Ferguson is not Boston

  I am always surprised at pathetic errors in basic historical knowledge, or at least errors in relating historical events to modern ones. Take the linked article for example: http://time.com/3605606/ferguson-in-defense-of-rioting/

  The author actually tries to morally compare the Boston Tea Party to the burning and looting of  Ferguson rioters: "However, even the Tea Party gets its name from a riot, The Boston Tea Party [...] What separates a heralded victory in history from an attempt at societal change, a cry for help from the country’s trampled, today? The fact that we won." 

  I can't believe this must be said, but the riots in Ferguson are nothing like the Boston Tea Party. For starters, the destroyed tea was actually at the *center* of the problem. The importation of the tea itself was part of the abuse by the British over American colonists' rights. In addition to protesting the taxes on imports, resisting the tea meant fighting future attempts by the British government to enforce monopolies on trade with the colonies. Compare this to the innocent property owners who have nothing to do with the Ferguson Police Department having their property burned and looted. For them, the closest argument for their involvement is they may happen to be white. Yes, the destruction of the tea was destruction of property, but it was not random looting and burning just because you're upset. The Boston Tea Party was a deliberate and relevant act with a specific aim; the looting and arson in Ferguson is random, irrelevant to the claimed issue, and has no aim other than the mindless destruction or theft of property owned by innocent bystanders.

FTTH

I wonder if anyone has tried hard to at getting mortgage companies involved in the FTTH broadband business, at least for financing. Obviously financing is one of the more difficult parts of planning and building a community or locally owned FTTH network. But broadband is an increasing necessity for success in education and employment, as well as increasingly affecting home values. Since most homes are under an active mortgage already, and the value of that mortgage greatly exceeds the cost of hooking the average home up to fiber, it seems like it would be a great idea for a city to work with the major lenders to finance a FTTH network: mortage companies have the incentive to maintain the value of their investment, not to mention successful homeowners can pay their mortgage.
  Imagine an underserved community wants to build a broadband network themselves, either because they lack access or lack the competition to keep prices reasonable. First they create a plan that determines they need, say, 30% of homes to each pay ~$3k in order to fund the project(these numbers are fake examples, but hopefully close enough to reality for our purposes). Since most homes are under active mortage, rather than homeowners paying that out of pocket, perhaps they can work with lenders to rewrite mortgages to tack it on to housing costs(where it rightfully belongs anyway). Homeowners might be willing to do this as their immediate out of pocket cost would be negligible(since they're paying $4k over 20 or 30 years it would be a minor blip on their bill). Lenders might be willing to do this since it is extremely low-risk(an extra $4k on a home loan won't make much of a difference if it goes under, but could in fact save more value than that due to home prices being higher for well-connected neighborhoods). An additional incentive for homeowners is they could become part-owners of a business, and end up making money by selling service to their neighbors who choose not to join the initial funding.

This Pomegranate Is Rotten

I've been wanting a place to share random thoughts, observations, or pieces of info. This is now that place. Thanks for reading.