The king's X

Well, so much for the idyllic dream of the preceding post.

It ain't gonna happen.

Here's hoping, however, that the Rosedale activists don't give up and follow though on trying to do what they can with what's available now.  Sure, a megabit is only a thousandth as much as a gigabit, but it's still a megabit more than nothing. 

And speaking of nothing...it's been nearly 15 months since the Big Announcement.  Did I miss my invitation to the initial public demonstration?  Oh, it hasn't happened yet.

Hmmm...curious.  And I think more and more people are beginning to share that opinion. 

Seems like there's just no getting away from it.

The more we try not talking here anymore about the coming of Google Fiber (the official name of the project now) to the metro, the more reason someone else gives us to.  Well, blame the Kansas City Star for this one. 

An intriguing proposal, to say the least-and one that looks as if it really could go a long way toward moving eastern Wyandotte County in the right direction.  All the more incentive for someone, somewhere, to begin cracking the whip and getting at least some of that fiber hung and lit.  You know, Rosedale wouldn't be a bad place to start.

Ho hum...

Kansas City Star:  Don't get ready to sign up for Google Gigabit just yet.

Gee, do you think maybe they should have taken on something a bit simpler instead-like a cure for the common cold, perhaps?

And while we're on the subject of those who still just don't get it...

Not wanting to waste a whole Friday evening after the KCK library stop proved fruitless, I decided to continue westward, giving myself a chance to keep an eye peeled for potential new locations along State Avenue (didn't see any) and eventually, of course, to check out how things were going out around the Speedway these days.  Not so well, I'm sorry to report.  The onetime open-air network that served the Legends shopping center is now gone-thanks, ath64, for updating the guide page to reflect this-and the Yard House Restaurant has now thrown up some sort of crazy clickthrough page on its network that I couldn't get to work without enabling more than I'm comfortable starting a browser with.  Jazz:  A Louisiana Kitchen apparently also now offers what may be free and open Wi-Fi but their clickthrough page didn't work any better. 

Finally, Books-a-Million (which has taken to calling itself just "BAM!") apparently is still dead set on following its onetime competitor Borders into oblivion by being even more obstinate when it comes to moving away from fee and towards free.  They still expect anyone who isn't a member of their discount club to pay for access. 

Since this company is obviously run by people who just woke up after being in a coma for the past couple of years, or maybe have recently returned from an Antartctic expedition or something like that, here's a brief refresher.  Barnes and Noble went to free and open with its Wi-Fi while Borders stayed play-for-pay until competitive pressures forced them to follow B&N's lead.  The upshot:  B&N is still around.  Borders isn't.

Oh, and to bring you totally up to speed-Will and Kate really went through with it, Casey Anthony walked and Francisco Franco is still dead.

Just in case you were wondering...

Stopped in again at the KCK Public Library's main branch, and no, the Wi-Fi here hasn't gotten any better.  You've still got to accept a self-signed certificate to connect, you still can't read Usenet posts or even e-mail if your provider, like most, now requires you to connect securely via SSL, and I didn't even bother to check the filtering.  Too bad, because they've set up a vending-machine cafe at the front of the first floor reading room with even a few wall-mounted power outlets readily accessible.  It's a shame they won't get much use unless some attitudes change around here-fast.

And speaking of filtering...

...I coincidentally came across this guest editorial by Ernest Istook, the erstwhile Oklahoma congressman who principally authored the Children's Internet Protection Act.

Funny how some things-and some people-just don't change. Years out of office, he still beats the drum for his burdensome and unworkable solution to what was then (in 2000) and still is now a largely nonexistent problem. A dozen years ago, there was no such thing as a computer program capable of making subjective judgments about the data it processes-such as whether such data meets the legal definition of obscenity or "harmful to minors"-and there is still no such thing today. And he's shocked-shocked!-that more and more public library systems around the country have taken the route of responsible stewardship of their increasingly scarce resources and opted out of the E-Rate program rather than spend more money complying with CIPA than their E-Rate discount would be worth.

Poor Mr. Istook. He's just more evidence that boxer Muhammad Ali's famous quote is truly a sage observation of the human condition. Istook still sees the world the same as he did in 2000, and has thus wasted the past twelve years of his life.

The problem wasn't so much what he was watching...

...as this story recounting the arrest of a laptopper at a public library in Loudoun County, Virginia explains. Rather, it was what he was (alleged to have been) doing while he was watching it.

Of course, the reporter states flatly that he was using the library's Wi-Fi at the end of the piece without so much as a shred of documentation to support either that claim or the obvious inference that the suspect pulled the offensive materials down over the connection. Hmmm...I didn't read in there anything about a forensic analysis of the computer having been done yet to show the stuff wasn't on the hard drive beforehand, did you?

In fairness to our intrepid correspondent above, however, I slipped over to the library's website to check out the available information on the nature of the connection and yes, it's unfiltered. So draw your own conclusion.