Every once and a while I need to transfer large binary objects from one of my external servers onto my local network. Since this can often take a

while I tend to perform these downloads from my powerbook rather than from my loud and 'tricity-guzzling Desktop machine.

Currently, I've got 2Mb/s downstream and my powerbook is linked to Linksys WRT54G station using mixed-mode and WPA. When starting a download it is normal, that the initial throughput is low, but usually after a few seconds it climbs until the pipe is saturated. But not this time - 50 minutes estimated remaining time at 115Kb/s?! After checking, whether any other downloads were commencing I interupted the download and plugged an ethernet cable into the powerbook and restarted the download - boom! 234Kb/s and 23 minutes remaining. That's better ;-)

But the question is: how can this be?! A 54Mb/s WLAN right next door? And only 115Kb/s throughput? I feel cheated... Also, somehow today seems to be rant-day ;-)

Update: Well, it can't be the temperature, as a commentor suggested, since I've left it on ever since (the box has an uptime of 93 days ever since I upgraded it to Alchemy-V1.0 v3.37.6.8sv) and now look at this, from just a minute ago:

Hmm... perhaps just the weather?