The title is meant to be a representation of the two-note ‘you lose’ trumpet sound that you hear now and again on The Price Is Right.

In this case, Tino of all people is the loser: for he has once again been suckered into coming into Panera only to find that the network is kaput. The network here is now well and truly down more than it’s up, at least when I’m here. It’s even more kaput than usual today, too. Usually, the problem is that their captive portal authentication thing doesn’t work. Today, there’s no network at all:

I note that the Hyatt — the Reston Panera is in the lobby of the Hyatt — somehow manages to keep their network running: but then they charge $10 a day for it, so they have an incentive to keep it running.

Panera has an incentive, too: I wouldn’t come here without the network (particularly since my phone doesn’t work at all in here). It’s just a less-obvious incentive.

The place is entirely empty, in any case, and some of that is probably due to the fact that the network isn’t there. It’ll be even emptier in the future: I’ll be here less often, since the ‘free’ network access is far too costly in terms of uncertainty.