Outdoor installation by Aram Bartholl is a fire-powered wifi router which can make PDFs on survival available when heated:
The boulder from the region Neuenkirchen, Niedersachsen contains a
thermoelectric generator which converts heat directly into electricity.
Visitors are invited to make a fire next to the boulder to power up the
wifi router in the stone which then reveals a large collection of PDF
survival guides. The piratebox.cc
inspired router which is NOT connected to the Internet offers the users
to download the guides and upload any content they like to the stone
database. As long as the fire produces enough heat the router will stay
switched on. The title Keepalive refers to a technical network condition
where two network endpoints send each other ‘empty’ keepalive messages
to maintain the connection.
Think about it: if you aren’t smart enough to know how to build a fire, much less one that’s sufficient to power the thing, then you’re not going to get the survival docs.
Then again, I suspect that people who might have the skills to construct the fire are also not the kind who’d have much immediate need for such docs.
Karma is a relatively new in the whole wireless data biz. You’ll recall we ordered one of their units and subscribed to Neverstop – an “unlimited” data offering at $50/month.
A few customers treated it as truly unlimited – they were pulling down about 1TB a month. Not many, but some.
So, about month later, Karma announced they were going to limit the capacity to 15GB per month, still at $50. Seemed reasonable to us.
Today, about another month later, Karma announced they’re pulling the plug on Neverstop.
Karma will be rolling existing Neverstop subscribers into their new Pulse program. $35 a month for 5GB and no rollover. Actually, it’s $40/month for 5GB of data – it’s just that existing Neverstop subscribers get $5 for the first three months.
Insert joke here about “never stop” having, in fact, stopped.
Us?
We’ll keep it for awhile and have switched to the 5GB plan. We have a business data plan for our primary usage, but because internet connectivity is critical for work, the Karma will remain in the arsenal as a backup plan.
Oh, and I don’t feel like peeling the Karma sticker off the rig just now.
the rest of me 