I was wrong. There is a free wifi router in South Station, SSID AMTRAK_CLUB_ACELA. I don't know if it's intentional or not, but the one that looked the least likely to be open, is open.
Also, I woke up early this morning, 3:30 or so, and found the station open even while all the gates to the subway entrances were still locked. So I guess it's open all night, but there are cops making sure nobody sleeps here. Can't have that now, can we? Oh, horrors. Maybe the whole world's homeless will converge on Beantown if they allowed people to sleep in South Station from 1 to 5 AM. And it could only sleep maybe a thousand people comfortably.
It was fairly warm tonight, and according to weather reports, should be positively balmy by Thursday, 82 day/60 night, before dropping back down Friday. I've only got about $70 to last me through to next Saturday morning, gonna try and get all necessary tickets so I won't miss my WACCC meeting nor my plane, then worry about food when my stomach starts growling. Lots of fat pigeons around, due to idiots feeding them. There are signs around explaining how feeding leads to overpopulation but many people ignore them. Obviously it doesn't work that way, right? Just because we humans are approaching 7 billion due to overfeeding doesn't mean anything.
Now, if it were cold -- and I think I've stated this before -- it would make some sense to allow homeless people into a place to save heating costs! An adult human body is radiating 98 degrees at a rate of over 250 BTU per hour even while sleeping! That's not a lot but it's something to think about. Now, during hot weather it's a bad idea because then you'd need to provide the same amount of cooling. But then it's better for the homeless to sleep outdoors anyway; they'll be more comfortable.
Obviously, no city wants to be the first to allow the homeless to sleep in its empty public buildings at night. But why not a one-week trial at least, during the coldest week of the year? Just to see if the cost of providing security and WC facilities can be paid for by the heat savings. Offhand it doesn't seem that it would be, but we Americans are supposed to be innovative aren't we? Let's find a way, goddammit. Capitalism was wonderful, but it's outlived it's usefulness, let's move on to the next great thing.
last updated 2013-01-10 20:53:19. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com