This week’s cartoon is inspired by working at a lot of cafés this week – cafés with very… slow… Wi-Fi.
I’m finding that decent broadband is common enough these days to make slower connections feel extra frustrating. I’m used to being able to download hundred-megabyte software upgrades in the time it takes the barista to pull shots for my Americano. And I’ve grown accustomed to genuinely streaming video; I’ll grind my molars to powder if that TED talk on the Western world’s addiction to speed has to pause for a few seconds midway through to buffer.
The folks at Angus Reid Public Opinion actually released a study back in June suggesting the majority of high-school and post-secondary students suffer stress because of sluggish computers. So I’m clearly not the only one.
Which is why I wish I could drop by the joint depicted below and knock back one of their signature cocktails, the Spinning Beachball. (Depending on your OS, you could also get straight vodka, served in an hourglass.) Their motto could be “Get loaded while you’re loading.”
