"
Kurt jutted his jaw out. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"There's a lot of real estate between here and there. A lot of trees and
high-rises, office towers and empty lots. You're going to have to knock
on doors every couple hundred meters -- at best -- and convince them to
let you install one of these boxes, made from garbage, and plug it in,
to participate in what?"
"Democratic communication!" Kurt said.
"Ah, well, my guess is that most of the people who you'll need to
convince won't really care much about that. Won't be able to make that
abstract notion concrete."
Kurt mumbled into his chest. Alan could see that he was fuming.
"Just because you don't have the vision to appreciate this --"
Alan held up his hand. "Stop right there. I never said anything of the
sort. I think that this is big and exciting and looks like a lot of
fun. I think that ringing doorbells and talking people into letting me
nail an access point to their walls sounds like a *lot* of fun. Really,
I'm not kidding.
"But this is a journey, not a destination. The value you'll get out of
this will be more in the doing than the having done. The having done's
going to take decades, I'd guess. But the doing's going to be
something." Alan's smile was so broad it ached. The idea had seized
him. He was drunk on it.
The buzzer sounded and Kurt got up to answer it.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111