Earlier I linked to Tonx’s report on success of Victrola’s wifi free weekends. Dru points to an interesting alternative

go wired on weekends. It would be sort of retro, you know, in keeping with Victrola’s theme. Put an eight port hub in the middle of the coffee table in the back, and make all of those antisocial net junkies (like me) sit next to each other on the couch…

During my sparse visits to UZ I noticed that an unofficial “laptop table” existed, with the Monster kids as its core. It had the interesting effect of setting up a second social scene. No one who has brought their laptop to a coffee shop to work will be a quality participant in the discursive, casual cafe scene, but that doesn’t mean one can’t create another equally vibrant scene built around our shared work. (Useful in particular as most of us are working in fundamentally alienating profession anyway)