First 802.11 Wireless Movie Theater?

vern@austin802.11.com writes: "Imagine being able to IRC someone to pass the popcorn! The Austin Wireless Group has helped establish what may well be the country's first Wireless Enabled Theatre. The Alamo Draft House movie theater in Austin, Texas now has 802.11b wireless broadband Internet access that covers all screens in their complex. This "retrofit" theater had every other row replaced with tables and offers dinner and drinks with the show. So, you can park your laptop, order a burger/beer, then email in a movie review all w/o disturbing your fellow patrons. Cool! :)"

Comments

So by that logic . . .

[cjpez]

. . . you could set up your laptop to encode the movie you're watching in DivX in realtime and STREAM it to people sitting in the next theatre over who were unfortunate enough to have bought tickets to see Queen of the Damned.

Neat!

No distractions

[Telastyn]

No... Laptop displays create *no* distractions in a dimly lit theatre...

Re:um...

[swb]

The last thing I need is Mr. "Noisy Typist" and Ms. "I Refuse to Mute My Laptop" sitting next to me.

They're usually pretty cooperative when they find out that Mr. "Gonna Break Your Laptop" is sitting next to them.

I would argue...

[joshjs]

...that the clacking of keys, although sometimes pleasant, has no place in my movie-going experience. And if I hear the AOL "You've Got Mail" sound when I'm trying to watch Star Trek 20, heads are gonna roll. :)

Re:what is the point?

[ackthpt]

Movies are for being engrossed in a different world. If people have so little free time that they must read their email during a movie, what is the point of going to the movie at all?

Maybe it's a dull flick. You'll know for sure if you hear someone in the audience say, 'First post! wh00t!'

"IRCing someone" to pass the popcorn...

[Wakko Warner]

...would go something like this:


*** You have joined #MovieTheater
*** Topic for #MovieTheater: The Animaniacs Movie: The Best Thing Ever Ever Ever, Or Just the Best Thing Ever Ever?
*** GreasyGuy has joined #MovieTheater
*** Chanserv sets mode: +o GreasyGuy
<Me> Hey, um, mister Greasy, could you pass the popcorn?
<GreasyGuy> No! Fuck you! What the hell is wrong with you? Get it yourself! Stop making me feel insecure!
*** You have been kicked off #MovieTheater by GreasyGuyMinion_1 (No popcorn-begging)
*** Attempting to rejoin #MovieTheater
*** GreasyGuy sets mode: +b *!*you@seat_37
*** You have been kicked off #MovieTheater by GreasyGuy (Because I'm too afraid to get up to kick your ass in person!)
/quit

bash-2.1# ping -f -s 65535 greasy_guy_seat
.......
--- greasy_guy_seat ping statistics ---
239123 packets transmitted, 103 packets received, 99% packet loss

w00t!

Re:what is the point?

[JabberWokky]

I've brought my Thinkpad quite often - a friend brought his Toshichan as well - where else to dump your digital pics and laugh at them at Dennys after the show?

Then there are the deep geek lines that I yell every so often:

"How do you test if an IP address is reachable?"
"...and your mind goes Ping!"

Or, when Riff is turning around with the trident laser:

"Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter, millimeter by millimeter, picometer by picometer, angstrom by angstrom... what the fuck is an angstrom? (point at an audiance member) It's a unit of measurement so small that this man measures his penis with it! Single digit, baby!"

And then there was the one night that I did that when some association of planetarium directors was in town... I got a unison chorus of "one hundred-millionth of a centimeter!" right after "What the fuck is an angstrom?" Good Times.

BTW - for Rocky geeks out there, Timewarp.org will be getting a massive update in about a month, at which point there will be a /. like Rocky site.

--
Evan