i never noticed them before they became infrastructure

“As you wonder (sic) between locations murmuring to your coworker about how your connection sucks and you can’t download/stream/tweet/instagram/check-in, you’ll notice strategically positioned individuals wearing “Homeless Hotspot” T-shirts. These are homeless individuals in the Case Management program at Front Steps Shelter. They’re carrying MiFi [short-range mobile wireless hotspots] devices…We’re believers that providing a digital service will earn these individuals more money than a print commodity,” wrote Saneel Radia, BBH Labs director of innovation.

The BBH is Bartle Bogle Hegarty, by the way: actually, Bartle Bogle Hegarty ‘Labs’. This ‘Lab’ employs people who can’t spell ‘wander’ to dream up the idea of using the homeless as human plug ins, paid a suggested eight dollars an hour pro-rata. I can just see some semi -autist saying ‘I only used 13 and a half minutes’ and calculating the exact sum owed. ‘I can’t give you any more. That would violate the terms of service’.

Aside from the specific humiliations involved in this for both transactors, it does point to a huge structural economic dysfunction: Chronic homelessness. Semi-illiterates employed in ‘Labs’ producing reams of bullshit. The second feeding off the first.

Perhaps relatedly, sandwich men still thrive, if that’s the term. These days they’re known as human directionals.

Comments

[CMcM]

I'm so glad you picked up on this. I saw it on Alex's Twitter feed and immediately pushed it on. Because of what I do for a living this feels personal.

It's not like sandwichboard men: it's like having a caste of slaves devoted to a particular function (temple prostitutes?) wandering around, ready to be hired for an unspecified and endlessly negotiated sum.

[ajay]

Are we absolutely sure this isn't a Chris Morris concept?

[hellblazer]

Ajay, certainly it sounds like the people responsible should be F.U.K.D. and B.O.M.B.D.

[ajay]

Off topic: we are now spending so much on security for the Olympics that it would actually be 50% cheaper to buy every athlete his or her own personal Chieftain tank so that he or she could drive round London in perfect safety from anything short of a Milan missile.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/mar/12/london-olympics-security-lockdown-london?intcmp=239

http://www.tanks-alot.co.uk/sales.htm

[ejh]

I've been trying and failing to find that Harry Hutton piece about buying every man woman and child in Iraq a Roller (or whatever it was). Can anybody help?

[ajay]

Combining the two, this means you could hire a platoon of 30 homeless people to follow each athlete around 24 hours a day and interpose their bodies between the athlete and any bullets flying in their direction.

[Barry Freed]

You could give them t-shirts that say "I am a human shield" - marketing win!

[Richard J]

ajay> I read Stephen Graham's book recently, which was fairly disappointing. On stuff like this he's great, but falls prey to overstretch on trying to tie it into a wider thesis - there's a very good insight in his paragraph:-

"The second point is that the homeland and Olympic security boom is being fuelled by the widening adoption of the idea of "asymmetric" war as the key security idea among nation states, militaries and corporations. Here, rather than war with other states, the main challenge for states is deemed to be mobilising more or less permanently against vague non-state or civilian threats that lurk within their own cities and the infrastructures that connect them."

but the book is one of those strange pieces that becomes progressively less convincing as he tries to stretch it beyond the obvious cases where this is true (e.g. the Occupied Territories, Iraq, certain parts of the UK/US governments) into a global principle.

That said, ajay, on the Chieftain tank idea, given how much road space an armoured division takes up, I think that's likely to be the limiting factor. (See link for space taken up by a corps.)

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/army/docs/st100-3/c8/8sect1.htm

[dsquared]

given how much road space an armoured division takes up, I think that's likely to be the limiting factor

give me a Chieftain tank and I'll make my own fucking priority Olympics lane.

[Richard J]

If you want to try to get 17,000 tanks through the Blackwall tunnel at once, be my guest.

[Barry Freed]

At least that would be an Olympics event I would actually pay to watch.

[Richard J]

[Before D^2 points this out, I can't for the life of me remember when the A20 becomes the A11, and references to the Blackwall Tunnel should be taken as a synedoche for that whole stretch of road I've spent so many delightful hours traversing on trips into/out of London.)

[CMcM]

Alternatively, they could shift the whole bloody Olympics into the Blackwall tunnel and just leave a copper with a riot shield at either end. Plenty of room for everything but the pole vault and who cares about that?

We'd have our city back then.

[ajay]

If you want to try to get 17,000 tanks through the Blackwall tunnel at once, be my guest.

Good point. Buy PT-76s instead and they could swim across. The Armoured Pentathlon! I'd be in the ticket queue right behind Barry for that.

[dsquared]

If you want to try to get 17,000 tanks through the Blackwall tunnel at once, be my guest.

How much more difficult can it be to get 17,000 tanks across the river than to get about 30,000 cars (over both Blackwall and Dartford crossings) across the river, as happens every day between 7am and 10am? (and presumably the same number in the evening otherwise they would tend to pile up a bit. I think this plan has legs.

[ajay]

And we could hang on to the tanks for the use of the Paralympics contestants, who would probably find them incredibly cathartic. "No, actually, it seems I don't need a special ramp to get into your building any more. Driver, forward."

[Chris Williams]

The t-shirts would say "I am Pepsi's human shield".

Population of Iraq in 2003 about 26 million. Cost of Iraq war to Us = 1.9 trillion. Thus we're only talking a per capita cost of $70,000ish which wouldn't get you close to a (£200,000+) Roller. Perhaps one per household?

[Barry Freed]

That would come in very handy since I predict a significant increase in the numbers of Paralympics contestants after staging our first Armoured Olypmics.

[ajay]

We _should_ have Armoured Olympics. The modern Olympic Games completely lack the original Olympic spirit, which was intimidating other nations by showing off how good your citizens were at combat. Javelin throwing used to be judged by accuracy, not range, for example.
Why else was there an Olympic truce in ancient Greece? So that all the teams wouldn't be otherwise engaged.

In a way, the massive security and surveillance operation in London means that the 2012 games will be much closer to the true spirit of the Olympics than any previous event. But it would be even better with tanks of course.

[Richard J]

But it would be even better with tanks of course.

A point that, in vain, I regularly try to argue with Mrs J. as a matter of general principle.

[Richard J]

The t-shirts would say "I am Pepsi's human shield".

I understand the Coca Cola Corporation has spent quite a lot of money indeed to ensure this is not the case anywhere near the Olympic sites.

[guthrie]

I laughed at the juxtaposition of Dsquared's comment re. 17,000 tanks then the challenge of getting them through the tunnel. Visions of crashed tanks blocking every access routes.

On Iraq, how long before some large country realises it would be easier to take over by giving every adult 2,000 dollars if they agree to let their army in without any opposition.

Am I the only person who sees bits like this:
"Olympic zone partitioned off from the wider city by an 11-mile, £80m, 5,000-volt electric fence."
and thinks that it would be somewhat amusing to earth it as often as possible in as many ways as possible? Of course they'd probably shoot me, but you know, it seems such a blatant fuck you to everyone.

[dsquared]

The trick is to drive the tanks through the tunnel in a long thin line, roughly following the white painted line that's already there. If you tried to drive 17,000 Ford Foci through the tunnel all at once they'd crash but somehow it gets managed.

[ajay]

Argument recently over why the police do dawn raids, now explained in the Graun:
Why Dawn Raid works for the police
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/13/dawn-raid-police

[seeds]

Duckduckgo Fu

If Bush had spent that $3,000,000,000,000 on shoes, no American child would ever have to wear the same shoes more than once. Or he could have bought everyone in Iraq an Aston Martin. Those would be the actions of a madman, of course, yet still more sensible than what he actually did do.

[Jakob]

Richard: I will concede your point, with the added caveat that aeroplanes also make things better - I'm thinking Red Bull Flugtag-like antics with Eurofighters and Tornados.

[Cian]

A point that, in vain, I regularly try to argue with Mrs J. as a matter of general principle.

If you're arguing this in the bedroom this might be due to a simple misunderstanding about your intentions.

[jamie]

If we've got thousands of highy trained, motivated young men and women with their own tanks and enough money left over for artillery and personal weapons, why not just send them to Syria?

[Cian]

Because nobody wants another Russian boycott.

[guthrie]

dsquared - but they're competitive athletes, how hard will it be to keep them in line, rather than racing each other?

[Richard J]

You know who else had trouble keeping highly competitive personalities equipped with tanks in line rather than racing each other? That's right. One Adolf Hitler.

[Alex]

I don't think anyone's pointed out that there's a strong argument for sending thousands of British troops to Britain, which is that we've spent the last 13 years sending thousands of British troops to other countries, and whatever we were trying to achieve, it doesn't seem to have worked.

[Cian]

I think Aldershot is living proof that it doesn't work any better in the UK.

[CMcM]

Can I just interject to agree with Cian. Speaking as a man who grew up in Aldershot that is.

OK, back to the tanks in the tunnel fantasy....

[ejh]

seeds - thanks ever so much. What a fantastic post that was.

[dsquared]

For the benefit of the Matthew Yglesias tendency or anyone else (including me for about five seconds) who wants to give BBH Labs the benefit of the doubt, Wired has a little bit of background on their nasty habit of starting up initiatives with the homeless and then dumping them like a puppy in January when they get bored.

[Charlie W]

Efforts to monetise wifi always turn out to be more annoying for the users than the users had hoped. I tried to sign up to Boingo at Heathrow: dreadful. No success, and the lingering feeling that my credit card details had been abused, somehow.

Since the airport is obviously looking to increase airside dwell time, why not just hand wifi out gratis and recoup the cost from rent?

[ajay]

I had exactly the same experience.

Maybe the point is that they don't want to make it too easy, because a customer sitting in a seat reading his email is a customer who isn't buying horrific tat in the duty free shops.

IIRC Heathrow, as far as revenue and profit streams goes, is not an airport with some shops. It is a shopping mall with some runways.

[Charlie W]

They have leading brands, ajay, not horrific tat. You could probably pick up a nice Omega Seamaster watch, for instance. Or a bag from Hermes.

Some people 'go early' to the airport. If I were a retailer, I'd want to encourage them. But I suppose if you were really hard nosed, you'd do a study and track behaviour.

[Richard J]

Efforts to monetise wifi always turn out to be more annoying for the users than the users had hoped. I tried to sign up to Boingo at Heathrow: dreadful. No success, and the lingering feeling that my credit card details had been abused, somehow.

And especially as smartphones and logon screens are not a good combination. I can't believe it's a significant revenue stream. (Parenthetically, disbursements charged by law firms on photocopying make up a surprisingly large chunk of their revenues - 1-2%.)

(Aside, I was startled, when I went to Singapore a few years back, to find how ubiquitous free unsecured wifi was, considering this is a place where you need to give your passport number to book a cinema ticket.)

(Further aside, the French pronunciation of Wifi is exactly as you'd have hoped.)

[Charlie W]

Is it at all close to the Python 'wafer'?

[Richard J]

deliciously close to 'whiffy'

[Alex]

The Wired piece is very good. Adds the detail that the last time they tried something like this, they didn't just screw the homeless but they also screwed their interns, who had actually come up with a rather good idea.

[dsquared]

sorry if this appears twice ...

Maybe the point is that they don't want to make it too easy, because a customer sitting in a seat reading his email is a customer who isn't buying horrific tat in the duty free shops.

I think it's also the case that free WiFi in the business class lounge ("I can log on to the network boss!") is one of the last remaining figleaves for the aspiring business-class traveller to justify the ticket.

btw, the "it's basically a retailer with some runways" line is AFAICT a creation of the BAA public relations department aimed at a) exploiting the fact that quoted retailers trade at higher multiples of earnings than quoted utilities, and potentially b) pretending to the competition authorities that the relevant industry concentration measure is different from what it is. Looking at the most recent results presentation, BAA makes about £1.2bn from "aeronautical income" at Heathrow and about £500m from total retail income at Heathrow plus Stansted (I doubt Stansted contributes all that much). Obviously 2011 will be a bit of a recession nadir for retail income but it is an airport with some shops rather than vice versa.

[Dan Hardie]

One guy I know is currently training all the armed police response teams for the Olympics; another is training all the paramedics who will deploy behind them in the USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) teams; two more are on the USAR teams; another is on the armed response teams...I dunno, you cynical types are just snatching bread out of the mouths of honest working men.

The Government have trained so many armed police and USAR medics that I do wonder how many of them are going to be stood down later. We might end up with permanently larger armed police teams as a part of our 'Olympic legacy'.

[ajay]

btw, the "it's basically a retailer with some runways" line is AFAICT a creation of the BAA public relations department

Hmm, maybe it was some other airport then. I'm sure I remember there was some airport where revenue was about 55% retail and 45% aero. This would be a few years ago.

"We might end up with permanently larger armed police teams as a part of our 'Olympic legacy'. "

Oh, good. Because I am actually having some plumbing done in my flat right now and it's taking a lot longer than planned, so I need some way to put the wind up them.

[ejh]

(Further aside, the French pronunciation of Wifi is exactly as you'd have hoped.)

As indeed is the Spanish, leading those of us who learned of the term in Spain to pronounce it thus in England. Until we learned better.

[Dan Hardie]

Ajay- you see the armed police teams abseiling in to do your plumbing, like Tuttle in 'Brazil'?

[Chris Williams]

"We might end up with permanently larger armed police teams as a part of our 'Olympic legacy'. "

That might be nice. Lots of trained shots not getting paid as such will render yet more hollow any threats of refusal of work like those which followed the investigation into the Harry Stanley killing. That's one army of scabs that I'm quite willing to help create.

[Alex]

Regarding the Wi-Fi subthread, there exists a standard for using a SIM to log in automatically and securely to a WLAN hotspot, just nobody uses it except for Swisscom. (Actually, quite a few other carriers are getting around to deploying it fairly soon.)

This was basically because the carriers said "Pff! Why should we care about Internet kiddies playing at radio?" and the wireless LAN people said "eeeuw, SIM, smells of telcos! im bored".