"Global Neighborhood Watch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stephenson Neal)

clabberboy asks: Why not just have a community hire out a local security gaurd
to watch the cameras? If the gaurd was only a few blocks away (as opposed to a
few continents), wouldn't they have a better chance to fix things if something
went wrong (like a criminal cutting the wire to the cameras)?
We investigated that idea in our neighborhood. There are some problems. First of
all, the people who work for rent-a-cop agencies are not always people you want
to have hanging around your neighborhood.
Secondly, the cost is so high that if you are a middle-class neighborhood you
can't really afford it unless you pool so many houses that the rent-a-cop has to
watch a very large area, which reduces his effectiveness. Finally, it is my
feeling that community problems should be addressed by some kind of community
action rather than by writing out checks.
kadrey asks: Is the GNW idea original with you, or did you pick it up somewhere
and decide to run with it?
When I present an idea I did not make up, I give credit where credit is due. It
frquently happens that different people independently come up with similar
ideas, and so I consider it quite likely that others have come up with ideas
similar to this one, thought I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else. In fact
I have heard from several people who were thinking along the same lines before
my article came out.
alguy asks: So the surveillance would be by "siblings" and not by organizations,
such as government? [BTW, loved Zodiac)
Correct. If you go to the UK you see government-controlled surveillance cameras
all over the place. I don't like that. I'd feel much more comfortable with
cameras that could only be monitored by people I knew.
kadrey says: I didn't mean to imply that the idea wasn't original with you,
simply that once you see it in writing, it seems so simple and obvious a notion
that it's shocking you haven't seen it before. Which is probably a description
of most successful inventions/ideas.
I'm looking at questions....
kadrey says: How long have you been working on the idea now?
I started thinking about it on Memorial Day weekend when my neighbor was
assaulted. I've been investigating different technologies since then.
kadrey asks Have any promising technologies or collaborators in other countries
turned up since then?
jonl asks: It's hard enough to get local response, I'm still not getting how
somebody 3 time zones away is going to intervene if there's a problem...?
I've been thinking about different possible approaches to that problem. Haven't
really decided on anything yet. The simplest approach is that the watcher just
calls you on the telephone and wakes you up. It is possible to get more
complicated from there. Since this is not an organized program (just an idea,
really) I'm guessing that different people will try different approaches.
Haven't heard from anyone outside of North America yet. I did get heavy
skepticism from one Brit who considers the whole idea impossible given the
current high cost of Internet hookups outside the US. It's damn near too
expensive here.
kadrey says: That's an interesting problem. Perhaps there will be some sort of
passive Net channel in the future with low-cost access, sort of like Universal
Life Line phone service?
bslesins asks: Any progress on getting ISDN hooked up?