Sometimes I think that no one is happier with the changes that have been brought on by the arrival of the Internet than me. When I went to Japan back in 1991, I had no inkling of the transformation that was about to sweep over the world, making it a lot less of a hardship to be a gaijin living in a far-off place like rural Japan. Back then it was still the era when people paid something called “long distance” to “call” people who lived far away, which incurred extra fees, and I remember spending $4 or so per minute to call my family when I’d get homesick. It didn’t take long before something called the Internet soon put that odd custom in its place, and before I knew it I was able to order the things I needed from companies like Amazon, and of course, offer similar services to people not lucky enough to live in Japan through J-List. One of the best things about the way the Internet has grown is the ability for me to work just about anywhere, doing things like writing this update as easily from the U.S. or Europe as from Japan. A long as there’s a nice, fast Internet connection, that is. I have a friend from Italy who likes being in Japan because he can access his server that’s 20 km from his Italian office more quickly than home in Italy, where his local connection is much slower. What will the future hold for the Internet? I’m optimistic that we’ll all have wireless T1 Internet nodes embedded in our skulls within a few years, and then things should start to get really interesting.
