On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 02:29:54AM -0800, Russell Senior wrote: > > > With another deposit today, according to my calculations our > fundraising effort to date has raised $1399.09 (net) into our Paypal > account and another $1200 via cash and checks deposited into our WaMu > account, for a grand total of (sound or gears whirring) $2599.09. > > Much thanks to all that have contributed so far! > > There are still some folks to be asked to help contribute (remember, > our project budget is about $5200), but considering our pre-drive bank > balance, we are at or near the point of project viability now. > > If you haven't already: > > save salmon, > provide economic stimulus to hardhit electronics workers, > give to PTP! > > -- > Russell Senior, Secretary > [email protected]
Oh, you are SO ready to start deploying! This is great! You guys are doing an excellent job. Here are some half-baked random brain farts that may help you reach 200% of your goal: Ask employers for charitable matching funds. Some might be in the right part of their yearly donation cycle, so the sooner the better. Individuals like Michael Burmeister-Brown (Netequality) might kick in some funds in return for some PTP knowhow. Alix "competition" provides price leverage against alternative suppliers like Meraki. PGE may have some energy conservation funds for this. Who competes with clear.net? They are on your side. Dedicate individual AlixCabs. It's better than your name on a brick! If you present things right to your Alix supplier (PC Engines or Netgate?) they might drastically cut the price in return for the publicity and some pictures and videos and words. This could be the vanguard of thousands of orders around the world. Most importantly, consider Version 1 and Version 2 AlixCabs. I bet the supplier would actually prefer to do two shipments. The full order you have in mind might be difficult to process out of existing warehouse stock. Guessing on build-to-order cycles alone, the supplier might prefer a two or three month spacing. Two shipments (and two builds) is actually more efficient for PTP as well. The stuff you learn from deploying AlixCabV1 will almost definitely change what you do with AlixCabV2. Updating half as many already-in-the-field AlixCabV1s to AlixCabV2s will be a lot easier. It does mean PTP maintains some old machines a bit longer. But more likely, this is a chance to replace the worst troublemakers *right now this month* with the money in hand, and taking care of the rest when time and money permits. Then there is the publicity aspect. Deploying V1 now, and showing a success, will be great for bragging to the region and the world, and I bet you will attract a lot a lot of funds (and new nodes) from that. You and I can visualize the differences between an old PC and an Alix abstractly; other people need to be shown pictures. If you want publicity, I bet you can get a 5 minute segment on local TV news with this, especially if you top it off with a televised recycling of the old hardware at Free Geek. Free Geek would probably like to see the old hardware in two batches, too. Two batches gives you TWO shots at publicity - if you do the song and dance for KATU with the first batch, KGW will think they can do a better job televising the processing of the second batch (and the updating of V1). Which will help raise money for new deployments. You are much closer to getting started than you may have thought. Many problems are solved by asking the right people the right way, beginning with your first order. Some organizations start billion dollar projects with a much smaller percentage of the cash in hand than you have. Never be afraid to ask for more than you expect. Shoot for the moon. "No" changes nothing, and "Yes" can change everything. Have faith in the future, and congratulations! Keith -- Keith Lofstrom [email protected] Voice (503)-520-1993 KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon" Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ The Personal Telco Project - http://www.personaltelco.net/ Donate to PTP: http://www.personaltelco.net/donate Archives: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.wireless.portland.general/ Etiquette: http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/MailingListEtiquette List information: http://lists.personaltelco.net To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
