It's ironic, I'm in Islington Library writing this on one of their public computers.
The irony comes from the fact that I'd actually come here to update my Tweets (I'm days behind but we'll come back to that later) and because their system is so slow (I've managed to post one in 36 minutes although I can normally rattle one out in under 5 minutes), I've given up and reverted to writing this instead.
And this is the bain of 21st Century Living. Unless you've spent a fortune on keeping all your devices utterly brand new about every 3 months, one of your apps updates, your OS, or simply your battery life diminishing will start having an impact on your real-life.
I needed a telephone to call the DWP, the public payphone is out of order and reaking of urine as most in London are. There isn't a public pay phone in the Library. I'm not allowed to email the DWP to find out what is going on.
Being homeless, means you invariably don't won't to carry ludicrously expensive IT devices with you. I've had an Apple Mac Pro Laptop Computer stolen from my Bedside when I was in St. Thomas's Hospital, an iPhone stolen from me at the BFI on Southbank and an Asus Tablet swiped from me at Victoria Station when dealing with a crisis with my son.
I'm now sat in a Library, on a device that only gives me an hour usage, and displays the eroding time to side of the screen. I've got 17 minutes left.
Much of my work is scuppered trying to do everything on the cloud or other people's devices.
For example some of the things I need to do today, are on a friends laptop a few doors away from the Library, but she's using it for her own work now, so I can't access it. It has all the emails and evidence for a DWP appeal. They refuse to take things by email, so I have to find computers to compile documents on, sourced from my webmail server, printers to print them out on (and at no cost, as the DWP have stopped all my money) and then find ways of posting them - via recorded mail. ALL of which has cost, unlike email which is free.
Hubbard & Bell in the Hoxton Hotel where I used to do all these things, removed their computers across their 2 establishments in London a couple of months ago. I discovered a similar set up in Citizen M Hotels, but their appalling customer service means they attack anyone using their facilities without immediate purchases (and we're back to not having money again).
So then you try and access facilities in places like libraries (I'm being informed I have ten minutes left on this device as I type these words) which are ludicrously out of date, incredibly slow and invariably time wastingly useless, like today.
The only upside is I've got to write this. Rushing against a ticking clock and I've finally got to post a blog. Something I like to do every month as bare minimum (although preferably weekly) but technology just want permit it.
I need Wifi. I used to mock my home town of Cardiff when I went back there a decade ago and not a single cafe had Wifi. Even Trafalgar Sqaure has it's own Wifi even the Thames I used to say. And they did.
But not anymore.
Now everyone and his dog has Wifi so it's all useless. Now they get you to log on and waste time. Their weak signals competing with each other and so nothing gets done.
A world where we are dependent on tech to live needs more (less than 3 minutes to go now) time an efficiency.
I'm losing the battle on every count... hope I've got enough time to publish this....
The irony comes from the fact that I'd actually come here to update my Tweets (I'm days behind but we'll come back to that later) and because their system is so slow (I've managed to post one in 36 minutes although I can normally rattle one out in under 5 minutes), I've given up and reverted to writing this instead.
And this is the bain of 21st Century Living. Unless you've spent a fortune on keeping all your devices utterly brand new about every 3 months, one of your apps updates, your OS, or simply your battery life diminishing will start having an impact on your real-life.
I needed a telephone to call the DWP, the public payphone is out of order and reaking of urine as most in London are. There isn't a public pay phone in the Library. I'm not allowed to email the DWP to find out what is going on.
Being homeless, means you invariably don't won't to carry ludicrously expensive IT devices with you. I've had an Apple Mac Pro Laptop Computer stolen from my Bedside when I was in St. Thomas's Hospital, an iPhone stolen from me at the BFI on Southbank and an Asus Tablet swiped from me at Victoria Station when dealing with a crisis with my son.
I'm now sat in a Library, on a device that only gives me an hour usage, and displays the eroding time to side of the screen. I've got 17 minutes left.
Much of my work is scuppered trying to do everything on the cloud or other people's devices.
For example some of the things I need to do today, are on a friends laptop a few doors away from the Library, but she's using it for her own work now, so I can't access it. It has all the emails and evidence for a DWP appeal. They refuse to take things by email, so I have to find computers to compile documents on, sourced from my webmail server, printers to print them out on (and at no cost, as the DWP have stopped all my money) and then find ways of posting them - via recorded mail. ALL of which has cost, unlike email which is free.
Hubbard & Bell in the Hoxton Hotel where I used to do all these things, removed their computers across their 2 establishments in London a couple of months ago. I discovered a similar set up in Citizen M Hotels, but their appalling customer service means they attack anyone using their facilities without immediate purchases (and we're back to not having money again).
So then you try and access facilities in places like libraries (I'm being informed I have ten minutes left on this device as I type these words) which are ludicrously out of date, incredibly slow and invariably time wastingly useless, like today.
The only upside is I've got to write this. Rushing against a ticking clock and I've finally got to post a blog. Something I like to do every month as bare minimum (although preferably weekly) but technology just want permit it.
I need Wifi. I used to mock my home town of Cardiff when I went back there a decade ago and not a single cafe had Wifi. Even Trafalgar Sqaure has it's own Wifi even the Thames I used to say. And they did.
But not anymore.
Now everyone and his dog has Wifi so it's all useless. Now they get you to log on and waste time. Their weak signals competing with each other and so nothing gets done.
A world where we are dependent on tech to live needs more (less than 3 minutes to go now) time an efficiency.
I'm losing the battle on every count... hope I've got enough time to publish this....
