Multimedia Reporting (Adler-Utsler)

Scott Anderson sat at his girlfriend’s laptop computer; frustrated with the wireless home network he was attempting to set up. The couple had just purchased cable Internet for their apartment, but the installation was proving problematic. Instead of finding his wireless router, her laptop found tens of others, including one named Freenet.

“I’ve seen these guys around town, but I have no clue what they are about.” said Anderson.
Not everyone can afford the Internet like Anderson. A Lawrence non-profit is seeing to it that just because someone cannot afford Internet service they do not have to suffer a cost to their future. Lawrence Freenet has worked since 2005 to provide Internet to the city of Lawrence, regardless of income. Approximately 80 other communities in the country offer a similar service.
Freenet began offering service in the middle of 2005 on a voluntary pay basis. Users could choose to pay $15 a month or they could access the service for free.
“What we found out is that building a wireless network is expensive,” said Matthew Del Vacchio, Director of Internal Operations at Lawrence Freenet. “It’s very expensive, actually.”

Freenet found two options that would allow it to pay the bills and still serve the community. One option was to switch to an ad based model. Users would have a banner with ads constantly on their browser screen while using the free Internet network. Metrofi in San Francisco pioneered this method of Internet delivery.
“There’s a lot of technology that goes into displaying the ad and what allows people on.” said Del Vacchio. “We found out that that just wasn’t a realistic goal.”
Facing this technological roadblock, Freenet opted to go a new way. They switched to a model where those who can pay, pay for those who cannot.
“Our goal is for one out of every ten users is on for free.” said Del Vacchio.
Free users are qualified by income and number of dependants.
“We give them a free Internet account. If they don’t have a computer, we give them a computer. If they don’t know how to use it, we teach them how to use it.” said Del Vacchio.
The computers Freenet provides are donated by the community. Volunteers come in on Saturdays and cleanout and update donated computers to be sent to deserving families. Freenet accepts any used computer, even if it is old or will not even start. They take apart those computers that are too far gone and use the parts to make better machines.
Freenet intends to expand and get more city support. So far the city has allowed the company to put its nodes and base stations on city property. While being appreciative of what the city has done so far, Freenet hopes in the future they will do more. Del Vacchio hopes the city will help fund the service by buying up a large chunk of the service and becoming an “anchor tenant.” The case is tough to plead to the city since there is not a working model to show that success is a possibility.
“I respect their reservation in it and I hope that as our technology improves and the service improves and it starts to become more clear to the municipalities what different advantages are to using a wireless network that they’ll give us a try as an anchor tenant.” said Del Vacchio.
Should Freenet secure a deal with the city, Del Vacchio anticipates having a much easier time selling the project to potential investors. The benefits to the city from Del Vacchio’s perspective are great. Freenet and the Lawrence Police Department are collaborating on a test project to provide wireless Internet to police cars so officers can do paperwork from their vehicles from anywhere in the city.
Beyond the police department, potential uses include city employees such as building inspectors who work outside the office, wireless transmitters to read water meters, and even reading parking meters wirelessly from City Hall.
“Our ultimate goal is to drive the price of data to zero.” said Del Vacchio. “We believe that access to the Internet should be free.”
In order to access the service a user need only register with Freenet and login to the nearest Freenet wireless node. Home users only have to login once with their special wireless router, while laptop users must login once a day. The wireless nodes are located all around town attached to streetlights and traffic signals. Information goes from the wireless nodes to base stations located atop large city structures such as water towers and City Hall. The last stop on the data’s tour of Lawrence is the Freenet headquarters, where it is sent off to the Internet and the return data makes its way along the same path back to the user. All of this takes place in a fraction of a second.
“To explain it simply, it’s like having a bunch of Linksys routers set up, but it’s a lot more powerful and a lot more sophisticated, but the technology is the same.” said Del Vecchio.
The distance from a wireless node dictates the manner in which a user can access the network. A person living within 200 feet of a node can use the internal antenna of any wireless device they may have, such as a laptop. The signal gets weaker over distance and these devices have a hard time connecting further than that. From 150 feet and further, Freenet recommends that users purchase a wireless modem from them. These modems are far more powerful than anything for sale from a normal vender and will allow users to have a quality experience from up to 1,000 feet.
“The ultimate goal is to put up enough radios that you wouldn’t need one of the routers anywhere.” said Del Vecchio.
Paying users have a $20 monthly fee, but 10 percent of that bill can be filled as a tax deduction since Freenet is a non-profit company. On top of the $20 monthly fee, a paying user living beyond 150 feet from a node will have to install a wireless modem. Various wireless routers can be purchased for between $121 and $199 or the modems can be rented for between $7 and $11 a month, depending on the model of modem.
The additional cost of the wireless modems has turned some away. Karla Stone lives just far enough away from the nearest wireless node on 6th Street to have trouble connecting to the Freenet network with just her laptop’s wireless card.
“It was slow and that was pretty much what did it.” said Stone.
Her distance from the nearest node would require her to rent or purchase a wireless modem. She went back to using Sunflower Broadband’s cable Internet service instead, since she already owned a cable modem and the cost of renting the new equipment would negate the saving she had hoped for.
“It seems like a good idea, it’s just not there yet.” said Stone.
The cost of the new equipment did not deter Scott Anderson back on 15th Street, his frustration had built to the point of desperation.
“I wish I had known more about this before I signed up for service.” Said Anderson. “Now I’ve already spent $80 on a cable modem and so I am kind of stuck with it. But it may be worth switching anyway.”

Susan Jansen sat in the lobby of the Lawrence Arts Center Sunday, waiting for her daughter, Erin, to come out of a dance rehearsal. As Erin walked down the stairs to meet her mother she sighed, remembering what she used to do on Sunday afternoons. Up till a few months ago the Jansens drove into Kansas City so that Erin could practice ice dance.

The Jansens belong to a subculture of figure skaters and their parents that outsiders might find obsessive. Erin’s mother home-schooled her for two years so that she could skate more sessions at the far away ice rink.
“She wanted to skate and so there wasn’t really another option.” said Jansen.
The trip between the Jansen’s home and Ice Sports Kansas City where Erin skated took 45 minutes and with many skating sessions starting around 6:00 am the families options were few.
“We would have had to get up at 3:00 in the morning.” said Jansen.
Once Erin was started Internet schooling she could practice during the day with fewer people to compete with for space on the ice. Not to mention the extra sleep she and her mother enjoyed.
But the distance, the cost of skating, and Erin’s desire for a more active social life brought her back to normal school and out of skating.
The City of Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department has looked into a new building program that would solve the Jansen’s problem.
In the recently released Partners for Lawrence Athletics and Public Youth Feasibility Study, the PLAY committee conducted a survey of 412 random Lawrence residents and found that when provided with potential new building plans the most respondents wanted the department to fund a new ice rink. The list of potential plans contained 13 new indoor recreation facilities and 33 percent of the surveyed favored the rink.
The proposed rink would be approximately 40,000 square feet and cover seven to nine acres of land. In that space there would be a single hockey sized ice rink, 200 feet by 85 feet, locker rooms, and seating for up to 1,000 spectators.
The PLAY Committee found problems with the proposed rink, however. The rink would cost a staggering $10.6 million. In 2006 the Parks and Recreation actual budget only included $595,000 in total expenditures for maintenance and new projects. The 2007 budget gave only $3.4 million for the entire department to operate on. The committee’s research also found that the rink would not likely be able to make enough money to pay for its day-to-day operation, much less recoup the cost of building it.
Instead of building the costlier indoor rink suggested by the survey, the PLAY Committee recommends that the city look into a much cheaper, outdoor, seasonal ice rink. Crown Center in Kansas City has run an outdoor ice rink during the winters. Oklahoma City has a pair of outdoor ice rinks as well. But both of these cities already support a number of indoor ice rinks.
“With that population you had better not build.” Said Dmitri Logoutine, owner of Ice Challenge Enterprises.
Ice Challenges runs two outdoor rinks in the Oklahoma City area and contracts out equipment to other individuals and cities as far away as Kentucky.
Logoutine suggested that the PLAY Committee was right in their decision to support an outdoor rink over and indoor facility. On top of the inevitable problems posed by Lawrence’s lower population as compared to other cities with ice rinks, Logoutine suggested that the city would find an outdoor rink more suitable to their needs.
Ice Challenges normally builds outdoor rinks at 60 feet by 100 feet, roughly half the size of a normal, hockey style, ice rink. Logoutine stressed that this size was merely a suggestion that any size or shape could be fashioned.
“When you are talking about outdoor, you become an artist.” said Logoutine.
Outdoor ice rinks cost less than a tenth of what an indoor facility would run. A city looking to open up the construction and operation of the rink to an outside company, such as Ice Challenges, could expect for bids to start at $100,000 to $200,000. All of the necessary equipment could be purchased for $200,000 or a little more, should the city decided to run the rink on its own.
“I would be surprised if someone found the project quoted over $500,000.” said Logoutine.
Another strength Logoutine sees in outdoor ice rinks is their mobility. An outdoor rink can be set up in about a week and it takes a bit longer for the ice to freeze. Any open area with sufficient power and water can be transformed into an ice rink. One of the ice rinks Ice Challenges runs in Oklahoma City is in a park downtown and the Ice Terrace in Kansas City is in the heart of Crown Center.
Outdoor rinks usually open in November, as the weather gets colder. Ice Terrace at Crown Center will open its season on November 2. That makes building an outdoor rink to be used this year a little out of the question, but Logoutine sees next year as a real possibility.
That hope for next year excites Erin Jansen and her mother.
“I think there are other people who don’t know who would enjoy it.” said Jansen.
For now the Jansen’s will have to continue their long trips to ice rinks in other towns.

Susan Jansen sat in the lobby of the Lawrence Arts Center Sunday, waiting for her daughter, Erin, to come out of a dance rehearsal. As Erin walked down the stairs to meet her mother she sighed, remembering what she used to do on Sunday afternoons. Up till a few months ago the Jansens drove into Kansas City so that Erin could practice ice dance.

The Jansens belong to a subculture of figure skaters and their parents that outsiders might find obsessive. Erin’s mother home-schooled her for two years so that she could skate more sessions at the far away ice rink.

“She wanted to skate and so there wasn’t really another option.” said Jansen.
The trip between the Jansen’s home and Ice Sports Kansas City where Erin skated took 45 minutes and with many skating sessions starting around 6:00 am the families options were few.

“We would have had to get up at 3:00 in the morning.” said Jansen.

Once Erin was started Internet schooling she could practice during the day with fewer people to compete with for space on the ice. Not to mention the extra sleep she and her mother enjoyed.

But the distance, the cost of skating, and Erin’s desire for a more active social life brought her back to normal school and out of skating.

The City of Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department has looked into a new building program that would solve the Jansen’s problem.

In the recently released Partners for Lawrence Athletics and Public Youth Feasibility Study, the PLAY committee conducted a survey of 412 random Lawrence residents and found that when provided with potential new building plans the most respondents wanted the department to fund a new ice rink. The list of potential plans contained 13 new indoor recreation facilities and 33 percent of the surveyed favored the rink.

The proposed rink would be approximately 40,000 square feet and cover seven to nine acres of land. In that space there would be a single hockey sized ice rink, 200 feet by 85 feet, locker rooms, and seating for up to 1,000 spectators.

The PLAY Committee found problems with the proposed rink, however. The rink would cost a staggering $10.6 million. In 2006 the Parks and Recreation actual budget only included $595,000 in total expenditures for maintenance and new projects. The 2007 budget gave only $3.4 million for the entire department to operate on. The committee’s research also found that the rink would not likely be able to make enough money to pay for its day-to-day operation, much less recoup the cost of building it.

Instead of building the costlier indoor rink suggested by the survey, the PLAY Committee recommends that the city look into a much cheaper, outdoor, seasonal ice rink.
Crown Center in Kansas City has run an outdoor ice rink during the winters. Oklahoma City has a pair of outdoor ice rinks as well. But both of these cities already support a number of indoor ice rinks.

“With that population you had better not build.” Said Dmitri Logoutine, owner of Ice Challenge Enterprises.

Ice Challenges runs two outdoor rinks in the Oklahoma City area and contracts out equipment to other individuals and cities as far away as Kentucky.

Logoutine suggested that the PLAY Committee was right in their decision to support an outdoor rink over and indoor facility. On top of the inevitable problems posed by Lawrence’s lower population as compared to other cities with ice rinks, Logoutine suggested that the city would find an outdoor rink more suitable to their needs.

Ice Challenges normally builds outdoor rinks at 60 feet by 100 feet, roughly half the size of a normal, hockey style, ice rink. Logoutine stressed that this size was merely a suggestion that any size or shape could be fashioned.

“When you are talking about outdoor, you become an artist.” said Logoutine.

Outdoor ice rinks cost less than a tenth of what an indoor facility would run. A city looking to open up the construction and operation of the rink to an outside company, such as Ice Challenges, could expect for bids to start at $100,000 to $200,000. All of the necessary equipment could be purchased for $200,000 or a little more, should the city decided to run the rink on its own.

“I would be surprised if someone found the project quoted over $500,000.” said Logoutine.

Another strength Logoutine sees in outdoor ice rinks is their mobility. An outdoor rink can be set up in about a week and it takes a bit longer for the ice to freeze. Any open area with sufficient power and water can be transformed into an ice rink. One of the ice rinks Ice Challenges runs in Oklahoma City is in a park downtown and the Ice Terrace in Kansas City is in the heart of Crown Center.

Outdoor rinks usually open in November, as the weather gets colder. Ice Terrace at Crown Center will open its season on November 2. That makes building an outdoor rink to be used this year a little out of the question, but Logoutine sees next year as a real possibility.

That hope for next year excites Erin Jansen and her mother.

“I think there are other people who don’t know who would enjoy it.” said Jansen.

For now the Jansen’s will have to continue their long trips to ice rinks in other towns.

Delimer waved his staff in front of him in a threateningly. A sickly green aura swirled around the skull shaped head of the staff. His posturing inspired little fear in his foe, perhaps because his foe has three times his size, or perhaps because he straddled a fierce blue dragon. It quickly dawned on Scott Anderson the he might have gotten Delimer a little over his head. This realization came too late as a man-sized fireball crashed into Delimer. He died on that blasted plain underneath a sheet of swirling black clouds.

Delimer’s ghost began the trek back to his corpse to regain his possessions and, with any luck, avenge himself.

On the other side of the computer screen Anderson peers at the monitor, frustrated at how difficult a simple task had gotten. The objective had been to capture the soul of an enemy in a stone for use in his magical incantations. The individual on the dragon had not been part of the plan. Now that dragon-riding son-of-a-gun had to go.

Given time to properly prepare for combat Delimer made quick work of the dragon rider.

Anderson created Delimer more than a year ago and has played him and other characters he has created on World of Warcraft for more than 68 days in that time. That equates to approximately 1,600 hours of Anderson’s very real life spent in the virtual world of Azeroth.

Anderson is a product of new strategies the US Army has employed in recent years to gain recruits. The Army has gone to great lengths to appeal to the computer enthusiasts and gamers of America’s youth.

In 2002 the Army commissioned a video game for use in recruitment. The resulting game, America’s Army, put the player through a virtualized basic training and culminated in battles only after the player graduated from the training. The Army distributed the shooter through recruiters and the Internet for free. The latest iteration of the game was released in September and has been downloaded more than 2.2 million times from the Fileplanet website, a popular source for video game downloads. The Army plans to bring the title from its PC roots to the Xbox 360 before the end of the year.

After graduating from high school Anderson joined the Army. Immediately after receiving his signing bonus he blew a good chunk of it on a state of the art laptop. In the month before he shipped out for basic training Anderson and his friends went on a gaming binge that should earn them a place in the halls of nerd legend, and the unemployment line.

Ultima Online was the game and there was no room in life for anything else. They stopped to sleep, but made sure to time their rest with maintenance times for the game servers, so that no valuable play time would be lost. So from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. every day they rested, then woke in time for the servers to re-launch.

When Anderson left for basic training in July of 2000 he took a short hiatus from the digital world. Just as soon as he graduated from basic training and arrived at his first duty station he resumed his digital life.

Even the work the Army set on him could not keep him from his gaming. As soon as his duties ended he rushed back to his room to play his newest diversion, Everquest.

“I played eight hours a night, every night,” said Anderson. “Sometimes I didn’t change out of my uniform.”

The game provided a link to home. Online he could see his friends from Kansas and enjoy doing quests with them even though he was in Seattle.

In 2003, more than halfway through Anderson’s tour in the Army, the United States crossed the Kuwaiti desert and invaded Iraq. He went with his unit into the sand and took with him a few essentials. Among these items were his laptop and a shiny Playstation 2.

Anderson’s job was in Iraq included writing security briefs for his unit.

“I’d like to say they made their way up to the President,” said Anderson.

Additionally, he went on patrols and confiscated weapons as well as handled the detainment of combatants. Confiscating weapons produced some interesting diversion from the boredom that stalked the soldiers.

“We kept all the good ones so we could shoot them.” Anderson said of the weapons his unit confiscated.

The part about the Iraqi part of his tour that he most likes discussing is the gaming. The Internet connection at the base he was located was not reliable. The signal his unit received originated on the eastern coast of the United States and bounced of satellites until it arrived at his computer. The end product was not at all suited to his needs. After many desperate attempts Anderson realized that his affair with online gaming would have to end.

His understanding mother sent him a portable screen for his Playstation 2 so that he could play it instead. The Playstation 2 returned with him from Iraq caked in a fine yellow dust that has never washed off.

“You just learn to accept it, because no matter what, it doesn’t come off.” said Anderson.

A few months after returning from Iraq, Anderson met Kim Riffel while in Wichita. The couple is now engaged and both are attending the University of Kansas where Anderson is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology. While Anderson was willing to tell Riffel anything she asked, especially after the engagement, he had not gotten around to telling her how often he played his games.

“I didn’t even know how big a nerd he was until I heard the stories.” said Riffel.

Riffel has forgiven Anderson for his nerdy shortcomings and the two intend to marry in 2009.

As the sun sets behind Wescoe Hall Adam Wood scribbles his politics onto concrete benches with a sliver of white chalk. Political messages compete for space with drink specials on the gray, open-air forum that is Wescoe Beach. Endorsements of Barack Obama are overwritten with criticisms from Ron Paul supporters. Two for one deals and other advertisements, in turn, overwrite those criticisms.

Wood started a group, Students for Ron Paul, on campus in order to support Representative Ron Paul, a long serving Republican from Texas, as a presidential candidate. He organizes and recruits in the real world, but his group started on the Internet and most of the work still goes on online. Tools like Facebook and MySpace have allowed individuals with an interest to find others who share that interest. For Wood and his group, that interest is politics.

“I’ve always been a political junkie,” said Wood.

Once Wood had decided that Ron Paul was the candidate he liked best, he wanted to help any way he could. When Wood went to register with the university the form was online and they asked for a website.

“I didn’t really have a choice,” said Wood.

So with the little experience he had gained from working a few weekends for the Ralph Nader campaign in 2004, Wood created a Facebook group and sent out invitations. That same group now has 212 members at KU as of December 4.

Wood is now a little cavalier about the benefits of working online.

“In today’s environment it’s an advantage,” said Wood. “But the thing you have know about the Internet is: a.) it’s a series of tubes and b.) it’s only five spammers.”

Wood is not unique. All the major candidates have Facebook groups. They all have MySpace pages. They all have websites and podcasts. The Internet is abuzz with attempts by candidates to make a name for themselves.

“Everybody’s trying everything,” said David Perlmutter, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Kansas and author of the forthcoming book Blogwars: The New Political Battleground. “You could make a case that Ron Paul wouldn’t be on anybody’s lips if not for Internet activism.”

How to use the Internet in a political campaign remains far from an exact science. Perlmutter sees the era of strictly “message” candidate as waning since in an Internet age, there is no telling what can happen on the web. Candidate’s profiles on Facebook and MySpace can be particularly dangerous.

Open commenting on these sites allows any supporter or detractor to comment on the page at their leisure. A user with a picture of a naked woman as his profile picture posted his admiration for Barack Obama one of Obama’s pages. The image appeared in the comments for all to see and the campaign could do nothing about it.

Less embarrassing support comes from the Internet as well. Wood found out about each candidate and picked Ron Paul based heavily on research he did online. Supporters like Wood bring up other issues relating to a candidates message.

Wood has minimal contact with the Ron Paul campaign, yet he runs Paul’s largest support group in Lawrence. Perlmutter sees Wood as an excellent example of what the future of political support could be, namely: unsolicited and unpaid.

Wood commented on an ad he saw searching for supporters to work for the Obama campaign in Kansas.

“They say ‘work’ like it’s a job. You should support the candidate you think is right and not get paid for it,” said Wood.

Supporters like Wood have no shortage of enthusiasm, however, candidates cannot leverage the same oversight on them as they could hired professionals. Even if they are not posting their support with naked pictures, Internet supporters can cost candidates by popularizing an image that runs counter the candidate’s intentions.

“Now it’s a bunch of unguided missiles,” said Perlmutter.

Some candidates are taking steps to counter this unpredictability. Barack Obama’s campaign started his own version of Facebook at my.barackobama.com. Hillary Clinton has a similar system on her website. A user registers for the site much like MySpace. Registered users can then find other Obama supporters in their area and around the country. The site also enables Obama’s campaign to have a list of interested individuals in an area so that they can mobilize support more easily. The University of Kansas chapter of Students for Barack Obama recently used the site as well as traditional print advertisement to spread the word about a “meet up.” On top of allowing the campaign to help organize events, the website allows the Obama campaign full editorial control of the site’s content.

The eventual effect of websites such as Facebook and my.barackobama.com is difficult to understand. Hillary Clinton has done less than other candidates with the Internet, but still holds a lead over the other Democratic challengers in Iowa, the state with the first primary, according to a Pew Research poll published December 3.

“The woman who has worked the hardest, has the most connections, has the most money is still in the lead,” said Perlmutter.

In the same Pew Research poll Ron Paul had 4 percent of the vote in Iowa. He polled slightly higher in New Hampshire with 9 percent. However, those numbers do not bode will for his campaign winning come November. But winning is not necessarily the point for many of his supporters. Wood sees himself as part of something larger than just a campaign for president.

“We want to win and we think we have a serious chance of winning. I am not truly gonna be happy unless he wins,” said Wood. “But it’s not an election, it’s a movement.”

After November Wood has no intention of stopping his activities, but instead he hopes to steer his groups energy to local elections and bring about change from the bottom up.