Monday, June 10, 2002

As one of the 93% in this country who don't have broadband access, I find this sort of story about Wi-Fi intriguing. Etherlinx has taken the 802.11b standard and used it to build a system that can transmit Internet data up to 20 miles at high speeds -- enough to blanket entire urban regions and make cable or D.S.L. connections obsolete. 11:32:04 AM     David Brooks has a piece in the New York Times Magazine on America's association with wealth. No nation on earth has ever tried as hard, and failed as utterly, in its efforts not to become rich as America has. There are now around seven million households in the U.S. with a net worth of more than a million dollars. But the affluence of the upper class isn't even the amazing thing. It's the affluence of middle-class life. The average new American home has grown from 1,500 square feet to about 2,200 square feet in a single generation. The average American family spends more than $2,000 a year on food from restaurants. According to Cotton Incorporated's magazine, Lifestyle Monitor, American women between the ages of 16 and 70 have, on average, seven pairs of jeans in their wardrobes. Nearly three-quarters of the new cars bought by Americans have cruise control and power door locks, and there will soon be more cars in this country than people. Americans altogether spend $40 billion a year on our lawns, an amount roughly equal to the entire federal tax revenue of India. No wonder certain individuals find the mere existence of the US a tad ... frustrating. 11:16:26 AM

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