Gloria Ferris

Here’s an important announcement, in its totality, from our neighbor Bill Callahan.

Open-Mesh wifi on my block

Today is the big twice-a-year Street Sale on Archwood Avenue, where I live.  (Tomorrow, too.)  I’m currently sitting on my front porch watching the shoppers go by and showing those who ask how our new “Free Archwood WiFi” works.

Yes, we now have a free public wifi mesh serving our block.  It currently covers a 500-foot stretch of the street going east from West 33rd.  As far as I can tell the access is reasonably good indoors as well as outdoors, but our user sample is still pretty small. (I know of six users so far other than me, and they all seem to be inside their homes.)

Free Archwood WiFi currently consists of Open-Mesh minrouters on three front porches as well as in two windows, all getting bandwidth from another minirouter attached to a standard DSL router and serving as the gateway. Each minirouter cost only $29.  (Well, actually, they cost us nothing so far… we borrowed them from One Community, which is “sponsoring” our experiment in viral networking).  Total equipment cost to date: Less than $200.

Most of the nodes have been operating together for the past 48 hours or so, with zero problems or downtime.

Open-Mesh is a nonprofit open-source “fork” from the more corporate Meraki viral mesh system, best known for its Free The Net project in San Francisco.  Both trace their pedigree and personnel to the venerable RoofNet initiative at MIT.

For the geeks, here’s the current Free Archwood network diagram from our online dashboard provided by Open-Mesh. (The outer lines around the nodes are current users).

Pretty cool, huh?

Callahan’s Cleveland Diary » Blog Archive » Open-Mesh wifi on my block

We have a new granddaughter this past year, and her name is Teagan. Here, on wiki.name, is a great research resource for name origins, spellings, meanings, namesakes, and name-alikes.

ORIGIN AND HISTORY

Tegan comes from the Welsh word teg, which means “beautiful”^[1] or “fair.”^[1]

As a surname, Tegan may be related to the Irish name Tadgh or Taidgh, which means “poet.”^[1] Some of the variants are Teigue and Teige, which could have transformed into Tegan or Teagan.^[1] As a surname, it most likely arose as a patronymic, McTeague or McTague, meaning “son of Teague.”^[1] The surname is Irish in origin, specifically from the region of Connacht.^[1]

Usage of Tegan as a feminine name is modern.^[1] Historical usage is probably a mistranslation of a similar name, such as Tegau.^[1]

POPULARITY

In the United States, the spelling Teagan is more popular than Tegan. Tegan first appeared on the top 1000 chart of most popular baby boy names in the year 2007, ranking at number 985. As a girl’s name, the spelling Teagan first appeared on the top 1000 chart in 1999. Popularity has steadily risen. In 2007, Teagan was the 408th most popular name for baby girls in the United States. As a boy’s name, the spelling Teagan appeared on the chart in 2004 and ranked at number 677 in 2007.^[1] Like other contemporary names such as Jayden and Riley, both the gender and spelling are just a matter of preference. The more it is used, the more likely it is that one gender and spelling will become conventional.

Tegan is a very popular girl’s name in Australia and New Zealand. It reached a high point as the 84th most popular name in both countries, during 1999 in New Zealand, and 1997 in Australia.^[1]

Tegan is a popular girl’s name in Canada. It was most popular in 1997, when Tegan was the 328th most popular girl’s name in Canada. Popularity slipped a bit, but it remains a top 1000 name. In 2005, Tegan ranked at number 493. It has also begun to see usage as a boy’s name. In 2005, Tegan was the 574th most popular boy’s name in Canada.^[1]

Tegan – WikiName (more)