The Shared Library Dilemma.

Five people are listening to my music library right now. I don't know who they are or what they're listening to, but I do know that if I unplug the LAN connection and use my laptop somewhere other than at my desk, those people are going to be cut off, potentially mid-song. Politeness has shackled me to my desk.

My sense of courtesy to anonymous people has suprised me- all I know is that they live in Dale (on my LAN, in other words), and they have iTunes (free download for Mac or PC, incidentally). Actually, I do know one other thing. They may be listening to my shared music, but they aren't sharing back. Not one of them has turned on "share my music" in the preferences box. It's not immediately obvious, but it's not in the least difficult to do.

The thing is, I don't know who they are, and I have no way of communicating with them that I can think of. All I control is the connection. I suppose I could turn sharing on and off rapidly so it spells out the morse code for "Turn Sharing on in Preferences", but that's not all that likely to suceed unless one of them is a telegraph operator from Victorian times. Or maybe I could create a playlist with that as a name. If there's the potential, I want to be able to access a broadened musical world. (Having said that, I know of at least one person with iTunes who only has three tracks bought through the Music Store. Nonetheless, there's got to be something worth listening to out there.)

I could put up posters, I suppose... but then, there are 50 people in Dale. If only five are sharing, then... hold on a second, I've just realised. 10% of this building are listening to my music collection, and that's just at this particular momet, and that's the maximum number of connections iTunes will allow. You know what? Maybe I will put up some posters.

Music: shared