AKMA’s Random Thoughts

I was marking some papers tonight when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a ten-year-old goddess of wisdom, with her familiar owl. What wisdom tries to evaluate essays on Arianism when it might gaze in adoration at such regal beauty? Specially when she’s your daughter. . . .

Tom Matrullo calls our attention to the most extraordinary success that the Republican ticket attained in Florida — or, more precisely, in those counties in which the votes were tallied by optical scanners (not touch-screen devices).

Isn’t that an amazing bit of luck for Bush!

Well, I scribbled away all afternoon, and traded instant messages with my theological consultant in North Carolina, and eventually came out with a sermon for the Canterbury Northwestern service (which will appear in the “extended” section below).
 
Then Pippa and I motored down to North Shore Baptist Church, site of Tripp Hudgins’s ordination. We arrived not in time to catch my Disseminary brother Trevor, certainly not in time to hear what I’m told is the best ordination sermon ever, but just in time to scarf down some delectable canapes and to be pointed toward Tripp’s house, where the party would continue indefinitely. A splendid time was had by everyone I could see, and Tripp introduced me to some interesting family members and leaders of the North Shore Baptist community.
 
Now, a full day of meetings and appointments for Monday — whee!
 
Continue reading “Cantering To Tripp’s Ordination”

Alasdair MacIntyre — a philosopher-theologian who has influenced Margaret and me greatly — makes a case for not voting, even in this fraught year. We’ve fallen on each side of this puzzle at various times, and every year we revisit the subject, but MacIntyre makes an articulate case for one rationale for abstaining.

The basic economic injustice of our society is that the costs of economic growth are generally borne by those least able to afford them and that the majority of the benefits of economic growth go to those who need them least.

Margaret and I tend to take a different tack — but it’s satisfying to see somebody intelligent mounting an argument against voting, whether or not it’s the one that finally might motivate us.

My mom sent a clipping from the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, the island’s weekly news source (the site seems not to be searchable, and Google doesn’t turn up the story online, so I can’t link to it).

The headline reads, “Atheneum has no problem with outdoor wireless use,” and the story begins, “Rumors notwithstanding, the Nantucket Atheneum’s wireless Internet signal is welcome to those who come within the signal’s 300-foot radius.” It goes on:

“We have no objection to people tapping into our signal,” said Frank Jewell, the library’s interim director.
Questions arose about the library’s stance on the issue after the Nantucket police a month ago intercepted [!] a man tapping on his laptop while leaning against the rear of the Atheneum during the day.

Deputy Police Chief Charles Gibson said he noticed the man while driving up Oak Street behind the Atheneum. Gibson asked a nearby summer police officer to check into what the man was doing. He said he would have done the same if he’d seen someone with a laptop tapping at the rear of a business or residence.

The summer officer told the man to “don’t be hanging around back here.”

“It did look a little suspicious,” Gibson said.

From there, word began to spread that the police considered outdoor users of the signal to be engaged in a theft of services.

Jewell, however, said the service is free to all comers.

The story goes on to explain that the Atheneum restricts usage within the library (to the second floor, to permit more space for reading print books on the first floor), and that there have been some acts of vandalism in the past year (though not electronic vandalism, just old-fashioned hooliganism).

After I first read the story, I was amused, and put it aside to blog here. In transcribing the story for this entry, though, I’m struck by the odd inconcinnity of this account with my own experience. The Deputy Chief’s story sounds very little like what happened to me.

• The mysterious “tapper” was leaning against the rear of the Atheneum; I was sitting on a public bench beside the Atheneum.
• The newspaper story says that this incident gave rise to a “rumor” that “the police considered outdoor users. . . to be engaged in a theft of services,” but in fact that’s exactly what the officer who rousted me told me.
• The story says that this took place “a month ago,” but if the article was published last week (when the weekly paper would have had to go to press in order for it to get to my mom, who then clipped it and mailed it to me), the incident couldn’t have taken place longer ago than two weeks, give or take a day.

Now, it could be that the police had chased away some other laptop-user two weeks before my surprising run-in with the constabulary, and that word just hadn’t gotten around to the officer who chased me off. Oddly, though, the officer who asked me not to hang around the Atheneum with my laptop open himself used the specific charge of “theft of signal,” amplified with the explanation that the Secret Service had instructed the local police on this point, when this was the precise allegation that the newspaper identifies as a misguided rumor. Or it could be that the story is indeed about me, and that the reporter, or police spokesperson, muddled the dates a little and was confused about exactly where I was sitting — while explicitly disavowing the felony warning that the officer made against me.

Whatever — the end of the story, assuming this is actually the end, turns out to be just as weird as the beginning. At least the librarians come out as heroes of free use!

So, I’ll look into talking with the library and Information Bureau folks about the Nantucket Wifi Fiasco. For now, though, it’s just another “this could happen to you” story.

Thanks for the advice and feedback. As a final sidenote, I war-walked to the Nantucket Bake Shop (contending against Downyflake for Best Native Doughnuts on Nantucket), and hit about twenty access points between the studio and the bake shop. All were closed, which sample begins to suggest that Nantucketers know how to close access points that they want to keep closed, and how to leave open access points that they want to share.

Late-breaking news: The Atheneum has just now posted a policy stating that the wifi connection is available only between a half-hour after they open to a half-hour before they close, on days that they’re open. The stated reason is “for better maintenance and operation.” Case closed.

My mom gave me a copy of a local promotional magazine last night at dinner (with Holly, my sister, and Jennifer, who came over for a couple of days with Pip and me before her Ph.D. program begins — with Margaret’s Ph.D. studies at Duke, Jennifer’s at Union Seminary/NY, and Nate’s plans for advanced study in music, we’re a one-family faculty meeting, or unemployment line, depending on how dire the hiring situation is a few years from now).
Anyway, featured on the cover of N magazine (I can’t find reference to a web site for the print edition, though it gives a URI for its society pages — I don’t know any of the beautiful people I see there), nestled in with stories about why Bush should be re-elected to protect small businesses, on local painters, and on what Livingston Taylor is up to these days, is a story on — wardriving (without using that word). “Wi-fi Hotspots,” the cover announces, and the story narrates the author’s experience of wardriving the eastern end of the island and finding a hundred or so open APs, some of which he names.

The author — whom I will not name here, since he’s in grave danger of being identified not only as a felon himself, but as contributing to a crime wave of felonious Net surfing, observes,

In all, we discovered over 100 wireless access points. . . . We checked about half of them, and over 20 were open and accessible. I’ve included several secret hotspots in the sidebar. But not all of them. If I list all of my favorite wireless access points, the owners of those hotspots will get wise and shut them down. And then where will I be?

Well, maybe in federal prison, sir.

So, as I recapitulate the last two days’ events, I’ve been instructed by a uniformed police officer not to use my laptop at all within wireless range of the public library of which I am a card-holding member, at the same time an ultra-glossy tourist magazine promotes leeching the signals from private citizens and only mentions the library’s access point at the very bottom of the sidebar accompanying the article.

(I’ll leave out any questions about editors who let this writer get away with the sentence fragment in the middle of the paragraph, and the notion of printing the location of a “secret hotspot” in 18-point display type in a featured sidebar.)

At the same time, the article begins with a boldface caution: “Although some wi-fi networks are intended for public use, whether freely or with varying fees, unauthorized access to private networks [which is what the article to follow specifrically narrates] might be considered criminal theft akin to stealing signals from cable television connections [that comparison seems to be doing a lot of work in this discourse]. . . .”

So the magazine says, in effect, “Don’t do this — here’s how to do it, and where, and it’s fun and cool.” I feel like that turtle in the old cartoons, who stumbles into some mire of folly, and beseeches his magico-scientific wizard mentor to save him: “Help me, Prof. Lessig!”

A) I’ve posted some images relative to my close encounter with a e-felony rap at flickr, of which I’ll link to a couple from here.

B) I’m in Nantucket, Massachusetts, not at my home in Illinois — and I don’t know whether Mass has different state law from Illinois (that’s one reason I asked). However you slice it, my police informant (so to speak) emphasized that this is a federal offense.

C) The library was closed at the time, or else I’d have gone ahead in to finish my surfing.

D) The signal was open. I did not use super-h4x0r powers to defeat any form of encryption, protection, or enclosure. If there’s a law against defeating security features, I would understand that. I might not support such a law, depending on how it was written; such a law sounds to me like ill-advised defensive anti-geek legislation, but I would absolutely understand the notion of a law saying that I ought not be permitted to circumvent the library’s security measures if they wanted to prevent me from using their wireless.

Might this be an obscure, malignant side effect of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention stipulations? Even though I wasn’t circumventing anything?

Three signals in my limited range (TiBooks have notoriously poor reception) had entirely open signals. One was the library’s. Moreover, the library staff evidently knew how to protect a signal, because they manage an encrypted, protected access point, too.

I didn’t hack. I opened my tiBook, and three happy lines appeared, Mail.app started checking my mail, and NetNewsWire posted my entries.

E) This is not a cause for which I’m ready to be a martyr. I’ve got one of those, but this isn’t it.

F) This is what bothers me the most, I think. The officer in question requested — with a grim law-enforcement professional’s demeanor — that I not use my laptop in the vicinity of the library, since that opened the possibility that I might be connecting surreptitiously.

So although it’s legal to use a wifi-capable computer within 100 feet of an 802.11b access point (further for an 802.11g AP), the police feel free to discourage using a computer lest it might pick up an illicit packet. If you’re going to take that approach to alw enforcement, though, wouldn’t it be fairer and friendlier to put up “No Laptop Zone” signs? There might be other open wireless signals around town; am I not allowed to operate my laptop in range of any of them? Isn’t this a rather overblown, silly way of effecting the stated goal of protecting access-point owners from unwelcome intrusion and unjust liability?

G) My mom (a local year-rounder) thinks this all may be because John Kerry visits the island (Not an anti-Kerry sentiment, just an observation of the way the Secret Service population fluctuates).

A few minutes ago, a police officer passed the bench where I was sitting outside the [edit: Nantucket] Athenaeum, enjoying the mild temperature and the wifi signal, and he said, “Sir, you can’t use the Internet outside the library.”

I said, “What?” (I’m pretty clever under pressure.)

The officer in question (whose conduct was entirely professional, firm, and calm behind those mirrored shades) solemnly assured me that in order to use the library’s open wireless signal, I had to be seated within the library. The officer then wandered on back to the nearby police station.

I dutifully, if reluctantly, turned off the power to my Airport card and, since I had only been on the bench a few minutes, began working — offline — on what turns out to be this post. I had noticed two other weak but open signals in the area, and I figured that I could post this perplexing moment via one of the other open signals, then scuttle back to the studio. As I was writing, the officer returned and — as the officer walked straight for me — I held up my TiBook, pointing to the zero lines in the Airport icon, and showed the officer that my card was off.

“Why don’t you just close that up, sir, or use your computer elsewhere?’

I closed the computer in order not to constitute a threat to established order, but engaged this peace officer in a discussion of the complexities of the topic. “I did notice several other open signals in the area — am I allowed to connect to them?”

“Maybe if you had permission it would be all right, but it’s a new law, sir; ‘theft of signal.’ It would be like if you stole someone’s cable TV connection.”

I responded, “But this is a radio signal thing — it’s not like a cable connection, it’s like someone has a porch light on and I’m sitting on the bench, reading a book by their light. I’m not stealing their light.”

“It’s a law, sir; if someone comes along and downloads child photography (that wasn’t the exact word the officer used) and it goes through their [sc., the access point owner’s] connection, that’s a violation and we’ve had cases of that. That’s a felony.”

(I skip the question of whether it’s less a problem if someone downloads such photos while sitting in the library. Since I’ve already been categorized, however politely, with felons, I thought discretion should prevail at this point.) “Is this a state law?” I asked.

“It’s a federal law, sir; a Secret Service agent came and explained it to us.”

“Look, I don’t want to give you a hard time, and I’m very thankful that you alerted me to this, and I’ve done what you asked, but I’d be very surprised if there turned out to be a federal law forbidding my using an open wireless signal in a public place.”

“Well, you can look it up, sir, and explain it to the chief. . . .”

At this point, it became clear that my uniformed interlocutor had to head in a different direction from me, so we shook hands and parted. And I walked back to the studio, dumbfounded that someone just rousted me for picking an open wireless signal in public — indeed (as it turns out) for using a laptop within a wireless signal’s range of the library. Weird.

posted from a secure hiding place near an open access point. . . .

[Rest of story: here, here, here, here, and if you haven’t seen Gary Turner’s coverage go here too.]

One good start would involve reading this post by Jim Henley (link via BoingBoing, who found it from Patrick Nielsen’s wonderful Electrolite), and changing the word “poet” to “preacher,” and “poem” to “sermon.”
 
One of the problems at the seminary level is that very few people preach a half-decent sermon in their first dozen, two dozen, perhaps hundred sermons. Overall, the standard of preaching in the Episcopal Church is pretty low, so some people preach sermons that aren’t nearly as bad as the average; but most folks need more than three or four practice sermons in seminary to make significant strides toward fluency and grace in preaching.
 
Here at Seabury, we put a lot of emphasis on finding your preaching voice, and I don’t construe that as opposed to Henley’s advice to forget about finding your voice. The two divergent paths actually converge where preachers have learned enough about words (learned to care enough about words) and the way words work that they can articulate a voice that effects something more vital than the casual trivialities with which daily life clutters our conversations. Henley emphasizes the craft (and I’m intensely sympathetic with the urgency with which he presses his case); here, we emphasize the “personal voice,” but the best preaching draws strength from both. A personal voice without practiced composition amounts to authentic superficiality, and elegant rhetoric without a personal voice washes past as so much more empty P.R. (sorry, Jeneane and Michael; when I say, “empty P.R.” I mean “not the kind that my friends produce”).
 
It’s work, and it’s hard work, and people can get better at it if they’re willing to put as much effort into it as they will to body sculpting or playing guitar or designing snazzy web sites, woodcarving, juggling, or playing Unreal Tournament. If it came in a bottle, everyone would be a good preacher.
 
[End of rant. You may resume comfortable browsing.]
 

Trevor was right.

The first round of diagnosis says, “De Quervain’s tendonitis, with signs of arthritis (‘crepidus’) in the carpal-metacarpal area.” So actually, Wes was right last year, and someone was right a couple of days ago, too. Everyone was right but my inclination to avoid a doctor. So, now a splint for four to six weeks, five sets of ten exercises (ten reps each), and possible electrophoresis, as the swelling in the base of my thumb truly impressed my therapist.

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At least make sure they give you a splint that fits!

I think I gave up on the braces today. Will call doctor back tomorrow: “I feel worse than I did when I came in last time!”

Posted by: Dorothea Salo at May 6, 2004 05:07 PM

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I so wanted to be wrong about this …

Posted by: Trevor at May 6, 2004 07:53 PM

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Well, that’s a real bummer. Until two days ago, I had no idea it was still a problem.

I would expect them to make you a custom-fitted splint. Mine was. When you get your splint, WEAR IT! Don’t cheat. But you knew that already. And take your NSAID.

Posted by: Wes at May 6, 2004 08:52 PM

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Okay…

My advice is to do whatever the doctors tell you and do not…whatever else you do…do not test the limits of the splint. I did this when I broke my hand…um…yeah, you can make the situation worse by seeing just how far to push the splint before it breaks.

Posted by: Tripp at May 7, 2004 06:35 AM

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The only unpainful thing I did for mine (well, other than the icing-by-cold-beer approach, which works!) was switching my mouse to the left side of my computer. It took two or three weeks to get at all good at it and 6 months to get where I never noticed it (except when people looked at me funny and said “I never knew you were a leftist” when they sat down at my computer).

My physical therapist suggested it; her idea was that it simply shifted all THAT stress to the less-stressed left hand. I think she was right and still (6 years later) keep my desk arranged that way.

Posted by: Michael Tinkler at May 9, 2004 08:41 AM