third world blogging

OK, time for a rant.

Technology. I love it. ....And I hate it.

Broadband in the USA, gives me liberty.

Dial-up in Ethiopia, fits of loathing and madness.

One morning in Ethiopia, after days of failing to get access, I got on the internet at the blistering snails pace of 33 kb/sec. Initial attempts to get a picture laden blog entry repetitively failed. I kept loosing all content at the "post to blog" stage. Poof, gone. All that friggin' work (3hrs in various attempts), GONE. Even post attempted without pics....failure. What, is it bloggin blocked in "democratic" Ethiopia? Perhaps I should have petitioned the Ethiopian gove to get a sanctioned connection (no subversive content allowed). I am sure only a half dozen forms and a few more months of waiting and access to my blog would be rest assured. Although this would have done nothing for rate of access.

Broadband. Luxury or necessity? For me, it is evolving into necessity. Slow speed page fills are agony to watch at 33 kb/sec. Add broadband to my long list of addictions.

I was able to squeeze out low res picks in an email spam, but that was as good as it got. Retroactively as we were preparing to leave Ethiopia, I heard from another technology-inclined couple that they had success in posting. They found they could email to their blog address, but they were unable to see it. Blocked. Access denied. They only heard indirectly through friends that it had posted.

Thus, the next half dozen entries to my blog will have the same date but were constructed as documents on various days of the trip.