2024-06-01                         from the editor of ~insom
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   I'm in a University of Ottawa lecture hall because I'm
   attending BSDCan which is hosted here. There's a power
   outlet for every single seat, but they're not being heavily
   used.

   This made me think that there's a curve of adoption for
   computers that goes something like:

   - Students don't use laptops (All of recorded history to the
   2000's. Maybe the 90's for a richer school.).

   - Some students use laptops, people crowd around the few
   outlets in a room.

   - All students use laptops: something must be done. Hundreds
   of additional outlets are installed in lecture halls.

   - Laptop power technology improves: you can make it through
   multiple lectures without a charge.

   - Laptop power technology improves further: I often don't
   bring a charger when leaving the house- I'll easily get one
   day of light use.

   - We still have a bunch of outlets.

   This is related to what I wrote before about on 2023-06-08
   (almost exactly a year ago- maybe it's my time of year to
   think about obsolescence). I wrote about business centres
   and their rise and fall. You still see Ethernet jacks. I
   just went through and made sure that my wife's office
   building has at least one functioning network port in every
   room but ... will anyone use them? In a place with
   sufficiently good quality wi-fi?