A year ago I looked at my internet and telephone accounts and was close to getting rid of my landline and making do with a cellphone and VOIP via the cable modem. I am so happy that I didn’t do that. Instead I switched from a cable modem to a DSL, which has been much more reliable and dependable than the cable modem – had to restart the cable modem every other day, but the DSL modem needs no pampering and is as fast. A couple of months ago I got fed up with the sound quality of VOIP and mobile calls and signed up for a long-distance plan for my landline. I am so happy I did that. We put up with horrific sound for convenience sake… for me there is a similarity between listening to mp3s and making mobile calls. The Scandiphone in above image, a remake of the Seventies classic Ericofone, was a Christmas gift. In fact most of the landline phones around the house are old-fashioned corded phones. One week from the end of my monthly billing cycle I have only used 53 minutes on my mobile. And I enjoy talking to people on the phone again… unless they are using a mobile, in which case I’ll keep the conversation short. :-)

The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains

When it’s the right chair…

Meanwhile in Seville:

Models rock their ruffles.
I can’t help but think, as lovely as these images are, that these ladies are a bit reminiscent of feather dusters. This is especially the case in the second frame where the light on the wall looks like a handle intersecting the model.

Internet Music:

Daring Fireball Linked List: Does Spotify Make Bands Money?
Exec 1: “Our income from iTunes, Beatport, emusic, Amazon etc is pretty good. The income from Spotify is MICROSCOPIC – LAUGHABLE – PATHETIC. The fact that haven’t been sufficiently called out on this is a SCANDAL. Spotify are old school monopoly capitalists masquerading as painfully hip young “edgy” entrepreneurs. Their game plan is to devalue music 10 – 20 fold and then swallow it up like Pacman.”

I read that Murdoch’s NewsCorp are Ready to sell MySpace. There must be at least ten good jokes that could be made here…

Communication:

Hard-wired to continuously connect – Popwuping
American teens from 13 to 17 now text about 120 messages every day, according to a Nielsen report released this month. And this at a time when, … teens should be developing not only their identity but also empathetic skills. They need stillness, they need down time, they need to have secrets, she writes, and they need to separate. And yet … they are constantly “tethered . . .
“The text driven world of rapid response does not make self-reflection impossible but does little to cultivate it.”

And, I am really enjoying The Ego Tunnel. Highly recommended.