I’m pretty sure this general subject has been covered in GD in the past few months, but I can’t find the thread and, anyway, I’m less interested in a debate than I am in general reactions.
I sit here typing on my new laptop, a replacement for my eleven-year-old Mac, the beloved and much-missed Calliope. (Yes, I name my computers. They’re people, damn it. Calliope was preceded by Skipper, who was preceded by Roberstein.) For the past few years I’d been using Calliope just for writing and doing any web browsing at work or the library. But Calliope’s printer finally wore out, and the old girl is so old she can’t be hooked to a new one. So to the dark, lonely hall closet she went
So, with a shudder and a feeling of guilt, I move to a new Toshiba laptop, Gay Deceiver. Nothing all that special, as my primary use is still for writing. But it does have an internet connection thingie. (Yes, I use the word thingie. It’s a technical term we writers use. It means "high-tech device with an irritating acronym for a name that I can’t remember this instant and don’t feel like looking up.)
So I hook Miss Gay Deceiver up, buy the appropriate widgets so I can get started on setting up the Internet connectionget set to call Time Warner to come out and set me up for Road Runner. While I’m thumbing through the phone book, though, I notice a little message in the taskbar. It says “Wireless network connection. Speed 54.0 Mbps. Signal strength very good.”
But how is this possible? I wonder. I’m cheap. I haven’t paid for any sort of broadband connection, wireless or otherwise. And because my apartment building is converting to condos, which are selling slowly, I’m almost the only person on this floor; my only neighbor is a raging technophobe who thinks computers are agents of the Beast and IP addesses are its mark.
Then it hits me. I live downtown. There’s a hotel attached to this building; I’ve sometimes passed through its lobby, and it advertises Business Class Roadrunner connections for all its guests.
I check the wireless connection control panel to see what’s up. And I discover that I do not, in fact, have a wireless internet connection for free.
That is, I don’t have ONE. Or two. Or three.
I have four.
Because there’s another hotel across the street, you see, who also provides such a connection. And City Hall, across another street, has wireless. And a third hotel across the street from Court Square.
And none of them seem to require any sort of encryption key to get in.
For a few minutes I try the connection out. Standard web pages? Check. Access streaming video? Check? Download real video files with the Wonder Woman openng sequence, or watch Evanescence videos, or German scat porn? Check, check, and jeez that’s gross, Cartman, your mother SUCKS!
Being a minister’s son, I immediately feel another pang of guilt. Isn’t this STEALING? But another part of me disagrees. After all, I didn’t do ANYTHNG but turn the computer one. I didn’t hack into anyone’s system surreptitiously. They–the hotels–are being either careless or generous; I’m not being dishonest–am I?
So should I pay Road Runner for the service? Or treat it like sunlight streaming through my window, as it’ll come through whether I do anything or not?
Well, troopers?
