Australia: The Great Leap Backward?

A disturbing story from the Associated Press regarding governmental efforts Down Under to implement what would appear to be the most extensive Internet content controls outside of the world's few remaining Communist countries.

Just how such a proposal ever gained so much traction in a First World democracy is beyond me, particularly now that we are well into the second decade of the Internet Age. Have its proponents stopped to consider that right now just might not be the best time to make their country less attractive to business and investment by doing this? Laptop-toting executives won't think much of a country whose hotspots aren't more useful than those in China.

And don't give me that garbage about this being "for the children." One would think Australia would be the last place on earth where the government would propose-and the public would tolerate-such an attempt to usurp the responsibility of parents like this by substituting its judgment for theirs.

What a sad thing to contemplate on New Year's Day, a holiday that is supposed to be all about looking forward-and a holiday that Sydney is always the first big city to celebrate.

So as not to come off as a total Grinch...

...let me begin by offering my best wishes, and those of my colleague ath64 as well, to you and yours for this holiday season.

Now then...I finally made it out to the Johnson County location of the company that ran the "new" coffeehouse a block north of Power and Light on Grand downtown that I mentioned back in October in my open-air hotspots post. Seems now that the downtown location, instead of being in the process of opening, had actually gone belly up after having been in operation for a while. Anyway, out of curiosity as to whether the whole business had gone under, I stopped by the other shop just to see and am happy to report it's still up and running.

Not so happily, however, I have to tell you I didn't stay long enough to try out one of their mochas-or to find out the hard way whether their Wi-Fi was free and open or not. Another memo to the management: In addition to updating your website and removing the downtown location if it's no longer viable, you really ought to tell prospective customers whether your Internet access is play-for-pay or otherwise restricted. One can only assume you'd trumpet its being free if it were, which means that it's probably not. Either way, a little honesty and openness would help here.

And in the "Gee, I wonder how the free Wi-Fi situation is over in Topeka?" department, I spent a day earlier this week doing some more historical research at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, which like the Mid-Continent Public Library system over here is lit up by AT&T. Unlike Mid-Continent, however, Ma Bell doesn't try to raid your wallet over there after you connect. Just click through a page acknowledging you'll abide by the library's acceptable use policy and that's that. And you only have to click through it once, not every so many minutes as you do at some locations.

I don't know if this is a sweetheart deal between TSCPL and Ma Bell, but even if it is, let's hope someone introduces MCPL to that sweetheart.

The RIGHT way to do library Wi-Fi...almost

Well, if ath64's adventures out West last year merited a couple of posts, I guess it's my turn. I'm afraid, however, that my journey's a bit less involved than ath64's hop over the continental divide. No, I'm up at the Des Moines Public Library on a historical research mission (yes, kids, there are still a few things you can't Google up) and thought I'd compliment the nice folks up here for not just a stunning new downtown facility-well, a couple of years old now, but I haven't been up here in nearly a couple of decades-but what I'd readily endorse, save for one quibble, as library wireless done right.

No nonsensical closing of the network to non-cardholders, no essentially worthless filtering (which, in the same manner as gun control only serves to keep guns out of law-abiding hands, only gets in the way of honest people trying to do legitimate work), just boot and scoot-that is, boot up your laptop and scoot off to wherever it is online you need to get to. The reading room I'm currently in is also host to maybe a hundred public-access workstations, and I don't see an idle one in the bunch. This is clearly a library administration made up of 21st-century thinkers who get what Wi-Fi in a library is for.

So why aren't there any power outlets back here by the microfilm machines? Come on, folks, a power strip or two plugged into the floor and conveniently left amidst these readers and printers would be a godsend. It's all you have left to do to turn your 9.9 into a perfect 10.

RUN!!! HIDE!!! OFF-TOPIC RANT ALERT!!!

Stopped in at my friendly neighborhood polling place-which also just happens to be the friendly neighborhood branch of our local public library-to do my civic duty and was struck by how it seems certain aspects of our lives are going in opposite directions, technology-wise. I mean, here I am posting to the World Wide Web from my own computer while connected wirelessly to the Internet in a branch library that also provides public-access computers for those who don't have one at home. The library's adoption of Wi-Fi served two beneficial purposes: First, it provides me with the convenience of Internet access wherever I happen to be in the building, without having to sign up and get in line for a public-access workstation and second, it frees up that workstation for someone else who really needs it. Win-win all around, right? I'd say so.

Contrast that situation, however, with the one that faced me within the past hour as I sat waiting-and waiting-and waiting-to cast my ballot on the ONE touch-screen voting machine available at this location. Sure, I could have opted for a slower and more fraud-susceptible paper ballot, but the real question ought to be why, EIGHT YEARS after the 2000 Florida debacle, there even ARE still such things as paper ballots? There should only be electronic voting machines by now. And there need to be enough of them at every polling place to speed things along.

Sheesh, if the library ran like this, the only thing you'd be able to access online here would still be the card catalog-and you'd still have to do it on a dumb green-screen terminal linked to a mainframe downtown.

Open Air Revisited

onKC Metro Hotspots (Downtown Kansas City):

Barney Allis Plaza
Between 12th and 13th, Wyandotte and Central

802.11g
SSID: onKCmetro WiFi

If there's anything I can think of that would be less necessary than ath64 thinks hotspot printing is, it would have to be an outdoor hotspot-particularly one like this in broad daylight with its dearth of well-shaded places to sit. Nonetheless, it's here and it's working, unlike its original incarnation as reported by ath64 not long after this blog's founding. So...if you're lucky enough to find a cheap parking place within a reasonable walk-or if you're brave enough to come after 6 p. m.-and you don't forget to charge your battery (important, remember, because you'll have to give your eyes time to adapt if you come before dark), and you can come up with a better excuse than not having contributed to your blog in a long time, well...

Oops-one caveat. There are a LOT of open routers visible at this location. Be careful which one you hook up with.

River Market area, approximately 3rd and Walnut

802.11b
SSID: onKCmetro

I'll be honest and tell you that all I did here was pull into the City Market parking lot and do a scan with my finder. There's a signal, but it appears weak. And frankly I didn't see many well-placed locations where one could sit with a laptop in broad daylight and use it easily, so I didn't try. I did happen to notice a SSID from a nearby coffeehouse that might be worth checking out, but the place was closed. Maybe one of us will look into it later on-unless one of you does.

Ilus W. Davis Park, across 9th Street from Federal Courthouse

802.11b
SSID: ONkcMETRO

Same thing here-I parked just to the west on Oak and did a finder scan. I just wasn't comfortable with going across the street and booting up a Mac with all those street people hanging around. If you ask me this one is strictly for weekday use during business hours.

And here's a suggestion to the onKCmetro folks. You need to decide on a consistent spelling, punctuation and capitalization for your SSID, and then use it.

Before leaving downtown, I stopped in at the KC Live covered pavilion in the Power and Light District across Grand from the Sprint Center to check out the purported hotspot there. Unfortunately, it seems the Cordish regime is more concerned with garnering bad publicity for itself by chasing away people it considers undesirable than it is with providing Wi-Fi that works. Too bad, because KC Live actually has laptop-friendly potential. There are places to sit, and adding power outlets wouldn't be difficult. Also the pavilion roof helps with LCD reading in the daytime. Well, if anyone who manages to get past the apparel Nazis should happen to find the network up and running, let us know. (And if anyone knows whether the presence of Time Warner's RoadRunner SSID means P&L has gone play-for-pay, that would be of interest as well.)

As for the status of P&L's coming Latte Land location, it's still coming, according to P&L's website. Curiously, Latte Land makes no mention of it on theirs. Wonder why? The building-on the southeast corner of 12th and Main-appears finished, but it still appears to be empty.

And finally, here's some friendly advice to the proprietor(s) of the new coffeehouse on Grand about a block north of Sprint/Power and Light: If your new location is NOT OPEN YET, it MIGHT be considered a courtesy for you to SAY SO in your advertising.

It's all in the follow-through...

Stopped in at the KCMO Southeast Branch Library for a bit this afternoon, and was gratified to see a big V-shaped table towards the back with cutouts for power. The not-so-gratifying news is that there's neither a power outlet in the floor anywhere near the table nor any wiring to connect to it if there were one.

I know things are rather tough money-wise right now, but you'd think after a couple of years there'd have been a bit more progress toward laptop-friendliness here.

Memo to the library administration: If you can't afford having an outlet installed under the table where it is now, why not move it a few feet towards the front of the building and use the existing outlet I'm plugged into now? You know-the one I had to move the circular table I'm sitting at next to so I wouldn't run the risk of your getting a bit exercised over my running a cord a long distance over the floor.

Just a thought.

What, no cards or presents?

I mean, after all, today does just happen to be the third birthday of this blog.

Oh well, it's the thought that counts, isn't it?

Thanks to however many-or few-of you regularly stop by, and here's hoping we can make it worth your while for another year.