I’m going to get to see Lisbon, with a bit of luck, but only from the connecting cattle-chute. This week coming up I’ll be speaking at the IT-Defense conference in Munich, [itd] so I am not sure whether I’ll be writing much, or not. It’s going to depend on internet access, jet lag, airport security, connections, and a host of other factors.
Since the airlines screw local airport flights, I get to drive 3hr down to Washington, in order to have an affordable flight (Washington always seems to have the cheapest flights on the east coast) so I’m just going to pay attention to getting there. I’ve got a copy of a book of speeches by Howard Zinn to keep me uplifted and some books about the industrial revolution to crush me back down, again.
I don’t expect I’ll go completely silent, but I’ll be home Friday, with a bit of luck.
Go completely silent? You? For real? You? Because they don’t have excellent wifi all over Europe?
Okay. Sure.
Raucous Indignation@#1:
Because they don’t have excellent wifi all over Europe?
Frankfurt airport, for example, has good WiFi but you have to give it an email address so that T-mobil can email you an access code… So you can get internet… and check your email. I occasionally encounter head-popping WiFi stupidity that usually makes me just read a book. Also, then there was the time travelling through Amsterdam where I hopped onto the Starbucks’ WiFi and came under concerted attack – (it was not the Starbucks’ WiFi) – that sort of thing is annoying, too. I’m just too old and grumpy to get into firewall knifefights at airports anymore.
Also, sometimes I get busy and I want to sleep, instead of sitting up trying to pull together all the threads of the world’s madness into a comprehensible form.
On the subject of security, check this out:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-01-29/strava-heat-map-shows-military-bases-and-supply-routes/9369490
Lofty@#3:
I have a piece on that dropping tomorrow morning.
While living in Germany I was pretty underwhelmed by the local Internet options. I could use free Wi-Fi only inside/next to universities (via eduroam) or in hotels. They didn’t even have Wi-Fi in student dormitories where I stayed. That sucked.
Now compare that with Riga (my hometown), which has one of the largest number of free Wi-Fi hotspots per square kilometer in the world. All I have to do is open the browser, wait for 15 seconds while an advertisement stops playing itself, and after that I can use the Internet free of charge for the next 30 minutes. These free Wi-Fi hotspots are provided by the country’s largest telecommunications service provider. When it comes to Internet access I’m pretty spoiled. At home I have fast and cheap Internet with unlimited bandwidth. I’m aware that in other countries Internet speed and the availability of free Wi-Fi is significantly worse, but it’s still really annoying to actually experience it whenever I’m traveling.