Danger Will Robinson!

Lost in (cyber?) Space

This is a true danger to democracy, to the citizenry of the USA and to the USA's standing in the world. The continuing push to cripple Internet access will throttle innovation and growth.

What sort of hysteria is this? Why the shrill alarmist tone? Because I truly believe that this is a threat to what's left of our open society.

This article from Motherboard details a disturbing phenomenon identified in a recent Pew Internet study: broadband Internet adoption in the US has DECREASED since 2013.

The article points out the obvious - in the same time frame from 2013-2015, smartphone adoption has increased the same amount that broadband adoption has decreased. Why? Cost. The cost of broadband Internet is appallingly high for what you get and in some locations not even available. There are towns within 30 miles of where I live that you can get satellite and wireless plans but nothing else. No speeds to knock your socks off (maybe 4G LTE) and with high cost and caps. The plan I found for Alden KS residents had 15Gb shared data per month for $100. $1200 per year to participate in what is arguably the most plying-field-leveling and democratizing creation in history - the Internet. There are no options in Alden for wired Internet, at least through AT&T and there are no cable companies there.

From the article:

The evidence is everywhere; the walls are closing in from all sides. The net neutrality victory of early this year has rapidly been tempered by the fact that net neutrality doesn’t matter if you don’t have solid access to said ‘net.

My point is that cost is prohibitive for many, services are unavailable or very limited for many, and if you are lucky enough to be able to overcome those hurdles, there are a myriad issues around data insecurity and data caps with which users must contend. People have to then make a choice - broadband or wireless. Wireless has been winning out because (I think) it goes where you go, mostly and you can sort of do most things you need to do on a smartphone.

Because of this choice though, again, from the article:

Many Americans may soon be left with an insecure, surveilled, and capped Internet connection dominated by broadband and cellular providers that funnel traffic to the companies they've made deals with.

So people have to pay right? That's how capitalism works and the USA is the King of Capitalism. But the free market in this case is not free. The government regulates it in a way that favors the big companies, crippling competition, and stifling opportunity and entrepreneurship. The exact OPPOSITE of a free market.

Ultimately, this situation cripples our future as well. How can we as a country compete with other high-tech economies if the virtual world is capped, available to only some, and controlled by entities who have strong incentives to stifle competition?

The answer is, we can't. We will continue to lose ground in the world because we fail to make this most important of tools - access to information - a right rather than a privilege.

Who can change this? Only us, the citizens of the USA. We still have a right to vote. We can still make our voices be heard. Those we have elected to office are bought and paid for by corporations and individuals who DO NOT have the best interests of the United States in mind. Access to the Internet - a good, solid, secure, uncapped access - needs to be a right and not a privilege. Treat it as a utility. Treat it as you treat electricity, gas service, or water. You need those things at home and you need them to grow a business or create new things. The Internet is the same - it COULD be a tool of innovation but it is still being treated as a toy, a frivolity, an "extra" that one can do without. This is a false and dangerous view to take.

New Computers, New Services

A Christmas present for the Hutchinson Public Library patrons and staff! Now that we've finished the big task of moving our public computers downstairs, we are adding some new services and changing the way we allocate our public computers.

We are adding software called Envisionware PC Reservation. This piece of software will allow patrons to reserve a public computer for the time period of their choosing even days ahead if desired. It will also allow patrons to sit down at empty computer stations right away. This software takes the staff out of the process of checking people in and out and tracking time allotted. Staff members will be more free to help instead!

Integrated in to the software is another product called LPT:One which controls printing. Currently, a patron will choose something to print and the printer will spit it out without regard to number of pages, etc. This can cause needless printing of unneeded pages. LPT:One holds the print job at a designated print computer which will be right next to the printers. Patrons can then select and print only the jobs they want. It will save us paper and toner and hopefully save patrons from printing things they don't need.

A side benefit of this software is that it will provide HPL with wireless printing! If all goes well, patrons should be able to send print jobs from their own devices to the print station.

A Library of Things?

I can't decide if this is horrifying (thinking about everything that will have to be repaired all the time) or fantastic:

Sacramento Public Library : borrow a sewing machine?

What do you think would happen here in little ol' Hutchinson with such a project? What would be popular? Places like Auto Zone allow you to use tools to repair vehicles, locally, Reger Rental will rent you all sorts of things you might only need occasionally, but what about those folks who can't afford a rental?

What I'm listening to today (12-18-15)

The day started streaming some Christmas music from one of my favorite singers, Dean Martin. But I was scrolling through albums related (apparently because of the performer and not that it was Christmas music) I ran across this:

This is one of those re-packaged, re-released collections of live tunes. The type of thing to fill in the background with some pleasant tunes and some "witty" banter. I've always wondered if these guys really liked each other or not. Frankly, I really haven't ever read much about their relationships with each other - maybe someone can point me toward a good book about them? Of course, I found this on Hutchinson Public Library's streaming music service. You can log in and use it too with your library card.

No Internet for me

/rant

I feel a little like I've insulted the Soup Nazi, only with my home Internet provider. A short time ago, Hutchinson had a little ice storm. Not as bad as the one 7-8 years ago when the ice knocked out power to the library for 3 days, but serious enough to litter the street and sidewalks with tree limbs both large and small. While I never lost power at home, we did lose our cable Internet connection from Cox Communications. And that was when the fun started!

Joking. It wasn't fun. In fact, it was a lot of talking to a series of seemingly well-intentioned customer service reps who had no ability to do anything but empathize. Don't get me wrong, I am 100% sure that these folks would have helped me if they could, they just had no way to do it.

Here are the stories:

First contact the Sunday we lost service: Explain that my cable is out, and the tech support person confirms this. I'm watching, literally, limbs break and fall out of trees while on the phone and yet according to Cox there has been no "outage" declared for my area. Apparently an "outage" must be declared or you get shoved to the bottom of the service call pile. Nothing can be done until a WEEK from Tuesday. Nine days for a service call. What? Are all the repairmen on vacation? Tech support was polite and efficient, but could DO nothing.

Second contact in person at the store: Explain situation and ask if it is really possible that no one is available for 9 days to restore my service. Answer: yes, that is true BUT there is no widespread outage in the area. No reason given for the apparent lack of repair crews.

Third contact mid-week: Tech support person on telephone explains that our area is being "upgraded" to fiber (no explanation available for what that means). No technicians are available to hook customers back up until project is done. So, a weather event occurs that knocks out power to thousands, but the cable company doesn't want to interrupt an upgrade project to get service back to its customers?

Here's what this all says to me: There is no connection between the Cox decision-makers and the Cox customer. There is in place a "screen" of tech support and CSR staff who, intended or not, insulate the decision makers from problems. And there seems to be no way for the folks who are part of the "screen" layer to solve problems for their customers. Were there a choice, I would have already cancelled my Cox subscription.

But, what happens when one large company has, essentially, a stranglehold on a particular service or product? Truthfully, I have two choices for residential Internet service in my town - AT&T or Cox. At the speed level I subscribe to from Cox, AT&T has an advertised download rate 1/4th the speed for about the same price. So, not really any competition. IMO, there is no competition for high speed Internet in my town.

What is the solution? I think two things that lobbying and big corporate dollars will never allow. First, treating Internet service as a utility on the federal level. Second, on the state and local level, encouraging municipal broadband networks.

/end rant

Does the public library matter to you?

Maybe the Hutchinson Public Library or some other public has had an effect on your life. Perhaps you just needed a place to sit and relax, perhaps you needed a source to finish a paper for school, or perhaps you needed to search for a job or needed instructions to repair your car.

Maybe you haven't been in a public library since you left school. You may not feel like something seemingly so "old school" could possibly be useful in a time of smartphones and streaming everything. If you can get all you need information and entertainment-wise by paying for it, you probably can't see the utility in such a "populist" institution as the public library. But there are millions of Americans who cannot afford or even purchase if they wanted, good, high-speed Internet access. Public libraries can help with that - some even lend WiFi hot spots for you to take home!

This is a great article from the magazine The Nation about the value of public libraries. I'd recommend a read.

Science Fiction Discussion: 1632

This month our SF discussion group read 1632 by Eric Flint (beware - that link to wikipedia does contain spoilers to this story and the series story arc). This is an action-packed story about a small West Virginia town from the late 1990's or early 2000's that is transposed in time and place with an area from Thuringia (Germany) in 1632. 1632 you might know, would be smack in the middle of the Thirty Years War which took place mainly in what is now Germany on the European continent.

The resulting tale follows the Grantsville, WV townsfolk through the various trials and tribulations that such a time/space shift would cause. This is definitely more of a free-wheeling tale with combat and real-life grit than the past few books we have read.

All-in-all, I think our group's collective rating was "meh" (in the adjective sense, not the exclamation).

For the next discussion (in January), we are reading Nancy Kress's After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall.

Public Service Announcement

This is an important reminder of why we should all be keeping our software up-to-date and our anti-virus programs functioning:

Hey Reader's Digest: Your site has been hacking people for days

Please make sure all your vulnerable programs are on the latest versions. It seems like the usual culprits in these kinds of attacks are out-of-date Adobe Flash or Java, and things like old versions of Internet browsers in general.

Thank you ars technica for these sorts of alerts!

Some major update sites:

Microsoft

Adobe

Apple

Some free and/or pay virus and malware removal tools:

Malwarebytes (The company mentioned in the ars technica article)

PC Mag 2015 Top 10 antivirus

TechRadar Top 9 antivirus

Tom's Guide Best antivirus 2015

Computers are moving!

We are changing the way we provide public computing here at Hutchinson Public Library. We are moving to the open space on the first floor under the mezzanine area! This does mean some upset and limited or no access during the move, but we'll be back up as soon as we can make it happen.

For years and years we have had a computer lab tucked away on the second floor of the building that served all our public-access computing needs. This was a great way for us to handle a large computing demand and provide some level of assistance in computer use.

We had 21 computers in the area plus a scanner and printing capabilities. There was a staff desk which was manned at all times when the lab was open.

The down sides to this method of computing were how tied the staff member was to the service desk, limiting their ability to help in some cases. Also, because the computers were in such a small space, there was no way to effectively "sit down and teach" a new skill when the lab was even moderately full. The real down side was the fact that the room itself could never be temperature regulated. Way too hot in summer and if the wind blew hard out of the northeast, way too cold in the winter. And let's face it, in the summer the space just smelled bad.

So, the new area is out in the open. This means that our staff (we'll still have a manned IT desk) will be able to get up and have space to help learn new skills. We'll have time-keeping and printing software to take that tracking burden off of the staff members. The computers will be wireless, thus easily movable. The climate will be under control. Basically, we hope that this move will be an improvement.

Those of you with a long memory know that the computers used to be on the first floor. I file this kind of change under the category "what's old is new again" in this case!

I hope you come in to see the changes!

Very much looking forward to this...

I have always been a history reader. Definitely not a historian, but an avid reader mostly of ancient history, and also modern history especially around the World Wars. A couple of years back I read and was amazed by Antony Beevor's account of the D-Day invasion, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy. The book was not an easy read, but it was amazingly insightful and very well written.

Now, Mr. Beevor has a new book coming out that I am anxiously awaiting. It is titled Ardennes: 1944 and is an account of Hitler's last big offensive, the long-shot gamble for Germany to break out in the west and split the allies. The review from The Guardian linked above is quite complimentary, so I'm now even more excited! Hurry up, publisher!