Monday, February 09, 2004

Blogging from anywhere

One of the great things about blogging is that you can publish whatever you want from any place in the world where there is Internet access. More and more, that is becoming pretty much anywhere.

This blog is being published from a ship near St. Kitts in the Leeward Islands. With satellite communications, and with the Blogger server, you can publish to the world in just a few seconds. If not from a ship, then from any of the many cyber cafes that are springing up around the world like Starbucks.

It has come to this: the free expression of ideas is worldwide except where governments control communication. In China, for example, all Internet access goes through three chokepoints that are controlled by the government. If the government doesn't like what you have to say, they can shut you off (not to mention the arrest that soon follows). This is also the case in Iran where saying the wrong thing can get you into serious trouble.