Give Me Wi-Fi or Give Me Death!
ByCome closer to me children and let me tell you a tale about wifi not being everywhere. Back in the late 1990s I was a huge geek. I still am a huge geek but that is another story. I was living in Lawrence Kansas at the time working for Informix Software. A friend that worked in the engineering group and I were talking about internet access. I mentioned that Lawrence had just gotten cable modems for internet access. That may not seem like a big deal now. Back then Lawrence was one of two cities that were test areas for broadband. In the 1990s it was a HUGE jump going from dial-up to broadband. He then told me about something called wifi. I had no idea what that was. He explained what it was and how it worked. I was in love at the mere suggestion of wireless internet access.
At that point you could only order a router and card. Your local Best Buy wasn’t carrying them yet. I was giddy with excitement the day I received my router and the card for my work laptop. I paid $200 for the router and $100 for the card but I didn’t care, I was going to have wireless internet! I immediately hooked it up and tested it was working. Of course, I had to test it out. So, I went to firefox.com and started downloading multiple 20 meg files at the same time. I then started wandering the house with the excitement of watching the files download wirelessly! Of course back then the router and card were 802.11B, relatively slow compared to today’s standards. It was just the sheer excitement of having wireless internet access in my house!
Yesterday a friend from Ireland arrived to visit me in Seattle. By random happenstance, the travel company that booked my Antarctica trip connected Richard and I together as cabin mates for the trip. After two years Richard was on a whistle-stop tour of the Western United States. He decided to stop by Seattle overnight to see me. This morning we took the Amtrak train from Seattle to Vancouver, BC just for a quick overnight trip to see another friend we met while on the Antarctica trip.
What does this all have to do with Wi-Fi? Simple, we have Wi-Fi on the train right now. Let’s think about that for a minute. A mere 15 years ago I was excited by a cable modem that could download 1 meg per second download and the first generation of wireless routers. Now, I am posting this on a train speeding towards Vancouver, BC. If you have a coffee shop, you better damn well have Wi-Fi. I see hotspots at Safeway, local restaurants, even a place where I get my oil changed. There was Wi-Fi on our ship from Argentina to Antarctica. Now, they have Wi-Fi on Amtrak and many airplanes.
It truly is astounding for me thinking back when I was 9 years old and received an Atari 400 for Christmas to where we are today. I am envious of the children born today and the amazing jumps in technology they will see over their lifetime. I can only hope we don’t go down the path towards a society of Idiocracy.
