our previous post seems to have tickled quite a few people...some of you seem to have taken it rather personally!
We will never apologize for anything that we say/do - things taken out of context will always distort the truth....love us or hate us, you just cant' ignore us ;-)
anyway, here goes the not so standard disclaimer...
the previous post was not an expression of frustration, disappointment, cynicism, or any else that is negative; on the contrary, an honest view/observation/opinions of the way we see things happening around us.
we're not here to judge others or change the world - we believe thats' a job for the guy upstairs ;-)
We have consciously moved away from mass production of vegetables. Fortunately, organic farming was never a livelihood profession for us; so we could afford to experiment with several ideas. Next day distribution in cities was one of them, and based on our limited experiences; we decided not to pursue it anymore.
We do however continue to grow vegetables organically, enough for ourselves and our guests/friends - and hence the sincere offer to share it with our guests when they come visit us. We will continue to do non-perishables such as coffee/jams/pickles/pesto.
now on the the remark about the state of education/qualification/certification that is rampant in our world - think about the following before you react:
1) does everybody with drivers' licences know how to drive ?
2) does 15+ years of education really help anybody do their job ?
3) are qualified people overpaid for the actual work they do ?
4) do people who are more educated/qualified contribute more to society ?
5) are we not hypocrites when we "talk about saving the environment - and produce/consume more/faster to improve the economy"
6) does the current system of education/certification/qualification/working make people happier ?
7) ...
till next time...
as always,
- hok
Monday, September 20, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
whats' up hok
well,
its' been a while, and im sure most of you are curious about whats happenning in the houseofkodai - did we fall off the edge of the earth, were we kidnapped by local forest brigands, did we get regular jobs and get urbanized, ...
first, we're having a big bash this weekend 25th September 2010 - do come over and join the party. officially, BSNL is launching wifi broadband services in our village - of course, thats' just an excuse - come on over and join our party, you'll certainly enjoy it.
ok ok, theres' more to the story...here it goes...
having built a house, gotten electricity, growing organic food; pretty much the only civilized thing left was getting broadband internet to our home - we did it, and BSNL was quite impressed with it and want to work with us in taking this to villages across Tamil Nadu.
Rather than harp on the technology, took us over a year to make things work - we're going to say bit about the people who did it - young local farm boys, whose maximum qualification is +2 - we all know that our education system is "practically useless" ; we're encouraging kids to get certified - not solve problems or make our lives better.
we've finally proven that you dont' need people who are expensive-qualified-certified to provide broadband-internet services in villages; just "common sense and a willingness to pursue it until it works"
the elevator pitch, for those of you who like it, - we have an "affordable self sustainable scalable model for providing broadband internet access to rural villages" and we're not waiting for investors, venture capatilists, experts, telecom operators, entrepreneurs, to come make obscene profits and rip somebody off ;-)
if you're interested, do put in the effort to visit/spend time with us; starting this weekend.
wow...ok we know whats' been keeping you busy, but what about organic farming ?
we still do organic farming; but decided a few months ago that supplying to urbanites was a mugs game - most people in the cities are too busy and seem to be driven by "cost and convinence" rather than understanding/caring about "where the food they eat comes from and the human effort involved in bringing it to their homes" - we understand! living in the cities, its just easier to buy/consume "pretty things" from super-markets certified by committes of ivy-league educated professionals - rather than doing things the good old fashioned way, ie, knowing the people who grow the food for you.
of course, few of us are truly committed to supporting "organic farming"; as long as it is packged nicely, priced expensively, marketed properly, and remains fashionable !-)
nope, we're not bitter or cynical or any such thing, on the contrary - we live simple lives and continue to share it with the rest of the world (the number of friends who visit us have only increased ;-) just that, we wont be "delivering it to doorsteps" anymore.
if people want what we grow, they can have it for "free" - just have to put in the effort to visit us - the few of you who have spent time with us, know that we mean this sincerely; for other doubting thomases (if it sounds too good to be true, it probably aint') there is only one way to find out ;-)
thats' about all, folks...
stay young, have fun,
- hok
its' been a while, and im sure most of you are curious about whats happenning in the houseofkodai - did we fall off the edge of the earth, were we kidnapped by local forest brigands, did we get regular jobs and get urbanized, ...
first, we're having a big bash this weekend 25th September 2010 - do come over and join the party. officially, BSNL is launching wifi broadband services in our village - of course, thats' just an excuse - come on over and join our party, you'll certainly enjoy it.
ok ok, theres' more to the story...here it goes...
having built a house, gotten electricity, growing organic food; pretty much the only civilized thing left was getting broadband internet to our home - we did it, and BSNL was quite impressed with it and want to work with us in taking this to villages across Tamil Nadu.
Rather than harp on the technology, took us over a year to make things work - we're going to say bit about the people who did it - young local farm boys, whose maximum qualification is +2 - we all know that our education system is "practically useless" ; we're encouraging kids to get certified - not solve problems or make our lives better.
we've finally proven that you dont' need people who are expensive-qualified-certified to provide broadband-internet services in villages; just "common sense and a willingness to pursue it until it works"
the elevator pitch, for those of you who like it, - we have an "affordable self sustainable scalable model for providing broadband internet access to rural villages" and we're not waiting for investors, venture capatilists, experts, telecom operators, entrepreneurs, to come make obscene profits and rip somebody off ;-)
if you're interested, do put in the effort to visit/spend time with us; starting this weekend.
wow...ok we know whats' been keeping you busy, but what about organic farming ?
we still do organic farming; but decided a few months ago that supplying to urbanites was a mugs game - most people in the cities are too busy and seem to be driven by "cost and convinence" rather than understanding/caring about "where the food they eat comes from and the human effort involved in bringing it to their homes" - we understand! living in the cities, its just easier to buy/consume "pretty things" from super-markets certified by committes of ivy-league educated professionals - rather than doing things the good old fashioned way, ie, knowing the people who grow the food for you.
of course, few of us are truly committed to supporting "organic farming"; as long as it is packged nicely, priced expensively, marketed properly, and remains fashionable !-)
nope, we're not bitter or cynical or any such thing, on the contrary - we live simple lives and continue to share it with the rest of the world (the number of friends who visit us have only increased ;-) just that, we wont be "delivering it to doorsteps" anymore.
if people want what we grow, they can have it for "free" - just have to put in the effort to visit us - the few of you who have spent time with us, know that we mean this sincerely; for other doubting thomases (if it sounds too good to be true, it probably aint') there is only one way to find out ;-)
thats' about all, folks...
stay young, have fun,
- hok
are you on kloud9
Amidst the pristine hills of Kodaikanal, in the western ghats, a rural revolution begins.
Announcing the launch of BSNL wifi broadband services (kloud9), on 25th September 2010 in the village of Pallangi, about 10 kms from kodaikanal.
In a place where nature is still pristine, practically in the edge of civilization, closer to the forest than to the nearest village, we discovered an urge to connect with the rest of the world. About a year ago, after we completed building our home; we took upon challenge of getting broadband services to houseofkodai (also known as nammaveedu in tamil).
Although rural broadband is fashionable, makes good headlines, and everybody seems to be talking about it – the ground reality is, it simply does not exist. It makes little business sense for the big boys of telecom to invest either in technology or infrastructure for poor old rural India! Its just easier for them to shell out 1000s of crores in licensing fees to provide 3g services to the urban elite!
Coming from a technology background and interacting with friends and experts in the field, we soon realized that if we wanted broadband Internet at our home, we had to build/get it ourselves. After all, necessity is the mother of invention.
The distance between the cup and lip – we could almost see the mobile towers, which were providing us voice services and dial-up Internet; this and the knowledge that most mobile towers were connected to super-fast fibre-optic network – led us to work on the famous “local loop” problem – connect the end-user/customer to the core network.
Wifi technology, the stuff that enables your laptop to connect to your office/home’s broadband Internet without wires is what we started to experiment with – the difference being, instead of working within few 10s of meters – we had to make it work across 10s of kilometers; thus leading us into the journey with several trials and even more errors. The nice thing about making mistakes for us is that we never forget – every time we forgot to take simple things like the correct spanner or power adapter, we’d have wasted an entire day (had to travel about 100 kms by road to get it)
Having mastered the technical nuances and innovating in areas such as antenna-mounts (the difference in long distance wireless is that a few degrees off vertically or horizontally you get zero-band; and when properly aligned we get broad-band), and hardware/software (thanks to linux and the all the other open source efforts which make this possible) we were able to get the bits moving reliably across long distances – how long, you wonder; our current setup includes a 40km link. The next target is 100 kms.
Our choice of working with BSNL, was obvious from the beginning. They have the largest telecom infrastructure and being part of the government meant that they understood the social/long-term aspects and were really committed to providing broadband services in villages. The top management of BSNL, TN circle have been extremely encouraging of our efforts. We worked together to successfully complete a 3-month field-trial by integrating our technology with their backbone network.
Having successfully made broadband reach houseofkodai, we were then inspired and encouraged by BSNL to make affordable rural broadband a reality across Tamil Nadu and across India.
And so a new journey begins, we are proud to announce the launch of “BSNL wifi broadband services” on 25th September 2010. Starting with a coverage of 5 villages, in the remote areas of Kodaikanal, we are offering “unlimited 512 Kbps broadband Internet at Rs. 750/- month” the same as what urbanites are enjoying.
Finally, rural Indians can connect with the vast BSNL tower network and enjoy the benefits of broadband Internet from the comfort of their own villages.
we are on kloud9, are you ?
p.s. did we mention that this wifi service network is built and managed by young village farmers whose maximum qualification is +2! Seeing is believing – do visit us, interact directly, question us on philosophy, organic farming or complex technical aspects such as signal strength, polarity, antenna alignment, tcp/ip configuration…of course, you’ll get to enjoy the scenery, unpolluted air, clean water, company, etc. as a side effect.
Announcing the launch of BSNL wifi broadband services (kloud9), on 25th September 2010 in the village of Pallangi, about 10 kms from kodaikanal.
In a place where nature is still pristine, practically in the edge of civilization, closer to the forest than to the nearest village, we discovered an urge to connect with the rest of the world. About a year ago, after we completed building our home; we took upon challenge of getting broadband services to houseofkodai (also known as nammaveedu in tamil).
Although rural broadband is fashionable, makes good headlines, and everybody seems to be talking about it – the ground reality is, it simply does not exist. It makes little business sense for the big boys of telecom to invest either in technology or infrastructure for poor old rural India! Its just easier for them to shell out 1000s of crores in licensing fees to provide 3g services to the urban elite!
Coming from a technology background and interacting with friends and experts in the field, we soon realized that if we wanted broadband Internet at our home, we had to build/get it ourselves. After all, necessity is the mother of invention.
The distance between the cup and lip – we could almost see the mobile towers, which were providing us voice services and dial-up Internet; this and the knowledge that most mobile towers were connected to super-fast fibre-optic network – led us to work on the famous “local loop” problem – connect the end-user/customer to the core network.
Wifi technology, the stuff that enables your laptop to connect to your office/home’s broadband Internet without wires is what we started to experiment with – the difference being, instead of working within few 10s of meters – we had to make it work across 10s of kilometers; thus leading us into the journey with several trials and even more errors. The nice thing about making mistakes for us is that we never forget – every time we forgot to take simple things like the correct spanner or power adapter, we’d have wasted an entire day (had to travel about 100 kms by road to get it)
Having mastered the technical nuances and innovating in areas such as antenna-mounts (the difference in long distance wireless is that a few degrees off vertically or horizontally you get zero-band; and when properly aligned we get broad-band), and hardware/software (thanks to linux and the all the other open source efforts which make this possible) we were able to get the bits moving reliably across long distances – how long, you wonder; our current setup includes a 40km link. The next target is 100 kms.
Our choice of working with BSNL, was obvious from the beginning. They have the largest telecom infrastructure and being part of the government meant that they understood the social/long-term aspects and were really committed to providing broadband services in villages. The top management of BSNL, TN circle have been extremely encouraging of our efforts. We worked together to successfully complete a 3-month field-trial by integrating our technology with their backbone network.
Having successfully made broadband reach houseofkodai, we were then inspired and encouraged by BSNL to make affordable rural broadband a reality across Tamil Nadu and across India.
And so a new journey begins, we are proud to announce the launch of “BSNL wifi broadband services” on 25th September 2010. Starting with a coverage of 5 villages, in the remote areas of Kodaikanal, we are offering “unlimited 512 Kbps broadband Internet at Rs. 750/- month” the same as what urbanites are enjoying.
Finally, rural Indians can connect with the vast BSNL tower network and enjoy the benefits of broadband Internet from the comfort of their own villages.
we are on kloud9, are you ?
p.s. did we mention that this wifi service network is built and managed by young village farmers whose maximum qualification is +2! Seeing is believing – do visit us, interact directly, question us on philosophy, organic farming or complex technical aspects such as signal strength, polarity, antenna alignment, tcp/ip configuration…of course, you’ll get to enjoy the scenery, unpolluted air, clean water, company, etc. as a side effect.
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