SinoPenn

A 7.8 Earthquake nailed southern New Zealand this evening, sending out the tsunami alerts according to the above link. Meanwhile, yet another tropical depression slips between Taiwan & the Philippines. One of the many news alerts I have connected to my Firefox is that of tropical storms in the Western Pacific. So far, only 2 have looked like they’re heading toward Shanghai. One of these days, Weather Underground will nail their predictions now, and we’ll see a bit of real weather here besides the day after day after day reports of thunderstorms that haven’t quite made it here about 80% of the time.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware of how well any of these sites can really be THAT accurate.  It’s weather we’re talking about.

Tropical Depression Seven, July 15th, almost 8pm, Shanger Time.

By now, most people know of the news about Sichuan’s Earthquake. For the sake of those back home, we were nowhere near that area, so it’s all good here (I know what your China geography is like. ). Shanghaiist is posting the story, with over 100 updates already. Check it out here.

Reuters also has news & pics.

Red Cross donation information is here.

Well, there you have it. Those of us stuck inside the Great Firewall are now even more stuck, as the Taiwan strait that linked China’s internet to the outside world has been severed by a massive earthquake. Shanghai Daily & CCTV (Central China Television) reported that it could be down for up to three weeks. This is NOT good for China nor it’s aspirations to be a world power.

Billions of dollars have been spent by foreign companies & investors to locate to here in Shanghai and other parts of China, using it as their gateway to the west. These businesses rely on access to the outside world, whether it be their massive customer databases or communications with offices in other countries. What should happen if they’re suddenly stricken with no means of internet communication? Let’s just say these investors won’t be too happy, and the market is bound to show.

IT people (including myself) have been scrambling for ways to get around this new blockage, but so far little to nothing has reared its head in hope. Places like anonymouse.org are out of reach. Other proxies are slow (including the one I’m using just to post this.) My own sites are now inaccessible from China for the time being, and I’ve suddenly dropped from 200 spam mails to about 5 per day. Though that last bit may not be so bad.

Shanghai Daily is offering this bit of hope now. Though with any news from China, consider the source. Note the quote, “China’s Taiwan Island”.

The article also mentions “Parallelism” being important in communications routes into China & the rest of Asia.

“People will start to say we can’t let this happen again,” according to Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications Networks Architects, a DC consultancy. “The issue here is parallelism, you’ve really got to have multiple paths. You can’t lay all the cables in the same place.” What I think old Frank is really trying to say is, “Duh! I told you this would happen!”

So for the time being, if you want to say “hi” until this mess is fixed, the one email that IS working but still has no guarantee that your message will get through, is ejones@astonschool.com. This server is based out of Hong Kong and has yet to be affected inside China. Everything else, most likely your emails will be received in about 3 weeks or so, if the amount of spam doesn’t crash my entire server.

Welcome to China!!! Happy Everyday!!!