It's been quite a while since I've been able to connect to the Net, ever since the Problem started. The Net has been almost unusable since the Problem hit, over 18 months ago. As you know, the high unavailability of the Net has affected the entire world. I don't have to tell you about all the difficulties there have been in just surviving since the Problem. You've probably experienced them yourself, and it's taking a lot of time for things to get better.
I knew about the Problem before it happened. I knew it was coming. It was sort of inevitable. I was able to prepare myself better than most. Although my life after the Problem hasn't been easy, it's been bearable. I made a couple of excursions out there just after the Problem, and saw more than I wanted to see. So I've been laying low here.
Now, eighteen months later, the Net is only available for a short period of time. I've been able to connect to some other locations and have seen some reports from others about the results of the Problem. The descriptions of the living conditions have been quite depressing. I want to go out and help, but the Problem just caused too much damage. So I've just been able to sit here and think about what happened, how we got to this point, and how the Problem happened.
I decided a couple of weeks ago that it was a story that had to be told. I wasn't sure how to tell it, the conventional means of telling people about the Problem are very unreliable. Even CNN is not very reliable, and they don't have as many people working there as they used to. It was only as I noticed the Net getting stronger, although very slowly, that I thought that the Net might be the way to tell this story.
After all, we used to use the Net to talk to other people all the time. You probably remember those days. Chat rooms, email, web pages, web blogs, 'day note' sites, etc. People were talking to other people they had never seen before, and probably would never see, but they were developing relationships through the Net. Everyone spent a lot of time communicating through the Net. So the Net seemed like a good place to try to tell the story about the Problem.
The Net's still a bit fragile, though, not like it used to be. I'm not sure how long it will take to get this story out there. I suppose that you can help out, if you can. If you've been able to restore your connection to the Net and can get to your old 'home' page, maybe you can put a link to this page. And you can tell others about this site, and ask them to put links back to this page. It's not necessary to "mirror" this site; the server it lives on is more reliable than most of the servers since the Problem hit. (I should know, I built it.)
I'll try to do daily postings of this story. If you've discovered this site since I've started this, it's still best to start at the beginning post, right here. Then read the postings in sequence. There's a lot to tell, and I sometimes ramble a bit. But I'll try to tell you the information you'll need to know in each posting, so you probably don't want to skip around, but read them in order, like a book.
There will be more to come. But I want to get this posted on the Net while it's still available. Connections aren't as reliable as they were before the Problem, and connection speeds are much slower than they used to be. So this posting will be a bit short.
And I have to be careful with my use of electricity. That's not very reliable either, and part of the story.
I'll post more later. I need to upload this to my sites. And then hope that someone notices. It's an important story to know about.