Internet-Deprived Kids Turning To 'McLibraries' 331
theodp writes "After the school computer lab and public library close for the night in many communities, the local McDonald's is often the only place to turn for students without internet access at home. 'Cheap smartphones and tablets have put Web-ready technology into more hands than ever,' reports the WSJ's Anton Troianovski. 'But the price of Internet connectivity hasn't come down nearly as quickly. And in many rural areas, high-speed Internet through traditional phone lines simply isn't available at any price. The result is a divide between families that have broadband constantly available on their home computers and phones, and those that have to plan their days around visits to free sources of Internet access.' The FCC says it can make broadband available to all Americans by spending $45 billion over 10 years, but until then the U.S. will have to rely on Mickey D's, Starbucks, and others to help address its digital divide. Time to update that iconic McDonald's sign?"
Title translation (Score:5, Insightful)
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Many newer routers allow a "guest" account that allows internet use without access to your LAN.
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I run an open hotspot. Unfortunately - it sees no use. I guess it has something to do with the fact that my house is located 1/4 mile from a barren stretch of highway that runs between two little forgotten nowhere towns.
Oh well - you can't say I didn't TRY!
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That makes me wonder, would you be upset if someone actually was sitting out in their car using it?
Idk about you but I would be rather paranoid if someone was sitting in their car outside my house for a few hours at random hours of the night/day
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Depends on time of day, and how long they were there. To be of any use, they would have to drive down our road, at least as far as the abandoned house my mother in law lived in. I check on anyone parked there, to see that they aren't vandalizing the place. If said occupant of car told me, "Hey, I found a free wifi, so I'm just checking my mail!" I'd say "Cool" and go about my business.
On the other hand, seeing half a dozen cars parked there around the clock would probably motivate me to disable the WIFI
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"abandoned house my mother in law lived in"
Are you Norman's brother-in-law by any chance? Nice "wireless hotel". Drivers check in for the wifi, but they never check out...
Re:Title translation (Score:4)
Also - it's only fair to point out, that my router goes THROUGH my Linux box before it goes to the modem. One of my net analyzers would quickly allow me to verify that the person(s) using my WIFI were doing legitimate things, like checking email, browsing legitimate sites, etc - or if they were using my connection to grab torrented movies, etc. I would quickly shut down a TOR tunnel, connections to porn sites, things like that.
Someone who reads this will scream about CENSORSHIP! Whoop-ti-do - censorship. I'm offering a free connection for anyone who might find the damned thing out here in the middle of nowhere. The least they can do is to respect my need to avoid attention from RIAA and their ilk, or attention from the government for activity on child porn sites.
Some schools of thought seem to make me "responsible" for anything going in or out of my internet connection.
Not to mention, if they are torrenting, in might impact on my wife's ability to play Pogo games, then all hell would break loose!
Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
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Define poor.. I'm hardly poor, but my first oppertunity for Internet was on dial-up at $0.25/minute. I passed because the bang for the buck was terrible. In some rural areas like where my folks live, Broadband is a small fraction of 1Mbps supposidly due to the distance from the DSLAM, but at higher rates then my city DSL connection at 6 Meg. When the gap between dial-up and broadband is only ~3X faster and price is ~10X more, it makes sense to stay on dial-up for a while and just use email. YouTube is
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I remember visiting Nicaragua and there being free and/or open wifis everywhere.
I remember having a conversation about access in the USA, and then some guy started blathering about Nicaragua. Oh yeah? Well in Panama and Costa Rica, access is poor even in many towns, especially in the highlands, and there's open wifi nowhere. That was precisely as relevant as your anecdote. Meanwhile here in the USA I live in a county where literally all the fiber is owned by AT&T and that situation is protected by typical legal protectionism, so my WISP beams in access from four hilltops away so th
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I rtfa and am quite suprised by what passes for 'poor'. Seems more like people who don't know how to budget and set priorities.
Believe me, you cannot solve a poverty-line salary by budgeting or "setting priorities". Most (granted, not all) of those people are poor because they do not make enough money. Inflation-adjusted wages have been stagnant for decades.
Also, states are promoting state lottery that has about 50% effective payoff (vs casinos at 98% or so). That's gotta stop too - it is not helping.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
states are promoting state lottery that has about 50% effective payoff
Lottery
Noun
A game where a whole bunch of dumb people make one dumb person look really smart.
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I grew up poor. When I got my first part time minimum wage job (in Vancouver) I almost didn't know what to do with all the money. After all, it was more money than we had as a family of 5 growing up.
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Sure, poor people with cars and laptops. ... When I got my first part time minimum wage job (in Vancouver)
In US, one usually has to have a car if they are to hold a job. Public transport is a joke in most locations. That may not be so in Vancouver - I don't know.
The minimum wage in Vancouver is currently $10.25 ($10.28 US) and the federal minimal wage in United States is $7.25. I can't speak about your circumstances, but currently there is a 40%+ gap between those two.
"A laptop" can cost any amount of money -- even brand new anywhere between $350 and $2000, so ownership of a laptop does not contradict being
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Also, once you buy a laptop, you get to keep it until it dies or is lost. Your job may well not last as long.
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Priorities. Poor people are used to walking. Sometimes I would walk 14km just to go to the mall, sometimes 20-30km to get home from a party. A bike is infinitely more affordable and healthier than a car. As well, if you think having 350$ of disposable income is poor, well like I said, really suprised by what you guys consider 'poor'.
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Priorities. Poor people are used to walking. Sometimes I would walk 14km just to go to the mall, sometimes 20-30km to get home from a party.
Some people have children to get back to. It is not just the matter of not willing to walk 10-20km, but the lack of spare time to do so. Same with owning a car -- needing to get back home and/or to the 2nd job quickly enough is a must for many people.
Car ownership is not really a luxury. I am quite happy to get along without a car nowdays, but I live in a major US city with decent public transport.
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For reference, Vancouver is a major Canadian city (3rd largest with about 2 million people in the metro area) that probably has more public transportation than most.
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You're also forgetting that ppl south of the border have to deal with medical which was in my wife's case 500/mo due to a congenital heart defect. That'll put a crimp in your entry level job budgeting.
She'll tell you if you're poor, be poor in Canada, it's cheaper.
Min
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Being poor and making bad decisions usually go hand in hand.
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A handful of insanely wealthy aristocrats does not raise the general income of the population. This is reflected in education and health as well.
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Dumb decisions aren't just for the poor.
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I think you might be confusing metrics.
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I rtfa and am quite suprised by what passes for 'poor'. Seems more like people who don't know how to budget and set priorities. Judging by the amount of debt the US has, sounds like par for the course.
From TFA:
A third of households with income of less than $30,000 a year and teens living at home still don't have broadband access there
Families living for that surely can't priorities broadband... They probably priorities food, rent, electricity and clean clothes, is it even possible to pay for health insurance after rent, food, etc.?
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Judging by the amount of debt the US has, sounds like par for the course.
That debt (consumer debt at least) has for the most part been caused by massive falls in real wages for the working and middle classes to the benefit of the rich. Assuming that you aren't part of the 1%, this means your wages as well.
But you go ahead, keep blaming it on the individual, just like you've been taught to.
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homeless people are not blowing 100 bucks on a tablet or 200 bucks on a celphone they cant afford service to
dumbshits do, they have the disconnected iphone and sit in public wifi zones to actually use them, they look good emailin while sitting next to the garbage can
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Your right, they are finding them when the drug abusers steal and stash them in order to sell or trade them for more drugs later.
Actually, it is more likely they have an Obama phone (which was started long before Obama was president) and some second hand devices donated or given to them somehow.
And if the homeless person begs properly, they can make a very good paycheck. There have been numerous reports on people pretending to be homeless and panhandling at the off ramp while making in excess of 60K a year
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I have seen a fair bit of homeless people that have a decent($500 or less) laptop. Could they afford the $800 a month for an apartment no. I don't think you understand how becoming poor works.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
You might want to reassess your definition of poverty then. Cooking food yourself doesn't just involve purchasing ingredients. There is a substantial upfront cost of buying the equipment and infrastructure to turn ingredients into food. At the very least you'll need to heat water and have a surface that can be sterilized and used to cook on. You'll need utensils and pots/pans. The energy required will be either gas or electric which costs money. I suppose you could burn wood but that isn't free either and is illegal/impractical most places.
So that $1 burger costs quite a bit more to cook yourself. If you have no equipment and no access to infrastructure then it's actually cheaper to buy fast food. The "total cost of ownership" of the food you make yourself is deceptive because much of the cost isn't directly related to the superficially cheaper ingredients.
We haven't even touched on the subject of cheap food being almost universally less healthy--even if it provides enough caloric content. Then there are food deserts where healthy food isn't even an option.
And for the "web enabled device" disqualifying you as poor remark; things really have changed that much. It happened so quickly that the older generation who can remember a time before the internet, or before computers, or before cell phones, thinks that owning or accessing those devices is a marker for the middle class and up. It's not anymore. Even the poorest citizens routinely use cellphones. Moreover, they NEED access to those devices/services just to be productive and make any money at all. Access to the internet or at least POTS is so vital that our government (rightly so) has partnered with industry players to make sure free cell phones are available to those who need them.
If you don't have access to a phone, and now the internet, you are effectively barred from participating in the economy. We can't survive that. We can't function if those people are completely dependent on government services to survive. It actually works out better, is less costly, to give away cellphones and internet access so those people can provide for themselves at least more than they were before. The alternative to not providing those things is paying for someone's entire existence, or if you refuse that, paying to lock them up when they inevitably turn to crime just to remain alive.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wells don't have to depend on electricity, but that's the way virtually everyone implements them even when there are superior alternatives. I live on a property with a well and a water tank. Though there is a place where the tank could have been placed slightly above the house, they didn't put it there. And even though there's a metric assload of wind here every day and this area is zoned ag, they didn't put up a water pumping system including a windmill. I've replaced the pump once because of their general
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
This is spot-on.
When I was 16, I ran away from home. Because the people I lived with were incompetent, abusive people. For a time I ended up in some youth homes for girls, but later on I was on my own.
Affording the infrastructure to cook food really is the hard part, when you don't start out with a stable living place, or with pots and pans someone gave you, or with a steady job that lets you pay for electricity or gas to cook the food with. The price of a 12 dollar pan can feed you three times or more, depending on what you buy and how much food you need to live. If you only need to eat once a day, that could be 3 or 4 days. The pan is just metal if you don't have money above what it takes to buy the pan, or a fire and food to cook with it. I would have been more likely to visit McDonalds and get something from the dollar menu than stare at an inedible pan. It wasn't until I was making much more money I could afford the luxury of investing in infrastructure that would pay off long-term.
In 2000, when I ran away from home, you could still find a lot of jobs in paper job fliers. The trouble back then was figuring out how to wait for a phone call when you didn't have a phone. I ended up in a lot of jobs where I could walk in and be hired on the spot (retail), because better jobs required a real phone to get them. I spent a LOT of time in libraries teaching myself about computers and the web, and because things like the job sites and free email and craigslist gave me a huge wealth of information and ways to communicate nothing else could give me. Having access to a computer at a library in my early 20s is THE sole reason I make 38k a year now, just hitting 30. And 38k a year is a lot, to me, even after paying Chicago area rents. (I know to many of you it isn't. I have a friend who I know makes 100k as a software tester, and I can't imagine what it is to live with that much money.) Making 38k, I'm actually getting fat because I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I can just buy food on the shelves without debating what is both the cheapest and what I have the capabilities of cooking. I can just buy random things at the grocery store without checking the price. I have random QUARTERS sitting around that I don't need to use for food. I am so incredibly lucky. Of course, the hard part now is learning how to save when nothing in my childhood or early adulthood nurtured such skills, and I thought I wouldn't see 30 ever.
Anyway, without libraries giving me free internet, and without prepaid phones coming so far down in price, I would be MUCH poorer than I am now. If you have the internet, and a phone, you can get a job, and everything from there is up. I've looked at the job listings I looked at when I was younger--there's pretty much nothing in them now, 13 years later. All jobs are found online. You HAVE to have a phone and some form of internet to get a decent job. It is NOT a luxury, it is NOT a sign that you are middle class. And you need a bit of money so you can print out your resume at the library or a office store. (Although, in the past, I have gone into interviews without having a copy of my own resume. Because I couldn't afford the paper or ink it would be printed on, as it usually wasn't free like the internet at the library was. I remember making up excuses to myself in case anyone asked me about it.)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
as a politician in a small northeastern city yours is i think the best reason for strongly supporting our public libraries in two critical areas; keeping the hours of operation as liberal as possible, especially during what may be generally difficult financial times, and keeping the facilities technologically up to date. your story is a reason to continue doing so, a primer on the results and, really, an inspiration.
- js.
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$500 stove with 10 year lifespan, assuming 2 meals cooked per day = 6.8 cents per meal.
$100 of pots and pans with a 20 year lifespan, assuming 2 meals cooked per day = 0.7 cents per meal.
$50 set of plates and utensils with a 20 year lifespan, assuming 3 meals eaten per day = 0.23 cents per meal.
You will have to spend $650 upfront before you can prepare your first meal. That's too much for those below the poverty line.
Sure, you will save money in the long run, but the start-up cost is prohibitive.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
You're both working from poor assumptions.
I can find a stove for $100 pretty much any day of the week, and often can get them for free.
By going to yard sales and flea markets you can amass a complete kitchen for $100. Not only do I see loads of pots and pans for a buck or two, but I have tons of kitchen appliances that I have got this way for a song. My metal-geared krups stand mixer was $5. My vintage GE waffle iron with flip-over grids (makes pancakes, presses sandwiches, etc) was $5. Got a marble rolling pin and slab for $5. Etc. You should also not have to pay more than $10 for a full set of plates and cups. Glasses might cost you another couple bucks, people don't let them go as easily as plates most times for some reason. Silverware is practically free.
Moron (Score:4, Insightful)
So, you need 650 dollars up front in your simplistic example. Gas/electricity of course just arrives for free and has no upfront costs in your silly world of moronic idiots who don't know what they are talking about.
Being poor is about not HAVING any money to spend. A classic example is the washing machine. Going to a laundromat is far more expensive AND time consuming but until you can afford the upfront cost of a washing machine, you have little choice but to try to save up for one while spending the higher amount of laundromat. Say you got a budget of 10 dollars for laundry per week. The laundromat costs 9.50, using your own washing machine costs 500 up front and 5 dollars per wash.
The person who doesn't have 500 dollars, has to use the laundromat and can only save up 50 cents per week. To save up the 500 dollars needed to buy a washing machine, takes years.
That is assuming said person even lives somewhere where it is possible/allowed to run a washing machine. A moron like Solandri will no doubt suggest to not wash your clothes and save up for 50 weeks those 10 dollars and then buy a washing machine. No doubt as the spoiled little rich white kid he will just say to get your mom to do it. He did. But if you do not wash your clothes for a year, you will go through clothes a LOT faster and most likely loose whatever job you have.
It is well known that the richer you are, the cheaper you can life. Even Terry Pratchett wrote about it with Sam Vimes Boots theory of economic injustice. It goes something like this: If you can afford 100 dollars for a pair of boots, you will have a pair of boots that will keep your feet dry for your life and can pass on to your children. If you can only afford a 10 dollar pair, they will leak with in six months and begone in a year. So the poor man spends more on boots then the rich men but still has wet feet. And no, you can't go for 10 years without boots to save up for a good pair.
What morons like Solandri fail to understand is that being poor means you don't have money. You would think this is fairly easy to understand concept but people like Solandri are really dumb indeed, they think poor people just want to be poor and could just get the money somewhere by magic if only they tried.
You can see how stupid Solandri is by not including the fixed costs of utility services, they charge a flat fee on top of which you pay for actual usage. He is a classic spoiled little rich kid who moans about the poor but doesn't know the price of milk.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
You also have to pay for a place to store those things (flat, house, or something), and pay to have energy delivered to that dwelling to run those appliances. You'll also need transportation to and from a grocery store which could be substantially farther away than McDonald's. You're in grinding poverty, remember, so no car. It'll also take you much longer to shop that way, even before you get to start making food. Upfront costs instantly make the "cheaper" solution a non-starter for many people trapped in poverty.
I can leave you with the same idea expressed more colorfully by Terry Pratchett, from Men at Arms,
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.
America sucks... (Score:2)
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Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
It's not a culture clash per se, it's that most of the US has been designed around the assumption that you have a car (or horse.) In the wide-open spaces between coasts, it's not uncommon to live many miles from the nearest shopping center or "downtown" area, well outside of casual biking range even when it's not snowing or you're not old. Even many major cities have only rudimentary public transit. In some places this is intentional, to keep the poors away from "nice neighborhoods." (IIRC, both the George Washington Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge were originally intended to have rail decks, which were scuttled by the political influence of wealthy suburbanites. New York-New Jersey connections were later established due to sheer unavoidable necessity, but to this day taking public transportation to Marin county and points north remains only nominally feasible.) Streetcar systems in Los Angeles and elsewhere were killed by a consortium of automobile interests seeking to increase dependence on their products.
OP does overstate certain costs (twenty bucks will get you a hotplate, a pan, and a place setting at Goodwill or Salvation Army stores) but the gist is correct.
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Errr - yes and no.
Having a web device doesn't take much. My son's favorite phone has cost him a grand total of eighteen bucks. Plus, a couple hours of working on it. Some silly little girl broke her phone, threw it in a corner, and my son asked her what the deal was. The "breakage" that she described was minor bullshit. My son picked the phone up, repaired it, put in a SIM card, ran cyanogen mods on it, and he has his "bestest phone evah!!"
In our throwaway society filled with spoiled children, you shou
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Then you don't understand poverty.
Conservatives used to occasionally kick up a fuss about "unfunded mandates". Poor people have to deal with those all the time. One unfunded mandate is that Internet access is a practical requirement for participation in contemporary society. If you don't have Web access, you can't search for jobs or apply for them, or fill out legally mandatory paperwork, or do your homework.
As we all know, web-enabled devices are bargains, because they enable access to many different forms
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Uh, 10 Mbps IS high speed internet. I'd sing hosannas and turn cartwheels if I could get 10 megabit internet.
The best I can get here is 6 megabit, and that's for $2419.20 a month, for an Nx6 T1. That ain't happening.
If I lived on one of the cross-streets to either side, I could get cable, but they won't run a line up this street because every house has a DirecTV dish on it. So I get 1.1 megabit 3G for $70 a month. At least it's unlimited.
(And no, I'm not in the middle of nowhere. But DSL just isn't a thing
Actually pretty useful as a backup (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that the McDs connections are pretty fast, and pretty reliable, it's actually handy to use as a backup.
Couple of years ago the connection at home was being flaky and finally gave out. Problem was, it was a major DR test day at work, and I needed to be online from home for 12 or so hours.
I just grabbed the laptop, blackberry, and powercord, and went 5 mins down the road to the 24hour McDs. Sat there for hours til my ass was numb, happily on my work BB using hands-free, and worked away for hours.
I wasn't disturbed, had unlimited food and drinks available. Really, not the worst place to work at all. I had more space there than I get at my desk job, and better food and drinks too. Work don't have iced tea on tap.
The McDs connection was enough to remote desktop into my XP desktop at work, without lag or dropping. I was impressed how stable it was. Most places can't handle basic browsing that well given the number of people sharing, but that was totally solid.
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I wasn't disturbed, had unlimited food and drinks available.
Where did you manage to find food in a McDonalds?
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I was thinking the same thing - although you don't even need to go inside. A couple of years ago, my internet connection at home went down, and there were no 24 hour places near me. I just went and parked in the McDonald's parking lot for a couple of hours, using their connection.
They are also handy at airports that still charge for WiFi (yeah, there are a few). Just go to the McDonald's in the terminal, and you can use their WiFi for free, instead of having to pay the $5 an hour to the airport. And at seve
Ob Ron Paul (Score:3)
See, the free market came through where government did not.
We didn't have any problems (Score:2)
getting an education 20+ years ago -- without the internet.
So, what the fuck is the problem here?
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I'm not surprised (Score:2)
Apple vs. Android (Score:2)
Once again (like in the 80's)Apple was focusing on the "classes" - selling overpriced but stylish tech to those that can afford it, while Commodore et al. sold cheap but functional computers that were purchased by everyone, and brought technology and often education, to the masses.
We are seeing the repeat of this scenario, where Apple sells overpriced but stylish tech (someone wants to challenge me on overpriced? Bring it on, the margins on the iPhone 5 are particularly succulent data) with the iPhones and
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too true for 69 euro I have a Samsung galaxy mini Bluetooth wifi and a 7 meg modem I own this not rented from the phone company . It tethers wirelessly or by USB. It is my GPS too.
To get free internet and free calls and texts I top up by 20 euro for 30 days access for 5 I can buy an add on for net access once I have used my 30 days limited data but if I need the cash for something else I am still connected and being in Europe I don't pay to receive calls or texts. I haven,t had a landline in years .
Contra
Key question (Score:2)
Internet deprived? (Score:2)
The article says these kids go to McDonalds after the public library closes (where they already get free Internet access).
If this is really such a hardship, why not keep school and/or the public library open a little longer?
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Because that would cost money, and getting people to add costs to a public school budget these days is nigh impossible.
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OK, so let's say it is "just a matter of keeping the schools open later". How much later? Is it going to be a computer lab, or some other part of the school? Who is going to stay and supervise the kids? How much extra is it going to cost to keep everything open and running? Are all the school hours going to be extended, or just a small number of the schools? How are the kids who stay later going to be transported (assuming they ride the bus or something like that)? What about kids who have extracurricular a
This points out a big problem: (Score:3)
Much of the USA has trouble getting broadband because the population density of rural areas makes it too expensive do the "last mile" connection of broadband to the home. This isn't like South Korea or Japan, where the population density is high enough per square kilometer to justify the enormous expense of hardwired high-speed Internet connections to everyone.
I think if the IRS were to offer substantial corporate tax incentives to get the "last mile" connection--whether by DSL, cable or even long-range wireless not tied to cellphones like 802.16 WiMax--out to rural customers, they could solve the problem pretty quickly.
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I don't know about the UK, but in the USA on average, there's a far higher density of McDonalds and other commercial establishments offering 'free'* internet than there are libraries. Such that I'd estimate that I'd have to travel half the distance on average to get internet at a restaurant than I would to get it at a library. Depending, the ability to eat at the store and/or talk loudly can also be an advantage.
I'd prefer some sort of project encouraging community level cooperative/customer owned interne
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why do the libraries fail to provide free wifi then ? :)
around here, they do - ok, in most cases you have to sit outdoors, but in summer that ain't that bad
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Libraries, with a few PCs you can use are the answer.
No, no they aren't. Spending the paltry $45B (if we weren't murdering brown people for oil we'd have it in the couch cushions) is the right answer. Remember when we spent a lot of government money to extend the phone system to "all" citizens? (Except those in the deep desert, and we all know they even used to have a booth just hanging out in bumfuck in the Mojave.) It's now time to do that with the internet.
Re:Libraries (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, liberals don't like it when the churches do things like "donating free space" to help people. They throw hissy fits, and start screaming about a separation of church and state. Well at least they do in the US, never mind that in Canada that churches and synagogues have been doing this up here for the better part of a decade already and it's open to the public.
We only care when government money is used to maintain such services, or are the only places for those public services to be available.
How comfortable would you be if the only place in your town that had free internet was a mosque?
Re:Libraries (Score:5, Funny)
How comfortable would you be if the only place in your town that had free internet was a mosque?
More comfortable than if the only place with free internet was McDonalds. In the mosque there's be less proselytising and the food is better.
Re:Libraries (Score:4, Funny)
Wait - they have FOOD in mosques? Dang - why didn't anyone tell me? I'm checking Google Maps for the closest mosque with free wifi!
Re:Libraries (Score:4, Informative)
Depends where you are. A lot of them do a similar thing to the Sikh community do with gurdwara, where they will have their church service then all have something to eat while they discuss it. I could get to like a church where you spend most of the time eating veg curry and discussing the bits where the holy book is wrong ;-)
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At least as comfortable as I would be if the only place in town were Mickey D's. I mean - how much chance is there that the manager of Mickey D's will force the kid to eat a free Mac-whatchamacallit? And, how much chance is there that the local Imam will force the kids to bang their heads on the ground five times a day?
IT'S WIFI, for crying out loud. The kids don't have to ENTER either Mickey D's or the mosque.
Even if the Catholic Church enables WIFI, the kids don't have to go inside to be diddled by the
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a Mosque not far from me that does exactly that. Anyone is welcome to go in at any time, sit in this nice comfy lounge, which is always stocked with light snacks and juices. They don't try to push their religion on you, all they ask is that if they need some help with something while your there that you provide the help. Usually that help is small things like moving a few boxes around, holding a ladder while their hanging stuff, or helping sweep up the commons area. For the 4 month span I had to go
Liberals and Libraries (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, liberals don't like it when the churches do things like "donating free space" to help people. They throw hissy fits, and start screaming about a separation of church and state. Well at least they do in the US, never mind that in Canada that churches and synagogues have been doing this up here for the better part of a decade already and it's open to the public.
We only care when government money is used to maintain such services, or are the only places for those public services to be available.
How comfortable would you be if the only place in your town that had free internet was a mosque?
Hmmm. Don't think you are a troll, so I'm going to toss you a peanut or two to munch on. Haven't you heard of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, created by Bush II more than a decade ago? True, Bush used it as a sly way to fund get-out-the-vote programs targeted at GOP constituencies and faced some serious blowback when his first director of the office, John Dilulio, resigned in protest over the political agenda that permeated an ostensibly apolitical office. The office was expanded and renamed the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships by that arch-liberal, Obama. The OFBNP has funneled billions of dollars of tax money [wikipedia.org] into exactly the kind of social services that you are referring to, via competitive contracts awarded and monitored by a council of secular and religious leaders from around the country.
I don't think liberals care much at all about *who* is helping redistribute the nation's wealth, as long as it gets redistributed in a way that benefits all, and not just a few. It's a great idea, really, letting churches help. Conservatives who don't like to redistribute wealth in any direction but upwards would look pretty silly if they tried to block money doing God's work, wouldn't you agree?
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No, liberals don't like it when churches use government funding to pretend that they are "donating" something to help people. Neither do libertarians, or sensible conservatives. And a lot of "church help" boils down to just that: government funding funneled through religious organizations in order to promote their own agenda.
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I hate to tell you this, Mr. Conservative, but Jesus was a liberal. Taxes? "Render unto Ceasar..." You conservatives seem to hate the poor that Jesus said "Blessed are" of. Tax money for food stamps? Conservatives are against it. "They should get jobs" you say, Jesus said "look at the lilies of the field, they neither sew nor spin yet Solomon in all his glory was never so clothed." Conservatives love money, but the bible says the love of money is the root of all evil.
Jesus was a liberal, a radical, Caiphas
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This is a personally offensive, childish post, bordering on hate speech against Christians. You are very lucky SlashDot doesn't provide me with a 'report' button in its comment sections.
Well, no one will think that you're the type to throw hissy fits any more.
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I've an idea - let's everyone report everyone! I don't like your term "hissy-fit throwers" because it's so very unprofessional. Atheists should be professional, at all times, I say!
More seriously - what is this "role of the state". Only very recently, in historical terms, has the state had any role aside from keeping the masses under control, while rewarding the rich for being rich.
Ohh, what am I thinking? That still seems to be government's role.
Re:Libraries (Score:4, Informative)
As an atheist with qualms about organised religion I do object to them taking over the role of the state
In the UK (where the original poster was from) it is quite common for Church halls to be used for secular purposes. They are effectively village halls (often the 'village' in question was subsumed by a town or city some centuries ago) that happen to be owned by the church. They are usually either free or very cheap to use and often the only large indoor space that is affordable for volunteer groups and community organisations. Although they tend to be owned by the church, using them doesn't usually come with any religious strings attached.
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Although they tend to be owned by the church, using them doesn't usually come with any religious strings attached.
well, a meeting to discuss latest early hominid findings might not go that great, i suppose ;)
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Although they tend to be owned by the church, using them doesn't usually come with any religious strings attached.
well, a meeting to discuss latest early hominid findings might not go that great, i suppose ;)
The Church of England (which owns most of these buildings) wouldn't care about that.
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Bullshit, for the last two years my church has given two weeks' groceries to every family with a chile at Harvard Park Elementary over Christmas break, because it's the poorest neighborhood in town and school breakfast and lunch is all some of those kids get. No sermons involved, volunteers simply drop off the groceries.
I don't believe St John's breadline, run by the Catholics here, makes you say grace or anything. They're just feeding poor people. No sermon attached.
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needs are things you have to have
food
water
clothing
shelter
you will survive without internet, man has done it for thousands of years, its not a need
Re:Internet is need, not a want. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you will not.
Not as an active part of society at least. As involuntarily and essential services like paying your taxes, registering business, all kinds of insurances move to online only, you just can not participate in the economy anymore without internet access.
Sure, go live in the forrests dependant on no one else. There you won't need internet. But these rights are not made for hermits, they are made for citizens.
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You walk into McDonald's to apply for a job and they reply, "We only do online applications now."
No joke, it's something people need.
Re:Internet is need, not a want. (Score:4, Interesting)
you will survive without internet, man has done it for thousands of years, its not a need
The majority of people also survived without being able to read and write until a hundred or so years ago. Try doing that now...
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If McDonald's can do it for free, then by all means, spend the 45 billion and teach them a lesson!
The $45 billion is to supply broadband to every home. McDonald's isn't doing that. No one is, which is the issue. Leave it to the profit motive and you'll only have affordable broadband in middle class urban areas.
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Re:We should do it (Score:4, Insightful)
They're not doing it for free, they operate a very profitable business selling food-like substances to people who are poor either in money or time. They've found that offering "free" wifi generates more additional revenue than the cost of operating the wifi--which they were probably doing anyway so that the store could have an internet connection.
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A Big Mac is about $4. How do these kids have money for McDonald's but can't afford a low end data plan?
What makes you think that they are buying anything in McDonalds?
Also, there is a dollar menu (with cheesburgers, fries, etc.)
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If you read the article you would have come across the paragraph that said "McDonald's began rolling out Wi-Fi in its U.S. restaurants years ago. In 2010, McDonald's made it free even for those not buying food.". The article does mention that folks will generally feel obligated buy something.
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The article does mention that folks will generally feel obligated buy something
When I was a child, McDonalds used to have big signs saying "No Loitering". I asked my parents what this meant, and they told me that in high-priced restaurants, cafes, etc., it is customary for someone to sit for hours talking over a meal (we didn't have laptops then...), while in McDonalds you're supposed to eat quickly and leave.
When has this changed? Can't the McDonalds operators call the police on you if you sit there for hours?
Re:Those square things made out of papyrus (Score:4, Informative)
Oh wait, were you being sarcastic about something you made up in your head without RTFA?
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Reading this article confirms that some people are poor by their own choosing (or poor choosing).
I would still consider that poor, actually. We may not be entitled to live like kings, but living standards could certainly improve.