Lobbyist

Speaking of tech FAIL, I have to say it drives me absolutely batshit insane that ArtsJournal comments default to newest-first. This is just flat-out indefensibly WRONG. I also happen to know it is correctable, as I've successfully badgered a few individual ArtsJournal bloggers to fix it... but it is completely insane that ArtsJournal defaults to reverse comment order. It's like the person who designed the AJ template has never actually ever read a comments thread on a blog.

You can give LC wireless a bogus e-mail address, which is certainly what I always do. I love that LC monitors blogs and provides feedback like Bernie has done--good work.

@Nico - Our free wifi equipment is new, and state-of-the art, and was donated by Nokia, rather than IBM.

I manage the free wifi network for Lincoln Center, and I can assure you we absolutely do have free wifi!

If you look at the bottom of your third screen shot, you can see a link on that error page telling you to "add an exception" - had you clicked that, and gone through another couple of screens, you would have been online.

When the free wifi launched, Firefox 3 was not around yet. The experience you had is very much tied to Firefox 3 and while I am sorry it affected you, we don't really have an easy fix for it, as of yet. This Firefox feature has caused a lot of debate, and has even moved some institutions to release their own add-ons for Firefox to address the issue.

I think the best solution in the interim is adding some sort of heads up on the page where you provide your email, to maybe help people avoid the experience you had. I'm going to be talking to our Digital Media group today about doing that.

Our free wifi is designed to work with anything that has a wireless card and an input method - Windows, Mac ,Linux, hand held device, laptop, or smart phone. That task is a lot harder than it sounds, believe it or not, and we are always trying to improve the quality of the experience for users who come back to us with feedback.

Thanks for your feedback. I hope the next time you stop by, this won't be an issue for you.

Word. Thanks! -AA

Totally True. You know who does it well – even though the building-self is weird and Stalinist is the National Theater in England. They also have serious top-down design, and free WiFi. Lincoln Center always seems like one of those places where the whole system was built on IBM's in the Bronze Age and there is just no way that there will ever be Wireless.

Standing in line for those cheap Doctor Atomic tix, I saw the trailer for the Met's HD broadcasts playing on the flatscreens in their lobby. The clip from their Onegin broadcast made me crave the DVD for weeks afterward, until finally I broke down and whipped out the ol' Visa.

True story. That stuff works, man.