So there is a good reason to visit Brighton Beach. There is now a wifi hotspot spread out between the two piers, free surfing on the beach. Not bad, not bad at all.
I'd go there as a child, to Brighton, to visit my Great Uncle who lived in a square with a very large garden with lawns in the middle. It was exactly north of the West Pier, Regency Square I think it was called. He had been in the first world war and latter he was an Oxford Don. I knew I should be impressed by this. He had a rug which was actually a tiger, the remains of a tiger that is. There was a head, I remember it's teeth particularly, and the rest of it being the furry pelt was spread out behind and around the head. I always asked where he got it from and he said he had shot it in the square. Believe it or believe it not!
So Brighton has some memories lodged in my skull. Wonder what happened to the tiger! And if you follow that link you will discover lots of other beaches around the world with Wifi Hotspots. No, I doubt if anybody is going to rush off and visit them however it is an interesting concept. To take ones laptop to the beach! Not something I will be doing for sure.
And while on the subject of laptops there is an initiative to supply One Laptop Per Child. That's specially developed laptops that can be mass produced at remarkably low cost. They look and sound rather good, they're green too.
Mobility, the ability to compute and connect almost anywhere. There is something about this that catches my attention. Maybe I'm just a hopeless case, but maybe not. I heard of a women in Alaska held hostage in her home. She got on the Internet in the room where she was being held, and got help. She could have been anywhere.
I wonder what my old Great Uncle Artie would have thought about all of this. As an Oxford Don today he would no doubt embrace technology, as he embraced shooting stuff in the war.
People are of their time.
