  If Duluth somehow wins, I'll be a little bit out of sorts, because there's simply no real benefit in it.

A network engineer telling you straight up...

You don't need fiber to your house.  I suspect that the whole point is to put Duluth on the radar again.

Your fiber is most likely shared by a bunch of people, anyway.  So, your "gigabit" will still probably be less than 384k (which, I admit, is a lot), but not guaranteed.  We had a similar situation a while back.

Not only that, your comm network is small, so speaking in social levels, it's almost as if you've cut yourself off from everyone outside of your small circle.  The only thing you've done is move the bottleneck.

Barret, I usually disagree with you, but wow, sometimes you blow my mind.

What Barrett said. Google is not yet a telecom. When they wire up a community with fiber, they will be. The other telecoms in the early 90s told congress that if they could operate without oppressive government regulation, they would have high speed internet to every home in the US and there'd be all sorts of competition and the market would make it all just great for the average joe. Well, none of that ever happened. Telecoms formed monopolies that stifled competition (how many cable companies are there in Duluth?) and used the lack of regulations to give crappier and crappier service while raising prices. They did almost zero infrastructure. So now comes Google (maybe they do want to take over the world- but hey, their corporate motto is "first do no harm") and they are going to run fiber throughout the community giving us actual competition AND innovation. Just think of what kind of trouble Baci is going to be able to cause with that kind of bandwidth!

@Barret

Take it as an honest complement, or take it whatever way you want.

This is my favorite discussion in a long time here.

Thanks Kramer for at least giving it a shot. Tired of so many projects being sold in this town without a serious look at costs/benefits.
Say "jobs or tourists" and break out the bibs for all those salivating dogs.

Dazzling. Per the postcards (!) "At a cost no more than my existing service, I want to have Google Fiber in my home." For how long? Introductory offer?

Details on that "tweaking." This city cannot keep a paved road in town. The cost/benefit analysis could be important to, gosh, the citizens in this town. But maybe the smarter folks are just so much more entitled.

I'm half tempted to register duluthstupidbloggeranalysis.com.

Let's make sure that Hanabi, Zeitgeist and Mexico Lindo all provide some sort of cost/benefit analysis, too. It's the only way to make sure Duluth doesn't get screwed by the private sector.

OK - so in my role as stupidest - I voted for the Google thing and have not bad mouthed it.

We used two DSL lines for a long time at our business and had to switch to T1 because DSL was not reliable and kept going down which made customers using credit cards unhappy.  For said T1 we pay a lot - I cannot imagine that Google will be more - although it could be.

What I am trying to say does not pertain to Google. I am just lamenting the fact that so much more focus on the internet seems to be going toward technical wizardry and advertising than on the production of stimulating content. And by stimulating content I am not talking about the latest ED Ad or urban legend or stupid joke.
My .02
Thanks

Credit cards - yes because you cannot get QOS guarantee with dsl or cable
music in two areas
ordering
website maintenance
emailing graphics for advertising
epicurious
downloading equipment manuals
etc
etc
etc