Teething Troubles

So..I'm here. Landed in Shanghai last night - by the time I got to the hotel I collapsed, but woke up after a few hours. Through my fuddled brain I wondered why the light was so bright at around 4am...turns out the window of the room looks out into a corridor inside the hotel. Luckily I was so tired I went back to sleep depite the number of people walking around shouting into their phones. How things have changed - last time I came here the travel agent from my company in Israel booked the room, and I spent a week rolling in 5-star luxury. Now I wondering if I can pluck up the courage (and the Mandarin) to ask for a second towel...

Ah well - whatever - there's a bed, a bathroom and a internet jack. I'm happy. Time to settle down, read my daily online funnies and download the software I need from my company's ftp site.
Except - I run smack into the limited Chinese web access. Horror of horrors: sinfest.net isn't available here. That's really going to mess up my mornings. Plus the hassle of finding a way to bypass that. Dilbert (and more importantly 'Pearls') and the Order of the Stick are still up - but they're not Sinfest.

Actually, although I'd agree the censorship in principle is a Bad Thing, I'm not automatically against censorship on the net, in some cases - and I think China at the moment might be one of those. The problem is that although we talk about the web being awash in information, then although that's true we all know that what the web's really chest-high in is opinions, rants, screeds and the like. Not a problem in the 'western world', where we've become somewhat immune to online drivel. But in other places, its not the case.
Remember the phrase 'It must be true, I saw it on a web page'? Outside of your grandma's house, you don't hear that a whole lot. But some people (or peoples) are just not used to having 150 different viewpoints to filter, think critically about and find the reality somewhere in the middle. I've felt this was a big problem in the middle east while I've been there - "Oh great, Iranians can now access the White Supremist web sites in the USA. I'm sure that'll help".
Surfing without going mad is hard enough as it is...maybe we don't just want to throw everyone in the deep end right away. Maybe let them get used to reading differing opinions in the newspapers first.

Still - At least I seem to be able to install my FFXI (Final Fantasy XI - online MMRPG that I've resisted mentioning so far) without any problems. That still doesn't get me me my daily Sinfest, but at least my Bonecrafting won't fall behind.

Oh - and the ftp site for my company? Blocked as well. That means no company email, calendar or contact info for the next three weeks. I guess I should probably do something about that at some point. Maybe next week.