Via this Age article (which says that "Wi-Fi" stands for "Wireless Fidelity"), this list of Wi-Fi hotspots in Australia. All the ones in Melbourne seem to be concentrated in the CBD or south of the Yarra (with the exception of a lone one in Glen Waverley), in the sorts of places that won't look amiss on corporate expense accounts. Of course, in Australia, it's a safe assumption that 99% of wireless internet users are executives working on spreadsheets on the road or something (as opposed to, say, San Francisco or New York, where the big market seems to be hipsters with iBooks that match their trucker caps using them for collaborative Photoshop jams or whatever).

The other day, though, I saw signs in the food court on Lygon St. (outside the Cinema Nova) advertising that they have wireless internet access there.

Posted by: threeze | http://neuralvoid.com | Sun Jan 18 11:09:20 2004

Doesn't Wi-Fi stand to "Wireless Fidelity"? It says that on my D-Link Access Point.

Posted by: threeze | http://neuralvoid.com | Sun Jan 18 11:09:45 2004

for. for. for. NOT TO.

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Sun Jan 18 12:58:53 2004

Look up "fidelity" in a dictionary; it has nothing to do with the concept of Wi-Fi. The term "Wi-Fi" doesn't stand for anything, though what has happened is that some clueless marketing drone has extrapolated that the "Fi" must stand for "fidelity", because it does in "hi-fi", despite the fact that the only thing the two concepts have in common is their use of electronic technology.

Posted by: Graham | http://grudnuk.com/ | Sun Jan 18 14:16:04 2004

Maybe it stands for "Wireless Fiction"...

Posted by: Alex | http:// | Mon Jan 19 10:39:52 2004

My sister's name is Fiona, abbreviated to Fi, pronounced 'Fee'. If you apply this pronunciation to 'Wi' then one could quite reasonably pronounce 'Wi-Fi' as We Fee.

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Mon Jan 19 13:25:24 2004

If she was your younger sister, you could call her "wee Fee". Especially whilst wearing that fetching kilt you have.

Posted by: mark | http://donotuselifts.net/ | Tue Jan 20 06:49:20 2004

That's such a good idea, Andrew, that I believe I'm going to go adopt a little kid named Fiona and affect a Scottish accent right <em>noooooo</em>!

Want to say something? Do so here.

Note to spammers: This comment system applies the rel=nofollow attribute to the poster's URL and all links. Posting links to this page will not improve their search engine rankings.

Display name:
URL:(optional)
To prove that you are not a bot, please enter the text in the image on the right in the field below it.

Your Comment:

Remember my details.

Please keep comments on topic and to the point. Inappropriate comments may be deleted.

Note that markup is stripped from comments; URLs will be automatically converted into links.