Day 18
It’s kind of comical. I had this long entry about the politics of the Internet out here in the middle of nowhere written and saving when the Internet connection that I was using went down. Again. So now I’m back in the $6 an hour Internet place where the connection is reliable, fast and expensive. I usually use the Internet about one to two hours a day. Some times a lot more. At an hour a day it would cost me $180 a month. That’s too much. I am going to have to look into other methods of Internet access.
The Naval Coastal Warfare (NCW) community has a free Internet Cafe. However, the Internet connection they have there is slow and sporadic. The past three days it has gone down around 1100. Which is why I’ve been paying $6 an hour for Internet access for the past three days.
CyberSpot is an Internet Cafe that is open to all military personnel here at Camp Spearhead. As I said, the Internet provided here is fast and reliable. You do have to pay for it though.
The NCW Internet Cafe is becoming some thing of a political hot spot. There are a number of people who would like to control the Cafe. There are a number of people who have skill sets that are needed to improve the Cafe. Unfortunately, as is usually the case, the people with the skill sets have little political ambition and are therefore distancing themselves from the Cafe. What I anticipate will happen is that eventually people will realise how much work maintaining an internet is and will loose interest in doing it. If that happens, that will be the point at which the folks with the skill sets needed to improve the internet will have the opportunity to get in there and make a difference. Because those with the skill set already know how much work is involved. They also know how to minimize that work.
So, for now there’s a lot of alpha male chest banging going on to see who knows the most about computers and the Internet. Once this ‘king of the hill’ game ends, the winner will take over the Internet Cafe. It will be interesting to see what happens then.
Aloha