![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/wireles8.jpg\")
Some wireless users sneak in their own food with
\n their laptops. Others buy one cup of coffee at 9 a.m. and surf the
\n Net until closing time. And the truly audacious sit for hours without
\n making any pretense of a purchase.<\/p>\n
In and around Boston, cafe owners who installed wireless signals to draw customers
\nsay they also are drawing Internet users who tie up seats for hours, buy little
\nor nothing, and make coffee shops feel like the office as they tap away at their
\nlaptops. Now some owners are fighting back by charging for wireless access, shutting
\noff their signal at peak business hours, or telling loitering laptoppers to shell
\nout or ship out.<\/p>\n
from the Boston Globe<\/a><\/p>\n We have been reading more and more articles and seeing A Starbucks or similar establishment seems like a What else does the corner coffee shop have to offer Meanwhile, one is inhibited and prohibited from engaging What we don’t understand, why don’t they just work As a card-carrying member of the pajama-hadin, we As far as the WiFi moochers, it would seem elemental, Some wireless users sneak in their own food with their laptops. Others buy one cup of coffee at 9 a.m. and surf the Net until closing time. And the truly audacious sit for hours without making any pretense of a … Continue reading
\n more and more video tout this kind of coffee shop as itinerant
\n office life-style as a way to a) save on rent, b) run a small business
\n with no overhead, c) work in a congenial environment or d) put it to
\n The Man. Quite frankly, we fail to see the charm.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n piss-poor locale for getting anything done. For one, the seats are
\n instruments of medieval torture. Designed to keep the trade moving,
\n more than 30 minutes in one of these bloody wooden ass alters and we
\n lose all sensation in our legs. Then, when we try to stand up, we end
\n up lurching across the Cafe like a drunken peg-leg sailor in a typhoon.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n in the way of office amenities? Overpriced generic caffeine-flavored
\n beverages, sugary pastries and other sources of empty calories, and
\n a mangy menagerie of bums, autistic auteurs, displaced persons, traveling
\n salesmen, desperate, hard-edged scammers and walking borderline personality
\n disorders. Someone is always whining, crying or snorting
\n into a cell
\n phone nearby.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n in such normal private office behavior as nose-picking, ass-scratching
\n and passing fits of madness. Plus, the complete absence of privacy
\n would work our paranoia up something wicked, and before lone we would
\n be huddled over our screen, blocking peripheral views with old New
\n York Times, convinced the WinBook wielding nun in the corner was an
\n operative for Opus Dei.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n out of their homes, like the Dowbrigade does when he is "between classes"?
\n Are they homeless? Do they have 17 nosy roommates who are always at home during
\n the day? Or are things so interesting, temptations so abundant at
\n home that they cannot muster the discipline to get anything done? Can
\n they not afford an internet connection? Are they unable to use a coffee
\n machine?<\/em><\/p>\n
\n are much more comfortable sprawled in our underwear in front of a nice
\n big screen, with all of our books and periodicals within reach and
\n a refrigerator full of power snacks. We haven’t found a cafe yet that
\n serves Flor de Manabi Ecuadorian coffee, and until we do, we’ll work
\n from home.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n my dear Watsons, to design software which would keep track of both
\n wifi usage and consumption at each table, and enforce a minimum of,
\n say $2.00 of consumption per hour, and if they go over, after humorous
\n and politically correct warnings, interrupt the wi-fi until they
\n buy something else. We would wager there are
\n some
\n smart programmers out there working on it now….<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"